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What we Did in our COC IEP 200 Class on Tuesday, April 9th

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

To see all the classes from Spring Trimester Block 1 IEP 200 class at the College of Chicago, please read the course calendar here. 

Lesson 10: (April 9)

In Class

  1. News Hour: “Colombia’s legacy with Korea” from The City Paper of Bogota
      Comprehension Questions:

    1. Q: What did the UN do in Korea after World War II? A: Divided it into 2 countries: North and South Korea.
    2. Q: What happened on June 25th, 1950? A: The Soviets began their invasion of South Korea.
    3. Q: What was the only Latin American country to join the war? A: Colombia
    4. Q: What was the Admirante Padilla? A: Colombia’s only frigate, or war/naval ship.
    5. Q: What is ASCOVE? A: The Colombian war veterans association, or Asociación Colombiana De Veteranos De La Guerra De Corea.
    6. Q: What do Colombian war veterans want? A: They want their pensions and respect.
  2. Short Story: “Frozen Pizza” story review: Broke students into 2 teams and each had to write 1 comprehension question per page and then quiz the other team.
    • Q: Page 39 – What is Mrs. Stonehouse’s excuse (for the small room with bunnies)? A: The room has a desk.
    • Q: Page 39 – What kind of room does the young man live in? What does it look like? A: A kid’s room. It has rabbits on the walls.
    • Q: Page 40 – How many children does Mrs. Stonehouse have? A: 2
    • Q: Page 41 – What time is Mrs. Stonehouse’s dinner time? A: There is no dinner time.
    • Q: Page 41 – What does Mrs. Stonehouse sound like? A: Her laugh sounds like a mobile phone.
  3. Homework Check-in
  4. Survey – Review organization
  5. NorthStar 2 R&W: Pages 127 to 128
  6. Fast Listening Lesson 8: “Calif. Church Provides Sanctuary To Immigrant” NPR story

For Next Class

To Read

  1. News Hour: “Students Hurry to Finish GED® Test Before It Changes in 2014”

To Do

  1. Project: Make final changes to your survey and make sure your essay is organized correctly
  2. News Hour: Write a summary of the article on your blog
  3. Blog: Make 1 comment on your partner’s blog
  4. Blog: Respond to 1 of your partner’s comment on your blog
  5. Grammar in Context 1: Exercise 14 on page 90
  6. Study for Quiz 3 (Download study guide handout from danoff.org).

COPYRIGHT NOTES

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Posted in COC IEP 200, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, NorthStar: Reading and Writing Level 2 Third Edition, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we Did in our COC IEP 200 Class on Monday, April 8th

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

To see all the classes from Spring Trimester Block 1 IEP 200 class at the College of Chicago, please read the course calendar here. 

Lesson 9: (April 8)

In Class

  1. News Hour: “Pakistani Teen Shot by Taliban Returns to School in England” News for You article. This was the second News for You article we read about Malala, we first discussed her story back in October.
    • Students read the article independently
    • Photocopied the “Teacher’s Guide” activity for the students
    • Had a short class chat about the discussion questions
  2. Homework Check-in
  3. Review Quiz 2 and grades thus far
  4. Survey project: Review hypotheses and go over the survey essay outline:

    1. Introduction
    2. Research
    3. Hypothesis
    4. Results (table, graph)
    5. Analysis
    6. Conclusion
    7. Appendix (survey questionnaire)
  5. Grammar in Context 1: Pages 87 to 89

    • As a comprehension check I had the students work with partners to develop their own “How often …” question as with 2 answer sentences, each having the same meaning, but putting the frequency expression at a different point in the sentence.
  6. NorthStar 2 R&W: Pages 124 to 126
  7. Tech Setup: Wordpress.com app

For Next Class

To Read

  1. NorthStar 2 R&W: Page 127

To Do

  1. Project: Organize your essay into the 7 sections we discussed in class and make the changes I give you in my comments on your essay
  2. NorthStar 2 R&W: Exercise 1 on page 127 and exercise 2 on pages 127 to 128
  3. Study for Quiz 3: Frozen Pizza, Vocabulary plus the words from Fast Listening 7 “Taxi Ride,” Grammar
  4. Blog: Comment on your partner’s blog
  5. Blog: Respond to your partner’s comment on your blog
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Posted in COC IEP 200, ELT, ESL, Grammar in Context 1 Fourth Edition, NorthStar: Reading and Writing Level 2 Third Edition, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Monday, April 1st

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

Details from today’s COC IEP 200 lesson at the College of Chicago.

Lesson 5: (April 1)

In Class

  1. News Hour: “After Chavez, Questions Focus on Venezuela’s Future” News for YouArticle
    • Began by putting the “Check Comprehension” questions from the “Teacher’s Guide”
    • Had students discuss “Teacher’s Guide” discussion questions with their partners then together as a class, had a brief discussion about the differences between capitalism, socialism and communism
    • Asked “If you were Chavez, would you choose your friend to replace you or would you follow the constitution?”
    • During the discussion the word “charisma” came up and we discussed how it referred to a person’s personality
  2. Homework Check-in
  3. Survey project:

    • Questionnaire: 3 questions with numbers (1 to 5, Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree); 7 General Questions
  4. NorthStar 2 R&W: Pages 121 to 122

    • Listened to some of the “Rethinking Depression, Part 3” episode of ideas with Paul Kennedy (an NPR radio show) as it talked abotu SPARX a video game for teenagers with depression. It fit with the North Star unit’s focus on video games that can help people in the real world. (Also gave me them a chance to review the word “acronym” which came up when I was explaining NPR.)
  5. Fluency: IPA worksheet Review
  6. Short Story: Reviewed pages 43 to 44 and read page 45 of “Frozen Pizza and other slices of life”
    • Page 43 – Why did Mrs. Stonehouse think “The poor boy”?
    • Page 44 – Why does the man think Mrs. Stonehouse doesn’t cook proper meals?
    • Page 45 – What kind of pizza did the man microwave?

For Next Class

To Read

  1. News Hour: Read “Pope Francis Brings Many Firsts to the Vatican” News for You article

To Listen

  1. ”Calendars: Daily Planners and Scheduling” ESL Cyber Lab Quiz (http://www.esl-lab.com/eslbasic/calendar-1.htm)

To Do

  1. Project: Finish your survey questionnaire
  2. News Hour: Write a 3 sentence summary of the “Pope Francis …” article and post it on your blog with the tag COCIEP200; then comment on your partner’s blog
  3. NorthStar 2 R&W: Complete exercise on page 123
  4. Study for Quiz 2 on Thursday with the Study Guide (.odt file from danoff.org)
  5. Grammar in Context 1: Exercise 7 on page 85
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Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, NorthStar: Reading and Writing Level 2 Third Edition, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Thursday, March 21st

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

Details from today’s COC IEP 200 lesson at the College of Chicago.

Spring Trimester 2013 Block 1 Lesson 4 (March 21)

In Class

  1. News Hour
    • After reading the “More Elephants Killed as Ivory Prices Rise” News for You article and completing the teacher’s guide questions I repeated yesterday’s activity, asking the students to come up with original solutions to the problems presented in the news article. One of the results is below:
    • Also during our discussion of the article we touched upon “Proper Nouns” and that is something we’ll review again and include in future quizzes.
  2. Quiz 1 (vocabulary)
    • Completed the vocabulary section of the NorthStar Unit 6 exam from the teacher’s guide.
  3. NORTHSTAR 2 READING & WRITING (THIRD ED.)

    • Continued Unit 6, going through the True/False activity on page 120 and reading the passage on pages 119 to 120.
  4. Grammar in Context 1
    • Reviewed the student’s work on Exercise 4.
  5. Spring Trimester Block 1 Tech Setup
    • Spent the afternoon making sure everyone was up to speed with the course’s main 2 technologies:
    • LibreOffice – Tried to make sure everyone had their default language set to “English,” but that proved very difficult with versions installed on Chinese and Korean computers. The LibreOffice defaulted to their language. Overall though, having the students work on their new survey projects directly in front of me on their lapotops allowed me to notice more about what they were doing and be very specific in my critiques. Got everyone on the same page with how the survey project will evolve this semester, and asked them to leave my comments in the .odt file directly so I can check to see if they’ve made the changes I pointed out.
    • Wordpress.com – Everyone was (mostly) comfortable with blogging on their own, the foil I introduced today was how to comment on other people’s posts. Going forward each student will be required to comment on a peer’s blog post with “something nice to say” and a question.
    • One girl changed the native language on her Mac OSX 10.5.8 install to English which was very cool of her! I believe the additional English students have to encounter using English software and websites helps.

For Next Class

To Read

  1. Frozen Pizza and other slices of life: Review pages 45 to 46
  2. News Hour: “After Chavez, Questions Focus on Venezuela’s Future” News for You article
  3. NorthStar 2 R&W: “Step 2: Synthesize” on page 121

To Watch

  1. Watch the second 10 minutes of this lecture http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/foreign-languages-and-literatures/21f-223-listening-speaking-and-pronunciation-fall-2004/video-lectures/lecture-18/ (Short URL http://is.gd/cociep200video4) and write a blog post answering “Do you like the teacher’s style?” and “Why?”

To Do

  1. Project: Write your third research article summary paragraph
  2. News for You: Write a 3 sentence summary of the “After Chavez …” article and post it on your blog with the tag COCIEP200
  3. Grammar in Context 1: Exercise 5 on page 82
  4. NorthStar 2 R&W: Complete the exercise on page 121
  5. Study for Quiz 2 on Thursday

COPYRIGHT NOTES

  • Please respect the copyright plus terms and conditions of all links, books and media not by Charlie Danoff.
  • Unless otherwise noted, white board photos and text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
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Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, Grammar in Context 1 Fourth Edition, NorthStar: Reading and Writing Level 2 Third Edition, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Wednesday, March 20th

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

Details from today’s COC IEP 200 lesson at the College of Chicago.

Spring Trimester 2013 Block 1 Lesson 3 (March 20)

In Class

  1. News Hour
    • Today’s News for You article was “‘Mouse Drop’ Plan May Help Control Guam’s Snakes” and after completing the Teacher’s Guide comprehension questions, I divided them into 2 teams and had each develop a new plan for handling Guam’s snake problem. They had to both write and draw it out, these were the results (seemed like everyone had fun!):
      image

      image

  2. Grammar in Context 1
    • Started lesson 3 and worked through pages 78 to 81, learning about frequency words.
  3. NORTHSTAR 2 READING & WRITING (THIRD ED.)

    • Continued Unit 6, reviewing student’s homework on pages 117 to 119 and doing the first activity on page 119
  4. Comic Book
    • Finished the Fantom of the Fair story from Amazing Mystery Funnies #21, answering the following review questions:
    • Page 7 – What does the thug mean when he says “cut him to ribbons”?
    • Page 8 – What does the Fantom mean when he says “he’s through with crime”?
  5. Short Story: pages 43 to 44 of “Frozen Pizza and other slices of life”
    • Worked through the two pages together and students answered the following questions:
    • Page 43 – Why did Mrs. Stonehouse think “The poor boy”?
    • Page 44 – Why does the man think Mrs. Stonehouse doesn’t cook any meals?

For Next Class

To Read

  1. NorthStar 2 R&W: “READING TWO” on pages 119 to 120
  2. Frozen Pizza and other slices of life: pages 43 to 44
  3. News for You: “More Elephants Killed as Ivory Prices Rise” article

To Do

  1. Project: Revise your first article summary paragraph; find another research article and write another summar paragraph (4 sentences each) then e-mail me the .odt file with everything
  2. News for You: Write a 3 sentence summary of the “More Elephants Killed as Ivory Prices Rise” article and post it on your blog with the tag COCIEP200
  3. Grammar in Context 1: Exercise 4 on page 82
  4. NorthStar 2 R&W: Complete questions 1 to 5 on page 120
  5. Study for Quiz 1 on Thursday

COPYRIGHT NOTES

  • Please respect the copyright plus terms and conditions of all links, books and media not by Charlie Danoff.
  • Unless otherwise noted, white board photos and text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
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Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, Grammar in Context 1 Fourth Edition, NorthStar: Reading and Writing Level 2 Third Edition, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Tuesday, March 19th

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

Details from today’s (Tue. 12 Mar. 2013) COC IEP 200 lesson at the College of Chicago.

Lesson 2 (March 19)

In Class

  1. News Hour
    • Read the “Local Project Puts Brazil’s Poor on the Map” News for You article and had an interesting discussion led by our Brazilian student about favelas. Also completed the Teacher’s Guide activity which had students make vocabulary maps where they used the word in a sentence and made: synonyms, definitions, and a picture of the word. We had a competition having the students try to guess what was eachother’s words via the pictures:
  2. Introduced student this block’s course syllabus & calendar
    • Gave student’s this block’s official course documents for them to use as a guide. (read the18 March 2013 version of calendar here)
  3. Homework Check-in
  4. Review last block’s Final Exam
    • Reviewed last block’s final exam to make sure everyone understood what they got wrong and what they need to review again.
    • Download: Exam / Answers (.odt files from danoff.org)
  5. Quiz 1 Vocabulary
    • Students defined the vocabulary words from page 116 of NorthStar for this week’s quiz and we developed a study guide together for them to prepare.
    • Download: Quiz 1 Vocabulary Study Guide Handout (.odt file from danoff.org)
  6. Survey Project: Review everyone’s topics and introduce how to find research articles, as well as exactly how to write a research paragraph

  7. Short Story: pages 41 to 42 of “Frozen Pizza and other slices of life”
    • Worked through the two pages together and students answered the following questions:
    • Page 41 – What does Mrs. Stonehouse mean by “we just eat and run”?
    • Page 42 – Why does the man say the room is “brilliant”?

For Next Class

To Read

  1. Grammar in Context 1: Page 81
  2. NorthStar 2 R&W: “Serious Fun” on page 117
  3. Review Frozen Pizza and other slices of life: pages 41 to 42
  4. News for You: “‘Mouse Drop’ Plan May Help Control Guam’s Snakes” article on page 1

To Watch

  1. Watch the first 10 minutes of this MIT Lecture (Short URL http://is.gd/cociep200video4) and write a blog post answering “Do you think you could participate in this class?” and “Why?”

To Do

  1. Project: Find your first research article and write your summary paragraph (4 sentences) then put it in the your essay .odt file and e-mail it to me
  2. News for You: Write a 4 sentence summary of the “‘Mouse Drop’ Plan May Help Control Guam’s Snakes” article and post it on your blog with the tag COCIEP200
  3. Grammar in Context 1: Exercise 3 on page 81
  4. NorthStar 2 R&W: Questions on page 118
  5. Study for Quiz 1 on Thursday
  6. Bring your Laptop

COPYRIGHT NOTES

  • Please respect the copyright plus terms and conditions of all links, books and media not by Charlie Danoff.
  • Unless otherwise noted, white board photos and text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
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Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, NorthStar: Reading and Writing Level 2 Third Edition, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Monday, March 18th

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

Details from today’s (Mon. 18 Mar. 2013) COC IEP 200 lesson at the College of Chicago.

NEWS HOUR

The “Teacher’s Guide” activity for the “Experts: Fights in Washington Hurt the Economy” News for You activity was wonderful, forcing the students to distinguish between first, second and third syllables while listening, focusing on fluency.

NORTHSTAR 2 READING & WRITING (THIRD ED.)

Began Unit 6 on video games going through pages 113 to 114.

COMIC BOOK

Read pages 7 and 8 of the Fantom of the Fair story in Amazing Mystery Comics #21 and worked on the following comprehension questions on the board:

FICTION

After focusing last week going through “One of the Lads” again, we started reading the self-titled ” “Frozen Pizza” story (which we looked at briefly last block) from our book of short stories: Frozen Pizza and other slices of life.

HOMEWORK

To Read

  1. Grammar in Context: Pages 77 to 79
  2. Frozen Pizza: Pages 39 to 42
  3. News for You: ” Local Project Puts Brazil’s Poor on the Map”

To Do

  1. Project: Choose a topic for you next survey project and e-mail everything it to me as an .odt file
  2. News: Write a 4 sentence summary of the article and post it on your blog
  3. NorthStar: Write your own definitions of the words on page 116
  4. Grammar in Context: Pages 79 to 80

COPYRIGHT NOTES

  • Please respect the copyright plus terms and conditions of all links, books and media not by Charlie Danoff.
  • Unless otherwise noted, white board photos and text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
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Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, Grammar in Context 1 Fourth Edition, NorthStar: Reading and Writing Level 2 Third Edition, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Tuesday, February 26th

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory — No Comments ↓

Details from today’s (Tue. 26 Feb. 2013) COC IEP 200 Class at the College of Chicago.

NEWS & CURRENT EVENTS

Discussed the “First ’Dear Abby’ Dies, But Column Lives On” News for You article and completed the accompanying teacher’s guide questions.

We arrived at a stirring discussion about working mothers. I outlined how house wives went to working mothers in the later half if the 20th century. Some female students were only interested in becoming working moms.

GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT 1 (FOURTH ED.)

Worked through pages 64 to 66.

CHICAGO CULTURAL RESEARCH PROJECT

Taught the students how to use LibreOffice, Google Drive and their blogs to use as a way to organize the essays they will be writing.

NORTHSTAR 2 READING & WRITING (THIRD ED.)

Reviewed students reading and homework introducing imperatives on pages 106 to 108.

FICTION

Continued with the ‘One of the Lads’ next story from Antoinette Moses’ Frozen Pizza and Other Slices of Life getting through page 30, and answered/discussed these worksheet questions.

HOMEWORK

Everything except “To Do” #1 is the same as in this week’s course calendar (PDF from danoff.org).

To Read

  1. Grammar in Context 1: “SUMMARY OF LESSON 2” on page 67
  2. Frozen Pizza and other slices of life: pages 37 to 38
  3. News Hour: “England Finds a King Under a Parking Lot” News for You article

To Do

  1. Project:
  2. News Hour: Write a 3 sentence summary of the “England Finds a King Under a Parking Lot” article and post it on your blog with the tag COCIEP200

    * Write the second draft of your survey in LibreOffice (ODT file)
    * Upload to Google Drive and share to me and the internet 
    * Put link to the Google Document in your blog

  3. NorthStar 2 R&W: Complete “WRITE: A Web Page” exercise 1 on page 108 and exercise 2 on page 109
  4. 4. Study for Quiz 2 on Thursday (download Quiz 2 Study Guide [PDF from danoff.org])
COPYRIGHT NOTES
  • Please respect the copyright plus terms and conditions of all links, books and media not by Charlie Danoff.
  • Unless otherwise noted, worksheet text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
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Posted in COC, COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, Grammar in Context 1 Fourth Edition, NorthStar: Reading and Writing Level 2 Third Edition, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Monday, February 25th

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory — No Comments ↓

Details from today’s (Mon. 25 Feb. 2013) COC IEP 200 Class at the College of Chicago.

NEWS & CURRENT EVENTS

Discussed the “London Zoo Counts Every Animal, From Tigers to Tarantulas” News for You article and completed the accompanying teacher’s guide questions.

QUIZ 1

Handed back vocab quiz 1 to the students. Overall it was a more difficult for them than I had imagined.

NORTHSTAR 2 READING & WRITING (THIRD ED.)

Was a busy day with NorthStar, as we reviewed pages 99 to 104 the students had completed for homework and did page 105 in class.

Spent the afternoon thoroughly engaging with the “A Healthy Lifestyle” and “Cancer Treatment” listening quizzes. Pre-taught the vocabulary this time and it definitely seemed to help the student’s retention.

MUSIC

Amongst the choice tracks we heard today was Postal Service’s classic “Such Great Heights” re-imagined by Chicago based Team Bayside High (via TSIS):

COPYRIGHT NOTES

  • Please respect the copyright plus terms and conditions of all links, books and media not by Charlie Danoff.
  • Unless otherwise noted, class recap text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
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Posted in COC, COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, NorthStar: Reading and Writing Level 2 Third Edition, TESL, TESOL

What we did in our CoC IEP 200 Class on Wednesday, February 20th

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

Details from today’s (Wed. 20 Feb. 2013) COC IEP 200 Class at the College of Chicago.

NEWS & CURRENT EVENTS

Discussed “Women in Combat” News for You article.

CHICAGO CULTURAL RESEARCH PROJECT

Cleared up some confusion in my original instructions about the students blogging their work, and had old students teach our new student about how to find a research article and write a research article summary paragraph.

Completed the “A Student Credit Card” and “AdSense: Making Money Online” quizzes from Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab.

NORTHSTAR 2 READING & WRITING (THIRD ED.)

Continued Unit 5 checking student’s homework answers, discussing and doing partner work on pages 94 to 99.

FICTION

Continued with the ‘One of the Lads’ next story from Antoinette Moses’ Frozen Pizza and Other Slices of Life getting through page 30, working through these questions.

COPYRIGHT NOTES

  • Please respect the copyright plus terms and conditions of all links, books and media not by Charlie Danoff.
  • Unless otherwise noted, class recap text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
Read more ›

Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, NorthStar: Reading and Writing Level 2 Third Edition, TESL, TESOL