April Fool's Day Hoaxes
- Lesson Plan
In past years at this time
we have run April Fool's Teaching Tips - see Stir
it up & Cognitive & affective confusion . This
year we're providing a lesson based on past hoaxes in the
media. The texts are taken with permission from the
Museum of Hoaxes & below are just a few of famous
April Fool's hoaxes - there are 100 in total on the site.
The author of the Museum of Hoaxes,
Alex Boese, has published a 'collection of fabulous
pranks, stunts, deceptions, fakery, hornswoggle
and hoaxes inflicted on the gullible public from
long ago to today'.
To see the book...
If you have any more ideas
for lesson on April Fool's Day hoaxes, please post them
for all to use in
a print friendly version
Time: 75 minutes??
To give intensive reading practice
To give freer speaking practice
To give freer writing practice
See the texts for possible language aims
That the stds will be interested in the topic of April
That the language will not be too difficult to get the overall
meaning of the texts.
Anticipated Problems and
Some of the vocabulary may be challenging >> dictionaries
on hand/ meaning from context tasks.
Structures - depending on level - have a good look at the
texts you want to use. You may want to provide tasks focusing
on the vocab & language with each text.
& Texts below with permission from
Museum of Hoaxes
Stage 1 - Intro to the
theme of April Fool's Day through the 'fool' quotations
15 mins tch<>stds, std<>std
1. Elicit the vocab: a fool,
foolish, to act the fool.
2. Handout the quotes & in pairs
read & discuss the ones they like.
3. Feedback - class - elicit their faves & discuss why.
Ask if they know any in their own language?
4. Introduce/elicit April Fool's Day - maybe through the
day they celebrate in their country to play pranks on each
other. Elicit what kind of things are done on a day like
this. During this introduce vocab connected to the lexical
set: to play a joke on, a prank, to be taken in, gullible,
Stage 2 - Reading
15 mins tch<>stds, std<>std
1. Explain the activity -
the stds read one of the past pranks, work on the text, & then get together with other stds to explain their
prank & rank them in order of imaginativeness, effectiveness,
fun etc..- a jigsaw activity.
2. Handout texts - stds in pairs read & help each other with comprehension - poss. have dictionaries
on hand. You could add comprehension & vocab tasks at
the end of each text. Be on hand to help out when all else
Stage 3 - Jigsaw speaking
20 mins tch<>stds, std<>std
1. Put stds into two or three different groups - each having
read a different text, depending how many you have in the
group. The stds explain their stories & then together
they rank them. Also encourage them to write down new vocab
they learned from each other.
2. When they have an order either get one std to go to the
other group to explain the order & justifications or
go back to the original pairs & they compare what they
have heard & their group's orderings.
3. Feedback - on both the task achievement & the language,
both difficulties & good things that came up.
Stage 4 - Stds design their
own April Fool's joke
20 mins tch<>stds, std<>std, tch<>stds
1. Set up the activity, explaining that they are going to
design their own & write a report of it for all to read
& then put them on the walls to vote on most imaginative.
2. In small groups/pairs stds discuss & write - be on
hand if needed.
3. Stick up reports on walls - stds wander round reading
4. Vote on best - could be done informally in a class discussion.
A few quotes about fools & foolish things
However big the fool, there is always a bigger fool
to admire him. (Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux)
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects
of folly, is to fill the world with fools. (Herbert
Looking foolish does the spirit good. (John Updike)
Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the
rest of us could not succeed. (Mark Twain)
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn
at no other. (Benjamin Franklin)
A fool must now and then be right by chance. (Cowper)
It is better to be a fool than to be dead. (Stevenson)
A common mistake that people make when trying to
design something completely foolproof is to underestimate
the ingenuity of complete fools. (Douglas Adams)
The first of April is the day we remember what we
are the other 364 days of the year. (Mark Twain)
The surprising thing about young fools is how many
survive to become old fools. (Doug Larson)
Some April Fool's Day Hoaxes of
1. The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
In 1957 the respected BBC news show Panorama announced
that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual
elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss
farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It
accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss
peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees.
Huge numbers of viewers were taken in, and many called
up wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti
trees. To this question, the BBC diplomatically replied
that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti
in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."
2. San Serriffe
In 1977 the British newspaper The Guardian published
a special seven-page supplement in honor of the tenth
anniversary of San Serriffe, a small republic located
in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semi-colon-shaped
islands. A series of articles affectionately described
the geography and culture of this obscure nation.
Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower
Caisse. Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was
General Pica. The Guardian's phones rang all day as
readers sought more information about the idyllic
holiday spot. Few noticed that everything about the
island was named after printer's terminology. The
success of this hoax is widely credited with launching
the enthusiasm for April Foolery that then gripped
the British tabloids in the following decades.
3. Sidd Finch
In its April 1985 edition, Sports Illustrated published
a story about a new rookie pitcher who planned to
play for the Mets. His name was Sidd Finch and he
could reportedly throw a baseball with startling,
pinpoint accuracy at 168 mph (65 mph faster than anyone
else has ever been able to throw a ball). Surprisingly,
Sidd Finch had never even played the game before.
Instead, he had mastered the "art of the pitch"
in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance of the "great
poet-saint Lama Milaraspa." Mets fans everywhere
celebrated at their team's amazing luck at having
found such a gifted player, and Sports Illustrated
was flooded with requests for more information. But
in reality this legendary player only existed in the
imagination of the writer of the article, George Plimpton.
4. Hotheaded Naked Ice Borers
In its April 1985 issue Discover Magazine announced
that the highly respected wildlife biologist Dr. Aprile
Pazzo had discovered a new species in Antarctica:
the hotheaded naked ice borer. These fascinating creatures
had bony plates on their heads that, fed by numerous
blood vessels, could become burning hot, allowing
the animals to bore through ice at high speeds. They
used this ability to hunt penguins, melting the ice
beneath the penguins and causing them to sink downwards
into the resulting slush where the hotheads consumed
them. After much research, Dr. Pazzo theorized that
the hotheads might have been responsible for the mysterious
disappearance of noted Antarctic explorer Philippe
Poisson in 1837. "To the ice borers, he would
have looked like a penguin," the article quoted
her as saying. Discover received more mail in response
to this article than they had received for any other
article in their history.
5. Alabama Changes the Value of Pi
The April 1998 issue of the New Mexicans for Science
and Reason newsletter contained an article claiming
that the Alabama state legislature had voted to change
the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159
to the 'Biblical value' of 3.0. Before long the article
had made its way onto the internet, and then it rapidly
made its way around the world, forwarded by people
in their e-mail. It only became apparent how far the
article had spread when the Alabama legislature began
receiving hundreds of calls from people protesting
the legislation. The original article, which was intended
as a parody of legislative attempts to circumscribe
the teaching of evolution, was written by a physicist
named Mark Boslough.
6. The Sydney Iceberg
On April 1, 1978 a barge appeared in Sydney Harbor
towing a giant iceberg. Sydneysiders were expecting
it. Dick Smith, a local adventurer and millionaire
businessman (owner of Dick Smith's Foods), had been
loudly promoting his scheme to tow an iceberg from
Antarctica for quite some time. Now he had apparently
succeeded. He said that he was going to carve the
berg into small ice cubes, which he would sell to
the public for ten cents each. These well-traveled
cubes, fresh from the pure waters of Antarctica, were
promised to improve the flavor of any drink they cooled.
Slowly the iceberg made its way into the harbor. Local
radio stations provided excited blow-by-blow coverage
of the scene. Only when the berg was well into the
harbor was its secret revealed. It started to rain,
and the firefighting foam and shaving cream that the
berg was really made of washed away, uncovering the
white plastic sheets beneath.
7. The 26-Day Marathon
In 1981 the Daily Mail ran a story about an unfortunate
Japanese long-distance runner, Kimo Nakajimi, who
had entered the London Marathon but, on account of
a translation error, thought that he had to run for
26 days, not 26 miles. The Daily Mail reported that
Nakajimi was now somewhere out on the roads of England,
still running, determined to finish the race. Supposedly
various people had spotted him, though they were unable
to flag him down. The translation error was attributed
to Timothy Bryant, an import director, who said, "I
translated the rules and sent them off to him. But
I have only been learning Japanese for two years,
and I must have made a mistake. He seems to be taking
this marathon to be something like the very long races
they have over there."
8. Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity
In 1976 the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced
on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime
astronomical event was going to occur that listeners
could experience in their very own homes. The planet
Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing
a gravitational alignment that would counteract and
lessen the Earth's own gravity. Moore told his listeners
that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment
that this planetary alignment occurred, they would
experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47
AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone
calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation.
One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends
had risen from their chairs and floated around the
9. The Left-Handed Whopper
In 1998 Burger King published a full page advertisement
in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new
item to their menu: a "Left-Handed Whopper"
specially designed for the 32 million left-handed
Americans. According to the advertisement, the new
whopper included the same ingredients as the original
Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.),
but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for
the benefit of their left-handed customers. The following
day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing
that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax,
thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to
request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according
to the press release, "many others requested
their own 'right handed' version."
10. Whistling Carrots
In 2002 the British supermarket chain Tesco published
an advertisement in The Sun announcing the successful
development of a genetically modified 'whistling carrot.'
The ad explained that the carrots had been specially
engineered to grow with tapered airholes in their
side. When fully cooked, these airholes caused the
vegetable to whistle.
11. Guinness Mean Time
In 1998 Guinness issued a press release announcing
that it had reached an agreement with the Old Royal
Observatory in Greenwich, England to be the official
beer sponsor of the Observatory's millennium celebration.
According to this agreement, Greenwich Mean Time would
be renamed Guinness Mean Time until the end of 1999.
In addition, where the Observatory traditionally counted
seconds in "pips," it would now count them
in "pint drips." The Financial Times, not
realizing that the release was a joke, declared that
Guinness was setting a "brash tone for the millennium."
When the Financial Times learned that it had fallen
for a joke, it printed a curt retraction, stating
that the news it had disclosed "was apparently
intended as part of an April 1 spoof."
12. Drunk Driving on the Internet
An article by John Dvorak in the April 1994 issue
of PC Computing magazine described a bill going through
Congress that would make it illegal to use the internet
while drunk, or to discuss sexual matters over a public
network. The bill was supposedly numbered 040194 (i.e.
04/01/94), and the contact person was listed as Lirpa
Sloof (April Fools backwards). The article said that
the FBI was going to use the bill to tap the phone
line of anyone who "uses or abuses alcohol"
while accessing the internet. Passage of the bill
was felt to be certain because "Who wants to
come out and support drunkenness and computer sex?"
The article offered this explanation for the origin
of the bill: "The moniker 'Information Highway'
itself seems to be responsible for SB 040194... I
know how silly this sounds, but Congress apparently
thinks being drunk on a highway is bad no matter what
kind of highway it is." The article generated
so many outraged phone calls to Congress that Senator
Edward Kennedy's office had to release an official
denial of the rumor that he was a sponsor of the bill.
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Do you ever use mime in your
teaching? You probably mime when eliciting vocabulary but
what about activities in themselves that use mime? Here
are a few ideas that could be used as a one-off, integrated
in with the current theme or used to review recently covered
Students act out what they had for dinner last night, did
last night, did at the weekend, a brief summary of a recently
seen film etc... The other students guess.
2. Circular story
The students stand in a circle & all walk around in
one direction, miming out the story that you tell. e.g 'You
are lying in bed & you open your eyes. It is a lovely
day so you jump out of bed & jump into your clothes...
..' All mimed as they walk in the circle.
3. Text mimes
Students mime a part of the text they have read, as a way
of checking understanding. Possibly ask them to include
something that is not in the text & other students identify.
4. Silent conversations
Students have a conversation just using body language -
to emphasise how much can be related without language.
5. Object mime
This is a bit like Chinese Whispers but with mime. Put the
students in a row, all facing one way so they cannot see
what is happening behind them. You begin by miming an object
to the student at the back. They then mime it to the next & so on. At the end, the last student mimes it to all,
to see if it is the same object. They could then discuss
with their neighbours what they understood was mimed & why they might have changed it.
6. Crossword mime
Find a crossword that fits the level of the group. Give
out the crossword with half of the clues to one half of
the group & the other half other clues to the other
students. They fill in their answers on their crosswords.
Then pair them up, one from each group, & they mime
their answers to their partner. At the end all should have
a completed crossword. Then they write the clues for the
new answers they have & then compare with the originals.
Students mime the titles of songs, books, films, play & others guess the titles. Nice warmer to fit in with a related
8. Adjective mimes
Give out short scenes to pairs, along with three adjectives
that come through in the story. The pair have to mime the
story, emphasising the adjectives, & the class guess
these adjectives. An example card:
'You are driving when suddenly you hear a bang. You stop
the car & get out very worried. You look at the car
& a passer-by points out you have a flat tyre.
Adjectives to convey: frightened, worried, relieved
If you haven't used mime activities
before your students might find it a bit awkward at first,
but do keep incorporating it as they will have fun.
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Reflecting on our own classes
is something that we all do regularly but what about getting
a fellow teacher to reflect with you on one of your classes?
And you, in turn, go & see your colleague's classes?
This is called peer observation & can be beneficial
not only to the teachers involved but also to the students
& clearly it is very positive for the school.
You could simply agree to
an observation or two with a colleague but if you want to
begin a peer observation scheme in your school here are
a few guidelines:
- after checking with the
DOS to see if it's OK to start this, find out who would
be interested in peer observations. Make it all inclusive,
being careful to inform everyone & if a few teachers
are interested, & timetables allow, make a point of
seeing & be seen by as many teachers as is possible.
It can have a negative effect on the school if some teachers
- line up the observation & explain to the students beforehand that another teacher
is going to come to the class.
- think about what you'd like
the observer to do in the class. If you feel you are having
problems with instructions with a low level group, just
ask the observer to look out for these. Other areas could
be grading of language, how specific students are getting
on, how the language presentation goes, is the practice
effective, what was the phonology work like etc... Alternatively,
the observer could have an interest in seeing a particular
type of lesson.
- I would tend to involve
the observer in pair work & discussions. This will make
it less of a formal observation & the atmosphere more
relaxed in general. The students will then see it in a positive
light & if they don't already know the observer teacher,
they will then know a new teacher which will add to the
general atmosphere of the school.
- the observer does need to
be sensitive to the teacher being observed. Feedback should
be a mix of support & ideas. And try to make it a two-way
dialogue about the lesson. It will be as much a learning
experience for the observer as the observed. Have a general
meeting for all involved in the scheme at the beginning
& make a point of mentioning this, discussing ideas
on how to go about it.
In the Tip 'A
Window on the Classroom' we looked at Johari's Window
- a way of viewing the different facets of our self awareness.
This is very relevant here & the fellow teacher can
be a valuable source in helping us to become more self aware
in the classroom.
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the Past Teaching Tips