A sample of activity using PowePoint

Activity: Endangered species

Population: High intermediate EFL students

Duration: 45 minutes

Material: computer, Microsoft PowerPoint presentation tool

Prerequisites: Students are supposed to know how to use PowerPoint.

Objective: On completion of the activity, students will be able to:

·         Create a document with specific information intended to be presented by using PowerPoint.

·         Understand and use animals-related vocabulary.

·         Be informed about a global problem: the endangered species.

Instructions for the students

Endangered species are animals that are in danger of extinction (animals that may disappear from the planet earth) if actions are not taken to protect them.

Select one of the animals in the box below.

Panda, Asian elephant, Blue whale, Chimpanzee, Black rhino, Cross river gorilla, African wild dog, California tiger salamander, Goliath frog, Loggerhead sea turtle.

Use the Internet to check information related to the animal you’ve chosen. You can visit the following website: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/endangered_species , www.endangeredspecies.com , www.worldwildlife.org/species/directory?sort=extinction_status...desc , www.animal.discovery.com/guides/endangered/endangered.html . But don’t limit your search to these websites.

Create a 5 slide PowerPoint presentation document. Your slides should be titled as follows:

1^st slide: Description

On this slide you should include the name of the animal, and its physical aspect, its group (is it a mammal, a bird…)

2^nd slide: Place and Habitat

Where does it live, on what continent, country, does it live in forests, on mountains, in rivers?…

3^rd slide: Diet

What does it eat?

4^th slide: Behavior

How does it live, hunt, how does it catch its prey?

5^th Population

How many of its kind are still alive?

You may include pictures and even graphs. When you finish email your document to the teacher, he will email it to one of your peer for review.

Teachers guide

-          Have students work individually but encourage them to ask for the help of their peers or the teachers when needed, especially with technical problems.

-          Tell them they have to keep track of the time; you may change the activity duration if you deem right to do so.

-          Tell them they may use dictionary in case they don’t get the meaning of some words or expression.

-          Go around the class as students are doing the activity in order to check how they are doing it, and provide help when necessary.

-          Redistribute students’ documents to their peers for review.

-          Have some of them, or all of them (if it’s a small class) present their work to the class.