7/13/2013

Birth Order and Personality


   A. Discuss before you watch.

  1. What do you understand by “the birth order effect”?
  2. Do you think it could be true?
  3. What are the common personality traits connected to first- born, middle-born and last-born children?
  4. Do you believe there is a child who is in the favorable position in the family? Why?
  5. Are there any variables concerning how birth order might affect personality?
 
B. Look at the word cloud below and spot some personality traits. Then, watch the video and place them under one of the 3 categories.


First-borns tend to be…
Middle-borns tend to be…
Last-borns tend to be…














C.After you watch
  • Would you say the personality traits decribed in the video apply to your family? How?

D.Expand your vocabulary: Adjectives used to describe somebody's personality
http://www.esolcourses.com/content/exercises/grammar/adjectives/personality/words-for-describing-personality.html (elementary) 
http://www.esolcourses.com/content/exercises/grammar/adjectives/personality/more-words-for-describing-personality.html (intermediate)
http://www.lingolex.com/personalidad.htm  50 adjectives to describe the personality
in English and Spanish
http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=2941  (PRACTICE) 

 
E.Speaking: Get together with a classmate and write down the names of  4 people you know. They might be members of your family, friends or just acquaintances. Then, write two or more personality traits associated with each of these people, scattered on the sheet of paper. Take turns to ask each other questions and find out who the people are and what they are like by asking and answering questions.

 
F. Follow up Reading from Wikipedia. 
(the class may divide into 5 groups and each read and present one of the following parts)

1 Theories
2 Personality
3 Intelligence
4 Sexuality
5 Fourthborns
SOURCE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_order 

5/29/2013

Are robots hurting job growth?


Links to online video: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2lDmF8ZShI 
http://www.cbs.com/shows/60_minutes/video/2325167104/are-robots-hurting-job-growth 

 

Before you watch

  1. What do you make of the cartoon above? What do you expect this video session to be about?
  2. What are the most common reasons why people may lose their jobs?
  3. What do you understand by “technological unemployment”?
  4. Can you think of jobs that are now done by robots? Do you find any downside to this? What about the advantages?
  5. Do you think that all the work will be eventually done by machines?

FOCUS ON LANGUAGE
COLLOCATIONS 1

1.      white collar/ routine/ middle-skilled       a. sample
2.      heavily automated                                 b. warehouses
3.      blood                                                   c. teller
4.      state-of-the-art                                     d. job
5.      wide and varied                                    e. operator
6.      assembly                                               f. product
7.      Sales                                                    g. robots
8.      Switchboard                                         h. product line
9.      Bank                                                    i. line
10.  flagship                                                 j. clerk 

COLLOCATIONS 2

1.      perform                                              a. an order/ a prescription
2.      portray                                               b. the job of a human/ a task
3.      Give way/ surrender                            c. stocks on Wall Street
4.      Fill                                                      d. a robot/ a computer
5.      Ship                                                   e. a robot as household help
6.      Make                                                 f. somebody’s plans/ mission
7.      Trade                                                 g. to something
8.      Run                                                    h. a lab/ a company
9.      Upgrade                                             i. a living/ a comeback
10.  level                                                   j. merchandise for retailers
11.  bring                                                  k. the playing field
12.  jeopardize                                          l. to mind

After you watch

A-Watch and fill in the table below

What I already knew
What I learnt watching this video
Something that surprised me
Something I’d like to find out more about















B-Get together with your group and share what you've written. Then choose something you'd like to know more about and look it up in wikipaedia. Then, prepare a short presentation (using PPT) and share your findings.


 Language Follow up

COMPARATIVES
How have things changed over the past years? Make comparisons. You can use the words below.
MORE              FASTER                       MORE EFFICIENTLY                       FEWER                   BIGGER                        HIGHER                   

·         Interactions with machines
·         Interactions with human beings
·         The economy now and before the Great Recession
·         Business investment in hardware and software
·         Way the merchandise is shipped

10/25/2012

Khan Academy: The future of education?




Discuss before you watch


·         Have you heard of the “Khan Academy”? What do you expect to learn about it?


Focus on Vocabulary

Join with arrows

GROUP 1

1.      A 10-minute                                             a. tag
2.      A math/ computer                                     b. degree from Harvard
3.      A revolutionary                                         c. classrooms
4.      Competitive                                              d. organization
5.      A big                                                        e. help from the teacher
6.      A price                                                     f. wiz
7.      An economics                                          g. approach to education
8.      One-on-one                                             h. salaries
9.      A handful of                                             i. deal
10.  for profit/ non-profit                                  j. video/ tutorial


GROUP 2

1.      To gather                                            a. yourself full time to Khan Academy
2.      To tutor/ reach                                    b. a big boost
3.      To go                                                  c. global/ public
4.      To amass                                            d. millions of students world-wide/remotely
5.      To tackle/ break down/ struggle with  e. massive amounts of data
6.      To focus                                             f. somebody’s progress overtime
7.      To wind up                                         g. a library of math lectures/ a fortune
8.      To devote                                           h. posting lessons on YouTube
9.      To pilot/ fine tune                                i. a complicated subject
10.  To give your math                               j. to problem solving activities
11.  Monitor/ track                                      k. new software
12.  To address                                          l. students’ needs
13.  To move on                                         m. on the math

Watch and make connections


Watch again and answer the following questions trying to use some of the new vocabulary

1.      Who’s Sal Khan?
2.      Who backs him?
3.      What’s the Khan Academy and what’s its mission?
4.      Who’s one of his most famous pupils? How/ When did he meet him?
5.      What qualifications does Sal Khan have?
6.      Where does he work from?
7.      What are his video lessons like?
8.      How many lessons has he amassed so far?
9.      What’s his uncanny ability all about?
10.  How much reading does he do ahead of time?
11.  How long would it take to cover all the lectures he’s done?
12.  Why is it that he’d rather not put himself in the video?
13.  Why does his method appeal to so many people?
14.  How did Sal Khan get started?
15.  Where does Sal Khan get funding for The Khan Academy?
16.  How’s the "flipping the classroom" approach working in Los Altos school district and in Eastside Prep?
17.  What´s the role of the teacher in the Khan Academy?
18.  How does Cadwell feel about implementing the Khan Academy? Why?
19.  What do the skeptics argue?
20.  Where’s the Khan Academy math program being piloted? What are the test revealing?
21.  How many visits does the Khan Academy get worldwide?
22.  What’s  Eric Schmidt’s take on Sal Khan?
23.  What’s does Sal Khan expect for the future? What does he assure he won’t do?


Take a look at the following presentation on how to go about Flipping the Classroom. 


Flipped classroom from mrsfitzsocialstudies




Discuss after you watch

1.       In your opinion, is the Khan Academy revolutionary in its approach to education?
2.       Could it be an adequate replacement for a classroom?
3.       What are its assets as compared with traditional classroom interaction? What about its liabilities?
4.        Would you say these videos harken back to the idea that teaching is simply telling?
5.       Do you think the Khan Academy might be a vehicle for bridging educational divides by helping ALL students reach mastery of core skills and concepts?  
6.       How useful might these video lessons be for complex subjects?
7.       Would you use the Khan approach with your kids? Why? Why not?


Video Transcript

10/01/2012

An Old Flame


Discuss before you watch



  • What do you understand by Web Therapy?
  • What’s an old flame?
  • Talk about an old flame of yours. How did you meet him/ her? What kind of relationship did you have? What went wrong? 
  • Why do you think this episode may be called that way?


You're going to watch the first in a set of 3 short episodes of an improvised series starring Lisa Kudrow.



A.  Watch the episode once and answer the following questions:
LINK:  http://www.lstudio.com/web-therapy/an-old-flame-1-of-3.html

1. What do we get to know about the therapist? (name, marital status, personality, kind of treatment she advocates, etc.)
2. What do we get to know about the patient? (name, job, personality, etc)


B.  How much do you remember? Say if the following statements are T or F (account for it). Then watch the episode again and check your answers.

1.   Richard and Fiona already know each other.
2.   Fiona has never tried the traditional 50-minute session.
3.   Fiona takes for granted Richard is in love with her.
4.   Fiona denies flirting with Richard in the past.
5.   Fiona has never met Gina at Lachman Brothers.
6.   Richard made the appointment to get back in touch with Fiona.
7.   Fiona is surprised Richard has a girlfriend.
8.   The session finishes punctually.

D.  Who says the following? When?  What do the words/ expressions underlined mean?

- It’s been a very long time!
- His opinion never counted, as far as I’m concerned.
- They end up going on and on about dreams and feelings and memories ….
- The bulk of the help is really done in 3 minutes.
- I don’t wanna do it  for a whole hour.
- You’ve gained weight or you’ve lost weight.
- You just misunderstood the nature of our relationship.
- You made it pretty clear … that you wanted me to kiss you.
- For the sake of privacy. 
- Sometimes I misread people.
- Beckoned you?
- I thought that was kind of harsh.
- And she’s distant and moody.
- It’s been well over 3 minutes.
- We can see each other again next week and we can pick up where we left off.


http://esl.about.com/od/advanced-related-words/a/Human-Relationships.htm