Cokey Monkey: Lesson Plan for Speaking Lesson on the 3000th ELTPics Image

Image by Kylie Barker

This is my response to Sandy Millin's challenge for the 3000th ELTPics Image: What would you do with this picture in your classroom?

Those of you who had been following the last few posts would have seen my digital mind maps done with the help of Bubbl.us. Unfortunately, the free version only allows a miserable three saved copies, so I had to look for alternatives. Coupled with Sandy's challenge, I decided to kill two monkeys with a stroke: brainstormed my answers to her question and test Mindomo's mind map tool.

You can see the results below. Close the 'Topics Notes', and click anywhere on the mind map and scroll to the left or right to see the rest of the ideas. You can also see the whole thing here. If there are any problems, or if you've got any questions, please let me know. If you have further ideas, or if you're bold enough to try this lesson plan on your students, share your views as comments at the end of this post.

Related posts:


Photos + mind maps = Ideas on a silver platter
Speaking lesson using close-ups

Ideas for practising dialogues

Comic strips for dialogue

Using Geocam for speaking

Parts of a Wind Turbine: Labelling Game

The largely unknown tiny Canarian island of El Hierro will soon become anything but that.

By next year, it will become the first island in the world to obtain 100% of its energy needs from renewable energy. A combination of wind and hydroelectrical power will supply electricity to its 11,000 residents and its floating population of foreign workers and tourists, which, no doubt, will increase significantly.

It thus seems appropriate that we should look a little deeper into wind turbines. These look like a modern version of traditional windmills and basically converts wind energy into electrical power.

Watch the video, and then click on the image further below to start a labelling game. Play it a few times, and soon, you will know the names of the internal parts of a wind turbine.

Reuse, Reduce and Recycle - What goes into which containers?

If you're asked what the three R's are and your reply is 'reading, writing and arithmetic', then your age is showing! The three R's are now more likely to mean reuse, reduce and recycle! So, be honest, are you recycling-literate?

Most of us know the importance of recycling, so I won't bother you with the details of that here. On the other hand, how often have you held something in one hand, scratched your head with the other, and asked yourself, 'Now, in which bin have I got to put this?'

Recycling can be a very expensive and complicated process, and unfortunately, there is no international agreement on what gets to be recycled. Rules vary between countries and even between councils. So, it's best to consult your local authority. However, having said that, some basic guidelines do exist; therefore, I've created a quiz to test your recycling knowledge.

It's based on the rubbish disposal system used in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: yellow bin for plastics, blue for paper, green for glass and grey for the general rubbish. If bins in your area are colour-coded differently, just select your answers accordingly. Some of the questions have explanations attached to their answers. Before you can begin the quiz, you will have to key in a user name. This is just for me to identify you. If you are paranoid about this, just key in a nickname. The user id can be left blank, but perhaps a school name would be useful. The e-mail address is also optional: if you key in your email, the result of the quiz will be mailed to you.

Items such as electrodomestic products, furniture and metal have to be handed in at specific recycling centres. Check with your local authorities. In Spain, they are called 'Puntos Limpios' and you can find the nearest one to where you live here: http://www.ocu.org/puntos-limpios/

There are 2 in Las Palmas: one in Polígono Industrial El Cebadal and the other in El Batán.

For the Spanish speaking readers, Repsol has a useful flash animation on recycling: https://imagenes.repsol.com/es_es/recicla__172196_tcm7-267913.swf

Before you begin the quiz, watch this funky video, and learn the song! The lyrics are below the video.

Three, it's a magic number
Yes it is, it's a magic number
Because two times three is six
Three times six is eighteen
And the eighteenth letter in the alphabet is R
We've got three R's we're going to talk about today
We've got to learn to
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
If you're going to the market to buy some juice
You've got to bring your own bags and you learn to reduce your waste
You've got to learn to reduce
And if your brother or your sister's got some cool clothes
You could try them on before you buy some more of those
Reuse, we've got to learn to reuse
And if the first two R's don't work out
And if you've got to make some trash
No, don't throw it out
Recycle, we've got to learn to recycle,
We've got to learn to
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Because three, it's a magic number
Yes it is, it's a magic number
Three, three, three
3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36
33, 30, 27, 24, 21, 18, 15, 12, 9, 6, and 3,
It's a magic number

This post is dedicated to all the teachers & students of IES Los Tarahales.

Click on the icon below to begin the quiz. Be patient if it takes a while to load. I'm using a free hosting service, so it isn't exactly fast. Perhaps the Canarian Consejería de Educación will subsidise a paid hosting service for me...hint, hint...

To start the quiz, click on the image below.

Pay Bags

When I first came to this island, one of the things that really bothered me was the incessant consumption of plastic bags. I would go into the supermarket with my rucksack with the intention of dumping all the stuff in there only to have the cashier, who was quicker than me, putting in the bananas into one plastic bag, then the lettuce onto another, then the eggs go into yet another...well, you get the picture.
When you consider that plastic bags take between 500 and 1,000 years to degrade, you wonder how this has been permitted to carry on for as long as it has.

In the UK, an estimated 13 billion carrier bags are given away each year (source: BBC), and back in Feb 2008, PM Gordon Brown warned retailers that he would force them to cut down on plastic bag use if they did not act voluntarily. Today, according to the BBC, the Welsh Environment minister Jane Davidson was expected to announce proposals which would see shops charge 15p per bag as part of plans to cut down use of bags.In the US, San Francisco became the first city to ban plastic bags from large supermarkets in March 2007.

Now, here in Spain, whose consumption of bags is estimated at 238/person/year, according to El Mundo, Carrefour plans to stop giving away single-use carrier bags in its Spanish stores.
What action do you personally take to combat this problem? Many dump the bags in the yellow plastic recycling containers; but, do they really get recycled?