Inside Out Web Guides
IntermediateUnit 11
http://www.salon.com/feb97/alex970211.html
http://www.gluckman.com/BeachGarland.html
It may well be that your students have seen the film The Beach or read the book, or simply that they want to find out more after reading the article on page 92 about why Alex Garland went travelling. Here are two sites devoted to Garland, containing excerpts, reviews and an interview. Start by seeing what your students know about The Beach and then ask them to find out three interesting things from the sites. Finally, collate all the information on the board and discuss. If you have a copy of the film you could even try comparing the film with the excerpts from the book.
http://www.kasbah.com
http://www.traveladdicts.connectfree.co.uk/
Two sites dedicated to round the world trips. In Unit 11 of the book we hear from Conrad about his trip around the world. Using the two sites above you could either compare places visited or create a similar picture activity to the one on page 93. Alternatively use the sites to plan a trip round the world – where would YOU go? And why?
Unit 12
http://www.andreas.com/food.html
Page 105 is entitled Incredible Edibles and focuses on weird foods from around the world. Some of the foods mentioned here, plus many that aren’t, are featured in this intriguing website. The site has detailed descriptions of the foods as well as a number of recipes. One possible activity is to choose a number of foods from different countries and ask your students to guess where they are from. Then get them to predict what they are/contain before revealing the answers. Finally, find out about the strangest things they have eaten.
http://www.sleepnet.com/
Unit 12 also includes a feature on sleep. This American site lives up to its homepage promise where it states, "Everything you wanted to know about sleep, but were too tired to ask." If your students enjoyed the quiz on page 106, why not try the online test. Alternatively, try the links page and look for information on Snoring, Dreaming and Insomnia - all things mentioned in activity 1 on page 107. Use the information you collect here to help write your report.
Unit 13
http://www.bbc.co.uk
http://cnn.com
http://www.mtv.com
http://www.yahoo.com/recreation/travel
http://www.visitbritain.com
Unit 13 starts off with a listening activity in which the students need to complete the phone numbers and web addresses for a number of organisations. Once they’ve completed this task why not get them to check out the websites that they have addresses for? Put them into groups (up to 5) and give each group one of the websites listed above. Then give them 10 minutes to find as many interesting/useful things as they can from their allocated site.
http://www.syvum.com/proverbs/students.html
If at first you don’t succeed … then look at page 111. Firstly, you could look through and pick out a number of proverbs that you think your students will find useful, get them to complete them (as in the demonstration) and then discuss the meanings. Secondly, pick out a number of proverbs for which you have an equivalent one in meaning but different in expression in your language, then see if your students can think of how they would express the proverb in their language.
Unit 14
http://shopping.msn.co.uk/
http://shopping.yahoo.com
Choose one of these two shopping channels for your students to use to help them find the latest fashions available. At the start of unit 14 there are some interesting discussion questions at the bottom of page 116. Pair up your students and ask them to have a look at what’s currently available and to try and agree on an outfit for each occasion. Finally, they could choose one or two and compare their choices with other students.
http://www.levistrauss.com/Heritage/ForStudentsAndTeachers.aspx
How many of your students are wearing jeans? What brand are they wearing? Do they know? Do they look for a logo when they buy their jeans? Start of with a few personalised questions and then find out how much they know about the invention of jeans, where the name originates, and anything they know about the Levi Strauss company – probably the best-known logo. Check out this site which is full of really interesting information and get your students to design an ‘information corner’ .
Unit 15
http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/ageism.html
Unit 15 deals with the difficult topic of Ageism. This, written by an American professor, takes a closer look at the issues. You could use some of the information here to help your students prepare for a debate on the issues of age. With this site you would certainly need to look through the information rather than ask your students to browse.
http://home.online.no/~bjarte-a/7ages.html
According to Shakespeare there are seven ages of man. Ask your class to divide life into seven different stages and define the characteristics, then check them out on the website given above.
