Level:
Pre-int and above
Topic:
Interviewing about your home country
Application / software:
www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
mp3 recorders
Skills:
Speaking
Time:
120+ minutes
Preparation:
None
In class:
This lesson only really works in multilingual classes.
Mentally pair up or group your students so that each pair or group has more than one nationality. Give each student a nationality (not their own) from their group or pair. Ask them to visit the CIA World Factbook website, research that country and to write three or four questions based on the information they find. Tell them (or show them if you have a PC connected to a projector) that there is a lot of detailed information they should ignore but that there are also a lot of interesting facts there. Give the students time to do the research and to write their questions.
Next, put the students into their groups each with an mp3 recorder and get them to record an interview together using the questions about the other person/people’s country/ies. This could either be an exchange of questions about each other’s countries or separate interviews focussed on one student’s country.
Encourage turn taking and follow-up questions to avoid short or one word answers.
Once you have the audio files, you can upload them to a wiki or file sharing site such as box.net.
Remarks:
For a follow up activity, see Powerpoint Quiz.
Tags: audio, collaborative, mp3, web
November 19, 2009 at 11:21 am |
I’ve found after using this lesson a few more times that extra guidance helps. E.g.
Warmer: Race – in pairs, write down all the nationalities in this room. A point for each country and a point for spelling. f/b to board.
Lead-in: Write down one piece of information you know about each of those countries.
Introduce World Factbook
Research: give each student a country (not their own). Useful to give guidance on topics that will be useful for comparing in groups later. E.g. population, religion, life expectancy, head of state.
Discussion: divide into groups of three or four and compare findings / find out more. E.g. What’s your head of state like? Each group should include a person from the country each person has researched.