How to...

Here's a website you might get a fun lesson out of, wikihow.com.

Spotted recently:

• How to escape from a bear
• How to date a hopelessly romantic person when you are not hopelessly romantic yourself
  
• How to hold a successful garage sale
  
• How to overcome the fear of marriage
  

As with anything you might find on the Internet, ask yourself whether you are not going to break any cultural tabus, etc, there.

Garage (aka car boot) sales are something you might have to explain -- they are totally unheard of in Spain, for example.

What could you do with it?

• Introduce the topic in some way... "I've got this friend who's utterly unromantic, who's dating this girl who is very romantic and he was asking me for some advice (knowing what a romantic person I am... ,-)"
• Get the students to brainstorm a list of ideas
• Pyramid the discussion (move from pairs to fours, from fours to eights, etc)
• Get them to go to the site and read the article
• Etc
  

The "etc" is particularly important, I would suggest. What are your learners going to do with the information they find -- I'd say that's a vital question. Posting their ideas, and commenting on them, on a class blog is one thing they could do with it...

Don't search
Wikihow is one of the things I have on my Google personalised home page. In that way, I don't go looking for things on wikihow -- they come to me.

Projects using technology for language learning

Four projects / classes are outlined in four separate posts below. Scroll down the current page to view them, or click the links below:

• Podcasting
• A class (library) blog
• Self-study multimedia exercises
• A teacher's own, private reflective blog
  

They are not necessarily intended as examples of good use of technology.

Under the "comments" for each, you will find comments made during our face-to-face session, and further comments by Tom.

Project #1 Podcasting

Level: Intermediate

Circumstances: Wide range of nationalities on summer course in UK

Classroom time required: 1 hour a day, on an intensive 30 hour-a-week, 4-week course

Brief outline: Students rehearse and then record each other talking about cultural issues of interest to them and the differences and similarities between their cultures and those of their classmates. Recordings are then posted on an audio blog.

Equipment required: MP3 players with recording facilities (which most of the students have); Audacity, a free audio editing program (which is available in the computer room at the centre); a blog (which the teacher has set up).

To find out more about podcasting:
See this previous post.

Project #2 A class (library) blog

Level: Vary widely, Intermediate to well above

Circumstances: Students in secondary school, doing 6 hours English a week, with an extensive (though under-used) library of "graded readers"

Classroom time required: None; students do task as homework

Brief outline: Students are required to read a minimum 3 graded readers per term as homework. Once they have read a book, they will post their review on the class blog. Reviews to include title, author, brief plot outline, whether or not they liked it and why (not), links to 2-3 related websites, and an illustration.

Equipment required: None. All children have an Internet connection at home (with PCs also available to them at school).

To find out more about blogs and blogging:
This article on TeachingEnglish.org.uk gives a brief introduction, and you will find more posts on blogging here.

See also the "Quick Tour" at Blogger.com.

Project #3 Self-study multimedia exercises

Level: 3 levels, Upper-Intermediate, First Certificate (FC), Post-FC

Circumstances: Business English students at University

Classroom time required: None; material to be accessed in self-access centre

Brief outline: Teacher to create multiple-choice comprehension questions on business texts taken from Internet, to provide extra reading practice

Equipment required: Computer; HotPotatoes (free download, but 25 user licence is over $1,000)

To find out more about HotPotatoes:
http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/hotpot/

Project #4 A teacher's own, private reflective blog

Level: Any

Circumstances: Teacher in language school, teaching a variety of levels

Classroom time required: None

Brief outline: Teacher spends approx. 60 mins a week writing online diary (blog), in which s/he reflects on what has happened in classes taught that day/week

Equipment required: Internet access; (free) blog account at Blogger.com.

To find out more:

• Diaries as research tools
• An example