Plans for Leap Year Day

You are going to

• listen to radio clip about Leap Year Day and answer some questions
• listen to going to and present continuous used for plans and arrangements

1) Discuss

• What is Leap Year Day?
• Why is it special?
• Do you have any traditions connected with Leap Year Day?
• Do you do anything special on Leap Year day?

2) Listen to this radio clip

What are the people going to do?
Listen and do the matching exercise below



From BBC Radio 4 PM http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qskw





3) Discuss
Do the activities seem special to you?
What is special about the people who are doing them?


4) Now answer these questions

5) Discuss

• Are you going to do anything special for Leap Year Day?
• When is the next Leap Year Day?
• How much time have you got to prepare?

6) More on Leap Year Day

http://www.englishblog.com/2012/02/leap-year-day.html

Printable version here

Groundhog Day

Teacher's note; the worksheet below was designed to be watched in a computer room as an individual student activity. It is quite long (the opening 30 minutes of the film) and revises present simple for habit. The advantages of doing the activity individually are that it gives the student the chance to pause and rewind difficult sections of dialogue until they have understood and completed the worksheet to their own satisfaction. However it can be done as group activity in class if it is divided into more easily digestible chunks.

The film is not on Youtube

DVD available from amazon here


1) Introduction
Festival

• What happens at the Groundhog Day festival?
• When is it?

Find out here

Film
Watch the film trailer

• What is Phil Connors' job? 
• Why is he in Punxsutawney?
• What strange thing happens to him there?

2) Reading

• Toby Young's review of Groundhog Day here
• Pages from New progress to First Certificate: Self-study student's book By Leo Jones (1997, out of print) based on Tony Young's review on Google Books here

3) Film worksheet

Groundhog Day (first 30 mins of film) for EFL

View more documents from David Mainwood

4) Discuss

• Why do you think Phil is living the same day again and again?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of living the same day again and again?
• If you were Phil what would you do? 
• Would you want to stay repeating the same day or would you try to find a way out?
• What do you think Phil will learn from the experience?
• What do you think is the message of the film?

5) More Groundhog Day resources
The Best Resources For Groundhog Day
by Larry Ferlazzo
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2009/02/03/the-best-resources-for-groundhog-day/ 

Merry Christmas Mr Bean

Teacher's note;

The activities in the worksheet at the bottom of this post are based on the full episode available on DVD or on youtube http://youtu.be/L2UCRNldC3s (it cannot be embedded here).

This post contains some exercises based on the embeddable youtube clips. The answers are in the worksheet.

DVD available here

Mr Bean celebrates the traditional British Christmas: the baubles, the crackers, the nativity scene, the carols, the presents, the turkey and the mistletoe... they are all here. As no British Christmas is complete without a disaster or two that makes it the typical British Christmas!

You are going to

• discuss Christmas
• watch the Christmas Mr Bean episode and do some activities
• find Christmas words in a word search exercise
• write the story in the past tense
• find out more about the typical British Christmas and some of the Christmas things in the video.

Christmas Vocabulary – crackers,  mistletoe, Christmas tree, tinsel, carols, carol singers, Santa Claus / Father Christmas, stockings, presents, holly, turkey, stuffing, fairy lights, angel, star, cards, pudding, baubles, nativity scene, baby Jesus, manger.

Discuss

• Do you celebrate Christmas?
• What do people usually do on Christmas Eve in the UK?
• What do people usually do on Christmas Day in the UK?
• Do you know of any special Christmas food or Christmas customs in the UK?
• What decorations do we have?
• What’s a cracker?
• What’s mistletoe?
• What are carols?

Watch clip 1
Answer the questions in the interactive exercise after you watch

1. Did Mr Bean have any Christmas decorations?
2. What Christmas decorations did Mr Bean have?
3. What kind of films were on TV?
4. Did Mr Bean like the films?
5. What did the children sing?
6. Did Mr Bean like them?
7. What did he eat?
8. Did he give the children anything?

Now do  exercise 1 (the answers to questions 9 and 10 are in the next clip)

Watch clip 2

Answer the questions in the interactive exercise after you watch

1) What were his 3 Christmas presents and who were they for?


2) Who says it?
Put “B” for Bean or “G” for his girlfriend.

___”Are you alright in there?”
___“Fine, thank you”

___“Cup of tea?”
___“Oh Yes, if you’re having one”
___“Well I might”
___“Have you got the turkey on?”
___“Do you want a hand?”
___“No, no, thank you”



3) Fill in the gaps from this list of verbs                        
USE THE PAST FORMS                                                      
(You can use some verbs more than once)
Pull  Eat  Give  Do  Cry  Make  Be  Ring  Find  Leave  Want  Scream  Throw  Lose  Put  Hang  Be  See

1. Mr Bean _____  lunch
2. The turkey ______ very big
3. He ______ stuffing inside the turkey
4. He ______ his watch
5. His girlfriend ______ the doorbell
6. She ______ up the mistletoe
7. She ______ when she ___ Mr Bean
8. She ______ the coal bucket out the window
9. Mr Bean ______ his watch
10. They ______ sandwiches for lunch
11. She ______ him a present
12. She ______ a kiss
13. He ______ want to kiss her
14. He _____ her a present
15. She ______ after she ___  her present and ______ the flat
16. Mr Bean ______ the cracker
17. There ___ an explosion

Now do exercises 2 and 3

4) Do the word square

There are 19 Christmas words hidden in this box. Can you find them all?
The words go across → and down ↓
 

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5) Do the crossword

Printable version here



Worksheet and answers

Merry Christmas Mr Bean for EFL

View more documents from David Mainwood

5) Writing

• Tell the story of Mr Bean's Christmas in the past. Start Mr Bean went shopping in Harrods. He...
• Describe your typical Christmas 
• Describe a similar festival in your country (talk about the typical food, clothes, traditional activities etc)

6) Reading / Webquest
Find out about the typical British Christmas.

Click on the links to find the answers
Why do we decorate our houses at Christmas?
When is Boxing Day?
Why is it called Boxing Day?
What is Christmas Pudding? 
Why do we have Christmas trees?
Who is Father Christmas?
What are mince pies?
What is a nativity play?
What do children do at Christmas?
What are the 12 days of Christmas?

Read more about the traditional British Christmas here  http://projectbritain.com/Xmas/index.html#top

More activities here http://www.esolcourses.com/topics/christmas.html