The Disappearing Text - No Prep ESL Activity

-

This is one of my favorite post-reading activities & students of all ages enjoy it too. The best part is it engages your students for 20+ minutes & it's No Prep! Try it with your students next week & let me know how it went! =)

Skills Engaged: Reading, Pronunciation, Memory, Writing, Grammar, & Spelling.
Materials: whiteboard, marker, & eraser

Step by step:

  1. After reading a passage, elicit the sequence of events into a summary of about 5-10 sentences written on the whiteboard.
  2. Read the summary chorally.
  3. Randomly erase 4-8 words (depending on the length of your summary) & underline the blank where the words used to be.
  4. Read the summary again & see if students can still remember the words that were erased.
  5. Ask for volunteers & allow each to erase 2 words & underline the blanks until another 4-8 words have been erased.
  6. Repeat steps 4-5 until there are enough blanks to challenge your students but not too much to discourage them. You will know this when the pauses during choral reading get longer & longer.
  7. Have students write down in their notebooks what they can remember. The teacher can do so too & have the students check your work.
  8. In pairs, students to check each other work & maybe even your work.
  9. Finally, fill in the blanks on the whiteboard together as a class & have students write the complete summary down in their books.

Popular posts from this blog

Understanding The New SPM (2021) English 1119 Paper Format

-
Image
This outline & those of other SPM language papers were made publicly available on the Lembaga Peperiksaan Malaysia (LPM) website . I'm sure you've seen the above being circulated on the internet. But, what does it mean? How does this paper compare to the current SPM paper for English? Do we have to change our testing practices in Form 4? At this moment, information is sparse despite great public interest. As the head of the English panel at my school, my Form 4 colleagues will come to me for what to do & parents will ask me what this is about. Until we have very specific instructions from the ministry, this is what I will be telling my colleagues & parents based on the limited amount of information available to me from my intimate experience with the current SPM paper & second-hand information about the PT3 English paper. Let me know if I got anything wrong or if you have more detailed information.
Open Full Post »

What To Do When Your Unifi Service Suddenly Drops

-
Image
After finally putting my kid to sleep, I was about to settle into the couch with my wife & stream a movie, when my Unifi fiber optic internet connection suddenly dropped. When it didn't come back after 1 hour, I realized that I had to do something. Considering that I pay my bills promptly every month, it must be a technical issue. Here's what I did to fix the problem. It look me less than 20 minutes. 1. First, I checked my modem (the white machine). I checked the lights on the modem. When the modem is functioning properly, lights will be on for POWER, PON, LAN1 & TEL1. If the red light for LOS lights up, call 100 to resolve the issue. Also, I made sure that all the wire connections were tight. 2. Next, I checked my router (the black machine). Again, I checked the lights. When the router is functioning properly, lights will be on for POWER, GLOBE, WIFI, LAN1. My POWER light was blinking, so that means that there was no internet connection. Again, I made sure th...
Open Full Post »

How To Fix Logitech Options Not Loading

-
Image
I use a Logitech K380 bluetooth keyboard at home & love it to bits. Very quiet & the tactile response is just perfect. Also, it's super small so easy to put away when I need to pile exam papers on my desk. Still, there's one small problem though... It is a compact keyboard so the multimedia buttons double as function keys. I use the function keys A LOT & it's really cumbersome for me to have to hold the "fn" button every time I want to use them. I.e., try pressing alt+fn+f4 with one hand. Thankfully, with the Logitech Options software, I can default to the function keys. A few months ago, I was chagrined to learn that my keyboard had spontaneously returned to factory settings. "No problem", I thought. "I'll just change the settings in Logitech Options." Only to find that the app wouldn't load on my Windows 10 machine, resulting in the blank window you see screen-captured above. "Let me try reinstalling." Uni...
Open Full Post »

Exotic Fruit: Buah Isu

-
Image
I've been teaching in the Iban motherland for more than 1 year now & I have tasted many exotic fruits exclusively available only within these quiet secluded timber forests. Now, don't you smirk at me! You perverted baskets I call friends are thinking about a different 'fruit'! There are no innuendos here. The exotic fruits that I'm talking about are REAL fruits. First, let me introduce you to the cousin of the king of fruits... Buah Isu Buah Isu resembles it's cousin, the Durian , but I was told that it is NOT in the Durian family. The spikes are longer & they are sharper. They are also very much smaller than the Durians. It's about the size of a man's palm. It has a pleasantly sweet fragrance which is not pungent like the Durian's. Because of it's size, it is easily opened with a cleaver. After opening my first Isu, I couldn't help but bounce off the walls in gay laughter. It was all too amusing to me! I though...
Open Full Post »

Tip SPM Dari Pelajar-Pelajar Cemerlang Straight A+

-
Image
This morning, I attended Kapten Talk 2.0: Student Edition. After feeding my baby & tucking him in for his late morning nap, I finally had time to look at my messages. Lo' & behold, a friend sent me a poster about a webinar by straight-A+ students. Interesting! I sheepishly looked at the date, what? TODAY! Heart racing, I quickly glanced at the time, 11 PG. Oh, petang. Wait a minute, MANA ADA 11 PETANG? PAGI LA BODO! My eyes darted to the upper right corner of the screen. 10.45AM! I quickly forwarded the poster + some ulasan to ALL my students' groups as well as to my school staff's chatgroup on WhatsApp. Feeling bad that I gave them so little notice, I knew I had to attend, take notes & share those notes with my students. Since I'm doing that, I might as well share it with everyone. The notes are written in my broken BM to include my lowest-performing students. "How much you achieve is how much you prepare" - Luqman Nawar, 9A+
Open Full Post »