20 Wildlife Words???
 

As I’ve happened to become an English teacher and nobody really has told me how to do the job, I’m thinking about something having to do with African wildlife. I’d feel very clever getting paid for something Africa related. I’d need some good texts for 15-year-olds, some good anatomy pictures of maybe a lion and a topi on which they can write names of different body parts and then they could select their own animal, look for information and do a presentation. Before preparing the presentation they should learn –as a minimum - the 20 most important wildlife words. Which are those? Predator, prey, habitat, cub, paw, hoof, carnivore, herbivore, g & t??? Most of them are quite good at English as they listen to music, watch films and play computer games.

BTW, do you say, “do a presentation” or “make a presentation”?

Asante sana

Make a presentation.

I see Dennis’s report has made an impression on you.

Make a presentation is most correct. Do a presentation is also used.

These are in no order

1 Predator
2 prey
3 habitat
4 cub
5 paw
6 hoof
7 carnivore
8 herbivore
9 Omnivore
10 territory
11 spoor
12 mammal
13 reptile
14 amphibian
15 bird
16 insect
17 species
18 nocturnal
19 diurnal
20 camouflage

maybe also

mane
tail
fur
claws
herd
flock
mate-mating or reproduction (if you even want to go there)
rut
endangered
tusk
horn
antler
talon
wings
behavior
gestation
nest
den
ecosystem
season
food chain
adaptation

Good luck!

Conservation
Ecology

Thanks!!!
I think they know “bird” and “insect”, but I’ll make it 25 words instead.

"Give a presentation" is also commonly used, and in my part of the linguistic world (American Midwestern academic) "make a presentation" is very unusual.

That sounds like fun!
I'm currently studying to be an ESL teacher, and they stress teaching collocations, not just isolated vocabulary words. So you might want to expand some of these words to show some common phrases:

--bird of prey
--natural habitat
--follow spoor [interesting because it doesn't need an article]
--pride of lions
--herd of buffalo [or buffaloes]

Crepuscular is a personal favorite!

browsers and grazers

Asanteni sana!

Pride of lion, herd of topis, troop of baboons… Can you think any more? I don’t have any time to think. ;) This weekend I’ll ask for advice about a medical problem as well.

A cackle of hyenas
A bloat of hippos
A crash of rhinos
A dazzle of zebras
A leap of leopards
A bask or float of crocodiles

Murder of crows

Maybe you should show your class some documentaries featuring some of the endangered species and even if at a later date one or two of your students can try to do something in some way - your message was delivered? and then you can follow it up with your own thoughts ......

Just my 2C

Hari

I know the words pride, herd, troop and pack are used, but can you expect an English speaking person to use, or even know, words like cackle and crash? I’ve never heard them in Kenya anyway.
Hari, would you recommend any documentary in particular? I’m yet to find out how to “book” a TV and DVD-player at this school, and trying to find out how such appliances work can be embarrassing, but maybe a documentary could sow a seed. I wouldn’t dare hoping though.
Does anyone know of a useful website where I could steal things? I’ve looked at National Geographic, AWF and animalcorner.co.uk.
Thanks again.

Can you get various documentaries at a public library? If you don't know how the equipment works, make the offer to your class, "If you get it to work, we'll watch a wildlife show." I'm sure you'll have takers. You could probably show several documentaries, maybe even make it a weekly or every other week thing, stopping to discuss terms and phrases.

You could use The Big Cat Diaries or the Jouberts documentaries.

you could go to www.animalplanet.com and watch episodes of Meerkat Manor and teach them the dynamics of a family of meerkats. Also available on that site are Wild Kingdom and other shows. I take it you have computers in your class? If so, you can also tune into the various webcams-Pete's Pond, Africam etc. Don't know your time zone difference where you are though, so that might not work.
Glad to see you are having a much more enjoyable year this year!

Nyamera,

David Attenborough has a series of episodes under the "wildlife specials" title. I love the episodes for tiger and leopard(from South Luangwa NP). The documentaries from the jouberts are top notch: Relentless enemies, eternal enemies, Lions of darkness are some of my favourite ones.

Then there is the Planet Earth BBC series .......

Hari

Nyamera, one suggestion about showing a documentary (or any kind of film) is to make sure you give the students a 'task' to do while watching/listening. In other words, don't play the film and then ask questions about it, since that is a memory test rather than an English exercise. Give them a few questions up front, and tell them to listen for the answers. That will help focus their attention.

For example, before you started the film, you could give them a sheet of paper with about 5 questions on it, and have them read the questions first, and tell them to pay attention to the questions while listening/watching.

The questions would be related to the film, of course. Why is the XXX the most endangered animal? What does the XXX do in a drought?

Depending on their English level and how willing they all are to talk, you could go directly into a class discussion after the film, or could have the students talk in pairs first (which helps the shy ones gain the confidence to speak when you open the discussion to the whole room).

Thanks. I have this job until Christmas and I have just two lessons a week with each group, so I don’t think that there’ll be enough time for watching documentaries. Maybe there’ll be one documentary, if I find it right now, but this weekend I have to correct 60 English tests, find out how to do exercises that in one week make up for 1 ½ year sleeping during Spanish lessons and find/make material for the Wildlife thing. It’s almost (?) impossible. I’d decided never again to complain about teaching …

Does anyone have wildlife verbs? Like: “the serval pounced on the rat”, “the lion and the lioness are mating every 15 minutes”, “the tommies stotted in response to the cheetahs interest” etc.

Hi Nyamera,
One other idea is to show a SHORT segment of a film - 5 minutes - and use it to structure a lesson that includes listening, speaking and vocabulary. Here is a way the lesson could go.
1) Pre-teach any particularly difficult vocabulary. This is not intended to cover all the words they might not know, only the words that would 'block' their understanding. This would be only 1 or 2 words, and is optional -- only if needed.
2) give the students an overview question to think about while watching. For example: what is the biggest threat facing the leopard?
3) show the 5 minute segment
4) have the students talk in pairs about the overview question.
5) give the students a list of 4-5 detailed questions that are covered in the segment of the film (how many leopards are in the Serengeti? What is the oldest leopard? )
6) play the film again and have the students pay attention to the questions.
7) Have the students work in pairs to try to answer the questions together.
8) Review the answers with the whole class.
9) Give the students a list of additional vocabulary from the film. Since they have already been exposed to it at this point, you can make it into an exercise for them to try, rather than just handing them a list. For example, write the words in one column, and write the definitions in another column, but mix them up, so they need to match the words to the proper definitions.
10) Review the answers with the class.
11) Give them a 'fill in the blanks' exercise where they need to use the vocabulary words. (This is 'controlled practice' of the vocabulary)
12) have them check their answers in pairs, and then review with the whole class.
13) Give them a speaking exercise to do in pairs. This should be a discussion topic that will be interesting enough for them to focus on communicating rather than on trying to remember vocabulary or grammar(i.e. it is a fluency exercise rather than an accuracy exercise). For example: 'do you think that poaching is ok if people need to feed their families?' or 'do you think tourists are good or bad for the country? '