Intermediate Level Connectors Chat Board

As with other board games that I have put up on this blog, I hope that this one will be useful to both teachers and students.  I used it recently with an intermediate group of ESL learners in a TOEFL writing preparatory class (they learned how to write independent task essays).  Along with vocabulary building activities, the students had the chance to orally practice using connectors (conjunctions) with the assistance of the attached game board and the comparative word chat board.

You can use a die or not (it will go faster using dice and game pieces).  However, I wanted my students to do a lot of practice, and it was highly successful making the students alternate turns.  They did not finish the whole board, but got a lot of practice after 20-30 minutes.  Happily, they remained engaged until I stopped them because they were challenged creating their own sentences that linked words or ideas from the comparative chat board and used the conjunction that came up next on the board.  The partner could choose any pair of words on the comparative chat board. I was able to monitor students and spot-checked to ensure that they knew how to punctuate coordinating (the FANBOYS) and subordinating conjunctions (e.g., when, because, while, before, after) and conjunctive adverbs (e.g., however, therefore, first, second, finally).

This board is designed for lower intermediate level students.  In the future, I will post my more advanced level game connectors board along with some other ideas for how to use it.  Meanwhile, I hope that you'll find this one useful.

Weather Idioms and Sayings

We don't have many bad weather days in Southern California when we can use an expression like "It's raining cats and dogs." There is even disagreement about whether we should teach this outdated expression even though everyone understands it.  Nevertheless, as teachers of English to non-native speakers, our students should also be aware of common expressions that contain weather language relating to everyday life.  These expressions are what we call idioms. To figure out the meaning of an idiom, you have to go beyond a dictionary definition of each individual word.

Here are some weather idioms that you might find fun to use. Lately have you been feeling snowed under? I've been very busy too, so I haven't had as much time as before to post exercises or lesson plans for you.  Now that I've added another post, however, I feel energized.

Some people think that we only have sunny days in San Diego, but actually we do experience differences in weather. You might think I'm full of hot air, but I'm serious.  We do get big rain storms here in San Diego, usually in January and February.  Here are some questions with weather idioms (with online links to definitions), which you can use as writing or chatting prompts.

1. Do you believe that "Every cloud has a silver lining"?  Explain this saying.

2. Describe the last time that you were snowed under.

3. Have you ever had a fair weather friend?  Describe that friend.

4. Do you believe the saying, "When it rains, it pours"?  Why/why not?

5. What is something that is a breeze for you?  Why do you think it is a breeze?

6. When you have an argument, do you usually let it blow over?  Why/why not?

7. What do you sometimes blow hot and cold about?

8. Describe a time when you were on cloud nine.

9. Has anyone ever stolen your thunder?  What happened?

10. What helps you recover fast when you feel under the weather?

Test your Knowledge of Arabic in English

What I love about teaching English is that it keeps me perpetually interested in learning more about it, especially about its vocabulary.  Take the word giraffe.  The giraffe is not a native animal of the Middle East, yet the word is of Arabic origin. Alcohol, too, comes from Arabic even though it is a drink today forbidden to faithful Moslems. Before I began teaching English to Arabic speakers, I had never given much thought to words in my language that might have Arabic roots.  For those readers who wonder what words they know that come from Arabic, here is a link (another crossword puzzle!) for you. The answer to number one across is in this post. Good luck!

Test Your Knowledge of Spanish in English

Here's another crossword puzzle!  You can test yourself to see how many Spanish words you know in English.  If you're like me, you probably didn't know that all of these words have roots in español.  Have fun!

NB:  Because this online crossword puzzlemaker has a limit of 25 letters and spaces for the clues, the definitions are very short or terse.