irina
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Posts: 9
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Post by irina on Oct 14, 2016 11:43:49 GMT 8
One activity I find very successful in my classroom is shopping activity. I like using cashier machine we have in our playroom for this. The machine is cute and looks just like a real one with a compartment for money and built in calculator and a microphone! This little thing creates a burning desire to speak even in myself and kids love it )))
I give out some play money to every "customer" and assign a "cashier". Create a macdonalds board with fast food items and their price and the kinds have to take turns to buy something they want to eat bearing in mind that they have limited budget (for older kids, younger kids just have enough money to buy what they want) . Cashier tells how much is the purchase and give flash cars with the requested food items. Then another student becomes a cashier and the game starts all over again. For the cashier I also have a special hat (a yellow peak) to make his/her look more authentic. It is also a tool and part of a ritual of assigning a new cashier : the student passes the hat to another one thus making the other student a new cashier. Since every child in class has to wear the cashier hat, the dialogue for purchasing is repeated lots of times and by the end of the activity everyone is confident with the language for this situation. Of course, it can be used with any set of goods and not only with flash cards but also with plastic fruits or real toys.
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Post by Aaron David Screaton FTM on Oct 17, 2016 0:27:41 GMT 8
I like this activity, but could you now relate this to the literature, how does this relate to the principles as outlined by Moon, please make specific links between your activity and Moons principles.
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irina
New Member
Posts: 9
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Post by irina on Oct 29, 2016 13:29:22 GMT 8
First of all, it fulfills the first principle - create a real need and desire to use English. Real need is being hungry and willing to by some food; desire is created by a game like modeling of a real life situation of purchasing food. This kind of game is an essensial part of kids' learning about the world and they are always willing to participate in activities like this and acting like adults. All the props (cash-register, play money, hat) make it exciting, and semblance of this activity with a game provides a friendly atmosphere and willingness to take risks as a gems is a perfect environment for risk taking.
This activity provides meaningful input and focuses on communication: "customer" should be able to convey their message to the cashier in order to buy what they want to buy.
To some extend, the activity provides opportunities to experiment with the language as the learners can use various lexical material in the same grammar patterns. They can choose among the variety of things they want to buy (well, yes, the variety is limited but is still a variety).
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