Student's Book 1: A and B

Units 1 - 3 | Units 4 - 6 | Units 7 - 9 | Units 10 - 12 | Review

Unit 1 - Hello
http://www.teaching.com/keypals/
http://www.iecc.org/
Here are two sites from Teaching.com with the aim of linking students from around the world. Not only could you get your students to send messages and start to have online conversations with other learners from around the world, but you could use the simple messages posted on the guestbook pages to get your students to practice basic personal information and answer questions such as: What’s his/her name? Where do they come from? How old is he/she? etc

Unit 2 – People & Places
http://photojapan.com/index.htm/occupations.html
A Japanese site with pictures of around 15 occupations. Clearly at this stage the language the learners have is very limited and a few of the jobs are a little obscure. However, use the pictures to get your students practising questions like: What does s/he do? Where does s/he work? What’s his/her job?

http://stats.bls.gov/k12/html/edu_over.htm
This site takes a look at which jobs are suitable from the starting point of school interests. Ask your students what subjects they enjoy most (and possibly the ones they enjoy least). Then ask them what job they would like, or what job they have (you could brainstorm different kinds of jobs and what people do in those jobs). Finally, get them to click on the relevant icons to bring up jobs that are linked to favorite subjects and see if they agree. The site also includes very detailed texts but these are probably too difficult for this level.

http://geography.about.com/science/geography/cs/countryfacts/index.htm
If your students enjoyed the geography game on pages 20 and 21 why not get them to create their own. This site is a link to lots of other sites containing all kinds of information and facts about the world. Put them in small groups, give them the site address and let them get on with it.

Unit 3 – Think Green
http://www.greenpeace.org/
http://www.panda.org/
The title of the unit is "Think Green." Start by brainstorming "Green" issues and then get your students to click on these sites and see if they can find the same issues as they listed.

http://www.ecotourism.org/travelchoice/index.htm
Not only does this site contain lots of information about what ecotourism is, but it also has lots of links to companies who provide eco-vacations. After your students have finished pages 30 and 31 ask them to plan a real eco-tour. Tell them to choose the type of activities they would most like to do (some ideas are given in the first exercise on page 30) and then ask them to find the most suitable tour for them. Although their language level may be low, many of the pages accessed through this site contain pictures.

Have a look at some great pictures on:
http://www.ecotourism-adventure.com

Here is another site with lots of pictures and information:
http://mbgnet.mobot.org/sets/

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Unit 4 - Impressions
http://www.yahooligans.com/Arts_and_Entertainment/Actors_and_Actresses/Actor_Actress_Pictures/
Choose a few actors and actresses that you think your students will know, print out the pictures and use for a variety of activities, e.g. 1) Each student picks a picture and then tries to describe the person (starting off with physical description) and the other student(s) try to guess who is being described. 2) Choose a picture, cover most of it then slowly uncover it, revealing more of the person. Students try and guess who it is. This activity works well as a team quiz.

http://www.astrology-online.com/about.htm
In Lesson 4 of the unit the focus shifts onto the topic of astrology and the signs of the zodiac. This site is both informative and easy to navigate around. Find out the dates for each sign, the characteristics and weekly horoscopes. Then link the whole lesson back to the earlier focus of famous people by finding out when they were born and which sign of the zodiac they were born under. Get your students to find someone who was born under the same sign that they were and see if they think they are like them.

Unit 5 – House & Home
http://www.crownpaint.co.uk/
An online quiz that asks you to choose your favorite color and then tells you what that says about you – interesting if a little difficult in terms of the vocabulary. The site also contains a computer generated decorating facility, as does http://www.dulux.com where you can click on a room and then decide on the color scheme. Pair the students up and get them to discuss the choices – by doing this they should have plenty of opportunities to use both sets of lexical items from this unit.

Unit 6 – Work & Leisure
http://www.esl-lab.com/time.htm
An online listening quiz that compliments the listening activities on page 52. If your students need more practice in listening comprehension, especially of tricky differences such as 4:15 and 4:50, this site would be useful. It does require speakers and a "real player" that can be downloaded free from the Internet.

Another option is to give a small quiz to your students. Choose 5 places from around the world, e.g. Calcutta, Dallas, Paris, Sydney and Moscow. Then ask your students to find out what time it is in each place by using the international time zones from http://www.worldtimeserver.com/. They will need to click on major cities in order to carry out the task.

http://www.esl-lab.com/elem/elemrd1.htm
A listening activity which can be used to practice both daily routines and adverbs of frequency.
You will need Real Player (which you can download from the Internet) to do this activity.

http://www.girlslife.com/alexn.html
This site contains an interview with Alexandra Nechita. After your students have done the reading on page 54 put them into pairs and ask them to write 3 questions they would like to ask Alexandra about her painting. Then get them to look at this website and see if they can find the answers to their questions. Finally, if they would like to see some of the paintings by Alexandra get them to check out the online gallery at http://www.piersidegallery.com/

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Unit 7 - Travel
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/
In Unit 7 the students are asked to talk about vacations. There are questions about when to go to certain destinations, what to take and what the weather is like. Ask your students to work in small groups and to decide where they would like to go on vacation. Then use this Lonely Planet site to take them anywhere in the world. Use the search boxes at the top to identify the region of the world you wish to visit. You are then given a choice of countries and cities to visit, and you can click on one to get lots of facts about the place. This site also has a printable option as well, enabling you to create an almost instant jigsaw reading activity.

http://www.extremescience.com/weatherport.htm
On page 66 there are 7 pictures of extreme conditions associated either directly or indirectly with the weather. Do your students know what they are, or how they are caused? Can they think of any other forms of extreme weather? Use this site to gain more information on this natural phenomenon or access such features as a current weather map. You could also ask your students to guess where the hottest, driest, wettest and coldest places in the world are and then get them to check out their answers here as well.

Unit 8 – Around Town
http://www.timeout.com/london/
Tell your students they should imagine they are in London for the weekend. They will work in pairs and they have a total of £150 to spend. They should use the online Time Out magazine to find out what’s on and plan what they could do. Tell them not to worry about a place to stay since that is already arranged. Give them a time limit of about 20 minutes before you ask them to tell the rest of the class what their plans are. This activity will fit in nicely after they have completed page 71.

http://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Special_Features/envirotown.html
A simulation from Think Quest, an online education provider. The students will need to work in small groups to discuss the choices they have to make. There are 5 sets of choices that need to be made in order to create an environmentally friendly town. This activity would be an interesting extension to the topic of urban planning in Lesson 4 of this unit. Some of the language may be a little difficult – encourage your students to use their dictionaries or ask you (the teacher) for some help - but the activity is well worth trying.

Unit 9 – Bon Appetit!
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0770282.html
"You are what you eat" is the title of this webpage. Get your students to write down what they usually eat in a day. After this put them in pairs and get them to rate their partners diet from a scale of 1 = very healthy, to 5 = very unhealthy. Then ask them to check this webpage to find out how healthy their diets really are.

http://www.factmonster.com/spot/quiz/icecream/1.html
Do you like ice cream? How much do you know about ice cream? Try out this online quiz to see how much you know. You could then get your students to design their own food quiz.

http://dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/Food_and_Drink/Cooking/Recipes/
Put your students into small groups of 3 or 4 and tell them that they have to plan a meal for a dinner party but that they have a few restrictions. Give each group a role card containing a few limitations, e.g. Your guests can’t eat eggs. Or, your guests would like something Greek. Point your students in the direction of this search site and let them get on with it. Remember to give them a time limit (for example, 25 minutes).

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Unit 10 – Life stories
http://www.biography.com/
With one of the "top ten" biographies being that of Julia Roberts, this site fits in nicely with the first part of this unit. Put your students into pairs or small groups. Ask each pair/group to choose one of the famous people indicated on this site – or allocate each group a person (it is useful if it is a person the class have heard of but do not know too much about). Using the biography get each pair/group to write a quiz similar to the one in the book. In the next lesson swap the quizzes around and ask the students to try and complete them and then check their answers on the Internet.

http://www.shakespeare.org.uk/
http://library.thinkquest.org/5175/
http://library.thinkquest.org/10502/
In Lesson 3 of Unit 10 there is a focus on William Shakespeare. Look through these sites and write down 10 "Wh-" questions based on the information you find there. Give these questions to the students and ask them to find the answers.

Alternatively, after your students have completed the lesson why not get them to write 5 questions about things they would like to find out about Shakespeare. Then direct them to these websites and they should be able to find the answers.

Unit 11 – Looking back
http://amillionlives.com/
A basic link site with a search facility devoted to famous people. Choose 10 famous people you think your students should know a little about. Write some simple questions such as: Where was X born? When did X die? What nationality was X? Then put your students into small groups and try an Internet race – read out the first question and see who can find the answer quickest, then read out the next question and so on. Finally, ask them to choose 1 famous person and write 5 more questions they’d like to know the answers to – once they’ve written the questions they could search the site for the answers.

http://eslcafe.com/today/
Dave Sperling brings a brief look back at history. Updated daily, the only weakness is that it focuses predominantly on the U.S.A. Ask the students what they know about today – who was born? what happened? and then get them to check. If they are interested they could take the information from here and find out more using one of the other sites listed for this unit.

http://library.thinkquest.org/C001692/english/index.php3?subject=home
The fourth lesson of Unit 11 takes a look at one of the most famous explorers ever - Christopher Columbus, the man who "discovered" America. Try out this site to find out more information about Columbus as well as information about lots of other explorers and expeditions. Put your students into small groups and ask them to design a short quiz for the rest of the class. An alternative site to use for similar activities is http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/ which, although originally designed for teenagers, is of an appropriate language level and has a comprehensive alphabetical list of a hundred+ explorers and simple texts and maps or pictures to show where they went and what they found.

Unit 12 – Goals!
http://www.webspawner.com/
Get your students to create their own webpage. Click on the Webspawner site and follow the simple step by step instructions.

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Review
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/youmeus/quiznet/newquiz1.shtml
Test your knowledge by trying out one of these quizzes brought to you by the BBC World Service. The levels vary and the quizzes test a variety of language points from prepositions and vocabulary to word order and affixes. Some of the quizzes are suitable for elementary students although it is necessary to check them out before using them since they are not leveled or clearly labeled.

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