Mr. Danoff's Teaching Laboratory

In Class

1. News Hour: Began by having the students look for the IPA sounds we are studying this week in the “Experts Wonder What Happened to Monarch Butterflies” News for You article. Read “Lawsuit Says Anheuser-Busch Beers Are Even More Watered Down Than You Think” article from TIME Magazine’s website and completed a worksheet prvided by Emily Kiang.
2. NorthStar 2 R&W: Reviewed student’s work on pages 162-3.
3. Grammar in Context 1: Reviewed student’s work on page 135.
4. Documentary Project: Outlined the time schedule students will have to follow as they develop their documentaries.
5. Review Ordinal Numbers and Go Over General Number Pronunciation
6. Short Story: Read pages 56-7 of the “Sweetie” story from Frozen Pizza and other slices of life

In Class

1. News Hour: “Read the Fast-Thinking Helpers, Hospitals Save Lives of Boston Bombing Victims” then completed the Teacher’s guide having students search for “sh” = /ʃ/ | “ch” = /t/ | “j” = /ʤ/ | and “z” /z/ sounds. I matched them with their corresponding IPA sound and had the students do the same. These symbols will be part of the student’s quizzes and tests this block.
2. NorthStar 2 R&W: Read the passage on page 160 about “The Climate Train” and reviewed student’s work on page 161.
3. Fast Listening: We completed the Space Radio Theater and A Visitor from Space listening quizzes.
4. Homework Check-in
5. Movie Project: Students discussed their ideas for their documentaries with one another.
6. Short Story: Read pages 60-61 of the “Sweetie” short story from Frozen Pizza and other slices of life.
7. Twilight Zone: Watched episode 3 of season 1 about a town drunk who finds his way out of the pit.

1. News Hour | Reading Learning Objective(s): Comprehending main ideas and some details from a news article. |Read “Experts Wonder What Happened to Monarch Butterflies” News for You article and then answered the comprehension questions from the “Teacher’s Guide.” Had a discussion about why the butterfiles were called “Monarchs,” turns out it “was first published in 1874 by Samuel H. Scudder because ‘it is one of the largest of our butterflies, and rules a vast domain;’ however, the name may be in honour of King William III of England.” (via Wikipedia).
2. NorthStar 2 R&W | Vocab Learning Objective(s): Use context to infer meaning of new vocabulary. | Pages 155-9.
3. Grammar in Context 1 | Grammar Learning Objective(s): Introduce Possessive Form of Nouns | Pages 131-4.
4. Introduce this Month’s Syllabus and Calendar
5. Movie Project | Went over their homwork for tonight and that they will be able to choose between
6. Short Story | Reading Learning Objective(s): Students practice independent reading, so they will be comfortable doing it on their own time. | Read pages 58 to 59 of “Sweetie”

In Class

1. News Hour: Read the “Former U.S. Presidents Cost Nearly $3.7 Million in 2012” News for You article and then completed the “Teacher’s Guide” activity where students wrote a paragraph explaining their opinions on whether or not former Presidents should receive financial assistance.
2. Homework Check-in
3. NorthStar 2 R&W: Finished Unit 7, as the students worked in pairs to develop brochures promoting one kind of produce (regular, organic or local) to a target audience (teenagers, parents, single people, etc.)
   
   
4. Fast Listening: Did the I Love Trees and A Rare Solar Eclipse “Listening Quizzes for Academic Purposes [Prepare for TOEFL/TOEIC Tests with These Lectures, Interviews, and Conversations]”
5. Reviewed Quiz 3
6. Movie Project: Shot two of the class’ 6 movies today, finish the rest tomorrow!
7. Student Question(s): One question that come up today was the difference between come and go. Go can mean moving anywhere, while come is only used if you are moving towards the speaker or subject.
Difference between come and go

In Class

1. News Hour: Read the “Project Brings Color to Haiti Slum” News for You article and then completed the “Teacher’s Guide” activity where students drew pictures of their version of a painted Jalousie home. “Shallow” was a wonderful vocabulary word that emerged from the activity.
2. Homework Check-in
3. Short Story: Read pages 54 to 55 of the “Sweetie” story on pages 52 to 53 of Frozen Pizza
4. Grammar in Context 1: Reviewed student work on pages 119 to 123.
5. NorthStar 2 R&W: Students worked together on exercises 2 through 5 on page 152, after there was a lot of confusion amongst students trying to finish the activity on their own.
6. Movie Project: Students read eachother’s scripts and offered suggestions.

In Class

1. News Hour: Read the “Despite Protests, Builders Remove Part of the Berlin Wall” News for You article and then completed the “Teacher’s Guide” activity that introduced students to the words “despite” and “in spite of”, having them make senteces about the article with those words. Afterwards we had a fun discussion about history and different ways it can be preserved or lost as well as who writes history.
2. Homework Check-in
3. Quiz 3
4. NorthStar 2 R&W: Worked on pages 150 to 151. Students were having some trouble understanding the activity that had them make a brochure, but together we figured it out.
5. Short Story: Read the third e-mail in the “Sweetie” story on pages 52 to 53 of Frozen Pizza.
6. Fast Listening: Completed the “Battle at the Front” and “World News Stories”; 2 of the TOEFL listening quizzes from Randall’s ESL Cyber Lab.
7. Movie Project: Reviewed the proper formatting students should be using for their stories.

In Class

1. News Hour: Read the “How Congress Could Change Immigration Laws” News for You article and then completed the 7 difficult comprehensin questions from the “Teacher’s Guide”. We had a informative discussion about immigration and emigration here in the USA as well as in their own countries. To finish I gave the faux Citizenship Test from the “Teacher’s Guide” orally to the class instucting them to answer as quickly as possible, with the stakes being only 1 of them would win and become a USA citizen.
2. Homework Check-in
3. Prepare for Quiz 3: We reviewed this quiz’s study guide (.odt file from danoff.org).
4. Grammar in Context 1: Pages 114 to 119
5. NorthStar 2 R&W: Reviewed exercises 3 and 4 on page 149, which (most) students already completed for homework.
6. Short Story: Read the second e-mail in the “Sweetie” story from Frozen Pizza.

In Class

1. News Hour: Read the “For Some, the Air Will Soon Be Thick With Cicadas” News for You article and completed the corresponding Teacher’s Guide exercise. The students were not happy to hear this summer will be very noisy with lots of bugs!
2. Homework Check-in
3. NorthStar 2 R&W: “Wh- Questions in the Simple Present Tense and with Can and Should” Grammar reading and exercises on pages 148 to 149 about making questions with auxiliary verbs, with a complementary handout of “UNIT B: Questions from the Understanding and Using English Grammar Volume A (2nd Ed.)” book as well as “Appendix C | Question Formation” (pp. AP4 – AP5) of Grammar in Context 1 (2nd Ed.)
4. Short Story: Read page 48 of “Sweetie” our newest story from Frozen Pizza
5. Fast Listening: Taped Library Tour and Airport Announcement
6. Movie Project: Handed back their first and second scenese they turned in.
7. Y as a Vowel: During a discussion about vowels it came up that at times the letter “y” can be a vowel. I mistakenly said it is only a vowel when the word has no other vowels. According to OxfordDictionaries.com “The letter Y can be regarded as both a vowel and a consonant. … Whether the letter Y is a vowel or a consonant is therefore rather an arbitrary decision.” Additionally, it should be noted that the letter “w” can also sometimes be a vowel. More reading:
   • Phoenix College has a nice webpage on “vowels”, scroll down to Y as a Vowel to read more.
   • English Language and Usage Stack Exchange discussion about “y” as a vowel.
   • Wikipedia’s List of words in English without A, E, I, O or U.