The Holstee Manifesto

What is your passion?

First, I show the students this video.  Then we read the manifesto.  Each student works with another student.  They each alternatively read one sentence. 

After giving a few examples of what a person's passion is - the thing we spend our time, energy and money on - the students are instructed to write a list of 50 things they love TO DO.  Making it action oriented makes them think more about WHY they love it. 

Then they look at their list and put a star by 5 or so things that they love to do the most. 

We do a round robin or cocktail party like exercise in which each student talks for 1-1.5 minutes about one of the things they starred.  Their partner then talks for the same length of time. 

Change partners and talk about a different thing from the starred list.

At the end, we look at the list.  Are they majoring in what they love?  Are they spending time doing the thing that is their passion?  If not, challenge them to make their lives more passionate. 

The Holstee Manifesto:

Meditation

From Asian Conference on Education, Osaka Japan
October 28-30, 2011

The following material was written by Pamila J. Florea. It may not be copied without the author's permission. Please feel free to contact me at pamilajflorea@gmail.com

Using Meditation in the Classroom, the Nuts and Bolts

In the classroom, start by telling the students what will happen.

“We will do a guided meditation. You will close your eyes. I will tell you what to see in your mind. Use your imagination. There is no right or wrong. Just see what happens. Will you trust me?”

Inevitably the students say yes, and we begin by preparing ourselves and the space.

• Clear the space physically – removing unnecessary items.
• Sit or stand comfortably, both feet on the floor.
• Hands and (if sitting) laps are free from objects.
• Open arms and say “Free” several times until initial nervousness dissipates.

Students are then asked to put their hands down and to sit comfortably. They are asked to close their eyes when they are ready. The teacher turns out the lights and tells them that she will not move from the front of the classroom the first time. After the first time, students are informed that the teacher will move about the classroom, tapping various students on the shoulder to answer direct questions put to them. More on that is below.

Dictation Scripts:

Each person will dictate a script differently. After a few times of reading a script, a teacher can recognize the elements and use them without reading. Remember to take your time, breathe slowly and enjoy the process.

Beginning script for each meditation:
“Close your eyes. Make any small adjustments you need to make to be comfortable. Take a deep breath and relax. Breathe in through your nose … and out through your mouth. Take another deep breath. In… out... As you breathe relax your body. Drop your shoulders, role your head to the right and to the left and back to center. Touch your chin to your chest, back to center and then lean your head back and then back to center. One more deep breath in …. and out…"

The body of the meditation is then spoken.

Ending script for each meditation:

“Stay there for a moment. I will count back from five. When I reach zero, you may open your eyes when you are ready. Five… four… three… two… one. When you are ready, you may open your eyes.”


The Body of the Meditation Example:

Using the Five Physical Senses: Home with family / friends.

“Imagine you are visiting your family’s home or the home of a friend. Stand at the front door and look around. You are alone in this room. You can smell something cooking in the kitchen. It smells really good! Take a few deep breaths, and smell the food. Do you know what it is? Walk to the kitchen and stand at the doorway. Look inside. Another person is there, greet that person. Walk toward the stove. Look at what is cooking. What color is it? Is it one thing or many things? Pick up a spoon and dip it into the food. Taste the food. Put the spoon down, then walk back to the front door and step outside.”

1. Plans: Bucket list
Students are shown the trailer for the movie The Bucket List (Reiner, 2007) and then instructed to imagine “What will be different in your life 5 years from now?” They spend a little time imagining based on the instruction to think of “What will your family look like? What hobbies will you have? Where will you have traveled? Will you be working or in school? Will you be in a committed relationship?” Students are encouraged to look further and further into the future. Students then use this meditation to actually write a bucket list for their lives.

2. Conditionals: If I had a Million Dollars
Students listen to the song If I Had a Million Dollars by the Bare Naked Ladies (Page and Robertson, 1993) and then do a guided meditation in which they imagine being millionaires. They are instructed to think of ways they would use their money – for themselves, their families, for strangers, for the world. What would they do? After the meditation, they write a list of what they
would do if they were millionaires.

3. Future tense: A Little Fall of Rain
Lower level students can also use this technique for something as simple as thinking about the future or what they want to say to someone. Playing A Little Fall of Rain from Les Miserables (Kretzmer,1985) can be used to set the students up to think of the future. What will happen when spring comes? What will you see the next time you visit your family?, etc. As a caveat, though, the vocabulary of the script should be taught prior to the guided imagery meditation to ensure that students understand the directions.

4. Question Words: Storytelling Elements using Music
This meditation takes the student out of the equation. They are instructed to write numbers 1-6 or 8 or whatever number corresponds with the number of songs you will play. They should write headings at the top of their paper: People / Relationship; Where are they? / What are they doing? The teacher then leads them into a state of relaxation. Finally, the teacher plays one minute of music from a number of different genres and has the students answer the questions at the headings. The teacher specifically does not note country / place to allow more creativity. For some students it is enough to write “Paris” while for others it is more comfortable to write “a café in Paris.”

For music, it’s helpful to have songs without many English words or with words from a language the students don’t know so they don’t focus on the words and instead focus on the emotions and interpretations. Some suggestions for music are provided in the addendum.

5. Question Words: Storytelling Elements using Postcards
Students are put in small groups and given a postcard in which something could be hidden in the picture. For example, postcards with doors, baskets, boats, jars, etc. are useful for this. They are led through a relaxation exercise and instructed to decide what was hidden, who hid it, who found it, why was it hidden. Students then can write paragraphs or stories from the meditation and then later compare how they each interpreted the same scene.

Improvisation Handout

Using Improvisational Exercises
to Increase Speaking and Listening in Second Language Learners

Pamila J. Florea, MA
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
Yong-in South Korea

pamilajflorea@gmail.com
or
pamilajohufs@gmail.com

Paper Presentation

TESOL Asia – Asian EFL Conference
Cebu, Philipines
August, 2010


A few points to consider:

Teachers need to believe in the games / exercises they have their students work on. If you are excited and enjoy the game, so will your students. If you don’t believe in using games / fun exercises, neither will the students.

Most of these exercises will be useful for grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation based on how the teacher sets them up. The primary use or the best one that I’ve found is the category I’ve listed it under.

Don’t be afraid to try variations of the games. Some will work with some groups of students and some won’t. If it doesn’t work, move on!


Most importantly: HAVE FUN!



Resources:

Five-Minute Activities: A Resource Book of Short Activities, Penny Ur and Andrew Wright

Theatre Games and Beyond: A Creative Approach for Performers, Amiel Schotz

1000 Pictures for Teachers to Copy, Andrew Wright

101 Improv Games for Children and Adults, Bob Bedore

Here
http://improvencyclopedia.org/games/index.html

http://wilderdom.com/games/PsychologicalExercises.html

http://bogglesworldesl.com/prepositions.htm

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/61105.Dr_Seuss

Pronunciation Exercises

Pronunciation Exercises

One Sentence Survey
Students make a table with one question at the top. The teacher can give the stem based on almost any pronunciation sound that is being learned. Students go around and ask each student the answer and record it. Each student then in turn gets up and announces the results of their survey. This is a short presentation that helps students become accustomed to speaking in English in front of an audience.

Example:
“th” sounds - Do you like the theatre? Or “ch” / “j” sounds – Did you ever change jobs?
Student
Ji Yong - yes
Juan Carlos - no
Yerim - yes

Zip Zap Zop
"z" sound
Students make a circle, and the teacher teaches the “z” sound compared to the “s” sound (voiced and unvoiced respectively). The teacher shows the students the imaginary ball. The exercise is played by “throwing” the ball to another person and saying “zip”. That person then throws the ball to another person and says “zap”. The next person throws the ball saying “zop” and then back to “zip” again. Continue with this until the students understand and then instruct them to throw faster. Make sure to instruct students to make eye contact. When someone makes a mistake, everyone puts there hands in the center, looks at the floor and says “moooooo”. This allows for the game to continue easily.

Variation: You can use this for anything once the students understand the concept. Months of the year, the periodic table, vocabulary words, etc.

Tongue Twisters
Students practice saying tongue twisters as fast as they can. Books / phrases from Dr. Seuss are often quite good for this exercise as noted below:

L / R / Th sounds: "Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!"

P / B / F / L sounds: “When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles
and the bottle's on a poodle and the poodle's eating noodles...
...they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle
bottle paddle battle."
This is a good page for Dr. Seuss quotes: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/61105.Dr_Seuss

Variation:
Students each are given a tongue twister on a piece of paper and then they draw the picture. They hold it up and the other students have to guess the tongue twister that has been taught.

Grammar Exercises

Grammar Exercises

Damaged Property
Grammar Point– Using past tense and passives
A brief description of a an item is presented to the students. For example “My phone doesn’t work.” The teacher has written the reason on a piece of paper and instructs students to ask questions to narrow down the reason such as “Did it get hit by something?” The teacher can give hints “I was at the shore when it stopped working” to keep the game going. The person who guesses correctly gets to choose the next damaged item or ask the first question. This game is best done with true life stories.

Variation: If you have recently studied a story, you can pretend to be the character and have the reason be related to the story.

Why have you got a monkey in your bag?
Grammar Point: Why? Because…
Students are each given a list of questions or can write their own questions – the normal to the ridiculous. Each student asks a partner one of the questions and the other student has to come up with a plausible answer using the pattern S + V, because S + V.

Questioner: Why have you got a monkey in your bag?
Answerer: I have a monkey in my bag because I will take it to the vet today.
Questioner: Why have you got a bottle of aspirin in your bag?
Answerer: I have a bottle of aspirin in my bag because I have a headache.

Jumbled sentences
Grammar Point – word order / directions / prepositions of space
Choose a sentence and write it on the board in a jumbled order. For example: “us very mother nachos elegant just served my” and students must rearrange them.
"My very elegant mother just served us nachos" (mnemonic device for the planets)

Variation: Write the words separately on a piece of paper and each student holds a piece of paper. The chosen student has to give directions to the other students to move to create the correct sentence (Steve, stand between Jose and Juanita”)

Evidence
Grammar Point – Using Modals / Must be / Can’t be
The students assigned as “detectives” have their backs to the board, and the teacher writes a situation description. For example “It must be raining outside” and the other students are witnesses who give evidence. A witness might say “Her clothes are wet.

If I had a Million Dollars
Grammar Point – Conditionals
Students imagine that a large amount of money (can be the local currency) is won by the person / team who can think of the most original, altruistic, or practical use of the money. You can have this related to a recent lesson or to a local cause. The winner is the one who meets whatever criteria you have set up.

Variation: The students can also put together a plan on how to use the money, set up a foundation, start a program, etc. They can make a presentation to the class with details.

What do you see?
Grammar Point – There is / there are
Show students a picture from a magazine or a book. In groups, the students make a list of all the things they see using “there is / are”. One group presents their list while the other groups check off any repeats. The next group presents any “leftovers” from their list, and so on until all the things are listed.

Variation: The same exercise can be used for “to be + verbing” if the picture is active. The woman is dancing. The children are watching a movie. The cat is running, etc.

Prepositional Pictures
Grammar Point – prepositions of place, time, direction
After teaching prepositions, give the students some time with pictures of people / things in different places. Boggles world has some wonderful flash cards that can be used for this. Please see this website: http://bogglesworldesl.com/prepositions.htm

The class is separated into small groups of 5 or 6 people. One student draws a picture, one student writes the sentence, the other students give suggestions. Begin with a simple sentence like “The witch drives the car.” The students then continue adding prepositional phrases until the sentence is very long and the picture is quite detailed. The students then share their pictures with another group and that group tries to cite all the details.

Whose is it?
Grammar Point – Conditionals, past tense, descriptors, reported speech
Each student brings a bag in with an object that is important to them. Students are put into groups of 6-8. They put the bags in the middle of their circle and they are mixed around. Each student then draws a bag and makes sure it is not their item. If it is, everyone puts their bags back and mixes them up and draws until each student has someone else’s item. Students remove the item and decide the story behind it. Each student has one minute in their group to tell a story about why the item is important to the owner. The owner then says “It is mine,” takes the item, and then tells the real story behind the item. That person then tells the imaginary story of the item they are holding. This continues until all students have their own items. Sometimes two students will have each other’s item and then another student will be instructed to begin.

Variation: Fear in a Hat – students write something on a piece of paper they are afraid of or that they know is a phobia. They put that paper in a hat. Each student then picks a paper and talks about why someone might be afraid of that thing.

Write Your Own Eulogy
Grammar Point – Future Tense, Past Tense or Past Perfect Progressive
Students are instructed to write their own eulogy (or someone they knew) and to include the things they want to accomplish and what they were doing when they “died”. For example, “She had been scaling Mt. Everest when she fell in an avalanche.” Students can share them aloud or they can exchange them and try to guess who wrote what.

N.B. – these last two can be very serious. Please instruct students on confidentiality. Use them with discretion.

Vocabulary Exercises

Vocabulary Exercises:

What do they have in common? (comparisons)
Students are presented with two different concrete nouns. For example a pencil and a bag of almonds; a window and a piece of jewelry, etc. Students are then encouraged to find something these two things have in common – they both come from trees, they both are made of glass respectively.

Variation: This game can be used for comparatives also – the pencil is lighter than the bag of almonds, the window is bigger than the necklace. The window and the necklace are both clear.

Chain story (various vocabulary)
The teacher has students choose a word from the vocabulary list and write it on a piece of paper. The student will have to use that word in the game.

The teacher begins a story and then a student adds another sentence to the story using the vocabulary word they wrote down. The next student continues the story using the word they wrote down. After a short time, students can exchange words and continue the story practicing new vocabulary words.

Fashion show (descriptors, clothing)
Students get in a row and the first student comes forward as the “announcer” and describes the clothes that the next student is wearing while that student walks down the “catwalk” aisle of the classroom. The second student then turns and becomes the announcer and describes the third student and so on until all students have described the next person. The last student describes the outfit of the first announcer.

Picture dictation (various vocabulary)
The teacher describes a scene or person while students draw the picture. This can be used for even the lowest level students – three pink hearts, 2 blue diamonds, 7 green circles. The green circle is above a blue diamond.

Make 10 changes (past tense verbs)
Students pair up and one person is assigned as the “changer” the second as the “observer”. The observer turns around / closes eyes while the changer alters ten things about their appearance (turns their baseball cap around, takes off their watch, unties a shoe lace, etc.). The observer then talks about the changes made “You took off your watch, you untied your shoe,” etc. For older students having students then make ten MORE changes can be quite fun and a challenge.

Variation: Slide show
One student can move the people about and put them into different positions and then the rest of the group has to list all the changes made to the group of people.