TEACHING MANUAL FOR TEACHERS Teaching Materials Telephone Message Scripts ESL Lesson Idea: Articles "A (or

An)" and "The" Description Many other languages do not use articles before nouns, so determining whether to use "a" ( an ) or "the" in English can be especially confusing. Materials Student Handouts: Use of Articles Suggestions A general rule is that "a" (or "an" before a vowel sound) refers to any object, while "the" refers to a specific object. In addition, certain locations and activities, which are familiar and regular to the speaker, do not require any article (examples: home, school, work, church, class, breakfast, lunch, dinner). Go over the examples on the handout Use of Articles and make sure your students understand them. Statement and Question Exercise: yFirst compose a couple of simple statements using a noun and the article a ( an ), such as I have a dog. I drive a Volkswagon. I ate a sandwich. Write these on the board. yThen elicit question words ( who what when where why how ) and write them on the board. yUse the question words to ask a question about each statement. For example: Statement: I ate a sandwich. Question: Who made the sandwich? yPair students to have them come up with statements and questions (using the ) corresponding to each other s statements. Have them act out their scripted statements and questions for the rest of the class.

ESL Lesson Idea: Body Parts

Description By the end of this lesson, your students should have some familiarity with common terminology for parts of the body. Materials Student Handouts: Body Parts and Unlabelled Body Parts Suggestions Warm-up: Find out how much your students know about body parts. Get your students up and ask them to do the following: Point to your head. Point to your nose. Point to your stomach. Point to your back. Roll up a sheet of paper and use it to point at your ear (for example) and ask students, What s this? (They should respond to whichever body part you point to.) You can use the handout Body Parts to review or introduce the vocabulary. Draw two pictures of a body on the board. Split the class into 2 teams. Give each student a marker. Tell your students to help each other. Ask students to write as many body parts on the board in 5 minutes as they can. Alternatively, use the handout Unlabelled Body Parts. Ask students to turn over or hide the labelled version and have a contest to see who can fill in the most blanks in 5 minutes. This could be done individually or in teams.

ESL Lesson Idea: Describing Clothes Description By the end of the lesson, your students will be able to describe what people are wearing by identifying clothes and colors. Materials Student Handouts: Types of Clothes and Describing Clothes Pictures of clothes from magazines or catalogs, or from the collection of laminated pictures you will find at the Bellevue Learning Center. Bring different colored clothes from home: pants, shirts, socks, shoes, dresses, skirts, ties, etc. Suggestions Warm-up: Show different clothes to the students. Ask your students: What is this? . Write the names on the board. Ask students about colors they know. (Brown, blue, red, etc.) Write the colors on the board. Talk about the Types of Clothes as shown on the handout, and find examples. Ask "Who is wearing a belt today?", "a t-shirt?" etc. Using the magazine pictures, ask students to describe what the people are wearing. Write the words on the board. For example: She is wearing a blue blouse and black pants. Practice reading the sentences aloud with the students. Using the handout Describing Clothes, have students practice the conversation in pairs. Variation: Substitute for the written description a description of what your partner is wearing. Game ideas: yPut chairs in a circle. The teacher stands in the middle. The teacher writes on the board, Switch seats if you are wearing brown shoes. The teacher says Students who are wearing brown shoes switch seats. The teacher tries to find a seat while the switching is going on. The person who is left stands in the middle and says, Switch seats if you are wearing ____. yPicture Race: Use pictures of clothes from the collection you brought in. Assign 10 pictures to groups of about 5 students sitting in a circle. Working individually, they will compete to write brief descriptions of as many pictures as they can in 5 minutes. Then share the results with the class.

ESL Lesson Idea: Describing People Description : To give a physical description of a person, your students need to understand what details are important, the vocabulary to use, and the order in which to give the information. Materials : Magazine pictures of a variety of people - post these on the walls of your meeting room. Student Handout: Describing People Suggestions Introduce some basic vocabulary from the handout Describing People. Model the description order: She (or He) is a (size,) (shape,) (ethnicity,) (gender.) ( He is a tall, slender, Asian boy. ) Gradually add the other descriptive characteristics: eg. She has short, curly black hair. or S/He is in a wheelchair. Give a description of one of the people in the magazine photos you have posted around the room, and have students guess which person you are describing. Have the student who guesses first give a description for his/her classmates to guess. Have the students try to describe themselves and their classmates. Cultural note: Help students to become aware of words that Americans find offensive, such as fat, old, or ugly. Give them other, more socially acceptable words such as heavyset, older, or plain.

ESL Lesson Idea: Describing Symptoms Description Your students need to be able to talk about symptoms when they are occurring so that they can describe them to a health worker. Materials Student Handout: Describing Symptoms Suggestions Using the Describing Symptoms handout, ask students the following questions: What s the matter? Has this ever happened to you? What did you do? What other words do you know when you are not feeling well? Write the sample conversation below on the board. Students will practice the conversation in pairs. Use the pictures of symptoms to practice each one. A: What s the matter?" B: I have a headache. A: I m sorry to hear that. I hope you feel better soon. B: Thanks. For more practice, have students practice dialogues that might occur in the doctor s office or emergency room, asking and answering questions such as: "Where does it hurt?" "How long have you felt like this?" "Are you taking any medication?" "What kind of medical insurance do you have?" With more advanced students, have students practice writing down the symptoms and/or questions in a letter to take to the doctors office. Explain that this will help them to remember everything important and to be better understood. Related lessons: Calling in Sick and Reporting Emergencies

ESL Lesson Idea: Families Description Your students will be introduced to family vocabulary and have a chance to compare families in different cultures. Materials A diagram of your family tree, and pictures of your family. Student Handouts: A Family Tree Suggestions Use the handout A Family Tree to get students familiar with the words. Ask students what other words they know about families. Have pictures of family members and/or diagrams of your family tree posted around so students can see. Ask students to draw their family trees. Invite students to talk about their family trees. Lead a discussion about families. Questions can be: Who do you include when you use the word family ? Where were your parents and grandparents born? Is the size of your family common in your country? How is it similar to other countries? How is it different? Is the way your family lives in the United States similar to the ways other families live in your country? In what ways is it similar or different? At the end of the discussion ask students to conclude with statements based on what was shared. Some questions may be: What did you learn about your view of families? Why are there differences in the way families are structured?

ESL Lesson Idea: Making Conversation Description Developing social skills such as small talk will go a long way to breaking the isolation of many immigrants. This lesson teaches ways to initiate a conversation, some appropriate common phrases used to agree or disagree, and how to politely finish a conversation. Materials Student Handouts: Making Conversation and Conversation Tools Suggestions Begin by demonstrating a simple conversation with a neighbor, as in the handout Making Conversation. Ask your colleague or a student to read the dialogue with you. Present and discuss some of the phrases in the handout Conversation Tools, giving attention to which are appropriate for casual situations, first acquaintance, etc. Point out that many of these phrases are used in combination, for example "Hello, it's nice to see you" or "It's been great chatting with you, see you later." Have students make up skits in pairs, including a casual conversation, and then present them to the rest of the class. Some typical topics for casual conversations are discussed in the related Workplace Lesson Small Talk.

ESL Lesson Idea: Telephone Messages Description Provides practice understanding telephone conversations well enough to take an accurate phone message; a skill that requires experience and strategy. Materials Toy or cardboard cutout telephones. Optional: a tape recorder. Student Handouts: Message Forms and Telephone Spelling Teaching Materials: Telephone Message Scripts Suggestions Help your students to become familiar with the layout of a standard phone message slip. Distribute and discuss the Message Forms to identify what information is needed and how it is generally reported. Define the vocabulary on the message form. Read (or play a tape of yourself reading) the phone messages from the Message Scripts sheet, and have students write notes first on a practice paper, and then on the message forms. Have each student make up his/her own phone message and read it to a partner to take notes. Discuss telephone answering machines and how they work. Read the answering machine message and response from the Message Scripts sheet. If you have a tape recorder, play a tape of yourself reading the answer message. Then speak the response into the toy phone. Emphasize the importance of speaking slowly and clearly. Introduce the students to phonetic spelling with the Telephone Spelling handout, to help them understand better and to be understood when spelling aloud on the phone. Have students make up their own answering machine message and read them to a partner, who then responds.

ESL Lesson Idea: Reporting Emergencies Description Students should know how to access community emergency services, and be prepared to use the telephone to do so. Materials Magazine pictures of accidents and emergencies. Toy phones or cardboard cut-out phones. Student Handouts: Emergency Situations and Calling 911 Suggestions Target vocabulary: medical emergency, accident, injury, fire, crime, stolen car, apartment complex, single family home, etc. Using the handout Emergency Situations, discuss different kinds of emergencies. Review pertinent vocabulary. Using the handout Calling 911, talk about who to call in different kinds of situations and identify the important items that must be reported in an emergency call. Practice asking and answering personal information questions. Make sure that students are comfortable and understandable as they give the necessary personal information. Then model the conversation in the handout Calling 911. Clarify any of the questions that the students may not understand, then have them practice the conversation in pairs first face-to-face, then back-to-back. Let each student pair select a magazine photo. Have the students work in pairs to create their own emergency-911 conversations in response to the pictured emergencies.

ESL Lesson Idea: Talking about our Native Countries Description Your students will give talks about their countries. This lesson will help your students increase their knowledge and awareness of the specific cultures represented in the classroom. Materials Large pieces of blank newsprint or butcher paper and markers. Student Handout: Countries of the World Suggestions Prepare your students during the previous class with the warm-up exercise Countries of the World. Have them walk around the classroom and ask each student where she or he is from. Your students will write the names next to each country on the handout map. For the next class, tell your students to think of at least two questions for each person in the class, about their native country. For the next session, put up large pieces of paper on the classroom walls, one for each country represented in the class. Write the name of the country on the top with a marker. Ask your students to walk around the room and write their questions under each country's name. Some example questions might be: yDo you have American television shows in Mexico? yIs it hot in China? yAre there beautiful beaches in India? yWhat are the schools like in your country? After the questions are written, let the students read them. Give each student, or a team of students for each country, time to think of answers to the questions. Then each student or team will give a presentation about their country, responding to the questions. After all the presentations have been made, ask your students the following: yWhat did you learn about other countries? yDid any of your opinions or impressions change? yWhat did you learn about your own native country from the questions of others? yWhat was the purpose of this exercise?

ESL Lesson Idea: Using the Telephone Description Provides practice phone conversations and phone etiquette; important but difficult skills, due to the lack of visual clues for the non-native speaker. Materials Toy or cardboard cutout telephones. Student Handouts: A Phone Conversation, Phone Dialogues, and Phone Situations. Suggestions Students will have better success responding to phone calls if they are able to be the ones asking the questions. In order to take control of the conversation, or ask for clarification, students need appropriate language to interrupt the caller. For example: Who are you trying to call? What was it that you wanted? Pardon me, but who did you say this was? Could you please spell that slowly? Is that C as in Charlie? Model the conversation in the handout A Phone Conversation and have the class ask questions about anything that they do not understand. In pairs, students will read the Phone Dialogues to each other, and then make up their own conversations using the Phone Situations as a guide. Initially have students practice face-to face, and then back-to-back. Using the toy phones or cut-outs is helpful. Discuss telemarketers and how to respond to them. If a student discerns that a call is from a telemarketer, s/he can simply say, Please take my name off of your list. New legislation requires that telemarketers must immediately end the call when that request is made. See additonal lessons on calling 911 and taking a phone message.