After reading Hamlet - a conversation between king and prince

Hamlet went to another world where he saw his father.

Hamlet: Father, at last I have killed bad Claudius for your revenge. I decided I had to kill him when your ghost spoke to me about your true death. That was too cruel.

Father: You did a great job, fulfilled my soul. It;s great, my dear son. But I'm sad you died and came to this world too young. I hoped you lived strongly with Ophelia for long time as Denmark's noble king.

Hamlet: I'm sad about Ophelia, her father Polonius and brother Laertes. I'm sorry forgive me.

Father: You were good, noble and gentle prince. You are loved by all people. But it's not enough to live as a king of Denmark for long time.

Hamlet: Yes I was. I should be more cruel for bad people. Next time we will again be in that world and be a most royal and complete king to Denmark.

Father: I hope so. We will live strongly without revenge or not to receive revenge from others. We have to live for long time. It's important.

Posted for Mine

Asking for directions with Sock Puppets

It can be a bit of a struggle to get some older kids/younger teens to look up/at each other when they have a book to hide in!

From this rather static format

Book is safe, and flat on the table = ideal excuse not to establish eye contact...and a great way to continue muttering along in the least interesting tone as possible. How to break into that little comfort zone & get some meaningful production going? First of all, do use the audio available to you from CD or whatever classroom recording you have. It will present a dialogue more naturally than you can (unless you are a trained ventriloquist?) and at the same time expose learners to 'other Englishes'. Read along, figure out the context and get set. One way is to ask your students to do this as a pair. EFL 101, for sure. Nothing wrong with this as a starting point, but come the day when this dialogue might actually happen, chances are the book is not going to be to hand.

I like to change the dynamic of this kind of work and invite the students to self-inflict a challenge; I write up the dialogue on the board (large enough to be read from a distance), colour coding the speakers. Students stand up & pair up, looking at each other. Separation anxiety already from the book (leave open on desks if they need that security blanket!). Using the board, students are already being more natural with body language getting involved (pointing to each other when it's 'their go') & eye contact and moving (remembering which way is left & right!)

...to this board script

Challenge? When groups have navigated though once, invite one to erase 5 words off the board (and replace with a line where the words were). Likely the student erased their partners words more than their own - so of course you ask students to now switch roles and try again. Repeat this process (change partners too) until you run out of words or time; students will not run out of enthusiasm! They realise they are building up a visual memory of the conversation and trying to 'see' it helps...and they also help each other (when usually they wouldn't dare).

Sock Puppets I came across a few years ago now, an iOS app which is great in class, via +Shelly Sanchez Terrell on twitter (@shellterrell). The 30 second limit works in your favour to speed things up even more & have students begging to retry/improve/beat the buzzer! Really recommend trying it out - here are my two 12/13 year olds giving it their best shot...what do you think?

Ear-rings from Frankfurt - police interview (after reading)

                              On Saturday Richard went to the police about the 'eggs' letter.

Richard: I have something to tell you about the Joe Kelly
Police: Joe Kelly? Go on, Mr Walton, we're listening.
Richard: He's got some stolen jewellery and-
Police: And you and your girlfriend went to Frankfurt to get the jewellery for him, didn't you, Mr Walton?
Richard: Yes, we did, but the German police asked us to bring it back. They had a plan---.
Police: Plan? We don't know anything about at plan, but we want this jewellery. Where is it, Mr Walton?
Richard: it's in Kelly's house, in three egg boxes, and --
Police: How do you know it's in Kelly's house?
Richard: Because I saw a letter in his office. And he's meeting some people at his house at eleven o'clock.
Police: Eleven o'clock? Right. You wait here, Mr Walton. We'll talk to you later.

Posted for Reiko

What's this/that? A real dialogue!

What's this/that? A good laugh!

We made a movie