Q: Skills for Success: Listening and Speaking 5: Half a Crossword Vocabulary Review for Units 1 and 2

(Supplementary Materials for Specific Textbooks--Q: Skills for Success: Listening and Speaking 5)

Drive--created using Half a Crossword

Body of Lies: Movie Review (Scripted)

Video version of an old post (as I explained about HERE)
For the original post, see:
http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2009/06/body-of-lies.html

Update April 20, 2024: The original site is no longer working.  Here's a new link to another site that does the same job: https://monolithpl.github.io/half-a-crossword/

Half a crossword--https://halfacrossword.com/

I've just discovered this website (it's popular at my new job) and I thought I'd share it.
I've previously posted about Crossword puzzle maker.  This is similar, but different.  You put in the vocabulary words, and it makes two crosswords--each with half the words filled in.  Students work in pairs to complete the crossword.  Students have to keep their sheet hidden from their partner, and can only give hints about the missing words (without saying or spelling the words directly.)  Working together, they each have to complete their half of the crossword.

This is similar to a traditional crossword, but the difference is that instead of the questions being pre-made, the students are now making their own questions.  So it's more communicative, and better speaking practice.

Also, it's much easier to make.  As much as I love Crossword puzzle maker, it does sometimes take forever to think of exactly the perfect question for each vocabulary word.  (Even just copying and pasting them from the dictionary is somewhat laborious.)  But with Half a crossword, you just type the words into the generator, and don't have to worry about question prompts.

And, you can save it as a PDF, so you can keep it in your files for future use after you make it.

Glengarry Glen Ross: Movie Review (Scripted)

Video version of an old post (as I explained about HERE)
For the original post, see: 

http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2009/06/glengarry-glen-ross.html

The first option is the most expensive option that you will travel to an overseas country.

 (Grammar Questions I Couldn't Answer)

This is one that (with the help of some colleagues in the staffroom), I think I did actually find an answer for eventually.  But I'd appreciate a second opinion if anyone else wants to have a look at this.  Did I get the right answer in the end?

When marking a student’s speaking video, I came across the following sentence: "The first option is the most expensive option that you will travel to an overseas country."

My native speaker intuition told me that something was wrong, and having taught relative clauses recently, I was pretty sure I knew what it was.  The relative pronoun “that” was referring back to “option”, but “option” was neither the subject or the object of the following clause, so the relative clause was incorrectly formed.
My native speaker intuition was also telling me that the sentence could be fixed by replacing "that" with "which is that"--i.e.   "The first option is the most expensive option which is that you will travel to an overseas country."  But I couldn't figure out what the explanation for this was so I couldn't explain it to the student.

I asked some colleagues around the staffroom, and we discussed and batted some ideas around, and looked in some grammar books.  Eventually, we decided that "...which is that you will travel to an overseas country" is not actually a relative clause, but what the grammar books called a "that-clause".  

So I ended up writing the following feedback to the student:

"The first option is the most expensive option that you will travel to an overseas country."--This is a good attempt at a relative clause, but you can't actually use "that" as a relative pronoun here, because (as we discussed in class) the relative pronoun has to be the subject or the object of the next clause.  As a relative pronoun, "that" would refer back to the noun preceding it (in this case "option").  So you could say, for example:  "This is the most expensive option that you can choose"---(the relative clause is "You choose that" mean "You choose the option").  But you can't say "that you will travel to an overseas country."  You could, however, use "which" to refer to the previous clause (see p.76 of the textbook--"which" can refer to the whole of the previous clause").  You could then connect which to a "that clause"--(which is a declarative clause, different than a relative clause) and say "The first option is the most expensive option, which is that you will travel to an overseas country."

What do you think?  Did I explain this accurately to the student?

 Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause: Movie Review (Scripted)

Video version of an old post (as I explained about HERE)
For the original post, see:
http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2009/04/noam-chomsky-rebel-without-pause.html

Crossword puzzle maker--https://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/

This is another website I've used frequently in the past, but am just getting around to posting about now.  Actually I've referenced this website in my "Activities that can be used for any Grammar Point" workshop.  
At the time I said:

Crossword Puzzle (Materials: Crossword puzzle worksheet.  Possibly an answer sheet ) (Preparation:  Make the crossword--usually about 20 minutes)
Make a crossword puzzle containing the target grammar point. 
There are various online resources for this, but I like: http://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/ since it allows you to save the crossword as a PDF file, so you can save it in your folder and keep it for future use.
Variation: Crossword Puzzle Treasure Hunt
Remove the questions from the bottom of the crossword, and give the students only the blank grid.  The questions are written on a separate piece of paper, and then are cut up and put all around the room.  (They can be deviously hidden, or they can be placed in obvious places.)  Students are put into groups, and given one crossword grid per group.  They must go around the room to find all the questions, and complete their crossword.  The first team to successfully complete their crossword grid is the winner.

But I wanted to make a separate post here, because I also want to index this in my list of materials for any vocabulary set.  (And indeed, practicing vocabulary is the more natural application of a crossword puzzle anyway).  

Tropic Thunder: Movie Review (Scripted)

Video version of an old post (as I explained about HERE)
For the original post, see:
http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2009/05/tropic-thunder.html

Using "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" to teach Reported Speech

(TESOL Worksheets--Reported Speech)
Slideshow: slides, pub
Worksheet: docs, pub
[Explanation: I've previously used Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day as part of my Story Time project, but I decided to also use it to teach reported speech.
I re-worked the sentences in the story slightly to more closely follow the rules of reported speech in prescriptive grammar books.  (In the original book, only about half of the sentences followed the prescriptive rules.)]
[Procedure: On the slideshow, I go through the vocabulary first.  Then, before looking at the story, in groups students predict all the bad things that they think will happen to Alexander.  Groups are told to listen to the story, and get one point for each correct prediction.  After the story finishes, we check to see which group got the most points.  Then, I back the slideshow up to slide 80 "I could tell because Paul said I wasn’t his best friend anymore," and elict from students what the original direct speech form must have been, and what changes were made to make it into direct speech.  Then I hand out the worksheet, and in groups students look at the various examples of different reported speech, and formulate the rule for each group.  Answers are checked in open class feedback.  Next I usually insert some type of controlled practice (e.g. Reported Speech Naruto PowerPoint Game).  Then as a final productive task, students have to tell or write their own story about a bad day, and use reported speech.]

Present Simple
Direct Speech	Reported Speech
“Paul, I like your picture of the sailboat” “You’re not my best friend anymore.” “Philip Parker is my new best friend.” “I hope you sit on a tack!” “You’re a crybaby” “We’re all sold out”	Mrs. Dickens said that she liked Paul’s picture of the sailboat Paul said I wasn’t his best friend anymore. He said that Philip Parker was his best friend I told Paul that I hoped he sits on a tack. Nick said I was a crybaby the shoe man said that they were all sold out.

Timeless situation (present tense)
Direct Speech	Reported Speech
“Some days are like that”	My mom said that some days are like that.

Present Continuous
Direct Speech	Reported Speech
“I’m being scrunched” “I’m being smushed” “You’re singing too loud” “I’m having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” I’m going to Australia next week”	I said I was being scrunched. I said I was being smushed. she said I was singing too loud. I told everyone I was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I told him I was going to Australia next week.

Past Simple
Direct Speech	Reported Speech
“You forgot sixteen”	she said that I had forgotten sixteen

Modal Verbs
Direct Speech	Reported Speech
“You can’t play with my copying machine”	he said that I couldn’t play with his copy machine

Conditional (going to)
Direct Speech	Reported Speech
“If I don’t get a seat by the window, I’m going to be carsick”	I said that if I didn’t get a seat by the window, I was going to be carsick.

Imperatives (affirmative)
Direct Speech	Reported Speech
“Come back next week” “watch out for the books on my desk”	Dr. Field told me to come back next week He also said to watch out for the books on his desk

Negative Imperatives
Direct Speech	Reported Speech
“Don’t fool around with my phone” “Don’t pick me up at the office anymore”	He also told me not to fool around with his phone My dad told us not to pick him up at the office anymore.

will future
Direct Speech	Reported Speech
“Come back next week and I’ll fix it.”	Dr. Field told me to come back next week and he would fix it

Iron Man: Movie Review (Scripted)

Video version of an old post (as I explained about HERE)
For the original post, see: 
http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2009/05/iron-man.html

Abandoned: Assessing Young Language Learners by Penny McKay

So, I wrote back on Sunday that I was taking advantage of the wife and daughter being gone to catch up on my blogging, and clear out all my abandoned books out of my current reading list.  And this is the last one.  

I started this book on March 13, 2019, but truthfully never got more than a couple pages into it.  I re-started it a few more times in the following months, but never managed to get into it for one reason or another.

I did use it as a useful reference for Delta Module 3, but never read it cover to cover.  And now that Delta Module 3 is over, plus now that I'm no longer primarily teaching Young Learners, there's no reason to come back to this book.  And that's that.

Video HERE and embedded below:

Make your own word search puzzle--https://www.armoredpenguin.com/wordsearch/

I've used this website a lot over the years.  And in fact, on this blog I've posted a lot of materials made using this website.  (Mostly in my Supplementary Material for Specific Textbooks posts.)  But since I'm making more of an effort to index my activities that can be used with any vocabulary set, I thought I'd create a separate post to plug this website.

I should note that not everyone in ESL is a fan of word searches.  I once had a manager who frowned on the activity because you could complete the activity without ever understanding a word of the target language.  But I find it useful with Young Learners who are in the early stages of literacy.  5 is probably too young, and 10 is too old but for around 6 to 9 year olds I find word searches work good as a pre-writing activity.  It focuses the child's attention on the written form of the word, and so I use word searches in a Young Learners vocabulary lesson as a mid-step between recognition activities and written production.

There are a lot of websites on the Internet nowadays for making wordsearch, but I've always found https://www.armoredpenguin.com/wordsearch/ to be useful.  One of the reasons I like armoredpenguin is because you can download your word searches as PDF files after you've created them, and then save them on Google Drive for future use (or to share with other teachers).  And in my Google Drive are loads of word searches made at armoured penguin.

Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in our Times: Movie Review (Scripted)

Video version of an old post (as I explained about HERE)
For the original post, see:
http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2009/05/power-and-terror-noam-chomsky-in-our.html

Abandoned: Children Learning English by Jayne Moon

I started this book on February 06, 2019.  
The reason I was reading this book was because I was doing Delta Module 3, and my specialism was Young Learners.  
Now, one of the things they tell you about Delta Module 3 is that you're not supposed to read books cover to cover.  There's no time and there's too much ground to cover.  (You need to cite 5-6 different sources for each section.)  You're only supposed to skim the book to find the exact information you need.
But, since I've always done things the hard way, I had the idea that while I did the usual skimming and scanning, I would also read through books on the side.  (In theory, I try to always be reading one book related to professional development.  So I thought I just move my professional development reading over to the Delta Module 3.)
I did get one Delta Module 3 Young Learners book read cover to cover--Teaching Young Language Learners by Annamaria Pinter.  Immediately after finishing that book, I started on Children Learning English by Jayne Moon.  But I never finished Children Learning English.

It was a busy year and I got distracted by other things.  I began to realize I knew nothing about assessing young learners (also part of the Delta Module 3), so on March 13, I shifted gears to Assessing Young Language Learners by Penny McKay.  At that time, I hadn't finished Children Learning English, but I thought maybe I could read both of them at the same time--finish up Jayne Moon while still reading Penny McKay.  It was overly optimistic.  I was working two jobs, and writing the Delta Module 3, and dealing with a baby in the apartment.  And then in June I got transferred over to the Teacher Training Department, and on the advice of my new colleague, started re-reading Learning Teaching by Jim Scrivener.  
Like I said, it was a busy year.

But that being said, I did also waste some time that year.  I spent a lot of time on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter.  If I had been a little bit more disciplined, I totally could have finished this book.
I mention that because I almost finished this book.  I got about 70 pages into, and then stopped reading it, and then a couple months later picked it up again, and decided to start from the beginning again, and got pretty close to finishing it.  I don't remember exactly what page I stopped on, but it was around 130.  And the book is only 181 pages long.  I was in sight of the end when I stopped reading.

I mention that with regret, because I like being able to finish a book, review it on this blog, and count it as one of my "books read".  And I fully realize no one cares about that but me, but I care about it.  I tend to measure a fair amount of my success in life by how many books I tick off each year.  (I haven't been doing well lately.)

But at this point, it's too late to just pick up where I left off and finish the book. Too much time has gone by, and it's so faded in my memory that I can no longer talk about it intelligently.  I'd have to start all over again from the beginning if I wanted to give it a proper review.

And on top of that, I've changed jobs this year, so I'm no longer working primarily with Young Learners anymore.  So, for the moment at least, this book is not even linked to my professional development.  So there's absolutely no reason to read it now.

Like I said, because this book has faded in my memory, I can't really talk about this book intelligently now.  I can just make some general comments.
There are a lot of little comics and illustration on this book that make it look visually appealing and attractive when you flip through it, but I found the text of the book (the actual main content) to be on the dry side.  Several times I found my attention wandering when I was supposed to be reading it, and had to re-read the same page several times.  (Another reason I didn't make better progress than I did.)  

I was a bit surprised how none of this book appeared to be based on research.  There are a lot of good ideas in here, to be sure, but it appears to be just ideas that the author picked up over her years of teaching.  There was nothing linked to research or data, which meant it was not particularly useful for me on my Delta Module 3.  Which surprise me because this book does pop up on Delta Module 3 reading lists for the Young Learners specialism.  (Before writing this post, I went over to my Delta Module 3 paper to see how often I had cited this book, and when doing the Ctrl+F function, I was surprised to realize I never cited it once.)

But the book is still useful for getting practical ideas from if you are teaching young learners.

Video review HERE and embedded below:

Napoleon by Felix Markham: Book Review (Scripted)

Video version of an old post (as I explained about HERE)
For the original post, see: 

http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2009/05/napoleon-by-felix-markham.html

Abandoned: Practical English Usage by Michael Swan (Third Edition)

I created a started post for this book on November 21, 2017, but I had actually started practicing this book on Quizlet two years before that.
As I wrote in the 2017 started post, I got the idea to integrate this book into the Quizlets I was already doing with Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics.
In other words, the circumstances in which I was studying this book is exactly the same in which I was studying Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics.  Which means the reasons for abandoning it are the same as well, which means this is exactly the same as well.  Which means this is exactly the same situation as the post I wrote yesterday on abandoning Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics.  Well, no point repeating myself here then.  

Quizlet Folder here.

Video HERE and embedded below.

The Watchmen: Movie Review (Scripted)

Video version of an old post (as I explained about HERE)
For the original post, see:
http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2009/05/watchmen.html

Wagner: A Documentary Study edited by Herbert Barth, Dietrich Mack, Egon Voss

Video version of an old post (as I explained about HERE)
For the original post, see:
http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2009/05/wagner-documentary-study-edited-by.html

Abandoned: Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics by Jack C. Richards and Richard Schmidt (Third Edition)

(Note: My wife is taking the baby to visit her cousin's family for a couple days, and I actually have some free time to myself for once.  Naturally, I plan on using that free time to catch up on my blogging.  I've got several books on my "Currently Reading" list (located on the left hand side of this blog) that I've actually abandoned long ago, but just haven't gotten around to admitting that I've abandoned .  I'm hoping to use the next few days to catch up on my abandoned posts.  If all goes according to schedule, there should be a few more of these posts over the next couple days.)

Started: I started this book back in August, 2015, although I created an official Started Post for this book somewhat belatedly on November 20, 2017.

In that 2017 post (and the two follow up posts: Started: Practical English Usage by Michael Swan and Struggling to Study Vietnamese) I went into some detail about why I started reading this book, how I was attempting to study it on Quizlet, what the advantages and disadvantages of using Quizlet to study this book were, and how I got distracted by other things.  (And later how using quizlet excessively gave me hand cramps.)

So no point re-hashing all of that again.  Follow the links above, or see the video below.  (I get into the whole story in the video.)
The only things to add are:
1) Even after my interests shifted to other projects, I tried to keep this book going on Quizlet somewhat.  I dropped down to 5 words a day instead of 100 words a day.  I stopped studying it for a couple months, but then tried to pick it up again a few months later.  But I tried to keep it going.
2) Eventually, though, I stopped completely.  I don't remember the last time I practiced this book on Quizlet, but I think it was about a year ago at this point.
3) At this point, I have no plans to start again.  I no longer see the value of practicing this book on Quizlet, and am going to use my time for other projects.

In fact, in retrospect, it's a bit hard to justify all the time and energy I spent practicing this book on Quizlet.  The bulk of that time was years ago (August 2015 to December 2016).  But back in the day, I did spend a lot of time practicing and practicing this book on Quizlet.  It's a classic example of how I will often study hard, but not study smart.  But at the time, it gave me a sense of accomplishment.  It made me feel like I was working toward a goal of being a professional.

Quizlet folder here  and here (the second folder is combined with Practical English Usage).

Video HERE and embedded below:

Get Smart: Movie Review (Scripted)

Video version of an old post (as I explained about HERE)
For the original post, see:
http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2009/05/get-smart.html

The Incredible Hulk: Movie Review (Scripted)

Video version of an old post (as I explained about HERE)
For the original post, see:
http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2009/04/incredible-hulk.html

Ruthless People: Movie Review (Scripted)

Video version of an old post (as I explained about HERE)
For the original post, see:
http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2009/04/ruthless-people.html

A new blog post by researcher Jason - Anderson: “Reading aloud”: What it’s really called and why it’s essential to formal language learning

The article was partially inspired by a twitter discussion (here) in which I took a small part

I'm also curious about this as my TEFL training discouraged making students read aloud in class. I noticed the article you cited is talking about reading aloud to children. Does it also mention making children read aloud?

— Joel Swagman (@JoelswagmanJoel) November 6, 2020