English tastes so good!

Using food in ESL classes

Elena ShvidkoITESOL Conference

Ogden, UTOctober 23, 2010

Reasons Fun and interesting Motivates students Delicious Cultural aspect

Traditional use Teaching process Teaching cooking vocabulary

Non-traditional use Food is a tool, not the purposeImplementing in every skill area

Writing Teaching paraphrasing:

“Trip to a grocery store” Procedure: • Take your students to a grocery store • Give them a list of paraphrased items,

ask them to find those items in the store and bring them to you.

• The activity becomes more exciting when the students are divided into teams.

Writing (cont.)Crispy salty buddy, the life of every party and is always up for a dip

ChipsGrapes with a sunburn

RaisinsHoney roasted, salted, or plain... you'll go nuts for these babies

Peanuts Small and chewy fruit flavored animals

Gummy bears

Writing (cont.)At the end of the activity, give a different definition of chocolate to each team. They students will bring it and it will be their treat

Examples: Brown sweet bliss! It melts in your mouth and makes you feel good

Yummy emergency stress reliever for most women

Writing (cont.)Practicing process words

“Making a sandwich” Procedure • Prepare necessary ingredients (depends on a

type of sandwich you want to make)• Divide the students into teams • Each team has to write a recipe of how to make a

sandwich, describing each step precisely. They have to use transition words describing process.

• Each team receives a different recipe and makes a sandwich according to the recipe

Writing (cont.)FirstSecondThenNext Following thisAt this pointAfterBefore thisFinallyIn the end

Why a peanut butter sandwich?

Writing (cont.)Practicing compare and contrast words

“Tasting laboratory”Procedure: • Prepare different snacks, for example: - Popcorn - Chips- Peanuts - “Skittles”- Banana chips- Cheddar cheese crackers - Gummy bears

Writing (cont.)• Give two pieces of different snacks to students and ask

them to taste them and write a sentence describing a similarity (or a difference) between the snacks.

• Then give them another pair of snacks and ask them to write another sentence of comparison (or contrast).

• Each time, students have to use compare and contrast words (similarly, likewise, neither… nor, both …and, however, in contrast, on the other hand, whereas etc.)

Example:

Both banana chips and cheddar cheese crackers are crunchy. Whereas banana chips are sweet, cheddar cheese crackers are salty.

Other ideas for writingUse candies (or cookies) wrapped in a

topic for writing.

Examples: - Questions for a 10-minute paragraph or

a class journal- Controversial statement (Ask students

to express their opinion in writing)- An interesting quotation (Ask students

to reflect on it)

Grammar Practicing future tense (verb forms and future tense phrases)

“Fortune cookies” Procedure: • Divide students into pairs. One student is a fortune teller and

the other one is a “person who desires to know his/her future”.• The fortune teller has cards with different fortunes written on

them • The other student asks the fortune teller questions about his

future using the phrases of future (tomorrow, in 10 days, in 2018, next winter etc). The fortune teller picks up one card and reads the fortune.

• At the end of the “session” the fortune teller gives the other student a “fortune cookie”.

• The students switch the roles and do the same activity again.

Grammar (cont.)Practicing past forms of irregular verbs

“Bingo” Procedure: • Give a Bingo table and a handful of “Skittles” or

“M&Ms” to each student• In each square of the table, students write a base form

of an irregular verb• The teacher will read past tense forms of the verbs

from the list and those students who have the base forms of the verbs put a candy on the corresponding squares.

Grammar (cont.)Bingo Table

Go Think Find

Teach Know Pay

Drive Write Buy

Grammar (cont.)Practicing questions

“Tricky candy” Procedure - Prepare a few kinds of candies (different

colors or flavors)- Each student will take one candy - Each type of candy is “assigned” to a

certain category of questions - The teacher asks each student a question

according to his/her candy

Example: Green taffies: “What-questions”What do people in your country do for Christmas?

What is your favorite TV program? Why?

Blue taffies: “Questions with if-clause”If you could speak three languages well, what would they be?

If you had three days to live, what would you do? Etc

Orange taffies: “How-questions” How many friends have you got and who are they?

How often do you go shopping and where?

Brown taffies: “Mixed questions”Which do you prefer, summer or winter? Why?

Why are you studying English?

Speaking Teaching an organization of a formal speech

“Hot dog analogy”

Procedure: - Prepare hot dog ingredients- Teach students about the parts of a

formal speech using the hot dog ingredients

- Make hot dogs with the students!

Speaking (cont.)Example:

A speech is like a hot dog

Introduction of a speech

Get the attention of a listener

Top of the bun

Body of a speech The subject

Work on it

Add supporting ideas (examples, personal stories, interesting facts, analogies, metaphors etc)

Conclusion of a speech

Summarize the main ideas, provide solutions/give opinions etc. What people will remember

The bottom of the bun

PARTS OF A SPEECH

Introduction

Body

Conclusion

Top of the bun

Hot dog and condiments

Bottom of the bun

PARTS OF A HOT DOG

Reading Text comprehension

“Earn your salad!” Procedure: - Prepare ingredients for a fruit salad (different

fruits). They will represent different types of questions about a book or another text.

- Separate your students into teams. - Each team will choose which fruit they would like

to have in their salad and the teacher will ask them a question according to their choice.

- The teacher can make it more challenging and exciting by assigning harder questions to a more exotic (and more desirable!) fruit.

Reading (cont.)Example:

The types of questions will depend on a book:

• Grape questions (about ideas in the book)• Banana questions (about book characters) • Apple questions (about book events)• Orange questions (about vocabulary) etc. • Get some mangoes for hard questions

If the team cannot answer their question, a different team can answer it and earn a piece of fruit to their salad. The quality of the salad will depend on the knowledge of the team members

Reading (cont.)You can do the same activity to practice reading skills.

For example:

Grape questions: Find a main idea

Banana questions: Find a topic

Apple questions: Vocabulary in context

Orange question: Make a prediction

Mango questions: Identify the pattern.

Other occasions to use food in class

• To divide class into groups or teams: Give to students taffies of different colors• To encourage participation: Bring to class a few treats and assign a price for each treat (a

certain number of coupons). During the lesson, students will receive coupons for

participation. At the end of the class, students can “buy” the treats with

their coupons. The more coupons they have, the better treat they get!

• A getting to know activity Each student will take a chocolate candy from a bag.

Depending on a candy, they will have to tell others something about themselves:

Example: Family

Hobby

Unique thing

Country

Practice time! In your groups, come up with two-three activities

for teaching your skill area using food.

Writing

Grammar

Speaking

Reading

Thank you so much for coming and participating! Happy Halloween!