TEDx Talk Listening, Grammar and Pronunciation Skills Lesson: How to Introduce Yourself, Present Perfect Progressive, Since and For

Students practice their pronunciation and listening skills and learn how to use present perfect progressive, since and for to talk about what they have been doing. They also learn how to introduce themselves in a formal situation such as a presentation or their end-of-year speaking exam.

I wrote a first post last year on a TEDx talk whose first minute and a half I found particularly interesting to learn useful expressions for oral presentations.(TEDx Oral Presentations Listening and Speaking Skills Lesson)

This post is about the same chunk of the video, except the activities focus on pronunciation and intonation, with an expressive reading as a final task - the point being to get the students to use everything they will have learnt throughout the exercises during the expressive reading.

It can be followed by a lesson on present perfect progressive, since, for and other time expressions to enable students to talk about what they have been doing and for how long. They often have to use this grammar point/time expressions when they talk about themselves if they want to say for instance 'I have been studying farm equipment for two years' or 'I have been working for this farm equipment dealer since 2015'. 

Finally, I asked the students to write a script for a 2 minutes presentation, and to perform it in front of the class in the TEDx talk style.

PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES IN AGRICULTURE

1. Listen and complete the text

Good day everyone, _________________________ with you. _____________ Rob Saik and as mentioned I’m a _______________ _______________ and a certified _____________ ________________. The _______________ of Agritrend, a company that has over 250 ________________ that work ___________________ with farmers throughout North America and _______________________.

We ____________ farmers with ________________, we _________________ farmers with scientific integration. I have 30 PhDs and 58 Masters in our ________________. And a Data platform that has nearly ____________________ acres of data.

So we understand __________________. I’ve been blessed to _____________________________ to work directly __________________ with _______________ from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Russia, Uganda, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, all the way down to New Zealand, and Australia, all throughout North America, Mexico, and most recently just __________________ from Kenya and Uganda. This is a _____________ of me working ________________, doing a ______________ inventory in Kenya.

See I’ve a ________________ for you and I’m gonna use this picture as a __________________. This is a ____________ and a ____________ near Lodwar in the north eastern corner of Kenya. And it’s a ___________________ because we ______________ to ________ these people and at the same time we _____________ technology. Notice in her hand, she has ___________________. And so my ________________to you is: “Do you ______________ that agriculture can ___________ 9 billion people? Do you __________________ that? That’s not the real question. The real question is ___________: “Will agriculture be _____________to feed 9 billion people?”.”

2. Listen and underline the stressed syllable

professional certified agricultural consultant company America internationally

farmers understand recently picture technology question believe

Ukraine Kazakhstan Russia Peru Brazil Argentina New Zealand Australia Mexico

3. How does Rob Saik pronounce the following words? why?

INTERNATIONALLY

INTEGRATION

DATA

METAPHOR

NOTICE

THIRTY SEVENTY

4. Put the words in the right column.

great, certified, integration, directly, Russia, arriving, field, child, feed, these, people, time, need, question, believe, actually

/ei/ (day)	/ai/ (my)	/i:/ (read)	/ch/

5. Listen and underline the stressed words in the sentence.

We help farmers with coaching

See I’ve a question for you

we have to feed these people and at the same time we need technology

Do you believe that?

6. Listen and practice reading the following text. Then record yourself.

Good day everyone, it’s great to be with you. My name’s Rob Saik / and I’m a professional agrologist / and a certified / agricultural consultant. The founder of Agritrend.

We help farmers with coaching, we help farmers with scientific integration.

So we understand farming. I’ve been blessed to travel around the world / to work directly on the ground with farmers / from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, / Russia, Uganda, Peru, /  Brazil, Argentina, / all the way down to New Zealand,/ and Australia. This is a picture of me / working in the field, doing a soil inventory in Kenya.

See I’ve a question for you / and I’m gonna use this picture as a metaphor. This is a woman and a child. And it’s a metaphor / because we have to feed these people / and at the same time / we need technology. Notice in her hand, she has a cellular phone. And so my question to you is: “Do you believe that agriculture / can feed 9 billion people? Do you believe that?”.

Talk about what you have been doing

(for/since/expressions of time)

1. Present perfect progressive / for / since

I have been living here for 1 year.	I have been reading since 4 pm
Le 'present perfect progressive' se forme de cette façon: ……………….. + ………………………. + ………………………… + ………………………….
For +...........................	Since + ……………………………….

2. Expressions of time (Vocabulary Revisions). How do you say...?

heure jour semaine mois années décénie siècle

ce mois-ci la semaine dernière l’année prochaine hier avant-hier aujourd’hui demain après-demain

3. Translate the following sentences:

1. Je travaille ici depuis le mois dernier.

2. Je conduis des tracteurs depuis l'âge de 10 ans.

3. J’étudie ici depuis 4 ans.

4. Je regarde la télé depuis 1 heure.

5. Je cuisine depuis 20 minutes.

6. Je joue de la guitare depuis 2014.

7. Je fais du camping depuis avant-hier.

The full transcript:

Good day everyone, it’s great to be with you. My name’s Rob Saik and as mentioned I’m a professional agrologist and a certified agricultural consultant. The founder of Agritrend, a company that has over 250 people that work on the ground with farmers throughout North America and internationally.

We help farmers with coaching, we help farmers with scientific integration. I have 30 PhDs and 58 Masters in our organization. And a Data platform that has nearly 70 million acres of data.

So we understand farming. I’ve been blessed to travel around the world to work directly on the ground with farmers from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Russia, Uganda, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, all the way down to New Zealand, and Australia, all throughout North America, Mexico, and most recently just arriving back from Kenya and Uganda. This is a picture of me working in the field, doing a soil inventory in Kenya.

See I’ve a question for you and I’m gonna use this picture as a metaphor. This is a woman and a child near Lodwar in the north eastern corner of Kenya. And it’s a metaphor because we have to feed these people and at the same time we need technology. Notice in her hand, she has a cellular phone. And so my question to you is: “Do you believe that agriculture can feed 9 billion people?”Do you believe that?” That’s not the real question. The real question is actually: “Will agriculture be allowed to feed 9 billion people?”.

The video:

The worksheet:

Pushing the Boundaries of Agriculture - Worksheet

Present Progressive, for and since - Worksheet

The audio files:

Pushing the Boundaries of Agriculture - Exercise 2

Pushing the Boundaries of Agriculture - Exercise 3

Pushing the Boundaries of Agriculture - Exercise 5

Cécile Sohier 

Create a Quiz with Google Forms: Vocabulary, Writing and Reading Activity

Students have fun creating a quiz with Google Forms, learn about any given topic or vocabulary, and practise their reading and writing skills.

Here are the instructions for the students on how to proceed to create a quiz with Google Forms . You can also download the JPEG document at the end of this post. If you want to see the final results, you can check those quizzes that were made by my students: General Tractor Vocabulary Quiz and Tractor Transmission: Mechanics Vocabulary Quiz.


CREATE A VOCABULARY QUIZ WITH GOOGLE FORMS

Step 0: If you already have a google account, open it, and go straight to step 1. If not you need to create a Google Account (not gmail).

https://accounts.google.com/SignUp?service=cl&continue=https%3A%2F%2Faccounts.google.com%2FManageAccount

1. Go to the above website.
2. Click on “Je préfère utiliser mon adresse email” and complete the form.
3. Validate your account.
4. Go to Google Drive.

Step 1: Quiz preparation.

1. You are going to create a vocabulary quiz with Google Forms. Choose one of the following topics:

• Inside the cab
• On the tractor
• Tractor mechanical parts
• Mechanical tools and parts
• The engine
• Tractor features

Or you can create your own topic…

2. Make a list of words related to this topic in French and English (about 20)

3. Go to the workshop to take pictures to illustrate each part. Make sure to save your pictures in Google Drive or in your school file. Give each of them a name in English and French (e.g. Clutch_embrayage or roue_wheel).

Step 2: Then you will open Google form : Click on “nouveau”(on the top left), then “plus”, and Google Form.

1. In “paramêtres” (wheel on the top right), click on “questionnaires”.
2. Then click on “convertir en questionnaire”, and “enregistrer”.

Step 3: You are now ready to create your quiz.

1. Click on “Formulaire sans titre” and write the title of your quiz (e.g. ‘Inside the cab’, ‘Tractor mechanical parts’...)
2. Click on “Question sans titre” and write the question (e.g. “What is this?” or “What do you call this?”...)
3. Click on the icon at the end of the line and insert a picture.
4. Then write different options (option 1, 2, and 3).
5. Finally click on “corrigé”, and select the number of points (e.g. 1), and write the answer to the question. Your question is now complete.
6. Click on the “+” icon on the right hand side and create your next question.

Step 4: Send it to your teacher

1. Click on “envoyer” (top left).
2. Then click on “ajouter des collaborateurs”.
3. Under “inviter des utilisateurs”, write the address cecile.enseignante@gmail.com.
4. Finally click on “envoyer”.

Here is the downloadable JPEG file:

CREATE A QUIZ WITH GOOGLE FORMS

Cécile Sohier 

Tractor Transmission: Mechanics Vocabulary Quiz

Students learn and practice tractor mechanics vocabulary through a vocabulary quiz about mechanical terms related to tractor transmission.

You can also try the General Tractor Vocabulary Quiz

and the Tractor Features Vocabulary Quiz 

as well as the 2017 News quiz

Find out how to create your own quiz on this post: Create a Quiz with Google Forms: Vocabulary, Writing and Reading Activity

Cécile Sohier 

General Tractor Vocabulary Quiz

Students learn and practise general tractor vocabulary through a tractor vocabulary quiz.

You can also try the Tractor Transmission: Mechanics Vocabulary Quiz

and the Tractor Features Vocabulary Quiz 

as well as the 2017 News quiz

Find out how to create your own quiz on this post: Create a Quiz with Google Forms: Vocabulary, Writing and Reading Activity

Cécile Sohier 

Analysing Superheroes: Speaking, Writing and Listening Activities

Students synthesise everything they know about superheroes (and heroes) in order to analyse superhero stories, and practice their speaking, listening, and writing skills.

The main objective of these activities is to get students to talk about a familiar topic, as well as to understand the pattern behind superhero stories. The final task of this chapter will be to get the students to create their own superhero and present it to the class.

Students have made some diggings on superheroes through the Superheroes web quest (click here to read the post and access the worksheets). In teams, they have had to write questions on one superhero of their choice and then play a board game with questions from all teams. This activity gave common grounds to all of them to start analysing superhero stories.

In Analysing Superheroes worksheet (you will find the link at the bottom of this page), the key question is: "what makes a superhero?". So in exercise 1, we analyse different aspects of superhero stories to try and outline a pattern: how they became superheroes, what is their purpose, how they achieve their purpose and what type of characters we usually find in superhero stories. 

Exercise 2 focuses on how different superheroes and heroes are. We listen to a video ( the link in which young people give their definition of a hero. Ultimately I ask them to come up with their own personal definition that starts up with "a hero is someone who...".

Finally, in exercise 3 students are expected to think about the differences between superhero stories and the real life. How crime is dealt with in superhero stories as opposed to the real life for example. 

Eventually, I wanted to make them reflect upon the black and white vision of the world in superhero stories but it turned out to be a little ambitious (especially in the time lapse that we had). I was happy that they all came up with convincing reasons as for why people like superhero stories so much (exercise 4).

The activity worksheet is followed by a proposal of answers for each exercise.


Here is the worksheet (with answers on the second page)

Analysing Superheroes

This activity was preceded by a web search and board game creation

Superhero web quest

And it is followed by activities on comics covers (namely Captain America) and their link to major historical events:

Superheroes and History (the Example of Captain America): Reading, Writing and Speaking Activities

Cécile Sohier 

Tractor Troubleshooting Vocabulary Speaking Lesson

Students learn extensive mechanical vocabulary - including verbs, nouns and expressions - and practice their writing and speaking skills.

That is a worksheet that took me a lot of preparation! I wanted to give students some significant input to allow them to handle situations in which they would have to talk in English about mechanics.

I may have got a little carried away for the list is quite long. It consists of nouns, verbs and expressions that I took from Rachel Gingell's video "Why won't my tractor start" that you can watch by clicking here:

Why won't my tractor start video

The list of words is relatively long for two reasons. Firstly because the video is 15 minutes long. She tackles a wide variety of potential issues so the vocabulary range is broad. Secondly, the classes that I teach are very heterogeneous. Levels go from A2 to B2 so I have to widen the range of vocabulary to give weaker students something to hold on to, and stronger students some new input as well. 


Subsequent to the matching vocabulary exercise, exercise 3 is a speaking activity that allows students to put into practice the vocabulary.

Why won't my tractor start exercise 2 and 3 (vocabulary and speaking)

This exercise is preceded by a listening exercise on Rachel Gingell's video. You can read the post about exercise 1  and find the worksheet by clicking on the link below:

Why won't my tractor start exercise 1

More articles on English for Mechanics:

Fixing Tractor Hydraulics: Listening Activity to Learn English for Mechanics

Tractor Transmission: Mechanics Vocabulary Quiz

Tractor Buying Facts: Reading Activity and Oral Presentation Skills Practice

Tractor Troubleshooting English for Mechanics Listening Lesson

Tractor Warranty Issue / English for Mechanics: Listening and Speaking Exercises - BTS Final Exam (CCF)

Cécile Sohier 

Superheroes Web Quest: Reading, Writing and Board Game Activities

Students practice their reading and writing skills, as well as learn about different famous superhero stories, and revise the interrogative form.  

I believe superheroes are a great way to motivate students. They are alluring to them, not just because they are endowed with superpowers and fight the crime by killing supervillains, but also because they can relate to them. Superheroes are portrayed in an increasingly humane way in movies. They are super humans because of their super abilities, but they also have their fair share of trauma, bad dreams, fears, anxiety because they see their body changing or because their loved ones are in danger, typically they are victims of events they cannot control. From this standpoint, they are very much alike our teenager students.

These activities are intended as an introductory set of activities to a chapter on superheroes. I wanted to get them to think about what makes superheroes so special and so alluring. 

Students are required to choose a superhero and make some research (a webpage is provided to help) in order to make questions that will later be used in a board game. Initially, I wanted to focus on humans who became superheroes using technology (like Batman or the Green Harrow) but I ultimately allowed some students to work on Hulk or Deadpool. It took them a one-hour lesson to make the 12 questions and answers (depending on the groups, some made less), I then gathered all the questions on a single document and made copies for each group. 

To fit into the STI2D program, I have oriented the chapter as followed:

Cultural entry: Myths and heroes
Question: Why are superheroes such mythical heroes?

Technical knowledge: Technological innovations

Question: How do men manage to enhance their physical abilities to become superheroes?

Here is the worksheet for the web search: 

Superheroes web quest and board game

And a board game template:

Board game template

The follow-up activities are a reflection on superhero stories, as well as the link between superheroes and history:

Analysing superheroes

Superheroes and History (the Example of Captain America): Reading, Writing and Speaking Activities

Cécile Sohier