Wednesday, August 27, 2014

DRIVING Through the City in English

As many English Users know, practical language learning is a journey that is best achieved in context. Well, this is language approach you'll find in HIT THE ROAD PAUL, a fun video-story course available for FREE to anyone with an internet connection.This course is designed for both students and teachers of English interested in learning or teaching authentic English in context.

The Story: English teacher StoryPaul only has 45 minutes to get to an office downtown and pick up a document. In each episode, we focus on a different topic related to travel and traffic. At the end, we find out if he makes it to his destination on time. Along the way, students have a chance to learn and practice idioms & speaking patterns related to each episode.

Episode 1 - In the Garage is about how to use the English language to talk about starting a car and getting out of a garage. See questions at the end.



UNDERSTANDING THE SCREENS

The Full Dashboard - Provides a space for key language elements like Questions and Target Language that the students can repeat by pausing the video.

This board includes Time Remaining and Distance Remaining which track how much time and how many kilometers Paul has until he reaches his destination.

VERB elements are usually in upper case letters for easy identification.

The Standard Dashboard - Contains no time and distance information, but still includes Target Language and Name of Episode.

Target Language - The language in each Dashboard is the target language of the lesson. They are modeled phrases and sentences that students can stop to repeat when watching the video a second time.



Additional Language - Language that is not essential or does not constitute a learning objective is often shown on a smaller lower third graph that appears on the left side of the screen.

While this is not the Target Language, students are just as welcome to learn it.

Photos and Pictures are sometimes added to illustrate key ideas. A Time Clock may also appear on this lower third screen.


RECOMMENDED WAY TO USE THE VIDEOS
(independently or as group / with a teacher or as self-study)

1. WATCH it once without stopping. Don't worry if you miss something.
2. ANSWER the General Questions.
3. WATCH again and Stop, carefully Read and Repeat the Target Language on each Dashboard.
4. ANSWER the Discussion Questions.
5. WATCH one more time without stopping.
6. As soon as you have a chance, tell a friend in English what the Episode is about. (Remember that Paul speaks in First Person; so a great exercise is to change his sentences to Third Person)


EPISODE 1 QUESTIONS & QUIZ

General Questions

1. Why is Paul going downtown? 
2. How much time does Paul have to get to the office downtown?
3. What's the first thing Paul does when he gets in the car?
4. How does Paul start the car?
5. What kind of car does Paul have?
6. Why does Paul look in his mirror when he is driving inside the garage?
7. What does Paul do when he gets out of his garage.
8. What do we call people who walk in the street?

Answer the same Questions in the Quiz below:
Discussion Questions

1. How do you travel around the city or town?
2. If you or some in your family drives, what kind of car is it (stick shift or manual)?
3. Do you like cars? Why or why not?
4. Do you live in a big city? If not, where do you live? Is there a lot of traffic?
5. Do you put on a seat belt when you travel in a car? Why or why not?
6. Do you lock the doors? Why or why not?
7. Do people in your country honk to tell pedestrians they're coming out of a building?
8. Do you think Paul will make it on time to the office?

There are more videos in the series, so be sure to check once in a while. Enjoy!