A Concert

Now, here's the concert text. Thanks to another colleague, Judith Ruskin, for having created this text. The
target language areas of this text are verb preposition, and adjective preposition combinations.

Once upon a time there was a young man who was addicted to chocolate. He ate it for breakfast in the
morning, at lunch and dinner - it seemed that he was never tired of eating it. Chocolate with cornflakes,
chocolate on toast, chocolate and beer - he even boasted of eating chocolate and steak. He was married
to a beautiful woman whom he had met when he was recovering from flu. She was a nurse, responsible
for all the patients in the area and very content with her job. In fact the only problem these two had was
his dependence on chocolate. One day the young wife decided on a plan to make her husband allergic to
chocolate forever. She confided in her best friend and asked her to cooperate with her in playing a trick
on her husband. She was aware of the fact that her friend suffered from rats and she asked if she could
borrow some of her rat poison. Her friend was a little surprised at the request but agreed to it and gave
her the poison. The young wife hurried home and started work in the kitchen, very satisfied with herself.
An hour later she emerged from the kitchen proudly carrying a large chocolate cake and the empty tin of
rat poison. "Darling - I've made a lovely chocolate cake for you!" she called fondly. Down the stairs the
greedy husband ran and in short time he had polished it off, right down to the last crumb.

He was released from hospital after only two weeks. He never accused his wife of poisoning him, but he
was always slightly suspicious of her. Needles to say, he never again touched chocolate.

Well, as you can tell my colleague is British and has that touch of famed British love of black humor...

For further information on effective/affective learning:

SEAL

Society for Effective Affective Learning. UK based global association promoting effective/affective
learning.

Suggestopedia

An introduction to Suggestopedia through a look at documentation on the Net concerning its theory,
practice and principles.

BRAIN friendly English Learning Take a look at this exciting approach to learning/teaching English which
focuses on using all areas of the brain while enjoying learning.

Grammar Tip of the Day

Discover grammar tips, writing help, and fun English language facts.

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Step 1: Read (or sing in a quasi recitative style - good luck ;-) the concert to students. Make sure to not
introduce the new material before the concert.

Step 2: Have students split up into teams. Read the concert back with pauses, the focus information
being presented, for the students to fill in. Each correct answer gets a point. For example: You are
working on introducing prepositions, you have read the concert and now read "John went ____ the store
___ the corner". Students shout out "into!" and "on!" and the various teams get points.

Step 3: Have students, in their respective teams, take cards (that you have prepared) with the new
words/phrases on them. Students then place the cards in the correct order of usage, or combine them
with other cards to make sense. For example: Cards have been created with prepositions and nouns.
Students need to then match up the correct preposition with the noun.

Step 4: Have students make up sentences in turn using the paired up cards. For example: Student A takes
the pair "into, store" and says, "He went into the store to buy some food".