TESOL Spain Convention-­‐Swap Shop Name: Joseph O’Donnell Work place: International House, Santander Age group: Teenagers and above Type of activity: Grammar review-­‐ guided discovery Level: B1+ -­‐C1 Method: Give out photos of famous people and get ss to speculate about what mistakes they have made or what they might regret. 1. Whole class discussion 2. Give students cards with wish/If only phrases to match to the photos 3. Check in small groups, then whole class. 4. Ss then put cards into 2 categories, depending on if they refer to an action in the past or present. 5. Ss check with whiteboard. 6. Ss discuss the form that is used to talk about past or present regrets and take a note of one or two examples. 7. Teacher does choral drilling, highlighting the weak forms and stress. At the same time they rub out parts of the sentence until there is nothing left, and ss continue to produce the sentence. 8. Ss work in groups to describe a famous person, using wish/If only and the rest try to guess who they are talking about. Lower levels can write a description of the person before reading them out to the group. Further activities • Ss can personalize the language further by writing sentences about their own lives, then mingling to find someone with similar regrets. • Higher levels (B2-­‐C1) could do a sentence transformation exercise reviewing wish and other hypothetical forms. Wish phrases He wishes he hadn’t hurt his hand. He wishes he hadn’t picked up a gun! If only he’d been more honest! She wishes she could be back in her hometown. She wishes her face didn’t look so ugly. He wishes he had a different boss. He wishes he hadn’t been so greedy. If only she hadn’t had plastic surgery! She wishes her boyfriend hadn’t left her. She wishes she could have a more peaceful life. Autobiography I previously taught in Madrid, Valencia and Bilbao, doing business classes and being a D.O.S. for 3 years. I presently work as Senior Teacher at International House, Santander, where I’ve been since 2001. During this time I’ve organized storytelling sessions with Primary Teachers from the Spanish State system, run the IH YLC (Young Learner’s course) in-­‐house, completed the Distance Delta, and organized summer courses, both in-­‐house and abroad. In the next few months I will be delivering an online session at the IH online convention. When I’m not working (less and less these days!), I can be found playing with my two little ones.