Friday, June 27, 2008

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...!

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posted by Tom at 12:50 PM 0 comments

Thursday, June 19, 2008

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.

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posted by Tom at 8:46 AM 0 comments

Thursday, June 12, 2008

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
>> All posts labelled "About this blog"

Bibliography
>> All posts labelled "Bibliography"

Blogging
>> All posts labelled "Blogging"

Business English
CELTA sessions

>> All posts labelled "CELTA sessions"

Conferences courses and workshops
>> 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
>> All posts labelled "Days of the Year"

Games
>> All posts labelled "Games"

Getting a job in TEFL
Getting students to write
>> All posts labelled "Getting students to write"

Good teaching
>> All posts labelled "Good teaching"

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

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

Ideas for lessons
>> All posts labelled "Ideas for lessons"

Images
>> All posts labelled "Images"

Interactive Whiteboards
>> All posts labelled "Interactive Whiteboards"

iPods
Listening
>> All posts labelled "Listening"

Mobile phones
>> All posts labelled "Mobile phones"

Muddiest points
>> All posts labelled "Muddiest points"

Not technology

>> All posts labelled "Not technology"

Other languages
>> All posts labelled "Other languages"

Other technologies
>> All posts labelled "Other technologies"

Phonetics

>> All posts labelled "Phonetics"

Podcasting
>> All posts labelled "Podcasting"

Privacy
>> All posts labelled "Privacy"

Project work
>> All posts labelled "Project work"

Reading activities
>> All posts labelled "Reading activities"

Searching the Web
>> All posts labelled "Searching the Web"

Second Life
>> All posts labelled "Second Life"

Skype
Speaking activities
>> All posts labelled "Speaking activities"

Story telling
>> All posts labelled "Story telling"

Teaching Young Learners
>> All posts labelled "Teaching Young Learners"

Technology 101
>> All posts labelled "Technology 101"

That’s Technology ;-)!

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

Useful links
>> All posts labelled "Useful links"

Using technology
>> All posts labelled "Using technology"

Video
>> All posts labelled "Video"

Virtual worlds
>> All posts labelled "Virtual worlds"

Web 2.0
>> All posts labelled "Web 2.0"

Webquests
>> All posts labelled "Webquests"

Working with other schools

>> All posts labelled "Working with other schools"

Writing projects

>> All posts labelled "Writing projects"

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posted by Tom at 6:01 PM 0 comments

Monday, June 09, 2008

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

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posted by Tom at 8:13 AM 0 comments

Monday, June 02, 2008

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:
See also:

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posted by Tom at 1:23 PM 0 comments

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Making collages with Glogster

Glogster: Yes, and those creep crawlies moved about on the page... Yuck!

Like ImageChef [see previous post], Glogster allows you to create images, though the latter is a lot more sophisticated, allowing you to create much more complex collages, making it suitable for older young learners with a higher level of English.

If you got your learners to work together in pairs to create their collage, there is a lot of potential for interaction and language use. You can't quite understand how it works? Don't worry, your kids will get it immediately!

As always in the technology classroom, you want to make sure that language is English!

Alternatively, you could get them to create their collages at home and then present them to the class in an oral presentation.

See also >> Making animations with Dfilm

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posted by Tom at 8:46 AM 1 comments

My basketball jersey is blue

ImageChef is one for young learners at a very low level -- I think.

They'd love it, I'm sure (my 12-year-old daughter and all her classmates do, for one thing) but I say "I think" because I'm not sure how much language learning you would get out of it.

Basically, it allows you to create a simple image like the one on the right from a series of templates, something which you could have your learners do for homework. If they then brought them back to class to show each other (or display on the walls, or post on a class blog...) you would get such language as "My shirt is red", "It's a basketball jersey" out of it.

As always, before I used the technology, I'd ask "How much language learning am I going to get out of it?", "What's the return on investment?"

The "investment" is in terms of time -- your time and your learners' time (in class or at home). The "return" is the amount of language learning and practice you get out of the activity.

The return on investment (ROI) is low? Don't do it. Your ROI is high? Go for it!

See also >> Making collages with Glogster

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posted by Tom at 8:18 AM 0 comments

Thursday, May 08, 2008

CELTA session, May 9

Hi, and welcome if you've come to this morning's session...!

I'm going to divide you into three groups, and ask you to look at 3 different projects which involve language learners using technology:
  1. A creative writing project
  2. Pictures on mobile phones
  3. Score your own wonder goal!
You've got about 20 minutes to actually do the project (or as much of it as time allows).

Then I'd like you to use the "comments" feature to answer the following questions:
  1. Could you have done the project (or something similar) just as well without the technology?
  2. What would the advantages/disadvantages of using the technology be?
  3. Do you think the technology leads to a lot of language learning with these projects?
  4. What else do you like/dislike about the project, and why?
Answer the above questions in the comments on the appropriate post (ie. via the links above, not in the comments to this post).

>> See also
For any of you who feel that you don't know much about technology, you might find the Technology 101 section here on this blog useful.

There are some books on using technology in the Bibliography section that you might also find useful.

And here's how to change the default start page of your browser, which was mentioned during the session.

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posted by Tom at 11:20 AM 0 comments

A creative writing project

Our pictures: we could just have stolen them from Google, but went for the non-tech approach!

Below, the rough outline of a creative writing project I'm team-teaching with a colleague next week, with two groups of Intermediate and Upper-Intermediate adults, most of whom use English for work, who have recently been working on register.

Our materials are a series of photographs of people torn out of newspapers and magazines... and that's it.

Stages of the project:
  1. Ss (=students) look at the photographs, select 6-8 of them, and decide how the people are related (relatives? work? living in the same block? )
  2. Ss decide what "the story" is going to be (someone gets/doesn't get the job, consequences, etc., etc...)
  3. Ss make brief "character notes" on the people selected (name, age, background, character...)
  4. Ss decide what written texts there could be that would "tell" the story (job applications, emails, memos, reports, post-it notes...)
  5. Ss agree on and make any alterations necessary for the story to be coherent
  6. Ss then write the texts (in pairs, not individually), and post them on a blog
  7. Ss write comments on the blog (both on the content, and to provide feedback on the project)
  8. Ts (=teachers) provide feedback, correction, etc.
At Stages 1 to 7, the teachers will also be providing help with whatever language is necessary...

That's the outline, we'll provide a link to the actual results of the project... But what do you think so far...?

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posted by Tom at 11:09 AM 5 comments

Would you mind if I take a photo of you?

... and could you take one of us, too?

Here's a small project suggested to me by a colleague, Susana Ortiz, who got her students to take their mobile phones out into the street to take pictures.

They'd been practising making requests and asking for permission, and what they had to do was, in pairs, (1) ask a complete stranger if s/he would mind taking a photo of them, and then (2) ask another complete stranger if s/he would mind if they took a photo -- of the stranger.

Foreign students learning Spanish in Barcelona, they then returned to class to report back how they'd got on (no, none of them got themselves punched, though in most cases they had to explain what it was for, and they did get quite a few "no way's" before they got their pictures!).

What do you think of it as a project...?

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posted by Tom at 11:08 AM 3 comments

Score your own wonder goal!

Gascoigne into space, look at this, Gascoigne: two-nil!

Here's one that I got from the amazing collection of links produced by Larry Ferlazzo -- which might make a great activity when Euro2008 comes round this summer.

Larry's suggestion is to have your learners use Reebook's Sprintfit KFS Replay tool to create a goal and "relive your greatest football moments" (registration required). You've got tutorials and can replay goals like the one Gazza scored against Scotland at Euro96 (picture, above). It's not exactly PlayStation, but it's probably a lot more interesting than the next unit in Headway!

As Larry points out, and as with so many of the things you can do with technology, it's the talking and the reading the tasks will involve as much as the task itself that that are important in the language classroom... We're using the technology to produce that, and the interaction between our learners -- for the sake of that, and not merely for the sake of the technology itself.

You could just watch the YouTube video of the Gazza goal... But isn't it so much better to get the learners to create things themselves...?

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posted by Tom at 10:40 AM 4 comments

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Cuisenaire rods

Cuisenaire rodsRed, white, white, yellow: She | should | n't | 've | stayed | out so late...

Here are some links I came across while putting together the pages on our online phonology course (or "Sounds, stress and intonation: Teaching English pronunciation" to give it its full name).

The course has a section on features of connected speech, and suggests using Cuisenaire rods as one way in which you can practise and clarify such things as stress, weak forms, intrusion and catenation...

In our online course materials, we like to include links to other useful resources, and here are some on using Cuisenaire rods:

>> What are Cuisenaire rods? (Wikipedia)
>> Cuisenaire rods in the language classroom (te.org.uk)
>> Cuisenaire rods in the language classroom (John Mullen)
>> Cuisenaire rods for storytelling
>> More on Cuisenaire rods

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posted by Tom at 11:21 AM 0 comments

Friday, May 02, 2008

Flashcard Maker

Teacher, Doctor, Painter, Photographer...

If you like to make flashcards for your learners, you might like the flashcard maker available at cambridgeenglishonline.com (a sample produced with it shown above). It's easy to use, free, comes with quite a large selection of images and, among other features allows you to write not only text but also phonemic script.

The flashcard maker was one of the teaching links I came across on teachingenglish.org.uk.

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posted by Tom at 11:02 AM 0 comments

Friday, April 18, 2008

Vista, Word 2007 tutorials

The ribbon: understanding it is vital to using Word 2007... See below for explanation

Some of the people I work with are finding it tough to get used to working with Word 2007. If you are similarly challenged, here are some tutorials you might find useful...

If even finding Word is challenging enough, it might be worth starting here, with the basics of Vista 2007.

Two things to start with
There are two important things you need to do to get started. One is to get the hang of using the ribbon.

You use the ribbon to navigate your different tools -- it replaces the drop-down menus you were used to. You need to click the tabs to access the different groups of tools: in the image (above) we're currently in the home tab (red arrow); you need to click the other tabs (black arrows) to access other tools.

The second important thing is to realise that some of the things you want (like "save as") are hidden behind that button, "A" in the image below. Click that, and you do get a drop-down menu ("B"). That's got to be the FAQ I answer most often...

The button: Ah-hah! So that's where it's hidden!

If you'd rather have a text-based tutorial than video, here's one on getting started with Word 2007.

Look on Google and you'll find lots more tutorials...

Somewhere else worth going -- rather than Google -- when you are trying to get your head round technology is YouTube, where you'll find some great tutorials. Here's a very simple one on using the Word 2007 ribbon...

And TeacherTube is another place I'd go... Lots of Word 2007 video tutorials there too.

Go get yourself used to it
Word 2007 is not really that complicated, or so very different -- once you get used to it.

I'd suggest that getting the hang of Word 2007 is a bit like driving a new car, or using a new digital camera: you've got to make just a little bit of effort yourself to get used to it. Get your head round "the ribbon", and you're away...

Finding technology tutorials
How did I find all of these things? See the first comment (below) for some search tips.

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posted by Tom at 11:56 AM 1 comments

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Series of online articles on reading

Reading: what kind of help and motivation should you provide?

Over on TeachingEnglish.org.uk, Dave Willis has started a four-part series on reading, the first being Reading for information: Motivating learners to read efficiently.

Among other things I liked in the first article of the series was the idea that we should we should provide "a context and a reason for reading", though if -- as suggested -- we're reading to answer the questions generated by discussion, I think some at least should be student-generated questions.

If some of the students' questions don't then get answered by your text, then go webquest (even if "only" for homework!)

The rest of the series:

>> Part 2 Form focus and recycling: getting grammar
>> Part 3 Techniques for priming and recycling
>> Part 4 Techniques for form focus after reading

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posted by Tom at 8:31 AM 0 comments

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Creative writing with flowers

Say it with flowers...

Here's a creative writing exercise I liked, by Mario Rinvolucri, which I found in the latest issue of Humanising Language Teaching, online at hltmag.co.uk.

Suggested procedure:
  • Bring a vase and 5 flowers into class
  • Ask for a student volunteer to arrange the flowers in the vase
  • Then say: "These flowers are a family. Please write three paragraphs about the family".
Unless you have a super creative class, used to such exercises, you might want to have a pre-writing stage in which, either whole class or in pairs/threes, you get the students to talk about the family first. If they bounce ideas off each other, the writing will be easier.

Don't forget to take a photo of the flowers, as they won't last as long as your text!

Summer camp flowers
The flowers in the photo, above, were cut out from egg cartons and painted. If you were on a summer camp, you could get your learners to each make their own flower, and start from there...

Blogging flowers
If you have a class blog, I'd suggest that this is the sort of activity you want to post on it. It's fun, it's creative, and it's more motivating knowing that the work is going to be posted somewhere, and kept...

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posted by Tom at 3:15 PM 0 comments

Monday, April 07, 2008

Celta Session, April 7

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

You have 15 minutes to do 3 of the 5 tasks below.

When you've done them, with your partners decide whether or not you think they are good tasks for the language classroom.

Use the "comments" to record what you think.

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posted by Tom at 8:24 AM 0 comments

Task #1: Creating an animation

Go to www.dfilm.com, create an animation and email it to me.

Don't forget to add a comment (below) on what you think of this activity for use with language learners.

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posted by Tom at 8:21 AM 4 comments

Task #2: A six-word biography

With a partner, create a six-word biography of a famous person.
Example: So much talent, all blown away (Ronaldinho)

Click "comments" (below) and add it to those already there.

Don't forget that you should create a second comment to record what you think of the task.

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posted by Tom at 8:18 AM 3 comments

Task #3: A photo and text

One of the images we produced (text in comments, below)

Take a photograph of an object belonging to your partner (watch, photo in a wallet, piece of jewelry, etc).

Open a Word document, save it in "My documents" and then write about your partner's object: why is it of value to him/her?

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posted by Tom at 8:16 AM 2 comments