Teachers' Zone 6

Dia dhuit!

Since another great holiday is coming  let me share with you some helpful ideas concerning how we could incorporate elements of the holiday in our lessons.

Authors of  a well-known to us blog  https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/st-patricks-day-esl/  suggest taking advantage of Irish proverbs. They can be discussed either in a class or in small groups- printed and cut in half Irish words of wisdom can be matched up and completed accurately. Here is a number of proverbs we can choose from:

May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live.

May the wind always be at your back.

Every man is sociable until a cow invades his garden.

You’ve got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your father was.

I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.

May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the foresight to know where you’re going and the insight to know when you’ve gone too far.

A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures.

Here’s to eyes in your heads and none in your spuds.

Don’t be breaking your shin on a stool that’s not in your way.

May misfortune follow you the rest of your life, and never catch up.

May your home always be too small to hold all your friends.

You’ll never plough a field by turning it over in your mind.

With proverbs we can always extend the lesson by asking English discussion questions:

What’s your favorite proverb? Why?

Do you have a similar proverb in your language?

Yet another idea worth trying out focuses on acknowledging and honoring the great Irish writers, such as James Joyce, W.B. Yeats or Oscar Wilde , to name a few. We could read a short biography of one of the Irish writers and an excerpt of any given masterpiece by them in order to have a discussion based on it. As a variation each small group might be assigned one great surname and their task might be to research the writer, summarize one of their works, analyze a short part , submit an inspirational quote and present their findings to the whole class.

If you happen to teach more advanced students why not have a look at https://www.tefl.org/blog/st-patricks-day-tefl-style/ ? They describe a fun and perfect activity called  The gift of the gab’ – in which we will need a bag full of students’ names on slips of paper- these days a  wheel of names is a  great  on-line option-and cards describing scenarios in which someone must be convinced to do something. Now, do you remember  the famous Blarney Stone legend? The one  that if you kiss said stone you will be granted mastery when it comes to speech and flattery?  Here, you must pull a name out of the bag – or spin the wheel -and then tell the chosen person to kiss the small rock (which is acting as a replacement Blarney Stone)- it might be done virtually as well. Then one of the pieces of card must be taken and  whatever scenario is described (i,e, convincing your mother to let you stay over at a friend’s) role-played. This way, students practice their English through this role-play, which demands some quick thinking and a good knowledge of English.

 

Hope you are tempted to give it a try.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit!