Monday, March 24, 2014

Reading Uzbek Folk Fairy Tales: Fairy discussion in the classroom

Fairy tales in our classroom

My young learners fond of reading folk fairy tales.  After reading the tale ( I suggest to my students to read one by one, they will be able to read, correct pronunciation, to participate actively in reading) they discuss about goodies and baddies of the tale. There are some of the books we read in our classroom. One of them that we recently received as gift from www.davrbooks.uz . Fairies can lead young readers to the magic world where they meet wisdom for the future. 






I conduct some activities to check reading comprehension.
Activity 1.
“Enchanting wonders of fairy tale” 
I ask my students how many enchanting wonders they could find from the fairy. They count wonders and explain why they think its wonder. It’s good activity to improve students’ critical and creative thinking. 



Activity 2.
“True or False”
I give my students written facts of fairy that they’ve just read. They should tick true and false facts.
Activity 3.
“Drawing fairy” This activity is my learners’ favorite one. They work creatively using their imagination. I divide class into groups, they draw fairy heroes and display on the classroom wall. 
Activity 4.
“ Put in order”
This activity is also for group work. I mix paragraphs and suggest to students to put paragraphs in order. 


I hope you liked our activities :) 

Monday, March 17, 2014

Hooray! Let’s play!

Word games in teaching vocabulary
What word games do you use in your classroom?
How do you start?
I start with a word.  One by one I go around the class and ask my students to say another English word that they know. Start with word sorting game. ( if a teacher say “ car” students should continue one by one “bus”, “train” ) Have you ever used “Boggle” board or game? This game helps students to improve their creativity and logical thinking. It’s easy to display Boggle board and involve your students to play with words.  I just love this cute Boggle board :) 


 My classroom's noun box

Word games are fun!
There are a lot of word games we can conduct in our classroom to help students  to memorize  words and increase vocabulary:“Scrambled word”, “ Odd word out”, “Crossword”, “ Family – words”, “ Magic pencil”, 
“Hidden picture word  game”,
“Word search”,
“Rhyming words- Rhyme Time”, “ Word building”, “Silent letter – shshshsh” and many others.


Bottle cap word game 

What do you think about word games that  do not require special preparations. What are convenient and “right now” tools? I use bottle caps to  prepare word games. They are useless after  drinking content of the bottle but useful to write on them little “magic “words. Another  “helpers” are matchers’  boxes that people drop away after emptying them.




Matches “magic” words.
Just ask your students to find antonym pairs(or other parts of speech) 


Odd word out activities in our classroom


Watch learning vocabulary on youtube 














Friday, December 13, 2013

Lesson plan: Birthdays are fun!

Grade: 6
Time: 45min.
Objectives: 

Educational: to practise writing and talking about important dates.
Cultural:  to talk about different nations’   birthday traditions and customs.
Communicative: to listen and sing an English song, to discuss about birthday presents.
Practical: to enable pupils to speak and write about their birthdays.

Materials: Handouts, pictures, realia, worksheets, presents, birthday cards,  video song (youtube).
I – Warming up:
Copy and complete the Word Spider. Eg. Flowers, cake.


Matching activity: Match the words and pictures
 a)cake
b)flowers
c)computer
d) bike
e)presents
f)a box of chocolate
g)robot


 


Read and put in order

1. Love
2. see you
3. on July 12
4. Dear John
5. I want to come
6. Tom
7. Thank you for your invitation

Watch and sing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCJSNMqub8g




Fill in gaps

Dear ...
Thank you very much for the….. I……a great birthday. I…..a computer, a bike, a…., a……and  …I very happy. I.. a big birthday party. I…. very happy because I…a big chocolate birthday cake. My friends and I…..12 Coco Colas from my mother.
Bye bye. 
Write soon.
Love
...

Write about your birthday

begin with:
My birthday was ...

Make a birthday card to your friend


Note: My students adore crafting and drawing. The best visual resources are my students' creative works.You can see them on facebook. 

  https://www.facebook.com/dilorom.hushvaktova/media_set?set=a.290357361001203.58682.100000808250583&type=3








Thursday, December 12, 2013

Lesson plan: Exotic America

Grade: 7
Objectives:
Educational:
To practise talking and writing about good places to go on holiday
Bringing up:
To introduce some cultural information about the USA and Uzbekistan
Communicative:
To discuss about holiday places of the world
Practical:

To practise reading gist, main ideas and detail

Materials: Pictures, cards, grammar table, Poster, handouts, worksheets
I – Work in pairs. Write five things you know about the USA
e.g.
50 States
White House
The Statue of Liberty
 Hollywood
Hawaiian Islands 

II – Read the two texts. Say what places they are about.
Do you know where the Hawaiian Islands are? Do you what country they belong to? They are I the central part of the Pacific Ocean and belong to the United States of America. Hawaii became the 50th state of the USA in 1959. Captain Cook found these islands just a few years after he discovered Australia. He put these islands on the map and gave a name.
The famous Rocky Mountains in the USA begin near Denver in Colorado and go up into Canada. South of the Rocky Mountains there are many beautiful canyons. Do you know what a canyon is? It is a deep narrow valley. On of the biggest canyons in the world is the Grand Canyon in Arizona.




III – Read and match with the texts in 1b.
a)    Millions of years ago, in the times of the dinosaurs, the Colorado River was much bigger. Today, in the Grand Canyon you can see how big it really was. The word ‘grand’ means ‘very big’.
b)   He called them the Sandwich Islands. Why this name? it was not because he stopped there to have a sandwich. The Earl of Sandwich was paying for Captain Cook’s expedition and this was how the Captain thanked the Earl.
c)    When tourists take part in Hawaiian feast, a luau, they have fish, selfish, coconut pudding, and pineapple, music and hula dancing. The hula dancing is one of the, most beautiful dances in the Islands. Some Hawaiian children learn to dance it when they are two years old and it is part of the school lessons
d)   The Canyon is over 349km long and more than 1.5rm wide in places.
e)    May 1st is a lei day. A lei is a garland of flowers which people wear round their necks. It symbolizes Hawaiian hospitality.
f)     The Canyon has many beautiful colours that change during the day such as red, green, yellow and deep blue. A lot of tourists come to Arizona to see this wonder of the world.

Hula dancing 

IV – Read and answer the questions

Where will Mr. Green go for his holidays: Hawaii or Arizona? Why?
Mr. Green like travelling very much. He has visited a lot of different countries. Every year he chooses a new country to visit. This year he would like to go to a warm place and try some new food, for example, some seafood. He would like to learn more about people’s traditions, and take photos.
Discussion:
Where would you like to travel, why? 

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

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Friday, January 25, 2013

Let's travel through Africa. Part IV

Dare to Read

We've scrambled the spelling of some words associated with Africa. For example: ibtre – tribe. Can you unscramble each?

urtila
sicmu
vansanha
iagerni
thmy
lagevil
pisce
drenchil
 fegiraf
phantele
gejunl
dilecroco
caafir
nentconti
turecul
gicma
ibtre
bianami
cedan
usn

Answers:
Ritual                             Africa                     Village                        Namibia
Savannah                       Culture                    Children                      Sun
Myth                              Tribe                      Elephant
Epics                              Dance                    Crocodile
Giraffe                           Music                     Continent
Jungle                            Nigeria                    Magic 

Let's travel through Africa. Part III


 Reading:   African tale

The Tortoise Goes on a Journey


Yaounde, Cameroon



One day, the tortoise set out to Mebenga-land; there, he wanted to ask for the hand of Zameo's daughter. When he arrived after several days' travelling, he learned that Zameo had died. He called at the men's hall and met Zameo's brothers and sons. They told him, "You may marry our niece, on condition that you get Zameo's personal consent." That was an impossible condition, as they well knew, but few men are keen to marry their nieces and sisters to foreigners. Nevertheless, tortoise accepted but asked for three days' delay.
He went to his expert diviner, Nzozoli, who told him, "Brother tortoise, whenever on your trip someone comes up to you, give him food." The tortoise started out and soon he came to a forest. There, he met a rat. "What are you doing in this lonely forest, brother rat?"





 "Brother tortoise, how can you ask such a question. Since yesterday, I have had nothing to eat." The tortoise picked the rat up and put him in his travel ­bag, which he had filled with bread before he left. "There, you stay in there, and eat what you find in it." The tortoise walked on, while the rat was busy nibbling in his food-bag.
On a branch he saw a swallow and asked her what she was doing there.


"Dear brother tortoise, I have had nothing to eat all day."
"Here, come and sit in my food-bag. You may eat what you find in it." The swallow joined the rat inside the bag. After a long journey they arrived in the land of Mebenga. There, the clansmen of Zameo took the tortoise to the old chief's grave.
"Now make chief Zameo speak to us," they said. The tortoise had previously released the rat from his bag, and given him detailed instructions. The rat ran in front, invisible in the tall grass, and hid in a hole which a fellow-rat had dug into the chief's grave. "Chief Zameo," the tortoise called out aloud. "Do I have your permission to marry your daughter?" From the grave there came a soft voice, "Yes, brother tortoise. I, Zameo, give you my daughter."
All the men were astonished, but they concealed their surprise. "You must pass one further test," they said. "Take a piece of earth and throw it up into the air. If it falls down, you may not marry Zameo's daughter." Another impossible task, of course, but the tortoise was prepared for it. He took the swallow out of his food-bag, then knelt down and pretended to scrape up some earth from the ground. Meanwhile, he whispered to the swallow, "Fly up and don't come down again." With that he released her. The swallow rose up into the air until she was well out of sight.
The clansmen finally consented, and the tortoise was allowed to take his bride home with him. Alas! On the way, the leopard found them .....

(can you guess what's going to happen?)  Ask students to complete the story. Let them to create their own story.You can give them original ending after their work.




.....and picking up the bride he ran away with her to his compound. The tortoise followed him, quickly surveyed the situation, dug a trap, and waited. In a few moments, the leopard appeared, tied his door carefully, and walked along the path. He fell into the trap. Why? Because the tortoise had dug it on the path to the latrine.
Learn from this. Always be prepared for adversity.