Overall, these activities are meant to familiarize Intermediate to Upper-Intermediate English Language Learners with idioms that they may encounter on a regular basis. To do this, students will listen and read along to 6 different idioms being used in a conversation. Next, they will do some quick research to determine the idioms' meanings. After that, students will be given the opportunity to make certain that they understand the meanings by matching the idioms to images. Finally, they will try to create sentences using the idioms and compare them with other learners. While it is not possible to fully "know" some vocabulary words after a class, it is possible to familiarize oneself with these everyday idioms and recognize them when heard outside the classroom.
ACTIVITY 1 - Have students listen to the conversation twice while reading along to the script. Encourage them to guess the meanings of the idioms aloud and compare with fellow classmates. Initial familiarity is the objective and no technical knowledge is needed beyond maneuvering the mouse.
ACTIVITY 2 - This is the most technically-challenging part of the activity set, but it is not too difficult. Have the students click on the link to MICASE (University of Michigan's Corpus of Academic Spoken English). Once at the website you will want your students to enter an idiom in the FIND box. Next, instruct the students to choose ALL for all of the SPEAKER and TRANSCRIPT ATTRIBUTES and then click on SUBMIT SEARCH. This will then show the students real world examples of that idiom. They will be able to see sentences of actual conversations containing the idiom. Based on the dialogue from Activity 1 and now these new examples, direct the students to comment on what they feel is the definition of the word. The students should complete these steps with all 6 of the idioms. After completing this the students can click on the link to URBAN DICTIONARY in order to type in the idiom and see the accuracy of their definitions. They will probably be quite close at this time. This activity is meant to continue the idiom familiarity as well as re-enforce the idea that these idioms are in fact used in everyday life.
ACTIVITY 3 - This activity does not require any special technical knowledge and its purpose is as a morale booster for the students. By having the students match the idioms with the appropriate images, the students will feel more confident in understanding the meaning of a given idiom if heard outside the classroom. This leads to the final activity.
ACTIVITY 4 - No technical knowledge is needed for this final activity. Direct the students to write a sentence, or two, using each of the 6 idioms. Inform them that the objective is to show to others that they understand the meanings of the idioms to the extent that others can read their sentences and infer the meanings themselves. They are, in fact, changing from students into teachers.
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