It goes without saying that the English language we teach by means of textbooks and their components is largely an idealised form of the language. When it comes to real life encounters, it transpires, English is not that ‘well-structured’. Grammatical rules ‘collapse’, accents become ‘unfamiliar and funny’, vocabulary seems far less ‘innocent’. Confronted with native English speakers in their environment, students suddenly come to realise that this is not exactly the type of English they have been taught in school. In order to save students from such shocks, teachers cannot rely solely on textbooks. Students should be exposed to real-life language, such as the one found in songs or films, full of verbal extremes, where archaism occurs alongside new coinage, formality next door to slang, etc. Famous masterpieces like ‘Braveheart’, ‘Gangs of New York’, ‘Pearl Harbour’, ‘A Beautiful Mind’ ‘Elizabeth I’, ‘Shakespeare in Love’, ‘8 Mile’, ‘Ali G Indahouse’, etc. bristle with all kinds of accents and dialects, archaic vocabulary, scientific language, and specialised military expressions. And, most importantly, they feature slang binding together members of a subculture.

Let’s face the truth, this is the real-life English to be taught. Otherwise, our best students will never be able to understand English lyrics or go to the cinema and watch English films without having to read subtitles. And sadly enough, they will have difficulty communicating in English speaking countries.

Level: Pre-intermediate (‘A Beautiful Mind’- based activity)

Advanced/Proficiency (‘Shakespeare In Love’ - based activity)

Time: 45 minutes or more (depending on the number of activities covered)

Aims:

· to make students aware of the learning potential of the Internet

· to make students aware of film being an extremely powerful language learning tool encompassing infinite libraries of authentic spoken English in the form that can hardly be met in textbooks or elsewhere

· to present ways of finding film transcripts for educational purposes

· to introduce new expressions (contextualised in films)

Technical requirements: One computer per student or two students, connected to the Internet

Other resources used: Overhead projector, websites, television set, video player, video, cassettes with the original versions of the films ‘A Beautiful Mind’ and ‘Shakespeare In Love’

Knowledge: Students should be skilled at typing the URLs, using search engines, downloading text files as well as opening them; they may have to be able to extract files in order to read them

Necessary preparation: Teacher must make sure that all the computers are correctly networked and have access to the Internet. It is highly advisable that the computers have software to decompress *.rar, and *zip packed files. The free software can be easily downloaded from Internet at, e.g: http://www.underpl.org

Possible problems:

Teacher should control and facilitate the searching process. Some students may have problems defining the relevant search criteria as well as extracting and opening the downloaded files. Pre-intermediate students are more than likely to have difficulty in understanding technical instructions in English; thus their mother tongue is preferable at some stages of the lesson.

Procedure:

Pre-stage (offline)

1. Teacher asks students if they watched the film ‘A Beautiful Mind’ and what they can remember about its storyline, characters, etc.

2. Teacher tells students they are going to watch a five-minute extract [ 01:35:15 - 01:40:49 ] from that film, involving Russell Crowe (as John Nash), Jennifer Connelly (as Alicia Nash) and Christopher Plummer (as Dr Rosen).

In order to check how well students understood the piece, teacher may ask simple questions, e.g.: Why did John stop taking his medicine? or What can John do best?

The full list of questions prepared by the teacher should preferably be displayed with an overhead projector. Most students are likely to be able to answer suchlike questions after the first watching. It is expected, however, that they will have problems with more detailed understanding of the scene. When it comes to more difficult questions, they might not be able to answer, e.g.: What kind of therapy does Dr Rosen suggest? What does he say about schizophrenia? According to Dr Rosen, how can you not treat schizophrenia?

At this point, such questions should stay unanswered until later in the lesson.

3. As students watch the scene again (and yet again, if needed), they will be asked to complete the missing sentences (MS Word file) in the following piece, the copies of which are distributed.

While-stage (online)

4. Teacher suggests self-checking. The following list of web sites is put forward:

http://dvd.box.sk; http://divxstation.com/subtitles.asp; http://hot.ee/subland; http://divxsubtitles.net; http://subtitles.cz

Note! These are some of the largest sites devised to find subtitles for DivX, DVD and VCD movies. They offer free downloading (and uploading) of thousands of subtitles in all the world’s languages, which are recorded as text files (*.txt; *.sub; *srt). Files of the foregoing extensions can easily be opened by means of word processors such as Microsoft Word, as well as other popular software, e.g. Windows Notepad, Windows Commander, Total Commander, etc. Although watching films in the form of DivX’s is a very popular type of entertainment with students, they are highly unlikely to look for English transcripts of the films they watch. Therefore, it is advisable the teacher lead the students through the search process to give them example.

Teacher asks students to enter the first of the presented sites and type ‘beautiful mind’ in its search engine. On finding the relevant files, the search should be narrowed down to ‘English’. From among the list of files found, it is recommended students should download the one contributed by ALXEMI. (Note: You need to be selective when it comes to picking out files with film subtitles. Some files may provide inaccurate subtitles; thus it is advisable to check them out before use). After unpacking it, we will receive the following text file: ingles.srt, with the subtitles in request. In order to check their exercise, students should find the fragment of the given the time frame ( 01:35:15 - 01:40:49 ). Here’s part of the extract they need:

1239

01:35:15,800 --> 01:35:17,319

You see them now?

1240

01:35:26,199 --> 01:35:27,840

Yes.

1241

01:35:30,039 --> 01:35:32,239

Why did you stop your meds?

1242

01:35 :34,399 --> 01:35 :36,640

Because I couldn't do my work.

1243

01:35 :36,720 --> 01:35 :38,560

I couldn't help with the baby.

1244

01:35 :38,640 --> 01:35 :40,319

I couldn't-

1245

01:35 :41,760 --> 01:35 :43,880

I couldn't respond to my wife.

(......................)

1285

01:39 :34,840 --> 01:39 :38,199

Rosen said to call if you try and kill me or anything.

1286

01:39 :53,880 --> 01:39 :56,079

You want to know what's real?

1287

01:40:01,319 --> 01:40:03,199

This.

1288

01:40:10,199 --> 01:40:12,079

This.

1289

01:40:17,159 --> 01:40:19,000

This.

1290

01:40:20,359 --> 01:40:22,439

This is real.

1291

01:40:25,640 --> 01:40:27,920

Maybe the part...

1292

01:40:28,000 --> 01:40:30,279

that knows the waking from the dream,

1293

01:40:31,640 --> 01:40 :33,479

maybe it isn't here.

1294

01:40 :37,199 --> 01:40 :39,560

Maybe it's here.

1295

01:40 :44,039 --> 01:40 :46,279

I need to believe...

1296

01:40 :46,359 --> 01:40 :49,640

that something extraordinary is possible.

Note! After the students compared their completed sentences with the above script, they may want to watch this emotional scene again.

5. For better understanding of the scene, students are encouraged to check out the expressions they may not understand, e.g. meds, respond to (someone), a run of insulin shocks, degenerative, come up with a formula, apply your mind, theorem, work it out, commitment papers, figure out, know the waking from the dream, etc. Online dictionaries might be of some help here. They can be found at the following sites: www.translate.pl, www.slownik.angielski.edu.pl (English-Polish ones), www.dictionary.com, http://dictionary.cambridge.org (English-only). Alternatively, students can download a file with Polish subtitles for ‘A Beautiful Mind’ and check out the translation of the scene in question. The largest databases with film subtitles in Polish can be found at: www.napisy.info, www.napisy.org

Post-stage (offline)

6. Given the transcript and its translations, it will be far easier for students to answer the detailed questions which were posed just after the first watching (see off-line pre-stage, point 2). A class of advanced students may be assigned a more difficult task to do, such as the one presented below.

Procedure:

Pre-stage (offline)

1. Teacher asks students what they can remember about the film ‘Shakespeare in Love’, a romantic comedy, which won Academy Awards for Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Picture, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Score and Best Original Screenplay. Alternatively, as an introduction to the film itself, students may be asked some true/false questions about the famous playwright, William Shakespeare, e.g.

Shakespeare was born in London .
His famous words ‘To be or not to be’ come from ‘Macbeth’.
He was 18 when he got married and his wife was 25.
He spent about 25 years in London .
He died at the age of 52 on his birthday.
William had seven brothers and sisters.
Shakespeare’s parents were poor.
8. Shakespeare built his theatre, the Globe, which could hold 3,000 people.

1. No, Stratford-upon-Avon

2. No, Hamlet

3. Yes

4. Yes

5. Yes

6. Yes

7. No, they were rich.

8. 8. Yes.

For comfort, the quiz could be displayed with an overhead projector. Students can be divided into two teams and given a time limit of 3 minutes for answers.

2. Teacher tells students they are going to watch a three-minute extract (00:36:15 - 00:39:04) from the film ‘Shakespeare in Love’ involving Gwyneth Paltrow (as Viola De Lesseps), Colin Firth (as Lord Wessex) and Imelda Staunton (as Nurse). As they watch the scene, they are asked to complete the missing expressions in the following transcript (MS Word file), the copies of which are distributed:

It is purposefully expected that students will find it difficult to complete all the gaps correctly as the missing phrases include such advanced expressions as civility, beseech, requisite, buds, piety, etc.

While-stage (on-line)

3. Teacher informs students that when they watch non-dubbed/subtitled films in their original versions, they are likely to find them difficult to understand. In order to clarify things, they can take advantage of the scripts available on the Net, for almost any film wanted.

Following the same procedure as presented for the scene from ‘A Beautiful Mind’ (see: online stage, point 3 above), students should enter http://dvd.box.sk and download a recommended text file contributed by SYMBOLMAN. (Note: Files contributed by other authors might contain inaccurate subtitles. If you decide to use other subtitles files, make sure they are right). On opening the file (Shakespeare in love_ENG.srt) they will easily find the extract they need (time frame: 00:36:15 - 00:39:04), which will look like this:

533

00:36:15,994 --> 00:36:18,554

For Lady Viola De Lesseps,

534

00:36:18,634 --> 00:36:22,388

by the hand of Thomas Kent.

535

00:36:22,474 --> 00:36:25,113

''Shall l compare thee

to a summer's day ?

536

00:36:25,194 --> 00:36:28,504

Thou art more lovely

and more temperate.

537

00:36:31,154 --> 00:36 :33,952

Rough winds do shake

the darling buds of May--''

(.............)

580

00:38 :47,554 --> 00:38 :52,105

''Master Will, poet dearest to my heart,

581

00:38 :52,194 --> 00:38 :55,948

l beseech you

banish me from yours.

582

00:38 :56,034 --> 00:38 :59,151

l am to marry Lord Wessex .

583

00:39:00,194 --> 00:39:02,503

A daughter's duty...

584

00:39:02,594 --> 00:39:04,903

and the queen's command.''

Given the file, students can check out the missing phrases in their transcripts. It is recommended that the unknown phrases be explained. At this stage students may want to watch the scene again to get the new expressions contextualised.

Apart from the ‘subtitles servers’, such as http://dvd.box.sk, there are also special ‘scripts servers’, which store full film scripts to be used for educational purposes. Some of the largest selections can be found at: http://www.freemoviescripts.com; http://www.moviefreak.com/scripts/index.htm; http://www.rosebud.com.br/scripts.htm; http://www.script-o-rama.com/filmtranscripts.shtml; http://www.simplyscripts.com/movie.html; http://www.joblo.com/moviescripts.htm; http://www.movie-page.com/movie_scripts.htm. There you will find a variety of movie scripts, ranging from old to recent movies. Advanced students can have fun reading them aloud or acting them out in drama classes.

The Internet is also an ocean of ‘film review sites’, recommended for students with a good command of English, where they can find all kinds of information about the films they are interested in. Below are listed some of the best ‘film web pages’ in English: http://www.culturevulture.net/Movies/MovieIndex.htm; http://www.crazy4cinema.com/Review/review.html; http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews; http://www.filmhead.com/reviews/index.html; http://www.filmthreat.com/Reviews.asp; http://www.iofilm.co.uk; http://www.rinkworks.com/movies/search.shtml; http://www.screenit.com/search_movies.html; http://www.thezreview.co.uk/reviews.htm; http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/film/reviews.

Conclusion

As can see seen, the World Wide Web offers databases with transcripts of virtually any film in English. The scripts are there to be used for all kinds of purposes, including educational. Without doubt, ‘film analysis’ is a great combination of entertainment and learning. The video courses available for EFL students will never be as attractive and authentic as films such as ‘A Beautiful Mind’ or ‘Shakespeare in Love’. Since ELT publishers cannot afford the copyrights of films like that, they are looking for cheaper productions. However, what cannot be escaped is that with so many students having Internet-connected computers at home, the popularity of DivX’s is growing fast. In point of actual fact, DivX’s have become as popular as MP3 music, and students watch thousands of films on their computers, most of them being in English. Why not make them aware of the educational opportunities it creates? There is so much new language to be picked up through this medium, the language which is not exactly as ideal as the one in coursebooks from which they are taught.

NOSY NEIGHBORS: A COLLABORATIVE CHATROOM ACTIVITY

by Shiao-Chuan Kung

Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages,
Kaohsiung, Taiwan

sckung@mail.wtuc.edu.tw

Introduction

Participating in online chatrooms has increasingly become part of the experience of our computer-literate students. Such synchronous electronic discussions have been advocated for foreign language instruction because they have affective, linguistic, and cognitive advantages (Beauvois, 1997). The various benefits they can provide for foreign language learners were summarized by Kern (1995) as: more frequent opportunity for students to express their ideas than in oral discussions, greater amount of target language production, more time to develop and refine comments - possibly leading to greater precision and sophistication of expression, encouragement of a collaborative spirit, enhanced motivation for language practice, reduction of anxiety in communicating orally in a foreign language, and positive effects on student’s writing ability.

On the other hand, there have been some adverse effects of chatroom discussions reported. These include decentering the authority of the teacher's power, lesser attention to grammatical accuracy, less clear coherence and continuity of discussions (Kern, 1995). Other drawbacks are that the text under discussion is not explored in the same way as teacher-driven discussions, and some students experience frustration at having to communicate through a computer, a keyboard, and a screen (Beauvois, 1997). Even though chatrooms allow for the possibility of interaction, the students who cannot type as fast as the rest of the teammates and the ones who are shy and less confident do not necessarily increase their participation. To address this difficulty, teachers can design collaborative activities with clear objectives, unambiguous instructions, and a task that cannot be accomplished without everyone’s participation.

This information-gap exercise is such an activity. It places the students in the role of nosy residents of an apartment building. A very quiet young woman named Ms. Taylor recently moved in and the neighbors get together to gossip about her. Each neighbor knows something about her routines and shares his or her observations with the other members of the class.

Level: intermediate or higher

Time: 2 hours

Materials: networked computers with access to online chatrooms.

Preparation

Prepare the lesson by becoming familiar with the chatroom software available at your institution. If necessary, create groups or chatrooms using the chatting software and assign students to a particular group. Decide how many students to assign to a chatroom and assemble enough cards for each member of the class. While seven roles are proposed below, I recommend placing only four or five students in a chatting group. Make arrangements to hold class in a language or computer lab with computers.

Procedure

1. Distribute role-play cards to each member of the class making sure that no two people in a team share the same card. It would be preferable if members of the same team were not seated next to each other. Each card should contain the instructions (figure 1) and the role (selected from figure 2) that they have been assigned.

2. Go over vocabulary words that may be new to the students of the class or culture-specific knowledge that students may not have such as what a grocery bagger and an owner of a coffee stand does.

3. Review the instructions with the class making sure that students understand the make-believe scenario that they are in and the two tasks (i.e. chatroom discussion and letter-writing) that they will have.

4. Ask the students to create three questions that they could ask their classmates to find out more about Ms. Taylor. If necessary, offer example questions such as “What does she do in the afternoons?” and “Does anyone know where she works?”

5. Circulate around the classroom as the students are silently chatting. Make sure that everyone can access the chatroom he or she has been assigned to.

6. Stop the chatroom discussions after approximately 45 minutes.

7. Review the form and the uses of modal auxiliaries with the entire class.

8. Briefly discuss the format of an informal letter. Suggest appropriate salutations and closings and allow students to write.

9. At the end of class or in the following class, ask students to share their letters with a partner and orally discuss the differences in their letters and their interpretations of who Ms. Taylor is and what she does.

10. To reinforce the grammar point and promote self-awareness and error-correction, ask students to print the transcript of their chatroom discussions and review it checking for errors that were made while they were chatting.

Instructions: All of the students in your group live in an apartment building in New York City. You recently noticed a new neighbor in your building. She moved in a month ago but she remains a mystery woman because no one knows who she is, where she comes from and what she does for a living. You are all very curious about her background, personality and habits. You have seen her at different times doing different things. In other words, you all have pieces of information about her. In the chatroom, you are going to have 45 minutes to ask each other questions. Try to find out what your classmates/neighbors know about Ms. Taylor and share information that you know. Ask and answer questions, but do NOT type the sentences exactly as they appear on your card. With what you find out, write a letter to your sister Ann describing Ms. Taylor to her. You can reach your own conclusions and even make up some details, but for the most part, your description needs to be based on information that you and your classmates were given. Use expressions with could, should, must, may, might, and probably.

Figure 1. Instructions

Postman

You are the local postman. You have been delivering mail in this neighborhood for almost fifteen years. You know that Ms. Taylor doesn’t get too much mail. Last week, you delivered five letters, a bill and two magazines. Three of the letters came from the same sender. They were from a B. Taylor in California. Of the other two letters, one came from Helsinki and one from Chicago. The bill was from a company that provides Internet services. The magazines that Ms. Taylor got were PC World and Women’s Fitness.

Businessman living on floor above

You are a businessman living on the floor above Ms. Taylor’s apartment. She has one habit you like and one that annoys you terribly. On weekends, she makes coffee and eggs for breakfast. You can smell them from your apartment. You enjoy sleeping in on weekends but since Ms. Taylor moved in, you are awakened by loud noises. On Sunday mornings, she listens to heavy metal music while running the vacuum cleaner.

Single mother living next door

You are a single mother living next door to Ms. Taylor. You are a waitress at a café nearby. One afternoon, a young lady knocked on your door by mistake looking for Ms. Taylor. She said that she was Ms. Taylor’s sister, Belinda. Later that evening, you saw the two of them having a light dinner at the café where you work.

Young mother living down the hall

You take your baby out to Riverside Park for a walk every afternoon. Two or three times a week, you see Ms. Taylor doing stretching exercises and running in the park. You wanted to talk to her but she always wears headphones. She seems to love animals because she stops and pats every dog that she comes across.

Owner of coffee stand

You see Ms. Taylor every morning. She always buys a copy of The New York Times and a cup of coffee with two spoonfuls of sugar from you. She always brings exact change. Sometimes she even brings her own brown paper bag. You have noticed that she has beautiful hands but does not wear a wedding ring.

Teenage boy

You are 15 years old and very rebellious. Your dye your hair blue and wear a nose ring. You always see Ms. Taylor at the bus stop in the morning. The two of you once talked briefly about computers and heavy metal music. You were quite surprised that she seemed to know a lot about these topics, so you asked her why she knew so much about them. She told you that she works with middle and high school students.

Grocery bagger

You work at the grocery store where Ms. Taylor shops. She usually comes to the store on Monday and Thursday evenings. Since your job is to put groceries in a bag, you always know what people buy. You have noticed Ms. Taylor because she never buys meat or fish. She drinks soy bean milk and eats all kinds of fruits and vegetables.

Figure 2. Roles to Play in the Chatroom

Conclusion

At the conclusion of this lesson, the students would have completed a chatroom discussion that engaged every member of the group. They exchanged information and interacted online by asking and answering questions in writing. The discussion acted as a springboard for a review of modal auxiliaries, a lesson on letter formatting and oral practice.

References

Beauvois, M.H. (1997). "High-tech, high touch: From discussion to composition in the networked classroom." Computer Assisted Language Learning, 10 (1), 57-69.

Kern, R. (1995). "Restructuring classroom interaction with networked computers: Effects on quantity and quality of language production." Modern Language Journal, 79 (4), 457-476.

INSTANT LESSONS
BOTH IN AND OUT OF THE CLASSROOM – Lesson II

by Rachel Ellis and Felicity McCardle

Rachel.ellis@xtra.co.nz

Introduction

English-To-Go (http://www.english-to-go.com) is a New Zealand-based Internet publisher of educational materials for use online and in hard copy form. There are two primary web-sites: http://www.english-to-go.com and http://www.selfaccess.com - a self-study site for students.

Through English-to-go, photocopiable ‘Instant Lessons’ based on Reuters news stories, complete with the articles, pre-reading, reading, grammar, post-reading exercises, teachers' notes and answer keys are provided each week. Every lesson has at least nine exercises and most lessons are available in both HTML and Adobe Acrobat format. Each lesson is added to a database of lessons, which can be searched by level, subject or skills. The database currently has more than 700 lessons from elementary level to advanced.

Many of the lessons also have interactive exercises attached to them. These online activities for students are linked directly to the Instant Lessons. Grammar points are either extended, material recycled or students can practise reading and listening using material on the same topics as those which have been taught in class. Teachers can choose specific exercises for students to do, either in a computer lab or as homework exercises. The activities are fun and rewarding, and teachers are easily able to control the exercises students are to do.

The following link http://www.selfaccess.com/iatefl will take you to a page where photocopiable materials, comprehensive teachers’ notes, and answer key and on-line exercises have been provided.

Below is an account of how one teacher has used these materials with an Upper-Intermediate General English class.

24-hour plane delay

Level: Upper Intermediate

Time: 90 minutes

Aims:

· to enable students to listen for specific information

· to enable students to scan for specific information

· to practise using adverbials of time

· to practise using the verb “spend” + prepositions

· to elicit information and retell events through dialogue

· to practise first-person narrative writing

Preparation:

Print lesson and photocopy.

Procedure

This lesson was used with a General English class, and related to a unit on travel.

With Pre-Reading Activity A: Dictation, students need to understand this first excerpt is an imaginary diary entry written by the young boy in the article who smuggled his pet squirrel onto a plane bound for Cyprus, with disastrous repercussions.

When I woke up I remembered that tomorrow we're flying to Cyprus for Dad's new job. And today I have to give Nutkin to my cousin because we can't take him to Cyprus. I felt really sad. Mum and Dad have promised that I can get a new pet when I get there but I want Nutkin.
I was about to put him in his cage and take him over to my cousin's place when I suddenly decided to take Nutkin to Cyprus. I thought for a long time about how to hide him and finally I came up with a plan.

The dictation exercise is a form of introduction to the main reading. Students were given the word “Cyprus” before they wrote down the short text that was read out three times at normal speed. Learners were later asked if knew any further information on Cyprus. The following link may be of help: http://www.geographyiq.com/countries/cy/
Cyprus_map_flag_geography.htm.

The following links may also be useful. In the second exercise, Pre-Reading Activity B: ‘Have a Guess’, students are asked “Who or what is Nutkin?” The name was taken from a story “The Tale Of Squirrel Nutkin” by Beatrix Potter- http://wiredforbooks.org/kids/beatrix/sn1.htm. The reading activities required students to be clear about what a squirrel is and the following links have clear pictures: http://hotcakencyclopedia.com/Animals/image.Squirrel.photo.jpeg or http://www.naturalsciences.org/funstuff/ncsymbols/mammal.html.

The Reading Activities required students to extract specific information from a newspaper article to complete the gaps in a diary entry, and a number of comprehension questions. Students also worked in pairs to discuss the meaning of phrases from the article and completed some language activities using adverbial phrases of time.

To finish this part of the lesson, learners worked in pairs to complete Post Reading Activity A and write and perform dialogues in pairs, referring back to the article for ideas and vocabulary.

Boy: Dad, there's something I have to tell you.

Parent: What is it? What's wrong?

Boy: You know how I wanted to bring Nutkin to Cyprus with us and you wouldn't let me?

Parent: Yes? Well? I'm sorry about that but we explained to you why we couldn't bring him with us.

Boy: Yes, I know. But I decided I really wanted to bring Nutkin with me so I ..............................

Parent: What?

Boy: Yes, and I brought him onto the plane.

Parent: And where is he now?

Boy: He's .......................................

Parent: Is that why .....................................................?

Boy: Yes, they're all looking for him at the moment.

Parent: You mean .......................................................

Boy: Yes, a flight attendant saw him running away.

Parent: O.K. If they realize you did it, they'll be ...................................

Now I want you to pretend that you .............................................. Do you understand?

Boy: Yes .....................................................

After finishing the dialogues, the class moved on to a computer lab. Students logged on to this site, http://www.instantworkbook.com, using a username and password that was valid for five days. This password allowed students to view only those exercises selected by the teacher – in this instance the 8 exercises linked to the “24-hour-hour Plane Delay” lesson.

Online Activities

Students were first asked to complete two listening activities – a short-answer exercise and an open cloze. This particular listening was the dictation text students had first heard as an introduction in the classroom. However, this time, the students were exposed to a different speaker, a young boy. Students had control over how many times they heard the text. In the first exercise, students also had clues for the answers. (For example, if they clicked on the [?] button for the first question, a clue “The day after today.” appeared.)

In the second exercise, students were presented with 4 possible answers for each gap and had to listen for specific items. Many students felt more confident after recycling the listening in this way, as dictation exercises can prove challenging for some. A third vocabulary exercise was also completed.

Students were placed in pairs and asked to look back at Activity E: Grammar from the lesson they had done in class which focused on the verb “spend” and collocations; "we spent the next 24 hours looking for it”. This was quickly completed and checked with plenary feedback. Students remained in their pairs and each pair worked together at one computer. This was done to increase peer interaction and led to much discussion before choices were selected. Students then competed the 5-word ordering exercises that used the grammar point from the language section, the verb “spend” and collocations.

For the remainder of the session and homework, students wrote a diary entry for the young boy after he had collected ‘Nutkin’. The written work was printed and saved onto a disk to allow for peer correction the following day.

Conclusion

The diary entry, writing and dialogue activities in this lesson worked very well. As many of the ideas were recycled throughout the lesson, the less able students demonstrated that they were capable of confidently producing some very pleasing results. Students really enjoyed the opportunity to work with the listening text again in the computer lab and seemed delighted when they found that the recording was of a young boy.