In Class

1. News Hour: Read the “Colombian Woman Stands In for Baby Monkey’s Mother” News for You article and completed the True/False questions from the Teacher’s Guide. Afterwards we had a discussion about everyone’s pet history and heard a funny story about one student’s pet birds.
2. Homework Check-in: Changed this up, met with students 1-on-1 to go over their homework and clear up any confusion individually.
3. NorthStar 2 R&W: First I read the passage aloud to the class, then individual students read paragraphs out loud and I corrected their pronunciation. One of the paragraphs had a year, which led to a discussion about pronouncing numbers and years, the notes are below (next week I will make a handout for us to go over these again):

    
   //pronouncing numbers
   
   137
   one hundred and thirty-seven
   one-thirty-seven
   106
   one hundred and six
   one-o-six
   
   //pronouncing years
   
   1950 = nineteen fifty
   2000 = two thousand
   2009 = two thousand and nine
   2010 = twenty ten
   
   1900 to 1999 = twentieth century
   2000 to 2099 = twenty-first century
   
   BC = Before Christ = Before Year 0 = BCE = Before Common Era
   AD = After Death = After Year 0 = CE = Common Era
   

4. Prepare for quiz 1: Students worked in teams to develop review questions and quiz the other teams. I incorporated their questions into the Quiz 1 study guide (download .odt file from danoff.org)
5. Movie Project: Students worked to develop a draft of the first scene of their movie, focusing on 3 questions: Where are they? What do they do (in the scene)? and What do they say (in the scene)?

For Next Class

To Read

1. Grammar in Context 1: “4.3 | Pronunciation of Plural Nouns” on page 105
2. NorthStar 2 R&W: “ASK MR GREEN …” reading passage on page 137
3. Frozen Pizza and other slices of life: pages 86 to 87 of the “Don’t Miss the Mozart” story

To Do

1. NorthStar 2 R&W: “READ FOR MAIN IDEAS” exercise on page 138
2. Movie Project: Write a blog post with a draft of the first scene of your movie, focusing on 3 questions: Where are they? What do they do (in the scene)? and What do they say (in the scene)?
3. Study for Quiz 1 on Thursday
4. Blog: Comment on your partner’s blog

In Class

1. News Hour: Read the “Word Worries About North Korea” News for You article and completed the comprehension questions from the Teacher’s Guide. Afterwards we had a discussion about how everyone felt about North Korea and its leaders recent actions. Some were afraid, others not worried.
2. Tech Setup: Made sure everyone had a working wordpress.com blog and the latest version of LibreOffice. Then had the students develop an “About” page for their blogs, answering: Who are you?; What do you use this blog for? and any other information they wanted to share. Also introduced students to commons.wikimedia.org as a helpful place to get images. Wherever they found their image, they had to make sure to attribute its source properly.
3. Fast Listening: Listening Quizzes for Academic Purposes from esl-lab.com Business Meeting (Short URL www.j.mp/17NI2C3) and ESL Program Meeting (Short URL www.j.mp/ZiAyqj)
4. Short Story: Finished the “Star Reporter” story from Frozen Pizza
5. Homework Check-in
6. NorthStar 2 R&W page 136
7. Movie Project: Had students work in pairs to share their answers to these 4 questions and support eachother:
   1. What is your movie’s topic?
   2. Where is your movie set?
   3. What happens in your movie? (3-5 minutes)
   4. Who are the 6 characters?

For Next Class

To Read

1. Grammar in Context 1: “4.2 | Regular Noun Plurals” on page 104
2. Frozen Pizza and other slices of life: pages 84 to 85 of the “Star Reporter” story

To Do

1. NorthStar 2 R&W: “A) READING ONE: Organic Produce vs. Regular Produce” exercise on page 136
2. Grammar in Context 1: “Exercise 2” on pages 104-5
3. Movie Project: Answer the 4 questions discussed in class on your blog
4. Study for Quiz 1 on Thursday: NorthStar page 136 vocabulary; Star Reporter story and plural vs. singular from page 102 of Grammar in Context
5. Blog: Comment on your partner’s blog

In Class

1. News Hour: “Same-Sex Marriage Cases Fill Seats at U.S. Supreme Court” News for You article
2. Grammar in Context 1: Parts 1 and 2 on pages 92 to 95
3. Review quiz 3
4. Homework Check-in
5. Short Story: Started the “Star Reporter” story on pages 76 to 85 of Frozen Pizzaby reading pages 76 to 78
   • Question: Page 76 – Where was the narrator Tuesday morning? Answer: He was in the Student News office.
   • Q: p. 77 – What was the narrator’s job? A1: Journalist. A2: Editor of the paper.
   • Q: p. 78 – What are the differences between a tabloid and a serious newspaper? A: Tabloids focus on celebrities and do not always tell the whole truth. Serious newspapers focus on world events, economics, and more complex topics.
6. Survey project: Essay and presentation status discussion

For Next Class

To Read

1. Frozen Pizza and other slices of life: pages 76 to 78

To Do

1. Project: Write the analysis paragraph of your essay
2. Project: Make the first draft of your presentation slides
3. Study Quiz 2, Quiz 3 and the vocabulary words from the “Same-Sex Marriage Cases Fill Seats at U.S. Supreme Court” News for You article

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• Unless otherwise noted, white board photos and text Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Danoff. Rights given a CC Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.