Sitcoms: consuming or creating?

Videoing on a mobile phone: making it less intimidating than a video camera

More from the very excellent TeachingEnglish.org.uk, this time on exploiting sitcoms...

A lesson...
Besides the likelihood that your learners are going to just love them, there is an awful lot of language you can get out of sitcoms, as the article on building a lesson around a sitcom suggests. When it comes to choosing a sitcom, my own suggestion would be that you don't choose it, but that your learners do. What they already watch (perhaps in their own language) and can tell you about is likely to be more popular than something you pick (unless it's Fawlty Towers, which is always a success!)

An activity...
There is also a Sitcom information activity, which includes a photocopiable worksheet with a gap fill exercise.

I've got my doubts about this one -- not so much about the activity itself as about whether or not that is the way we should be using technology. Photocopying exercises is one use we could make of technology -- the photocopier being part of technology -- but it has the students merely consuming, not creating.

The activity suggests the learners then go to YouTube and watch a clip of one of the sitcoms mentioned in the text; but that's merely consuming too.

If you get your learners to watch and create listening comprehension questions for each other, instead of merely watching, then you've got greater engagement, not merely entertainment.

Actually creating a sitcom...
A third idea on the same site involves actually creating a sitcom; now that's more like it!

I'd suggest that, in this last case, you really want to get your learners to video it -- that's creating, not merely consuming.

To get round the problem of people not wanting to be filmed, you might try filming on mobile phones first, as they appear less intrusive; and always remember that no one should be forced to act but that, if they don't want to, there are other roles such as directing and the actual filming that can engage all the members of a group... You could also record audio only, not video.

My experience of such things is people's inhibitions tend to drop, when they see what fun it can be.

Easy, fun, meaningful tasks with technology

Easy, fun, meaningful...

Welcome to those of you who came to my talk on Easy, fun, meaningful activities with technology at the IH Barcelona ELT Conference today...

The tasks I proposed assumed that at least one, preferably more digital cameras (or mobile phones, or webcams...) were available to your learners, either at school and/or at home. Below, how I defined "easy", "fun" and "meaningful" and, although the tasks suggested involved cameras, I think the same criteria apply to any other technology you might be considering using in the language classroom.

Easy...
The "ease" is particularly the easy and speed of set up -- and the time involved, before and after class. You don't want to be editing images, for example, afterwards -- though, as I suggested in my talk, your learners could be doing that (and I suggested using Picnik).

Having no programs to instal can be important in a school: can you, as a teacher, actually instal programs on your school's network? Probably not.

As much as anything, you want to limit the time you the teacher have to spend on the technology; what you want is a huge return-on-investment, i.e. for the amount of pre- and post-class time you invest, your language learners in- or post-class get a huge return in terms of the language they practise and learn.

Fun...
In my classroom experience, what is creative is fun; and because it's creative and fun it's enjoyable; and if what is created is also shared with other learners, it's motivating and thus more fun. If it is motivating, if learners want to do things, and (provided you ensure that they speak in English doing well-designed tasks maximising interaction) it's also and most importantly, successful in terms of language learning. They learn more, in other words.

And then they are more motivated, and learn more, and have more fun... It's a cycle of success -- and of enjoyment.

Meaningful...
In my talk, I contrasted photographs taken by learners with cloze tests [define]... The picture that my learner has taken (not stolen from Google-is-Evil, note) matters; it's an end-product that you can share and care about.

When did the answers to a cloze test ever really matter to a learner (unless it was on an exam)? When did a learner ever really feel truly proud of a completed cloze test...?

I've been having my learners complete cloze tests for nearly thirty years and I've never, ever, seen a learner enjoy one.

But most importantly...
I've highlighted in my slide (above) how I'm suggesting using technology: to create and share end-products. But that's merely how I'm suggesting using it...

What really matters in language classrooms is that lots of language learning takes place.

That's what is important, the learning, not the technology. The technology is merely the tool that affords opportunities for language learning to occur...

Task #2: Mystery photos on a throw-away camera

Pictures on a throw-away camera: about as simple as technology gets...

The second task that I proposed in my workshop at the IH Barcelona ELT Conference last week was "Mystery photos on a throw-away camera", a task originally suggested by my colleague Susana Ortiz.

As you can see from my slide (above), the tasks has learners working in pairs to take up to 3 "mystery" pictures per pair on a throw-away camera (for costs, see the first "comment" below), and then passing the camera on to the next pair, with the photos being developed when the film runs out.

You could do the same thing with a digital camera, a mobile phone or a webcam, all of which would have advantages over the throw-away camera, most notably the digital image you will get from them (and can thus edit and upload, etc).

The disposable camera, however, is more of a challenge (you can't just go on taking pictures until they come out right) and the mystery of not knowing until the end what photos other people have taken (no "telling" when the camera is passed on to the next pair), and the shared experience are all reasons for considering turning to what I described in my talk as being "the pond scum" of technology -- the lowest of the low.

But learning should be a challenge and it should be an experience, something which is memorable...

See also
On our Formación ELE blog, for Spanish teachers [content in Spanish], you can see some of the pictures of Barcelona taken by students in Susana's class.

MFLE's ICT in Education site

There's an ICT in Education section on Scotland's MFLE that might interest, including a new guide to podcasting, as well as sections on blogging, using mobile phones in language classrooms, and interactive whiteboards, among others.

I also liked some of the ideas on the page about using PowerPoint interactively in the classroom.

There is also an MFLE blog that is worth reading (though, being directed at Modern Language teachers in Scottish schools, English isn't one of the languages it deals with directly).

Witches and more stuff for Halloween lessons

WhaaaaaaaaaahHHHHHH! Photo: KateT

It's getting round to that time of year again... On the British Council's Learn English Kids site, you have things about witches and wizards -- "things" being songs and jigsaw puzzles and stories and and stuff you can print, a link which I picked up from the Council's excellent ELTeCS list.

Don't print it, make it!
Stuff you can print...? I've always had my doubts about that -- especially if we are talking about young learners. Who was the teacher trainer I once heard say that it broke her heart "to see young learners all with the same photocopied picture"?

You want ideas, not printable activities, I would suggest -- and for pictures, you want to get your young learners to draw them. If you've got a class blog, that's where they should be published.

If we're talking teenagers, for whom drawing witches is undoubtedly not going to be cool, you could get them to take photos of Halloweeny things on their mobile phones -- which again could be great on a class blog.

Don't worry so much about the quality of the images -- just quick snapshots like the one at the top of this post (detail of the decorations at Reception here at school) will produce a great collection.

Creating, not consuming
If you then got your learners to write ghost stories (possibly featuring the creatures they've taken photos, or drawn pictures of), then they'd be creating, not merely consuming -- and that's what technology allows us to do.

In Spanish, here's another idea that makes a great Halloween activity.

Related posts

>> A Halloween project
>> Halloween lessons

Mobile phone pix

In the bar: "He was cutting a pineapple"

Here's one that came from the session on our CELTA course, July 24. I sent six of you out with your camera-equipped mobile phones to take pictures of people doing things. My instructions were to ensure that you asked politely for permission to take the photo, and thank the person for their assistance.

My assumptions were that you were teens; that you had such technology in your pockets; that we had been doing either the present or the past progressive; and that we had a class blog on which we could afterwards post the pictures with an appropriate caption (in the example, "He was cutting a pineapple...").

The point of the exercise was to raise the question of how much language would be learnt and/or practised and/or used relative to the amount of time invested in the activity. What is the return on investment, in other words, a question I would always ask myself with technology.

This isn't an idea that I've actually tried out with language learners, but I think I would: when are teens -- or adults -- more likely to learn: "doing" the language via a photocopied exercise or doing an activity in a way that is actually significant to them (and fun!)?

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...?

How much does the Internet weigh?

Two useless facts about technology I thought you might like to know:

All the wisdom, information and pornographic images (etc) on the Internet weighs 0.2 millionths of an ounce.

Forest guards in India are using cell phone ring tones of cows mooing, goats bleating, and roosters crowing to lure hungry leopards away from human inhabitation.

Source | Harper's Weekly

Using cell phones in class

Does your school have a ban on using mobile phones in the classroom? Do you confiscate them if you see your kids using them? Does it annoy you when your adults jump up and run out in the middle of your class to take a call?

Personally, I think that as educators we have an obligation -- especially with kids -- to get our learners into the habit of switching them off. Even with adults I would agree with them that we will all turn our phones off for an hour.

You wouldn't (would you?) interrupt a business meeting to take a call; you shouldn't interrupt a class either -- apart from anything else because it's rude to the social group (the class) we belong to.

Classroom activities with mobile phones
But there are things you can do with mobile phones in the classroom which can make interesting activities.

This article on techlearning.com has some suggestions and, for the seriously geeky, here's an article on futurelab.

See also
Skype is a possible alternative to cell phones.

Using mobile phones in the classroom

You need your book and a pencil, your mobile phone is best kept switched off in your pocket... Or is it?

Do your teenagers play with their mobile phones in class...? Do your adults suddenly stand up in class and walk out, as whoever it is that's calling them is much more important than their English class...? As a teacher, do you hate mobile phones too...?

This article on Modern Foreign Language Environment [website] suggests ways in which you could make (profitable) use of mobile phones in the classroom...