It’s that time of the year again! No…. not the festive season, the time for Suzy Ratcliff’s ever-excellent lesson plan based on this year’s Word of the Year contest by Collins Dictionaries.
The lesson plan is recommended for C1/C2 students and involves students examining the shortlist for word of the year and putting them into practice in a series of engaging tasks.
Download the student handout and teacher’s notes below:
This is a listening and conversation lesson plan for B2+ learners. Use it to scare your students this Halloween!
The lesson is based around a spooky story called Bruiser the Dog told by professional story-teller Wilf Merttens on the Halloween episode of our podcast 2Ts in a pod. You can listen to the whole episode below, but the section you’ll need for the lesson plan is from 40:08-43:10. Students will predict what will happen in the story, do some detailed listening and then discuss their deepest, darkest fears! You’ll find all the lesson materials below. Happy Halloween!
Lesson materials:
To use the audio offline, you can download the whole episode from SoundCloud like this:
2Ts in a Pod Episode 40: Halloween
The story is towards the end of the episode from 40:08-43:10
You’re going to listen to a spooky story that involves a young girl, an old house and a big dog called Bruiser. Make some predictions about what’s going to happen.
Instructions:
(0:00) There was this thing that happened near where I live that’s always stayed with me. (0:06) There was a girl about 14 or 15 years old and (0:11) she lived alone with her mother because her father had died some years before and (0:16) her mum had to work away a lot and she would leave her daughter alone in this big old house. (0:24) Now, (0:26) the daughter was very brave and didn’t mind being left.
Plus, she had a big dog. (0:32) He was a fearsome, fearsome dog. Yeah, I think he was an Alsatian and he was called Bruiser and (0:41) well, she had a kind of nighttime ritual with Bruiser and that was that he would sleep under her bed and (0:48) if she was ever scared in the night, she would dangle her hand over the bed and (0:54) he would lick her fingers in that way that that dogs have of doing.
(1:00) Now, there was very scary news one night. I remember it myself and that was that there’s a jail, (1:07) a prison quite local to us, (1:11) and there was news that a (1:13) notorious serial killer (1:15) had escaped from the jail and was on the loose in the area. Now, I told you this girl was very rational.
(1:24) She told herself there is (1:27) only the tiniest chance that he’s going to come knocking at my house of all the houses and so she took herself to bed and (1:34) she took Bruiser with her and she lay down and she went to sleep. (1:39) She didn’t sleep very well. She only slept fitfully.
(1:44) She kept waking up, tossing and turning. Probably the bad news had disturbed her and she was having bad dreams, but (1:51) every time she woke up, she would just dangle her hand over the edge of the bed and (1:59) there’d be (2:01) Bruiser licking her fingers and she would feel comforted and she would go back to sleep. (2:09) Now, a few times she felt like she heard a noise on the stairs or a creak in the hallway, (2:14) but those are just the noises that old houses make.
(2:19) But then the door (2:29) creaked open on its own, but (2:32) she wasn’t scared because that was something the door sometimes did, another quirk of an old house. (2:39) She wasn’t scared, at least, (2:43) until she saw (2:45) lying in the hallway (2:48) the dead body of Bruiser the dog.
Bruiser the dog:
As a follow-up class, put students in small groups, have them choose one of the urban legends they bring in. They must then make it as spooky and suspenseful as possible before telling it to the rest of the class.
It’s that time of year again! We’re back with our 2024 Halloween special! Lots of spooky stories to send shivers down your spine!
We now offer free full transcripts with every episode, you can find it by following this link.
Check out this lesson plan by Hugh Heyworth from https://tipsofthetounge.wordpress.com/
This is a PowerPoint I made a while ago to help C1 students practise making the kind of formal recommendations they often need to include in the formal writing tasks in the Cambridge C1 Advanced exam. Download the PowerPoint below:
This is a quick activity I made to revise some emergent language from a C1 Advanced listening task we did in class. I took the interesting expressions from the transcript and got Chat GPT to incorporate them into a new text.
Students read a text about professional sports mascots and then examine some expressions from the text. There is a complete version or a more challenging gapped version. I’ve also included an AI generated recording of the text from play.ht.
Download the handouts below:
C1 Advanced: A Mascot’s Life – Student Handout
“Hi everyone! I’m Jake, and I’ve recently started an exciting new job that I never imagined I’d be doing – I’m the mascot for our city’s professional soccer team! It’s a world full of energy, enthusiasm, and a few surprises along the way.
One major perk of this job is the thrill of entertaining thousands of fans. I seriously get a kick out of seeing their smiles and hearing their cheers. It’s not every day you get to be the heart and soul of a game!
Now, you might think being in such a huge crowd would be nerve-wracking. And you’re right! Initially, I used to get stage fright. The thought of performing in front of so many people would play on my mind for days before a match. But, believe it or not, once I’m in my mascot costume, all that anxiety just melts away.
Let’s talk about the financial side. While I’m not making megabucks, the salary is decent enough, and the joy I experience is worth more than any paycheck.
However, being a mascot isn’t always easy. There are times when the heat inside the costume can really put me off, especially on sunny days. It’s a challenge to stay focused and not get distracted by the discomfort.
Staying in shape is crucial in this line of work. You need a lot of stamina to perform energetically throughout the game. It’s not just about the costume; it’s about being fit enough to bring life to the character. For this reason, I keep trim by exercising at the gym at least 3 times a week.
At times, I can get hung up on small mistakes during a performance. Maybe I didn’t land a dance move perfectly, or I tripped over my giant mascot feet. It’s easy to get flustered in those moments, but I’ve learned to laugh it off and keep going.
The team I work with is a tight-knit group. They’re incredibly supportive and we all get a buzz from creating memorable experiences for the fans. I was taken aback by how welcoming and friendly everyone was from my very first day.
In conclusion, being a sports team mascot is an extraordinary experience. It’s a job that requires energy, dedication, and a love for the game and its fans. If you’re someone who loves to entertain and stay active, this might just be the perfect role for you!”
My C1 students recently completed a mock writing exam in class and I realised some glaring flaws in their approach to the task. The main issues I observed were a lack of planning which led to a lack of coherence in their arguments and no logical throughline. So I designed this activity based on a model answer to offer them some more support.
Students will analyse a model answer to the task, then try to reverse engineer the writer’s plan/brainstorm. They will then focus on useful language for the task and then repeat the planning phase for a similar task. The idea is to model what I expect students to do in the first 5 minutes of the exam: plan out what they want to express then brainstorm advanced language to express it.
Download the student handout and teacher’s notes below:
It’s that time of year again! No, not Thanksgiving or Christmas, time for Collins Dictionary to choose its word of the year for 2023! And time for Suzy Ratcliff to write another great guest post on the topic! Download the student handout and teacher’s notes below:
While you’re here, check out Suzy’s company English Boost and follow her on Linkedin for more teaching materials.
Blog post
The acceleration of AI and other 2023 trends
1st Nov 2023
Did you worry quite so much about a robot takeover before the advent of ChatGPT?
The revolutionary AI-powered language model burst into the public consciousness in late 2022, wowing us with its ability to mimic natural human speech. It could do much more than that, actually – need copy for a presentation tomorrow morning? No problem. A recipe for dinner using only what you’ve got left in the cupboard? Done. And while people were understandably fascinated, they also started to get a bit anxious. If computers were suddenly experts in that most human of domains, language, what next? Cue an explosion of debate, scrutiny, and prediction, and more than enough justification for Collins’ 2023 Word of the Year: AI.
Collins defines artificial intelligence, for which AI is the now-familiar abbreviation, as “the modelling of human mental functions by computer programs”. This rather captures the profound nature of challenge facing us. Can machines really become human-like? And how will that pan out for our species?
Until we find out the answer to that question, though, life carries on. And, as the Collins shortlisted words show, it carries on in often peculiar and fascinating ways. Take digital culture. We’re all familiar with the influencer: a person who leverages their popularity on social media to spark new trends and earn money from endorsements. The word has its own family of variants: mega-influencer, micro-influencer, even nano-influencer. To which we can now add de-influencing – when one of these oracles uses their power “to warn followers to avoid certain commercial products, lifestyle choices, etc”, as the dictionary definition puts it.
One recent attempt at de-influencing concerns another of the shortlist’s highlights, the deliciously waspish nepo baby, a label applied to someone “whose career is believed to have been advanced by having famous parents”. The would-be de-influencer in this case was film star Gwyneth Paltrow, who last month judged the phrase an “ugly moniker”. Paltrow’s mum and dad? Actress Blythe Danner and producer Bruce Paltrow. We can only assume that seeing her parents make their way in the industry was something of a canon event for the young Paltrow – an experience “essential to the formation of an individual’s character or identity”.
As well as obsessing over the lifestyles of the rich and famous, we’ve been increasingly focused on our own health and wellbeing. Scientists and public health experts have warned of the dangers of ultra-processed foods, which are “prepared using complex industrial methods” and frequently made up of “ingredients with little or no nutritional value”. These empty calories can lead to multiple problems, including diabetes and obesity. One potential treatment for both of those conditions is the apparent “wonderdrug” semaglutide, also known by its tradename, Ozempic. Semaglutide seems to be effective at suppressing people’s appetites, allowing them to lose weight – but it simply hasn’t been around long enough for us to know quite what the long-term effects might be. Incidentally, the prefix “ultra” – Latin for “beyond” – forms part of another shortlisted word. ULEZ, the acronym for ultra-low emission zone, will be familiar to Londoners, who have to pay a charge if they drive a polluting vehicle into the city.
ULEZ became particularly contentious in 2023 as a result of the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election, in which voters seemed to reject plans for its expansion. It isn’t the only political hot potato in the shortlist, though. The UK’s cost of living crisis has been driven by inflation – rising prices – with some convinced that businesses are making excessive hikes in order to boost their profits, so-called greedflation.
A different type of financial problem, debanking, also makes the list, after populist politician Nigel Farage claimed his bank, Coutts, tried to close his account because of his political views. The issue was thrust into the spotlight and many others subsequently came forward to complain of having been debanked without explanation.
After all that heavy stuff you might like to sit back and enjoy watching a sedate game of cricket. Except that Bazball – the newly energetic (some say aggressive) form of the game named for England Test coach Brendon “Baz” McCullum – is currently in vogue. Perhaps 2024 will prove more relaxing? We can only hope.
Written by David Shariatmadari, author of Don’t Believe A Word: From Myths to Misunderstandings – How Language Really Works
Ex 1. Complete the sentences with your own ideas, then compare and discuss with your partner.
Ex 2. Discuss these questions:
Ex 3. Can we learn from AI?
Write a short dialogue using the phrases ‘a hot potato’, ‘to pan out’, and ‘to burst into’.
(Make it more formal/informal/jokey/fun…)
I was rooting through my over-stuffed Google Drive and found this C1 Advanced writing part 2 proposal task and handout that I made a few years back. Download it below:
It’s nobody’s favourite exam reading exercise! This is a slightly tweaked version of a very old lesson plan I use to help C1 students tackle the part 7 gapped reading task. Apologies for the rather ugly PowerPoint template! Download the PowerPoint and handout below:
