Our great group of IPC course participants 1-12 July 2013

Farewell at Reed Hall

Farewells are never easy.
Meeting at the Reed Hall quite near to our stay in the campus was still flavoured with fun.
A fizzy drink at the entrance (no snacks though... ), taking group photos, and of course the showpiece of this evening- a drama performance by our teacher trainer Mr Richard Clarke and a gorgeously elegant lady (whose name I cannot remember, sorry!) I almost laughed my head off when they performed sketches about "sex-life instructions for elderly" or "a boy and a chocolate cake" etc.  

Well, my dear companions, we had great times together. 

Will never forget you, and hope to be able to keep in touch!!! 

Attention game with numbers

Played in a circle
Numbers are counted one by one so that three numbers increasingly and then the same numbers down again, then starting with the next one:
1 2 3  3 2 1   2 3 4  4 3 2    3 4 5  5 4 3    4 5 6  6 5 4   5 6 7  7 6 5   6 7 8  8 7 6   7 8 9  9 8 7   ...

Might be very confusing but needs a lot of attention and sense of rhythm :)
Presented to us by Ülle from Tallinn, Estonia at the IPC drama course. Many thanks!

Miss Lucy had a baby

A rhyme which could be supplemented with pictures on the board, clapping, drama etc 

Miss Lucy had a baby

His name was Tiny Tim

She put him in the bath tub

To see if he could swim

He drank up all the water

He ate a bar of soap

He tried to eat the bath tub

But it couldn't go down his throat

Miss Lucy called the doctor 

Miss Lucy called the nurse 

Miss Lucy called the lady with an alligator purse 

"Mumps" said the doctor 

"Measles" said the nurse

"Nothing" said the lady with an alligator purse 

Miss Lucy thanked the doctor 

Miss Lucy thanked the nurse 

Miss Lucy hugged the lady with an alligator purse

Presented to us by Kasia from Poland at the IPC drama course in Exeter... 

My hat it has three corners- song with miming

One easy song, quite famous for some people :

MY HAT it has THREE CORNERS

THREE CORNERS has MY HAT

and hat it not THREE CORNERS

it would not be MY HAT 

Word in CAPITAL LETTERS are one by one changed with a miming gesture:

1) MY - point with a finger or hand to yourself

2) HAT - point to your head

3) THREE- show three fingers

4) CORNERS- make a triangle with your elbow

Presented to us by Maria from Spain :)  Thank you!!

An ambitious city architect

A group activity with setting posing each other as sculptures, some speaking can be added according to the level of participants.

It would be good to start this game with the line-up:
Who's the strongest starts the line, who thinks he or she is not that strong to the end of the line.
Participants can either just decide how strong they are or compete with minor activities like arm-wrestling or pulling forefingers, but mostly just by looking at each other, miming and just deciding.
(It is necessary, because the first participants have to be able to stand in different positions for longer time and they shouldn't be complaining...)

Introduction:
Once upon a time there was a nice city, and in this city there as a nice park with a statue (the first player comes and stands like a statue / sculpture)
In this city there was a very ambitious city architect (the next player comes in) who didn't like this statue, and decided to change it. (the next player sets the "statue" into a new position)
And as this architect was very ambitious, he/she also wanted to have his/her own statue to be in this park (the "architect" poses next to the statue as a new statue)
A new architect was hired in this city, and he/she was also very ambitious. He/She didn't like those statues and decided to change them...

Activities repeated- new architect changes the poses, then stands near them as a new statue, a new architect comes and changes...

Speaking added: depends on the level of learners- gives a name to the set of statues, explains what is the set of statues about, or explains while setting the statues into new poses who they were and why are they standing here like this etc

Examples of statue sets performed at the IPC drama course in Exeter are as follows...

Day 11- Macro amount of micro-lessons :)

Thursday happened to the hardest working day of all...
In the morning some warm-ups and attention or speaking games, but then each participant had to present an activity that we use or think could be used in classrooms, joining everyone in it. Well, should be easy as we all do them in our everyday work, but... Not so easy to choose which one to present and how. Even worse if somebody before you already did the same.
It was all very interesting to see, hear and try out, to be honest, and also to observe our group mates how they do it all- giving instructions, the choice of the activity etc. The afternoon session went on and on without any break so we occasionally sneaked out to the loo or for a sip of tea.
By the end of the day many of us had a large notebook full of notes or the memory of the camera full. Will be a real tough job to put them down here in the blog now, but I'll do my best :)
Pictures and videos will be posted separately.

Improvisation game: A snake in a box

Improvisation game:
* Imagine there is a box and you find something in it ( a snake or anything else unusual.
* You need to go and call someone to help you about it. It should be said out loud: "I'll go and call a policeman / neighbour / doctor.,,"
* Discuss what to do with the thing, what's it doing, what happens etc.
* The person you called for help decides to go and call someone else. Now you need to find a reason to leave, i.e.  "Oh, I need to go and see my sick granny..."

Drilling hard words in a thrilling way :)

Özgen from Turkey presented a very thrilling way of revising and memorizing words that are hard to remember.  

* A 4x4 table is drawn on the board. 

* Words are written into each cell. 

Words are asked from learners: Which word you think is difficult to remember? 

(Or the choice of words could be limited by the unit or vocabulary set that needs to be revised)

* One learner calls out one word (not the one that he or she said but someone else's )

* The person who proposed this word must very quickly call out another word from the table 

* If the word is mispronounced or otherwise false- the player falls out of the game and this person's word is crossed out and must not be said any more 

* when hesitating for too long- the player falls out the game and his/her word is crossed out 

My Bonnie is Over the Ocean

My Bonnie is over the ocean
My Bonnie is over the sea
My Bonnie is over the ocean
Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me!
Bring back, bring back,
Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me, to me!
Bring back, bring back,
Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me!

A simple song, at every  B letter in the song learners should either stand up or sit down.
Should be possible to start and finish sitting.

Stories behind the story

Everybody knows a story about Cinderella or Snow White or Little Red Riding Hood.

But when something happens, and people are asked to tell about it, the versions don't always fit.
And when asked from different participants of the story- it might become even more exciting to find out their views, reasons etc

So-

* pick a known story (or event)

* put down some characters in it, think of more who might be involved in it... 

* let every participant to think of and present their version of the story 

Could presented in be either spoken, written or performed way, just as you wish or need :) 

This method was presented by Lorena from Italy. Thanks a bunch!! 

A fairy-tale in 5 min or 60 seconds

Work in small groups.
Pick a well-known story, i.e. a fairy-tale.
Prepare a short 5-minute play of main scenes and short dialogues to convey the meaning of the story. Present it to others.
Prepare also a quicker-shorter version of the same story which should be presented in 60 seconds....

Loads of fun guaranteed!! Especially with quickies... :D

Who am I?

Mingle speaking activity in a group.
A label with the name of a profession is attached to your back.
You will walk around and ask questions about your profession to guess who you are, 

i.e. Do I work outside? Do I work with other people? Do you have to be strong?
If necessary, some smaller comments can be added to Yes/No-answers, but not telling the word itself. 

Here I am- a drug dealer...
who would have guessed that could be my job ? haahaaa!

Day 10- All day trip to a wonderland :)

Wednesday 10th of July took us to a rather surprising places which we weren't really expecting to see here in England. A small town Totnes was cute, but we passed it way too fast to get a good glimpse of it.
Boarding on a ferry was a bit creepy, because of the huge queue of people and relatively small boat in a medium size river... Was sure it would drown if all the people were let on the board. But it wasn't. Oohh, what a relief!

At first sitting in the benches in a row like diligent school children and breathing in the exhaust-fumes-scented air wasn't actually the idea of a pleasant boat trip. But having summoned up some more courage the discovery started.
On the upper floor in the sunshine and smooth summer breeze everything felt much prettier. Now I noticed wonderful hilly river banks, fields and pastures, cottages almost hidden in the woods... Agatha Christy's house was somewhere there.

Arriving to Darthmouth... Well, there are no words to describe the amazement and surprise when the view just like to the Mediterranean beaches and hills opened in front of us, brownish river was turned into a greenish blue wide creek with some cute little boats and posh yachts floating, attractive colourful rows of houses rising up the hills on both sides. Some of them seemed very old and I'd say like Dutch or German village cottages, others rather typical British stone forts, accompanied with contemporary-looking bright-coloured dwelling houses. One of them looked like a huge marshmallow, just like my good companion Anke said :)

Slightly tiresome hot day was still perfect for discovering such amazing town like Dartmouth. Would never have thought of seeing it otherwise, but now shall recommend it to everyone visiting Britain!

Totnes, view to the place the ferries stop

Our ferry which was supposed to take 450 people on board... 

Ülle in Dartmouth, amazed by the beauty of the town

The best IPC group- the drama group!!!

The best IPC group ever- it is the drama group with the teacher trainer Mr Richard Clark! 

This is how we look bored... (but as you see we didn't really manage, because we hardly ever are... :D )

Another try of looking bored... not much better, though

aaand shot number 4- EXCITEEEEED!!!!