ESL Blogs

Here's a fun lesson in English from a really good site "Breaking News English."  They have good resource materials for teachers.  Take a peek at their lesson.

Researchers* have found that looking at cute things while you work can boost your powers of concentration and increase productivity. A team of cognitive psychologists at Japan's Hiroshima University discovered that skimming through cute photos of things like kittens and puppies helps people focus better on their work. The team based its research on the Japanese concept of "kawaii," which Wikipedia describes as, "the quality of cuteness…a prominent aspect of Japanese popular culture, entertainment, clothing, food, toys, personal appearance, behavior, and mannerisms….literally, 'lovability', 'cuteness' or 'adorableness.'" The scientists believe cute things produce positive feelings and affect performance.

The researchers tested 132 participants doing two tasks. One was to use tweezers to remove items from small holes without touching the sides; the other was to find numbers in a grid. Each participant repeated the task after looking at a set of photos of either puppies and kittens, adult dogs and cats, or "neutral" images of food. Those who looked at the cute pics improved their performance in the second task by as much as 44 per cent. The scientists say cute things, "capture attention, bring a smile to the viewer's face, and induce motivation and behavior for...caregiving". They added that cute objects could be used to "induce careful behavioral tendencies in specific situations, such as driving and office work".

WARM UPS

1. CUTE: Walk around the class and talk to other students about cute and cuteness. Change partners often. Share your findings with your first partner.

2. CHAT: In pairs / groups, decide which of these topics or words from the article are most interesting and which are most boring.

Have a chat about the topics you liked. Change topics and partners frequently.

3. CUTENESS: Are these things cute or not? Complete this table with your partner(s). Change partners often and share what you wrote.

PRODUCTIVITY: Students A strongly believe looking at cute things increases our productivity; Students B stronglybelieve that's totally and utterly ridiculous.  Change partners again and talk about your conversations.

SO CUUUUUUTE: Rank these and share your rankings with your partner. Put the cutest at the top. Change partners often.

CONCENTRATION: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with the word 'concentration'. Share your words with your partner(s) and talk about them. Together, put the words into different categories.

KAWAII-IIIIIIIIIIIII": Look at the photos on the next page and discuss what's cute about the pictures.

CUTE?:  Yes? No? Why?

TRUE / FALSE: Read the headline. Guess if  a-h  below are true (T) or false (F).

2. SYNONYM MATCH: Match the following synonyms from the article.