SCHOOL SWEET SCHOOL: Speaking

Showing posts with label Speaking. Show all posts

Saturday, 2 November 2013

Halloween 2013

This year's Jack, handsome as ever!

This is the 7th consecutive year we celebrate Halloween at our school! We have been celebrating it since the first year of the school, and I don't think we'll ever stop because it's too much fun!!!

John, as the hungry zombie that he is, is trying to bite Thanos who is tempting him with a can of brains!

We don't celebrate Halloween in Greece. Nevertheless, I think it's educational and entertaining for Greek students to acquire knowledge of at least some basic cultural facts! Halloween is one of the holidays which offers the opportunity to us, teachers, to educate our students on the customs, tradition and history of the language of the countries Greek students try to learn.

Thodoris loves dressing up!

Every single class and students were involved and some of the older ones, but also young ones, arrived at school all dressed up, ready to scare everyone! This year, we decided to have a more relaxed attitude and enjoy the last week of October, always dedicated to Halloween!

Efstratia, Ioulia and Ioannis enjoying themselves!

The students had fun playing interactive games and reading, watching but also writing horror stories!!! You can try the British Council's LearnEnglishKids and LearnEnglishTeens websites, but also many others! Check out this one, too! Pinterest is a great source of inspiration!

Our Franky-door!

History Channel and National Geographic Society offer huge amounts of information, videos, texts that can be used in the classroom. However, the greatest source this year was...Youtube! Videos, cartoon, stories for every age, level and mood! But this is our favourite book of every 31st October.....

One of the greatest books for children's Halloween celebration is Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz and, of course, More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Scary Stories 3. You can find a great variety of spooky stories, many of them containing a good sense of humor! The narration of the audio book is amazing! Try finding the videos of the stories on Youtube. There are some which can be shown in class. Surely, it's best to check them out first and then have your students watch them!

Trick or treat bags

Last, but not least, trick or treating is an essential part of the week. Every student, even the seniors, come and get their bag full of candy!

You are welcome to see for yourself how much fun we had! Click here and here !

Little monsters having fun!

Happy Halloween! Until next year then.......

Wednesday, 22 May 2013

Examinations' time!

This is a collection of materials, aiming to give some usueful advice, tips and examples of speaking parts of various examinations held in Greece.

I'll try to update the post as soon as possible.

(pic from this site )

Enjoy!

ECCE (University of Michigan - Level B2)

New 2013
sample1
sample2

ECPE (University of Michigan - Level C2) New Format

Part1
Part2

FCE (University of Cambridge - Level B2)

Playlist of all parts
Example1
Example2

CPE (University of Cambridge - Level C2)

Part1
Part2
Part3
2013
Example1

MSU (Anatolia -American College of Thessaloniki - Level B2)

Sample1
Sample2

MSU (Anatolia - American College of Thessaloniki - Level C2)

Sample1
Sample2

ESB - B2 Level

Sample

City and Guilds (Level B2)

Sample
Sample2
Sample3

City and Guilds (Level C2)

Sample1
Sample2

PTE Academic English Test Tutorial - Speaking

Playlist of all parts

(pic from this site )

Best of luck!!!

Monday, 18 March 2013

Just like you, just like me.

It’s been an amazing week the one dedicated to disabilities at our school. We discovered, read, analyzed, comprehended and felt so many emotions about every type of disability. Everything has been plausible thanks to two wonderful people and their creation: Paul Shaw and Katie Quartano and their “baby”, the http://www.disabled-accessfriendly.com/ site.

Teachers can find lesson plans, videos, worksheets and ideas for any level and any occasion! There is a truly great variety of material that we had to extend our themed week for more five days! And what days they were!

We learnt a lot, that is the truth. So many wonderful thoughts and feelings came out through the lessons. Nevertheless, the most astonishing fact was that almost every student shared something of their lives that they normally wouldn’t do so. So many have a person in their lives, a relative, a friend or a member of their immediate family who is disabled. It was an opportunity to share and teach to everyone else, including teachers, their knowledge on the subject.

Try it and you won’t regret it! Both teachers and students can take a break from the usual course book lesson plan and be free to express themselves! Creativity really flew in the classroom, for instance, students had many ideas about projects and homework!

The following notes were written by some of the students.

Ioulia:

Many people are disabled. They are people like us, though. They aren’t like children or aliens from another planet. They are exactly like us. They understand like everybody else and they feel things. Act normal around them!

Konstantinos:

I learned a lot about disabilities. I had already known a lot about them, because one of my classmates is disabled. However, I never knew how to properly talk to them. I always thought that offering to help them makes them feel happy, which isn’t true! It makes them feel kind of unable to do things on their own. Don’t be afraid of them so they won’t be afraid of you! I learned that I shouldn’t stand over them, or pat their heads and their shoulders as if they were little children. The disabled are not different. All people are different because they are unique!

John:

Ask before you ‘help’ a disabled person. You should always ask for permission before you do something. They don’t need our pity. They need us to show them we don’t care about their disability and behave normally.

Helen:

We need to behave in a normal way. Don’t talk to disabled people like they’re children or stupid! They’re not! My brother is dyslectic, my uncle is missing an arm and one of my schoolmates is on a wheelchair. But it’s good for some people to learn how to behave to them, because they behave in a stupid way and they make the disabled people upset.

Theodora:

It doesn’t matter how beautiful you look on the outside, but how beautiful you are inside.

Vasso:

Don’t underestimate disabled people. They don’t need either our compassion or our pity. At least, no more than anyone else. I think we must share with everyone our happiness and our sadness. Don’t ask them what their problem is. Do you ask anyone you see if they have a problem?

Anna:

We aren’t different. We can do the same things we do also with disabled people. Don’t make them feel bad or awkward about their disability. Respect everyone at any time if you want other people to respect you!

Please, visit the site and get inspired! It’s never too late to do something different in class!

Sunday, 3 February 2013

Exchange project 2 - Our students' answers

Our students were excited to participate in this project by offering their opinion on the podcast - episode 2 Christmas. They were very impressed with the work their Mexican peers did. It's a wonderful piece of work, inspired by their teacher Ma. Elena Delgado. Instead of having her students present a simple project on Christmas traditions in Mexico and around the world, she preferred educate her students on multiple levels. Firstly they gathered and prepared their material and then they created a podcast!

This is where our students come in. They had to listen to the podcast very carefully and offer their opinion on many aspects of the podcast, from the technical to a simple assessment of the students' speaking and writing skills. They were also asked to offer some additional information on Greek Christmas traditions.

It was a different, fun and educative task to do! We feel inspired and thirsty for more!

These are some of their answers:

Hello, my name is Vasso and I'm a student at Kazakou School. I listened to the recording and I think the speakers are able to communicate. They talk clearly and we understand when they talk. The recording is not clear enough because the music was loud. I didn't like the quality of the sound. I liked the celebration in Mexico. I liked it because I didn't know many things for Christmas in other countries. You did a good job! People in my city, Thessaloniki, celebrate Christmas in their homes, eating traditional food and singing Christmas songs. But there is a custom in the island of Chios, in the Aegean Sea. Every parish competes for the best model boat. The people of every parish build a model boat and then they put them in the sea. The best boat wins and the church of the parish rings the bells!

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Hello Everyone!my name is John Konstantinidis and I am studying English at Kazakou Language School!Here is my opinion about your podcast!:) I think that all of you know how to express their ideas when using the English language! The students communicate their facts very well and this gives a very nice final result. Everyone speaks very clearly and we are able to understand easily about what they are talking about. Their accent is a little strange but I like the way they speak! Their ideas are very coherent and interesting! They are giving very interesting information about different countries around the world. The sound quality is good enough to be understood but it could be better. The background music is very nice and takes me to the feeling of Christmas! You could also add something at the end because I think the space that you have left is very long…The whole result is very impressive! I think they worked very hard to reach that level of speaking! The background music is very nice and the content is very interesting. Something that made me an impression was that firstly the carols had been sang in English! All that time I thought that the carols were sung in Italian! Moreover I was surprised when I heard that the carols were composed in the 19th Century! The students could also make a video about Christmas around the world!

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Hi! I’m Helen T. I think that the recording about Christmas was nice. It is clear enough and I love the music. The music fit exactly the text and it was in the right volume. I would listen to the recording without it, but I prefer it with the music in it. The students are able to communicate their ideas. I could understand what they wanted to say. The accent is a bit strange, but it’s beautiful. In my view, it was great work and a great recording. The result is successful. I think all of the recording was interesting, but I liked the part about Mexico the most. I also found interesting the Japanese and Indian traditions. I want to congratulate the students who made it. The information, the music and the way you tell us everything about Christmas is exciting and interesting. I wish you the best of luck!

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Hello everyone in Mexico! My name is Kiriakos. I listened to your Episode 2 about Christmas and I think that the speakers can communicate very well. Their ideas and the text was very good. I didn't like the recording very much because it wasn’t clear enough. I didn't like the quality of the sound because I couldn’t understand the girls. The girls were speaking very clearly though! I liked the music in the background, but I’d prefer to listen to the girls without the music. Your project is successful, but next time you must think the quality of the sound. Christmas in Brazil made me a great impression. It would be better if the music in the background wasn’t so loud. I liked the song in the end. On Christmas eve, children sing the carols and they go in many houses because they get money! On Christmas time, families gather together and they eat and drink a lot! On New Year’s eve people gather in houses and they wait for the new year to come. They have dinner together and at 12 o’clock they wish Happy New Year to each other and they watch a fireworks display. They drink champagne and they eat a special pie. Its name is Vassilopita, which means Santa Claus’ pie. Inside the pie there is a coin. The pie is cut in pieces and whoever gets the piece with the coin, will be lucky for the whole year. Good luck!

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Hi!I am Ioulia from miss Maria's class. Firstly, I want to say that the music transfers you in the Christmas climate. I also want to add is that the whole recording is interesting, but the most interesting traditions are about Mexico and India. I think that these traditions are more interesting because I did not know about them. I think that when the second girl was talking ,she was stopping too many times. That's all I hope that this information I will help you..! Traditions in Greece: Children go and sing the carols.We also decorate the Christmas tree and we do family gatherings!

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Hi everyone,
Μy name's Konstantinos and Ι'm from Greece. I'm a student at Kazakou Languages School,
I consider that your effort is very good and i really appreciate your work!
I’m sure that you are able to communicate , even though there may be some technical problems. However your project was good enough. The narration was nicely done , although there were some interference at some points. Your ideas were coherent verifying your opinions. The recording was of good quality and I understood it easily. Your idea of using music in the background was really innovative. It was very pleasant for me to listen to it. It was very clever and creative! If there was no music at all, it would be less enjoyable. Your work helped us learn a lot about Christmas in Mexico and other countries .I mostly liked the way Indians decorated their houses I think it was an educational piece of work ,in general. I think more information about different countries could be added , so we could learn even more things about Christmas!

You can read all of the answers here

It was a breath of fresh air! Preparing something completely different is always more exciting!

Stay tuned! More to come!

Monday, 5 November 2012

Happy Halloween, until next year!

As we do every year, we celebrated Halloween and had a lot of fun! Kids were excited about it, and they waited patiently for the trick or treat moment! Even the younger students anticipated this week, though they didn't really know what was all about. Other came in disguised as vampires and witches! We talked about spooky incidents and narrate and listen to scary stories. They practiced their listening skills by watching videos from famous films. We read several versions of Jack O' Lantern's story in class. It was a fun week both for students and teachers. Let us hope for a great one also next year! :)

See some of our pictures here

Students talking about their favourite horror film.

Trick or treaters!

Happy Halloween, until next year.......

Sunday, 28 October 2012

Halloween once more!

My kitchen table is full of photocopies, old and new material for the classes and new crafts ready to be created!

Many of my colleagues feel very hesitant towards even talking about this kind of holiday, but once you start, you never stop! There are so many ideas that teachers around the world are willing to share-and we are very grateful for it!- so there is no excuse!!!

A special thanks to all the pinners at Pinterest, a huge source of interesting and useful sites for teachers -and not only!

My Halloween Board on Pinterest
The little old lady who wasn't afraid of anything
Wicked tips/crafts
Making Ghosts
Hanging bats
Looking for Dracula (so fun to perform it in the classroom)
31 days of Halloween
Scary stories to tell in the dark (an absolute must! The kids love it!)
Halloween with Friends and the worksheet from Busyteacher
Busyteacher Halloween worksheets
Flashcards
Corpse Bride 1
Corpse Bride 2
Corpse Bride 3
List of Halloween movies for teens
Top 9 Halloween Movies for School-Aged Kids
The Village worksheet
Nightmare before Christmas worksheet 1
Nightmare before Christmas worksheet 2
Ghostbusters scene 1 - Great for practicing Conditionals (What would you do if you saw a ghost in the library?)
Ghostbusters: Venkman gets Slimed
King of the pumpkins

DIY Angry birds masks
Bugs Bunny Halloween
Twilight Zone worksheet 1
The Twilight Zone Companion Lesson Plans for Teachers
Halloween Songs for Kids
Halloween songs
Spooky Spooky - Halloween Song

Halloween Worksheets

Halloween Printable Worksheets

Halloween Worksheets and Printables

Halloween exercises and worksheets

Printable Halloween Worksheets for Kids

Have a great Halloween!

Wednesday, 11 May 2011

Have a great summer!

Hi from all of us here in Thessaloniki!

It's been a real pleasure meeting you and working with you and your wonderful teacher Mrs Elena. We wish to express our admiration about your country and we liked how much you love your country and your city, just like we love our country and our city.

We loved all of your presentations and videos. Every time we came for class, we were asking Mrs Maria if you had posted a video or had sent something. It was fun!

This is our last video for this school year. We hope you'll keep in touch and we'll talk about more things next year! Good luck with your exams! Don't be strangers!

Have a great summer!