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Crossing Cultures

The activities below provide fun exercises for the entire class when you have extra time. They are designed to be taught with specific exercises in this unit. Click on an activity in the list below or scroll down the page.

Earthlings have some strange customs!
Think fast!
Good conversationalists
Five-letter words

  
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Earthlings have some strange customs!

This activity is designed to be taught with Exercise 7, "Snapshot: Different customs."

Time: 10–15 minutes. This fun activity practices describing common, everyday behaviors.
  • Explain the situation: Students imagine that they are from another planet and have recently landed on Earth. Everything they see on Earth strikes them as strange and unusual compared to the planet they live on. Tell students to describe five of the strangest customs they observe on Earth. Point out that the goal is to identify behaviors that we Earth people would not normally think of as unusual but that someone from another planet might find strange.
  • Write these examples (and others of your own) on the board to help clarify the task:

    Earthlings and Their Strange Customs
    1. The human female species around 15 years old (called "girls") often start to paint their lips red or pink. The males don't seem to do this at any age.
    2. While adult males kick or throw a brown egg-shaped ball and run around a large field, thousands of other people sit and watch or yell at them.
    3. Some people like to carry heavy black boxes that make a very big noise. Other people around them either really like it, too, or can't stand it.

  • Divide the class into discussion groups. Tell each group to appoint a secretary, who writes down the five customs discussed. Set a time limit of about ten minutes. Walk around the class and give help as needed.
  • As a follow-up, have groups share some of their better ideas with the rest of the class. Which group thought up the strangest custom of all?

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Think fast!

This activity is designed to be taught with Exercise 9, "Grammar Focus: Expectations."

Time: 5–10 minutes. The goal of this activity is to have students practice making statements or asking questions with pre-selected vocabulary. This could be done in a group or as a whole class activity. (Note: This activity could be adapted for use with any unit's vocabulary and grammar points.)

Preparation: Choose words from this unit or other words that would be useful for students to review.
  • Model how the activity works: Give the class a word or an expression and then call on one student to use the word in a statement or in a question; designate the verb tense if that is also a focus. For example:

    Teacher: Make a question about an expectation with be supposed to. Juan.
    Student 1: Am I supposed to bring my book to class every day?
    (Note: This student calls out the name of another student.)
    Hanako?
    Student 2: What are you supposed to bring with you when you go to a friend's house for dinner?

  • See how long students can keep going before giving them another word, function, or type of structure.

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Good conversationalists

This activity is designed to be taught with Exercise 12, "Writing: Before you go."

Time: 10–15 minutes. This activity practices making statements about a place and responding to comments.
  • Students form groups of three. Explain that you will read aloud the first part of a statement about living in or visiting a city or country. Then groups take turns around the class: One student must repeat and complete the statement, using his or her own ideas. Then the other two students in that group make comments or ask follow-up questions, like this:

    Teacher: While living abroad, something I'd miss . . . .
    Student 1: While living abroad, something I'd miss is driving my car. I'd have to use buses instead.
    Student 2: I think I'd buy a bike to get around.
    Student 3: You would? I'd really enjoy walking or jogging through the parks and neighborhoods.
    Teacher: (next group, next statement) When you visit someone in . . . , . . . .
    Student 4: When you visit someone in Brazil, you're supposed to . . . .

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Five-letter words

This activity is designed to be taught with Exercise 13, "Reading: Culture shock."

Time: 5–10 minutes. This is a quick game that challenges students to figure out a word problem. (Note: This is taken from Marilyn Vos Savant's column "Ask Marilyn" in Parade magazine, The Los Angeles Times, July 20, 1997, p. 12.)
  • Write this word problem on the board and ask students to work either individually or in pairs to try to figure it out:

    The following is a sample of a list of five-letter words with a common trait (i.e., a characteristic found in every word on this list). Can you tell what the trait is?

    alone
    braid
    chair
    crash
    crate
    grant    		   ozone
    phone
    stone
    place
    plaid
    plate    		   price
    price
    scare
    scold
    score
    snail    		   space
    spear
    spill
    spray
    stale
    start

    (Note: Students could copy down the information and try to figure the puzzle out for homework.)
  • Elicit students' answers around the class.

    Answer
    If the first letter of the word is removed, another word remains. And if the first letter of the remaining word is removed, yet another word remains. For example, remove the first letter from ozone, and zone remains. Then remove the first letter from zone, and one remains.

  • Optional: If students enjoyed this activity, ask them to work as two teams to make up their own lists of five- (or six-) letter words that also share this common trait. Set a time limit of five minutes. The team that makes the longest list of words is the winner.

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