CATTYWAMPUS: life-learning lessons from an awe-inspiring teacher – an engaging speaking activity based on a true story

There are teachers who feed information to students whether they like it or not and there are others who teach students to think – the latter are inevitably the best because they not only capture their students’ full attention but leave life-long learning lessons which go way beyond the subject they were teaching.
Cattywampus is the story of such a teacher and I use it to practise reading this short piece aloud in class, verify vocabulary comprehension (see below) and get the students to tell us their own Cattywampus stories which we have to decide whether to believe or not.  This activity is incredibly engaging for students (which we do in pairs) and the teacher has to inevitably go round helping with vocabulary to express their ideas.
 
If you have an Interactive White Board you can
READ IT ONLINE THROUGH LINGRO.COM to get vocabulary explanations:
http://cbse-ncert-homework-help.blogspot.it/2013/09/best-teacher-i-ever-had-by-david-owen.html:

• open LINGRO.com
• open the link to the article and copy it
• http://cbse-ncert-homework-help.blogspot.it/2013/09/best-teacher-i-ever-had-by-david-owen.html
• choose the language you would like the vocabulary to be translated into
• paste the article link into http://lingro.com
• the article will now open through LINGRO and you can click any word you like to get the translation or definition

 
Once you have read the story ask students to answer the questions below the text to tell each other a story:  what’s your opinion?  Is it a Cattywampus?
 
You can download the STORY with QUESTIONS below.

I hope you have fun with this activity.
Susan

cattywampus_story___questions_for_speak___travel.pdf
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