Working on speaking skills: Three

Tool: Fotobabble

Group: 1st year students

Level: Intermediate

Aim: speaking, Writing and pronunciation

Activity: Virtual show & tell

Working on speaking skills: Two

Group: 5^th year

Level: Upper intermediate

Activity: My future job

Students are asked to create a presentation regarding their future course of studies using Present.me. The teacher will give some guidelines as to what info MUST be on the presentation. Extra information which is considered relevant by the students may also be included.

Students can be encouraged to bring a newspaper article which may help explain or describe the field in which the students will want to develop their careers in the future.

Then, students do the presentation and they upload it or it is also possible to have all the class share the presentations at school.

Working on speaking skills: One

Group: 6th form (primary)

Level: Pre-intermediate

Aim: To improve students’ speaking skills

Activity: Collaborative story writing

The Teacher divides the class in groups of 5, ideally. The teacher gives sts each group a different title for them to use as triggers. Each student is supposed to write a part of the story at home (no longer than 2 paragraphs) and bring it to the class for the Teacher to check. Once it is checked, the following student takes it home in order to write the next paragraph. When the whole story is complete, they record it using Voxopop (www.voxopop.com) and adding pictures chosen by themselves.

Afterwards, students are asked to explore 2 of their classmates’ productions. Then, they report on them in the class.

Variant: The teacher may choose to host a Collaborative Story Festival (watching all the productions at school when they are all finished) and have students comment on the positive aspects of the stories their partners have produced.

Let's go mural!

One of the requirements of this course is to explore a number of webtools we may be able to use with our students. Ouut of a list of some 6 tools, we got to choose and explore as many as we liked. Luckily I started with one I actually loved, which is Murally:

This is the first time I have ever created a mural so it might look kind of poor, but eventually I will improve my skills as I think it can actually be useful. One great thing about it is that more than one person can create murals, as long as all of them have accounts in this page. This is wonderful as it really fosters collaborative work. Of course, as with all tools, it takes some time to learn how to use it, but if you see the point in doing that, you will manage. Another good thing about it is that you can sign up for free, although there are also Premium accounts, and I am not sure if the accounts which are not premium have an expiry date. I hope not!

Another point to mention is that this tool might actually be useful to students in their lives, perhaps to make a presentation or in the future when they look for a job and things like that. 

As I am not sure how to share my mural online, I took a picture of it, which I am posting now.

As last class we talked about our PLNs, I made my mural with that in mind. I thought it was fantastic!

Ah, I almost forget to post the link. Here it is: http://mrl.li/10vxTZb

Not a Twitter fan? Try Twister!

Hello there! This post is to share with you my experience with Twister, which can be used as a class tool. I think it's a good tool, but for example I didn't like the backgrounds I got at all! So this might be some of a turn-off for your students if they take things seriously! :) On the other hand, students can still have a lot of fun with it! Of course, it is important for us teachers to feel comfortable using the tool... 

Have a look at these!

To be honest, the very first Twister I made (which somehow got lost in my computer) had the picture of a rather fat woman wearing something violet... I didn't love it, but now, come to think of it, it wasn't that bad!

So... this was MY experience with Twister. How about yours?

Hello? Books speaking

Case study 1.3: Talking books

We have been looking at a series of case studies where the use of technology was deeply significant for the developing of language learning. Most of them were interesting to read, but I have chosen one to reflect upon: Talking books. Take a look:

Case study:	Talking books
Where:	Hampshire, UK
Participants:	Pre-school children whose first language is not English
Webpage used:	Mantra Lingua’s TalkingPENs (www.mantralingua.com)

 

This study was aimed at children between the ages of 3 and 5 whose language spoken at home was not English. Some well-known books were chosen and a retelling was made of each one of them, in English as well as in the languages most spoken in the local communities. The site the EMTAS (Ethnic Minority and Traveller Achievement Service: http://www3.hants.gov.uk/education/ema/) used to record the retellings was Mantra Lingua’s TalkingPENs (www.mantralingua.com). The bilingual books were then made available for the children to loan and then share the book orally with their parents.

I thought this project was wonderful, not only because of the clever use of technology but also and most importantly because it favoured children sharing something meaningful with their parents. Too often we are concerned with using technology to connect our students with people from other countries, just because we want them to speak to native speakers of English. While this is fantastic, and it sure is profitable for our students, we tend to forget that we may also use English to enforce our closest relationships – with our parents! In my personal case, I started studying English at a relatively old age (9 years old): I mean I did not go to a bilingual school to start studying English at 2. My mother does not speak English at all, and I know she felt bad for not being able to help me while I was studying… I would have liked to have something like this to share with her… Of course, I was 9 in 1996 so chances of this happening then were very slim or nonexistent at that time! J So I believe it is great that we do not lose sight of the fact that the main purpose for language learning is communication, and it is a great idea to help our students develop their communicative skills with their parents first and foremost.

Now, over to YOU! What do you think?

I say Diigo

Hello everyone!

Here is the link to my Diigo account and library. I have included Online Dictionaries as well as some pages which offer ideas for teachers and others connected to Education.

https://www.diigo.com/user/aldana099

Feel free to come round!

See you

Aldana