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| 11/21/2008 |  | |||||
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Extreme Sports
This unit should take 3-6 hours, depending on time, interest, and extension activities. It is designed for intermediate level students age 12 and above. Objectives Students will: Materials to Print Activities Activity I: Brainstorming (15 minutes) Write SPORTS on the board and have students name all the sports they can while you jot them down (you can put a time limit on this to make it more energetic)- tennis, soccer, rugby, American football, baseball, golf, skiing, gymnastics, horseback riding, basketball, volleyball, cycling, surfing, squash, water polo, fencing, martial arts, rowing, bowling, sailing, and so on. Make sure all the students know what each sport is (have the person who came up with the sport explain it if there are questions). Next write the names of five sports on the board: four regular and one extreme; for example, write badminton, swimming, weightlifting, sky diving, and hockey (see list above for regular sports and Printout I for extreme sports). Ask students which sport is different from the rest and why. See if they can name some other sports that would fit in a group with the odd sport: write those down. Now write EXTREME SPORTS on the board and help students to come up with a definition. For instance, "new, innovative and dangerous sports that are alternatives to mainstream sports" or "fresh, adventurous sports which are created by the athletes themselves." Activity II: Vocabulary (20 minutes) Give students Printout I and go over it with them. Then describe various extreme sports and have students guess which one you're talking about (a variation on this would be to mix traditional and extreme sports descriptions). Here are some examples: 1. This is like using a skateboard to ski. (snowboarding) 2. You jump out of an airplane and hope your parachute opens. (sky diving) 3. You leap off a bridge with a cord tied around your ankles. (bungee jumping) 4. It's surfing without the board- just you and the waves! (bodysurfing) 5. You jump out of an airplane with a skateboard strapped to your feet and ride the air currents. (sky surfing) 6. This is like being a giant bird: you hold onto a pair of wings, run off a cliff, and start flying. (hang gliding) 7. You're riding a flat boat down a very fast-moving river. (white water rafting) 8. You are very high up the side of a mountain, holding on by your fingers and toes. (mountaineering, rock climbing) 9. This is like using a skateboard to water-ski. (wakeboarding) 10. In this sport, you drop down into a deep cave without much space to move around in. (caving) When you have finished, have students compare mainstream sports with extreme sports; for instance, skiing and snowboarding (both require snow, in skiing you use poles but not in snowboarding, and so on) or ice skating and skateboarding (both graceful, both feature jumps, ice skating is much colder, etc.). Activity III: I Dare You (20 minutes) Using "would," ask a student a question about an extreme sport activity, such as, "Akiko, would you dive off a high cliff in Hawaii?" After the student has replied, write what you both said on the board. Underline would and the verb you used, and explain that after modal verbs like would, the base form of the main verb is required for all persons (including he, she and it). Also remind them that modals never change form (they don't add -s to the third person singular, for example). Divide students into pairs or small groups, hand out Printout II and make sure they understand what they have to do. Walk around while they're talking, listening and assisting when needed. When they have finished, ask random students about their partner's responses. If all the students know each other pretty well, you can ask a student from one group to predict the responses of a student from another group. Activity IV: Grammar (30 minutes) Now you're going to expand on the grammar explanation you started in the last activity: Go back to your version of "Akiko, would you dive off a high cliff in Hawaii," and add "if someone gave you $10,000?" or "if you broke your arm doing it?" or something similar. (The if clause used would depend on the student's earlier answer, yes or no.) Write PRESENT CONDITIONAL and underneath IF CLAUSE and RESULT CLAUSE on the board. Elicit from students or explain the following points: 1. If + the simple past tense of the verb are used in the if clause. 2. The verb "to be" in the if clause is always "were" for every person: if I were you, if she were the President of the United States. 3. "Could" can also be used in the if clause: If I could fly,... The if clause can come first or second, but when it is first, it is followed by a comma. 4. "Would" or "could" can be used in the result clause. Emphasize to students that although the form looks like the past tense to them, the meaning is present: the present conditional is used to talk about things that are not true or real now. Distribute Printout III and go over the directions with students. Ask them to work alone. When everyone has finished, have one student ask another the first question, the student who answered then asks a third student the next question, and so on. Activity V: Reading (20-30 minutes) Hand out Printout IV. Have students do the reading and answer the questions. After they have finished, discuss the reading and their answers. See if there are any vocabulary questions. Activity VI: Creative Writing (20 minutes - 2 days) Have students write short, imaginative essays that begin with one of the following: If I won the lottery, I would... If I had only a month to live, I would... If I saw a UFO, I would... If I could travel in time, I would... If I could meet anyone, I would... If I had to eat four foods for the rest of my life, I would... If I had to live on a deserted island for a year and could take only five things with me, I would... If I had three wishes, I would... If I had to choose between being ugly and being stupid, I would... If I were an animal, I would... If I had to live in another country for the rest of my life, I would... If I had to give up one of the five senses, I would... |