Horse race dictation

Another idea from teachingenglish.org.uk, which came to me via its RSS feed: a horse race dictation, in which "students try to predict the order of words in a jumbled sentence before listening for the answer" -- the listening requiring the teacher to give them a horse race commentary with the words taking the place of the horses.

I've not actually tried it out, but it sounds like a lot of fun...!

Is Google making you stupid?

In an article on TheAtlantic.com, Nicholas Carr asks "Is Google making us stupid?"

Yes.

Text connections: a creative writing project

With one of my colleagues, Carolyn Edwards, I recently participated in an experimental creative writing project, Text Connections, in which we got learners to decide on a story from a series of photos torn from newspapers, which they then had to tell by writing a series of connected texts -- which could include emails, shopping lists, police reports...

I think the teacher's notes are interesting and the learners' comments on the project particularly so.

Previously, we did a very brief trial run of the project on a session on our Celta course.

Updated index of most interesting posts

A personal selection of the most interesting posts (ie. not a complete listing of all posts...) on this blog. Posts are in reverse chronological order, with the newest post nearest the top in each section.

About this blog

• About this blog
  


• What's the purpose of this blog?
  

>> All posts labelled "About this blog"

Bibliography

• Teaching Teenagers
  


• 10 great ELT books your Mum could get you for Xmas


• 1000+ Pictures for Teachers to Copy
  


• Bibliography: Books on using technology
  

>> All posts labelled "Bibliography"

Blogging

• Video: How to start a blog with Blogger
  


• More ideas for blogging projects, webquests
  


• Setting up a blog with Blogger
  


• Protecting your (young) learners' privacy
  


• Nice poster, couldn’t we have put it on a blog?
  


• Class reader blogging project
  


• Is a blog open to anyone?
  


• Why blog...?
  


• What can you do with a blog?
  

>> All posts labelled "Blogging"

Business English

• Business English, links and books
  

CELTA sessions

>> All posts labelled "CELTA sessions"

Conferences courses and workshops

• Online: IATEFL Annual Conference
  


• EVO 2008 sessions
  

>> All posts labelled "Conferences courses and workshops"

Creating multimedia material

>> All posts labelled "Creating multimedia material"

Creating webpages

>> All posts labelled "Creating webpages"

Days of the Year

• Christmas lessons
  


• April Fool's Day
  


• Be my Valentine!
  


• Halloween
  


• Today is...
  

>> All posts labelled "Days of the Year"

Games

• Role playing games for language learning?
  

>> All posts labelled "Games"

Getting a job in TEFL

• Writing a decent CV
  

Getting students to write

• Creative writing with flowers


• Getting your students to write
  

>> All posts labelled "Getting students to write"

Good teaching

• Creativity in the language classroom
  


• What (doesn't) make a good task in the computer room?
  


• What makes a good task?
  

>> All posts labelled "Good teaching"

Google-is-Evil

• Why is Google Evil?

>> All posts labelled "Google-is-Evil"

Grammar

• Interactive grammar exercises

How to...

• Vista, Word 2007 tutorials
  


• How to download movies from YouTube (etc)
  

>> All posts labelled "How to..."

Ideas for lessons

• Me, from A to Z
  


• 10 seconds: the makings of half a class
  


• Learn these 84 irregular verbs for Monday
  


• Lateral thinking puzzles
  


• Designing prepositions
  

>> All posts labelled "Ideas for lessons"

Images

• More image links and ideas for using them
  


• Why it's wrong to steal images... and text
  


• Images, and where to get them from
  


• Using pictures in class
  


• Don't waste time looking for pictures on Google
  

>> All posts labelled "Images"

Interactive Whiteboards

• Interactive whiteboards in the classroom


• Interactive whiteboards
  

>> All posts labelled "Interactive Whiteboards"

iPods

• 10 different uses for an iPod
  

Listening

• BBC World Service Radio
  


• Listening material on the Internet
  

>> All posts labelled "Listening"

Mobile phones

• Would you mind if I take a photo of you?


• Using cell phones in class


• Using mobile phones in the classroom
  

>> All posts labelled "Mobile phones"

Muddiest points

• CATs and muddiest points
  

>> All posts labelled "Muddiest points"

Not technology

>> All posts labelled "Not technology"

Other languages

• Teaching other languages
  

>> All posts labelled "Other languages"

Other technologies

• Twitter
  


• MySpace or Our Space?
  

>> All posts labelled "Other technologies"

Phonetics

>> All posts labelled "Phonetics"

Podcasting

• Podcasting Guide
  


• What is... podcasting?
  

>> All posts labelled "Podcasting"

Privacy

• Is your Yahoo (etc) account safe?

>> All posts labelled "Privacy"

Project work

• A six-word biography
  


• Single digital image, plus text
  


• Our amazing houses project


• Word collages
  


• A room with a view
  


• 100 greatest albums
  


• Mini-sagas and 100-word stories
  


• Projects using technology for language learning
  


• Portraits of Learning - superb use of technology
  

>> All posts labelled "Project work"

Reading activities

• Bizarre stories from Ananova
  

>> All posts labelled "Reading activities"

Searching the Web

• Something else I didn't have to search for


• Wikipedia, not the worst place to look
  


• Finding information on the Internet
  


• Don't waste your time on the Internet!
  


• RSS: Don't search -- have things come to you
  

>> All posts labelled "Searching the Web"

Second Life

• Second Life: where to find out more
  


• Second Life: the hype


• Virtual worlds here to stay


• Second Life: where to get started
  


• I hate Second Life
  

>> All posts labelled "Second Life"

Skype

• How to use Skype to help with language lessons

Speaking activities

• splendid-speaking.com


• Hard Bargaining

>> All posts labelled "Speaking activities"

Story telling

• A creative writing project


• Storytelling


• Ficlets: collaborative stories
  

>> All posts labelled "Story telling"

Teaching Young Learners

• Arts and crafts with young learners


• Resources for teaching children


• Making animations with young(-ish) learners
  

>> All posts labelled "Teaching Young Learners"

Technology 101

• What's Second Life? What's an interactive whiteboard (etc)?


• I don't know the first thing about technology


• Understanding the technical terms


• Basic tools


• "Paste special" to copy content from the Internet


• Keyboard shortcuts


• Change the default start page on your browser
  

>> All posts labelled "Technology 101"

That’s Technology ;-)!

>> All posts labelled "That's Technology ;-)!"

Useful links

• Best of Larry Ferlazzo
  


• Great new things from a great ELT site
  


• Learning your phonetics
  


• Get started with Office 2007
  


• BBC Learning English
  


• Larry Ferlazzo's great collection of links
  


• NiceNet: Your own virtual classroom
  


• Strip cartoons with stripgenerator.com
  


• Lesson plans in your mail box
  


• Finding images for use in class
  


• Finding texts for use in class
  


• Learning strategies
  

>> All posts labelled "Useful links"

Using technology

• Good practice in hi-tech classrooms
  


• Why bother with technology?
  


• Is a particular website suitable for use with your learners?
  

>> All posts labelled "Using technology"

Video

• Video storytelling
  

>> All posts labelled "Video"

Virtual worlds

• Virtual worlds
  

>> All posts labelled "Virtual worlds"

Web 2.0

• 50 Web 2.0 Ways To Tell a Story
  


• Web 2.0, Web 3.0...
  

>> All posts labelled "Web 2.0"

Webquests

• Student-generated webquests
  


• Webquests: useful links
  

>> All posts labelled "Webquests"

Working with other schools

>> All posts labelled "Working with other schools"

Writing projects

>> All posts labelled "Writing projects"

CELTA session, June 9

Hello, and welcome if you've come to today's session...

Your task
I'd like you to rank the items below, from most to least, in terms of how much language learning you think they would produce.

You should justify your decision. If your answer is "it depends", please specify: it depends on what?

Write your answer here on this blog, using the "comments".

Items

1. You finding images to use in some way in class (what way?)
   
2. Persuading your learners to change their default start page to the BBC World Service and to spend 5 minutes there every time they log on (ie. every day), listening or reading
3. A project in which your learners take photographs on their mobile phones of objects of value to their partners; write texts describing their partner's objects; and publish their work on a blog [see another example]
   
4. Using Glogster to create collages which they then describe orally (present) to the rest of the class; also then sharing their work online
5. You writing grammar exercises, posting them (and the answers) on a class blog
   
6. You sharing a blog with teaching colleagues (but not with your learners), on which you share problems and successes and reflect on what happens and what you are doing in class (etc)

Notes

• (2) is being done outside class, at home and/or at work
• (3) to (5) w0uld depend on our sharing a class blog with our learners, and could all be done on the same blog at different times of the term
  
• (6) might indirectly produce more, better language learning by improving the quality of the teaching
• There is, obviously, no right or wrong answer....

See also

• More about blogging
• Where to start if you know nothing about technology
• More basic things you should know
  
• Bibliography
  

TBL series

A new series of articles has started on Teaching English.org.uk, this time by Jane Willis, on task-based learning (TBL):

Task-based teaching is about creating opportunities for meaning-focused language use

The first article in the series, Criteria for identifying tasks for TBL, looks at the following, among other things:

• What kind of activity is a task?
• How you can "upgrade" things in your coursebook to make them truly "task-based"
• Adding a goal or outcome to make a task

The rest of the series:

• Article #2 >> Six types of task for TBL
• Article #3 >> From priming tasks and target tasks to language focus and grammar
• Article #4 >> How to include tasks and cover the textbook syllabus
  

See also:

• A task-based approach
• Previous series on reading