Read and Write Very Short Stories

Reading and writing both help to improve your vocabulary and give you the opportunity to use your language skills in a creative way.


Today's activity will show you how to get simple quick writing practice and how to give and receive feedback and criticism of your written work. The activity is based around a site called Five Card Stories and will help you to create a story based on 5 images.

Task:
  • First you are going to read some very short stories based on images. Look at the five images that go with it, read each story and then vote how good you think the story is. If you think the story is really good, give it 10 stars. If you think it's really bad, give it just one.

  • Now you have read and voted on the stories try to improve them. Below each story, you have the chance to write your own version using the same images. You can either rewrite the story and try to improve it or write your own story based on the same images.

  • To write the story just give it a title, use add a name (it doesn't have to be your real name) complete the story and then type in the two security words and save it to the site. You''ll then be able to come back each day and see how people have voted on your story.


  • If you enjoy short writing activities you can come back to the site and create your own story by choosing images yourself. Just go to: http://web.nmc.org/5cardstory/flickr.php and select the images you want in your story. Tip: It's easiest if the first image you select is of a person or animal, this can then be the main character in your story.
I hope you enjoy this short reading and writing activity and create some wonderful stories. Please leave a link to any you create in the comments section below.

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A City Love Story

Today's activity is about talking about your city and the things you love, and was inspired by a YouTube video that tells a short love story. The Story is set in Beirut in Lebanon and tells the story of how two young people meet and fall in and out of love. The video though is also a tribute to the city that they both love and the things that they like about it.

The wonderful thing about the video is that it shows you the inside of a city from the perspective of two people who live there. So in this task you will watch the video and then see how you can make your own tribute to the place you live.

Task:
  • So, first here is the video. It isn't in English, but it has English subtitles, so it will be easy to follow. Just pause the player if you need more time to read the subtitles.
  • The first part of the story shows the two people meeting and what they like about their city and what they like doing there. Watch and decide which of them has the most similar likes to your own.

  • Were you more similar to the girl or the boy? Were you surprised by what you saw of Beirut? Was it as you expected?
  • Think about the things they like about their city and the things that you like about your city.
  • Now take a camera and go round your city taking photographs of things that you like, places that you like to go and things that you like doing.
  • If you don't want to go taking photographs you could search for images on Flickr.com. Use the Creative Commons section where you can find images that are free to use without copyright restrictions as long as you aren't selling what you create. Just search for images of your city or things that you like doing.

  • Once you have collected your images you will need to make them into a video. You can do this using a free product called Photo Story 3, which you can download from here It is for use on PCs running Windows.


  • Photo Story 3 enables you to create projects using images music, your own voice and text and then covert them into video.
  • Here you can find a short video showing you how to create your photo story.
    Photo Story 3 Tutorial
  • Create your project, add some music from your city and narrate the video in English, telling people what you like about your city. You can also add text to help people understand.
  • Once you have finished you can upload the video to YouTube and share it or you can keep it as part of your English digital portfolio.
I hope you enjoy making this video and please do share a link in the comments below once you have made one. Also be sure to post any comments if you need help or if you get stuck making your video and I'll try to help.

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Write Your Auto Biography

An important part of being a good conversationalist is being a good listener and asking people questions about what they tell you, but sometimes you also have to talk about yourself and be prepared to answer questions.

In today's task you are going to answer questions about yourself and in doing this create your autobiography. You are going to do this using a website called Biographicon which is a site that collects the biographies of ordinary people like you and me.

Task:


  • You will then see the frame for your biography. Click where it says 'Answer a questions about ...' and a field will open with a question and answer that you should complete.
  • Complete the answer to the questions and then click on 'OK, next questions'.

  • You will the see the next question. Work through answering as many of these questions as you can. When you have finished answering questions, you can click on edit and you will be able to upload an image of yourself.
  • You can also add some basic information like when and where you were born etc in the 'Overview' section.
  • Once you are finished you should have quite a complete biography of yourself that you can link to or share with friends.
As your English improves and things in your life change you can also go back and edit your biography. You don't have to complete it all in one day you can do a little more each day and add few more answers to questions.

I hope you have enjoyed this activity and soon have your biography ready to share.
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Learn to Put Your Make Up on in English

YouTube offers you so many opportunities to learn English and also to learn how to do new things, learn how to do things better or teach others how to do things.

In today's activity we'll look at some 'home' produced YouTube channels and learn a bit more about how to use make up and other cosmetics and develop your vocabulary in this area. We'll also look at how you can enter into a dialogue with the people who create the videos.

Task:
  • You are going to watch 3 short videos showing you how to apply make up. The first video is by Andrea and has no words, just text and images. Pause the video to make notes of any new words you see in the text.

  • Now look at the new words you noted down and check to find a definition for them on this site: Make Up USA Vocabulary.
  • Just click on the word to the left of the screen and you will find images of the kinds of products in the video.


  • Now that you have a bit more vocabulary, you can watch this second video and listen as Michelle Phan describes how she puts on her make up.



  • The vocabulary in these videos and the range of accents can be very challenging, but if you watch and listen to a number of different ones you will find they become easier to understand, and if you do have a problem with understanding some of the things that they are saying or doing, remember that you can leave a comment or ask a question by going to the video on YouTube.
  • Here's one more video for you to watch. In this one Elle describes the make up used in the 'Blockbuster' movie 'Twilight'.




One of the great things about people who produce these kinds of videos is that they welcome communication with the people who watch their videos, so you can either go to their channel on YouTube and send them a comment or question or you can follow them on Twitter and see what they have to say and ask them questions.
I hope you enjoy watching these videos, learn a little more vocabulary and have some practice at understanding different US accents.

Here you can find more video based activities for EFL ESL students

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Study a Classic of Literature

Many great works of literature have been translated into other languages, but there is nothing quite as good as reading a book in the original language. In today's activity you are going to study a classic of English literature; 'The Old Man and The Sea' by Ernest Hemingway.


You are going to use a number of different tools to make this easier and more enjoyable.

Task:
  • First go to Wikipedia and find a summary of the plot. You can do this with most books, just by searching for the name in Wikipedia. Click on the link to see The Old Man and the Sea Plot.
  • Read through the plot, then watch this animated video of the story. It takes about 20 mins, so make sure you have time before you start.



  • Now that you know the plot and have seen the video you should be able to tackle the book.
  • You can read the complete book online at Google books The old man and the sea
  • The book is quite long to read, but you should now have a good grasp of the story. If you want to study the story in more depth you can find notes and analysis of the story at: SparkNotes - The old man and the sea
This is a good way you can try to read and understand more classics of English literature.
I hope you enjoy this classic story and find many more to read.
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Learn from and Create Animated Music Videos

Learning English from songs lyrics and music is a great way to study. In today's activity you are going to be able to watch and enjoy some simple 'stop motion' animated music videos and then find out how to create your own.
The videos for you to watch come from two sources; Music and Muffins and SereneRhapsody and you can find more examples on their YouTube Channels

Task:
  • For the first part of this task, you can simple watch and enjoy two short music videos and just decide which video you like the most.
  • This one is "You Could Be Happy" and the music is by Snow Patrol



  • This one is called "Rain drops" and the music is by Regina Spector


  • You can find more videos like this at Music and Muffins and Serene Rhapsody
  • Once you have chosen the video you like best, think about how the images illustrate the story of the song.
  • Try to think of a song that you like and the story behind the song.
  • Find the lyrics for the song at: http://www.lyrics.com/ and copy each line of the lyrics onto a sheet of paper.
  • Put the sheets of paper in order and then do a simple sketch on each sheet of paper to illustrate the line from the song.
  • Now using a simple digital camera you can create your own 'stop motion' video of the song.
  • Here you can find step by step instructions showing how this is done.
  • Here you can watch a video of how to make stop motion videos


  • Once you have create your video you will need to add the sound track too. This is a great way to enjoy music and develop your English.
I hope to see some of your videos on YouTube soon.


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Learning Phrases and Phrasal Verbs

Most students find learning phrasal verbs a real challenge. They can be confusing and complex, but today's activity looks at a way that you can make learning them a little more fun.

This activity combines two different website Phrases.net and TransL8it to help you learn and test yourself on new phrasal verbs.

Task:
  • First decide on the phrasal verbs you want to learn or revise. If you can't think of any then just go to: http://www.phrases.net/ and you'll see some in the left column.

  • Click on one and you'll see that you get more information about it. This includes what it means, an audio clip example of how to say it and an example sentence. You can also get a translation.
  • Listen to the audio clip and then highlight the example sentence and copy it. Once you have copied it go to: http://www.transl8it.com/ and paste or write the sentence into the left hand field. Then click on the button that says 'transL8it-->'. This will translate your text into English sms texting language.
  • Now copy and paste the sms translation into a word processing document.
  • Go back to Phrase.net and repeat this process with ten more example sentences from phrasal verbs you would like to remember and copy them all into your document.
  • Once you have the ten sentences in sms text chat language, try to remeber them and translate them back to standard English ( You can leave this until the next day if you prefer).
  • Once you have finished check your answers by copying and pasting your translations of the sms text into the left column http://www.transl8it.com/ to see if you get the same translation again.

You can use this technique to rivise any new phrases or sentneces that you learn. You could even start translating example sentences from other vocaulary you want to learn. This will also help you to understand English sms and text chat.

I hope you enjoy this activity and try it regularly to develop your memory. here you can find more vocabulary building activities.

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