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a great way to practice conversation
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skills is to have students collaborate
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to solve a problem or complete an
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assigned task today I'll show you one of
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my favorite task-based activities in
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which students have to work together to
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create a utopian
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society in task-based learning students
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have to complete a task either
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individually or in groups today my
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students will be in groups so we would
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call this consensus building they're
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going to work together to design their
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own ideal societies I'll begin by
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eliciting some social problems in the US
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and the students home countries and
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write them on the board this will get
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them thinking about things in society
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they would like to change and prepare
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them for the task ahead I downloaded a
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blank map from the internet and I'm
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going to tell my students that they have
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an uninhabited Island on which they can
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create their own perfect country they
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have to decide where they will build
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things such as the airport School Bank
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Etc and draw them on the map I've also
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prepared a list of things they should
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decide while they work such as the name
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of the country what laws they have how
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people dress Customs holidays Etc I want
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to encourage as much detail as possible
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when they're finished I'll have each
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group make a short presentation on their
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Utopia to the class then we'll discuss
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whose utopian society would work best
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throughout the activity I'll be
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listening carefully and making note of
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some of the mistakes my students make
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then address them at the end of class so
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is the United States of America a good
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country to live
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in Nancy what do you think uh yes I
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think so compared to Mexico is kind of
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quiet it's quiet okay very good and
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Abdul what do you
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think but sometimes I hear about uh um
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Crim is crime very good okay so all
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countries have social problems right
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crime is one of them very good what are
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some other social problems
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poty po poverty poverty yeah poverty
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very good teenage pregnancy teenage
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pregnancy okay definitely that's going
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on and I'm sorry who said the other
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answer Al
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delinquency delinquency
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okay delinquency is kind of similar to
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Crime pollution
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pollution big problem right now right
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very good okay so Anna tell me you are
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from what country Chile Chile in Chile
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do you have any of these types of
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problems all of them all of them any
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other problems that's specific I think
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all the world is the same really very
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good that is the that are that are the
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principal problem for me in my country
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okay great well every country obviously
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has social problems but today what we
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are going to do is we are going to have
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the opportunity to create our perfect
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society and what do you think that is
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called if you had a perfect country
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perfect place a Magic
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World a Magic World very good fantasy if
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there were a perfect place a dream world
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this would actually be called Utopia you
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guys have heard
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that so what we are going to do is we're
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going to go and split up into groups and
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you guys are going to create your own
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Utopia your own Island okay you will
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also have a worksheet that will give you
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some examples of what you can put in
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your Utopia for example what is going to
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be the name of your country what are
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going to be five laws
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regulations that you will have in your
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country okay so here's the worksheet you
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also have to draw I know creativity
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things like Banks hotels beaches nice
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it's going to be fun right so use your
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creative juices to think of your perfect
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world okay so we Chong and Abdul have
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you be one
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group Alberto and Anna
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I don't know
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exactly money does money make you
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happy
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very what do you think why don't you use
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more for
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[Music]
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okay what yeah you already have the one
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week right one
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week in the summer sum
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yes okay guys everybody ready yes
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excellent okay so now what we are going
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to do is each group is going to come up
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and present their own Utopia their
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perfect Society this is our perfect
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society and the name of the island is
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paraly our country name is kingdom of
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Dream Island the name of our city is
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Happy Land only the transportation is um
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vle no motor no motor do they have only
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bicycle walking
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or 5,000 people lives in this island
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5,000 only 5,000 wow very
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limited we have the perfect way weather
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always no cold no too hot does it rain
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or only Sunny no just Sunny
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oh all the people speak only
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Spanish every day is a
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Halliday do not work there is no
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work no government no government leaders
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oh my and people are okay with this
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there's no CME yeah cuz they grow
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without government
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days okay all right excellent I think my
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students were really creative with this
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activity and they got a lot of
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conversation practice and even learned
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some new vocabulary task-based learning
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not only strengthens General speaking
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skills but can also be adapted to
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specific language points such as phrases
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or verb tenses for example you could
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give students a murder mystery to solve
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so they have to use past tense to deduce
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what happened there are many task based
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activities online but you can easily
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design your own don't forget to provide
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students with some guidelines beforehand
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so that there is a structure to the
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activity and it doesn't turn into a
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freefor
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