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What we Did in our COC IEP 200 Class on Thursday, May 10th

Spring Trimester 2013 Block 2

Lesson 12: (May 9)

In Class

  1. News Hour: Read the “Despite Protests, Builders Remove Part of the Berlin Wall” News for You article and then completed the “Teacher’s Guide” activity that introduced students to the words “despite” and “in spite of”, having them make senteces about the article with those words. Afterwards we had a fun discussion about history and different ways it can be preserved or lost as well as who writes history.
  2. Homework Check-in
  3. Quiz 3
  4. NorthStar 2 R&W: Worked on pages 150 to 151. Students were having some trouble understanding the activity that had them make a brochure, but together we figured it out.
  5. Short Story: Read the third e-mail in the “Sweetie” story on pages 52 to 53 of Frozen Pizza.
  6. Fast Listening: Completed the “Battle at the Front” and “World News Stories”; 2 of the TOEFL listening quizzes from Randall’s ESL Cyber Lab.
  7. Movie Project: Reviewed the proper formatting students should be using for their stories.

For Next Class

To Read

  1. Grammar in Context 1: “4.9 | Making Generalizations” on page 120

To Do

  1. NorthStar 2 R&W: Exercises 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 on pages 151-2
  2. Grammar in Context 1: Exercises 16 to 21 on pages 120-3
  3. Study for Final Exam on Thursday, including vocabulary words from the “World News Stories” listening quiz.
  4. Movie Project: Finish your script.

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.

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

What we Did in our COC IEP 200 Class on Wedensday, May 8th

Spring Trimester 2013 Block 2

Lesson 11: (May 8)f

In Class

  1. News Hour: Read the “How Congress Could Change Immigration LawsNews for You article and then completed the 7 difficult comprehensin questions from the “Teacher’s Guide”. We had a informative discussion about immigration and emigration here in the USA as well as in their own countries. To finish I gave the faux Citizenship Test from the “Teacher’s Guide” orally to the class instucting them to answer as quickly as possible, with the stakes being only 1 of them would win and become a USA citizen.
  2. Homework Check-in
  3. Prepare for Quiz 3: We reviewed this quiz’s study guide (.odt file from danoff.org).
  4. Grammar in Context 1: Pages 114 to 119
  5. NorthStar 2 R&W: Reviewed exercises 3 and 4 on page 149, which (most) students already completed for homework.
  6. Short Story: Read the second e-mail in the “Sweetie” story from Frozen Pizza.

For Next Class

To Read

  1. Quiz 3 Study Guide

To Do

  1. NorthStar 2 R&W: Exercises 1 and 2 on page 150
  2. Grammar in Context 1: Exercise 15 on pages 119-20

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.

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, May 7th

Spring 2013 Block 2

Lesson 10: (May 7)

In Class

  1. News Hour: Read the “For Some, the Air Will Soon Be Thick With Cicadas” News for You article and completed the corresponding Teacher’s Guide exercise. The students were not happy to hear this summer will be very noisy with lots of bugs!
  2. Homework Check-in
  3. NorthStar 2 R&W: “Wh- Questions in the Simple Present Tense and with Can and Should” Grammar reading and exercises on pages 148 to 149 about making questions with auxiliary verbs, with a complementary handout of “UNIT B: Questions from the Understanding and Using English Grammar Volume A (2nd Ed.)” book as well as “Appendix C | Question Formation” (pp. AP4 – AP5) of Grammar in Context 1 (2nd Ed.)
  4. Short Story: Read page 48 of “Sweetie” our newest story from Frozen Pizza
  5. Fast Listening: Taped Library Tour and Airport Announcement
  6. Movie Project: Handed back their first and second scenese they turned in.
  7. Y as a Vowel: During a discussion about vowels it came up that at times the letter “y” can be a vowel. I mistakenly said it is only a vowel when the word has no other vowels. According to OxfordDictionaries.com “The letter Y can be regarded as both a vowel and a consonant. … Whether the letter Y is a vowel or a consonant is therefore rather an arbitrary decision.” Additionally, it should be noted that the letter “w” can also sometimes be a vowel. More reading:

For Next Class

To Read

  1. Grammar in Context 1: “4.8 | Articles with Definite and Indefinite Nouns” on page 118

To Do

  1. NorthStar 2 R&W: Exercises 3 and 4 on page 149
  2. Grammar in Context 1: Exercise 14 on pages 118-9
  3. Study for Quiz 3 on Thursday
  4. Movie Project: Revise your first and second scenes; write your third scene

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.

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

What we Did in our COC IEP 200 Class on Monday, May 6th

Spring Trimester 2013 Block 2

Lesson 9: (May 6)

In Class

  1. News Hour: Read the Boston Marathon Bombings News for You article as well as the Simple English Wikipedia article about the event and then I had the students compare and contrast the two. Afterwards we discussed the event, whether people were talking about it in their home countries, how the City of Boston responded and how events like these affect people’s interpretations of Muslims.
  2. Homework Check-in
  3. Review Quiz 2 (.odt file from danoff.org) and Grades
  4. Short Story: Finished the “Don’t Miss the Mozart!”story from Frozen Pizza
  5. Movie Project: Handed back student’s first drafts of their first scene and explained tonight’s homework to revise the scene and write a draft of the next one.
  6. Poetry: We read and discussed “Byways and Hedges” by Marwan Fateen
  7. NorthStar 2 R&W: Reviewed student work and discussed the exercises on pages 144 to 147.
  8. Student Questions, two students asked the difference between near synonyms. I am going to do some research, anyone reading with a good answer, please contact meor leave it in the comments, thanks!
    • What’s the difference between really and very?
    • What’s the difference between whole and entire

For Next Class

To Read

  1. Grammar in Context 1: “4.7 | There vs. They and Other Pronouns” on page 115
  2. NorthStar 2 R&W: “GRAMMAR: Wh- Questions in the Simple Present Tense” on page 148

To Do

  1. NorthStar 2 R&W: “GRAMMAR 1″ on page 148 and exercise 2 on pages 148-9
  2. Grammar in Context 1: Exercises 12 and 13 on page 116
  3. Study for Quiz 3 on Thursday
  4. Movie Project: Revise your first scene and write the first draft of scene two

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.

Posted in COC IEP 200, Don't Miss the Mozart!, 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 Tuesday, April 30th

Spring Trimester 2013 Block 2

Lesson 6: April 30

In Class

  1. News Hour: We read the News for You article about students doing the “Harlem Shake” in Tunisia and the reactions from others in their society. After completing the Teacher’s Guide activity, we had an interesting discussion about Tunisia and the Arab Spring in general.
  2. NorthStar 2 R&W
  3. Short Story: Read pages 90 and 91 of the Don’t Miss the Mozart Frozen Pizza story
  4. Fast Listening: Students completed 2 of the TOEFL listening quizzes from Randall’s ESL Cyber Lab:
  5. Movie Project
  6. Handed back Last Month’s Final Exam and Gave Grades

For Next Class

To Read

  1. Grammar in Context 1: “4.5 | Using There + Is/Are” on page 110
  2. Frozen Pizza and other slices of life: Review pages 92 to 93

To Do

  1. Grammar in Context 1: Exercises 6 and 7 on page 111
  2. NorthStar 2 R&W: Comprehension questions on page 141 and “STEP 2: Synthesize” on page 143
  3. `

  4. Study for Quiz 2 on Thursday
  5. Movie Project: Write a script for the story about the dark side in Celtx and e-mail it to me.
  6. Blog: Comment on your partner’s blog
  7. Blog: Respond to your partner’s blog

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.

Posted in COC IEP 200, Don't Miss the Mozart!, 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, April 29th

Spring Trimester 2012 Block 2

Lesson 5: (April 29)

In Class

  1. News Hour: Read the “City in Estonia Gives Citizens a Free Ride” News for You article and completed the comprehension questions from the Teacher’s Guide. Afterwards we had a discussion about the pluses and minuses of the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) and Metra trains in Chicagoland.
  2. Homework Check-in
  3. NorthStar 2 R&W: Reviewed student work on pages 138-9 and read this unit’s second passage on pages 140-1.
  4. Grammar in Context 1: Reviewed grammar concets and question answers, then read the passage on pages 108-9.
  5. Movie Project: Went over the weekend’s Analyze the story exercise in class. The students generally answered the questions correctly, but the story’s dark side/windows metaphor was lost. I gave a quick overview of the force from Star Wars and then the dark side, once that was understood the students got the metaphor that Apple computers were like the Jedi order (good people using the force), and Windows computer were like those who’d chosen the dark side and joined the sith. They didn’t find it funny (and I agree), bute they understood the metaphor joke was not the point of the exercise.
  6. Short Story: Read pages 88 and 89 of the Don’t Miss the Mozart story from Frozen Pizza and other slices of life.
  7. Student Grammar Questions (will be on Thursday’s quiz):
    • What’s the difference between “interesting” and “interested”? “Interesting” is a noun, while “interested” is a verb. Finding something interesting means you like it and/or want to learn more about what you’re describing. To be interested in something means you want to do it or learn more about it; you are interested in things you find interesting.
    • What’s the difference between “instead” and “instead of”? Both mean something replaces another thing; i.e., “rather”. Instead is an adverb, while instead of is a preposition. Instead of can come at the beginning or middle of a sentence; instead in the middle or at the end. Examples: “He chose to play computer games instead of doing his homework.” “He was going to study, but he played computer games instead.” “Instead of his girlfriend cleaning his apartment, he cleaned her house.”
  8. Student Vocabulary Questions (will be on Thursday’s quiz):
    • What’s the meaning of the idiom as a matter of fact? -> It is used when arguing or discussing something with another person to say something surprising; say “Actually …”; “In addition …” and/or to clearly state a fact. The word “matter” means something that is important.
    • “The ‘L’” taught students that in chicago typically the CTA trains are not called the subway, but its local nickname instead: “The ‘L’” which is short for elevated tracks.

For Next Class

To Read

  1. Grammar in Context 1: “Finding an Apartment” on pages 108 to 109
  2. Frozen Pizza and other slices of life: Pages 90 to 91

To Do

  1. NorthStar 2 R&W: Comprehension questions on page 141 and “STEP 1: Organize” on page 142
  2. Study for Quiz 2 on Thursday
  3. Movie Project: Download and install hte Celtx software from celtx.com by clicking “Get Started Now”
  4. Blog: Comment on your partner’s blog
  5. Blog: Respond to your partner’s blog

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.

Posted in COC IEP 200, Don't Miss the Mozart!, 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 Thursday, April 25th

Spring Trimester 2012 Block 2

Lesson 4: (April 25)

In Class

  1. News Hour: Read the “First Lady’s Anti-Obesity Effort Gets Results” News for You article and completed the fun Teacher’s Guide activity that had the students develop a healthy breakfast menu for a food desert. As an astute student pointed out, the article was a nice complement to our current NorthStar 2 Unit on Organic Food. Trans fat commonly used to keep food tasting scrumptously fresh longer was a new vocabulary term. image
    Triglyceride Hydrogenation&Isomerization V.1 by Jü (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons. Afterwards we had a discussion about processed foods and the dubious quality of the AP statistics reported in the article.
  2. Quiz 1 on NorthStar 2 R&W Unity 7 Vocabulary Words; Grammar in Context 1: “4.1 | Singular and Plural-An Overview”

Frozen Pizza and other slices of lifeDownload .odt file from danoff.org

  1. Short Story: Started the “Don’t Miss the Mozart” Frozen Pizza story
  2. Movie Project: Began part 2 of Analyze the story the Wikiversity Film School’s Formatting the Script lesson. Developed a worksheet for the students to complete on their blogs.Download .odt file from danoff.org [54.8 kB].

For Next Class

To Read

  1. Grammar in Context 1: “4.4 | Irregular Noun Plurals” on page 106
  2. Frozen Pizza and other slices of life: Read pages 88 to 89
  3. NorthStar 2 R&W: “B) READING TWO: Miles to Go Before You Eat” passage on page 140

To Do

  1. Grammar in Context 1: Exercises 4 and 5 on page 107
  2. NorthStar 2 R&W: “READ FOR DETAILS” on pages 137-8 and “MAKE INFERENCES” on page 139
  3. Study for Quiz 2 on Thursday
  4. Movie Project: Complete the Analyze the story exercise on your blog.
  5. Blog: Comment on your partner’s blog
  6. Blog: Respond to your partner’s blog

Posted in COC IEP 200, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, Grammar in Context 1 Fourth Edition, IEP, NorthStar: Reading and Writing Level 2 Third Edition, Star Reporter, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we Did in our COC IEP 200 Class on Wednesday, April 24th

To see all the classes from Spring Trimester Block 2 IEP 200 class at the College of Chicago, please read the course calendar (https://www.mr.danoff.org/COC-IEP-200-Spring-Trimester-2013-Block-2-Calendar.html).

Lesson 3: (April 24)

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

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.

Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, Star Reporter, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we Did in our COC IEP 200 Class on Tuesday, April 23rd

To see all the classes from Spring Trimester Block 2 IEP 200 class at the College of Chicago, please read the course calendar here.

Lesson 2 (April 23)

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

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.

Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, Frozen Pizza and other slices of life, Star Reporter, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago

What we Did in our COC IEP 200 Class on Monday, April 22nd

To see all the classes from Spring Trimester Block 2 IEP 200 class at the College of Chicago, please read the course calendar here.

LESSON 1

  1. News Hour: Read the “In Myanmar, Freedom of the Press Returns” News for You article and completed the comprehension questions from the Teacher’s Guide. Afterwards we had a discussion about freedom of the press in everyone’s countries.
  2. Short Story: We reviewed the beginning of the Star Reporter story and then read page 83.
  3. Introduce this Month’s Syllabus and Calendar
  4. Movie Project: Explained that all the students will be writing short films this month instead of doing a survey, essay and presentation.
  5. Homework Check-in
  6. NorthStar 2 R&W: Completed pages 134 to 136.
  7. Grammar in Context 1: Worked on pages 102 to 103.

For Next Class

To Read

  1. Grammar in Context 1: “4.1 | Singular and Plural-An Overview” on pages 102 to 103
  2. Frozen Pizza and other slices of life: pages 76 to 83 of the “Star Reporter” story

To Do

  1. Project: Choose a subject or place for your movie and write about it on your blog
  2. Grammar in Context 1: Exercise 1 on page 103
  3. NorthStar 2 R&W: “C BACKGROUND AND VOCABULARY” exercise on pages 135 to 136
  4. Study for Quiz 1 on Thursday
  5. Bring your laptop to school on Tuesday

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.

Posted in COC IEP 200, ELL, ELT, ESL, TESL, TESOL, The College of Chicago