Incy wincy spider

If you are teaching very young learners, this morning my RSS feed for teachingenglish.co.uk tells me there are some great things you could do on creepy crawlies, a subject dear to the heart of all young learners (well, nearly, anyway!) -- and not a few webmasters, as you can see from our photo.

The Language Assistant section on teachingenglish.co.uk is well worth checking out if you do teach small kids.

See also >> Incy Wincy Spider, the song (etc)

Great stuff on YouTube for English teachers

Bruce Springsteen interviewed on the OGWT in 1978

There's a ton of great listening comprehension on YouTube, stuff that's so much more interesting than the things that come on your coursebook CD -- to start with because (especially to kids!) watching a video clip of (say) a song is so much more interesting than a CD...

Getting them to do the work
One of my colleagues suggested having the learners, in pairs, search for a suitable interview with a famous person, and then write listening comprehension questions for another pair. Get them to choose the video -- don't you make the choice.

Doing that means that there is so much more active involvement of the learners, with them wanting to listen, and wanting to listen again. Whether or not they come up with great listening comprehension questions is not important either: what the activity does is make them creators, not merely consumers of content.

Or letting someone else do the work...?
If you prefer someone else to do part of your lesson planning for you, teflclips.com is a site which will interest you.

On yappr.com you have YouTube-like videos conveniently sorted by subject and level of difficulty, many of them with a subtitle option.

In a recent issue of HLT, there were more ideas for exploiting YouTube.

And here's another idea from Nik Peachey's excellent blog...

RSS feeds for ELT

Bloglines: promises, and delivers!

Real Simple Syndication [definition; Wikipedia entry], or RSS as it is better known, might at first sight sound like another bit of geeky technology that you can live very happily without, thank you.

Basically, it will involve you setting up an account (eg at Bloglines) and specifying which website(-s) and/or blog(-s) you want to track for new content. The next day (say), you will have to log back on to your new account to read any new content that has been found and brought to you at your account [+ info].

Which websites and blogs publish an RSS feed?


Not all websites publish what is called a "feed", which is what Bloglines et al use to gather the content for you.

If, as in the image above, in the address bar you can see an orange icon that looks like it is transmitting radio waves (red arrow), then the site has an RSS feed which you can very simply add to your Bloglines account, and start receiving content from that site too.

Is it worth it...?
A very long time ago, when even email was in its infancy, I came to a seminar at my present employers, at which someone explained that the teachers (now my colleagues) had not wanted to use email until they discovered how useful it could be to them personally -- for things other than teaching.

I'd suggest that RSS is like that: discover that it's useful to you personally, to bring you things on your hobbies and interests, and you'll quickly be convinced...

5 RSS feeds of general interest
Below, five sites on topics that interest me: try them, or look out for others that will interest you...

• BoingBoing.net
  
• Digital Photography School
• Lifehacker.com
  
• Simply Recipes
• Tabletop Gaming News
  

5 RSS feeds of interest to English teachers

• Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day
• Nik Peachey's Learning Technology blog
  
• Quick Shout
• TeachingEnglish.co.uk
• The blog you are reading now...
  

Try RSS. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it...

Download lessons? Or get ideas...?

Print out, photocopy and cut up... But is that what you really want?

On the support group we have for our CELTA course trainees, someone recently asked where they could find sites from which they could download lesson plans.

You can find such things at sites like TEFL.net, ESL-kids.com and Splendid-Speaking.com.

Some of the publishers also have excellent resources sites, such as OneStopEnglish and BusinessEnglishOnline.net (both from MacMillan)

What would my tutor think...?
Remember, however, that there's an awful lot of rubbish out there in cyberspace. I'd suggest, before you download material, that you should ask yourself (among other questions) what your CELTA course tutor would have thought of it?

You might also consider the source of the material. The publishers give you some guarantee of quality lesson plans, as does the excellent TeachingEnglish.org.uk, and the British Council kids site.

Whether or not the site carries Google-is-Evil ads is another consideration I might make. It does? It may be that its primary interest is to make money, not to improve your teaching...

Don't search, have things come to you
Personally, as I prefer to have things come to me, rather than having to search for them, I'd really recommend the free materials by email the ELT publishers will send out to you (in the image above, materials in my mailbox from OUP).

Is it lesson plans you really want...?
My doubt about such things is whether or not downloadable lesson plans are actually what you should be looking for.

It would be nice just to be able to get free, ready-to-print, ready-to-use stuff and not have to think further about the lessons we are teaching. But I think there is -- or there ought to be! -- a lot more to good language teaching than that.

Do you want to print and photocopy vocabulary worksheets -- or is really the ideas, how to teach vocabulary that you really need...?

Wikipedia -- in simple English

One of the problems that your learners are going to have when they go online is that most of what is on the Internet was just not designed to be read by language learners.

If you take them to Wikipedia, for example (or just about any other site, for that matter), they are inevitably going to come across words that are unfamiliar to them. It is therefore going to be vital that you help your learners with reading comprehension skills -- particularly dealing with unfamiliar words in context.

But did you know that there is also a Simple English Wikipedia, which is one site you can find articles on; take your lower-level learners to during class; and recommend to them for their own use, outside class...

Change the default start page of your browser

One of the suggestions made in the sessions yesterday on our Celta course was that you could change the default start page on your browser to something more useful to you as a teacher. Among my own default start pages are various sources of texts: with a quick glance, and without having to waste time trawling the Web for them, articles which I might be able to use in class come to me.

Also suggested was that your students should change their home pages on their computers at home/work to something of interest -- a page on which they would stop and read or listen to some English. I liked the idea of that being a class blog, if you have one, and here's another that site that you might recommend, Nik Peachey's Daily English Activities. Designed for students, every day it has "a new simple online activity to help you improve your English".

Personally, I always recommend my learners to set their home page to the BBC World Service; to stop when they get there; to pick the most interesting looking headline; then to spend 2-3 minutes reading (or listening); and -- because a lot of exposure is necessary for learning a language -- to do that every day.

It doesn't have to be the BBC: it could be any site on any topic that interests them. Someone in one of our workshops yesterday argued that if you didn't set them a task or an exercise to do with it, then they wouldn't bother to do it. My counter-argument would be that they don't need more tasks or exercises: what they need, as learners, is to get themselves into good habits.

Word(le) clouds, Paint pictures

Wordle cloud, Paint fish

Here's one that came from one of the sessions on our CELTA course in the last week...

I suggested Ananova.com (specifically the bizarre news stories in its Quirkies section) as a great default home page for both teachers and learners, with the Dead angler becomes fish food story an example of a text you could do in class.

We then took the story -- assuming that we'd already "done" the text in class -- to Wordle.net and converted it into a cloud. By a bit of simple editing, first with Wordle, then with Paint (which we used to add an eye to create a word cloud fish), we've then converted the text into a picture which we could use to decorate a class blog.

As I suggested earlier, I still have my doubts about using Wordle as a classroom activity -- principally because your learners will be manipulating the image, but not the words themselves: they want to be tinkering with the language not just looking at it, if we want people to learn language.

But as an "after reading" activity, to add some color to a class blog, to add some fun, you might still justify it...

And as one of you pointed out in at least one of the sessions this week, we might also possibly use the word cloud as either a prediction or a reconstruction activity...

>> How to change the default start page of your browser

Links landing in my mail box

All of the following links came to me via the excellent Developing Teachers.com Monthly Newsletter for July.

• 50 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do, which might make a great discussion topic before your learners ever look at the site: Can they brainstorm their own list...? Once they get to the site, How many did they correctly predict...? And once they do get there, they'll find some fascinating reading
  
• The story of Jamie Livingston, who took a polaroid every day until the day he died, which (though you might want to limit it to, say, 30 days) would make a great project if you had a class blog -- get your learners to take the picture, in other words, and publish them together with a suitable, accompanying text describing the picture
  
• I was less impressed by StickyBall.net, which has games, jokes, vocab lists, worksheets and so on, though you might find things you could use.
  

The difference between the first two, above, and StickyBall is an important one, I think: in the first two cases, you would be getting your students to do things. In the latter case, it would be you downloading, printing and photocopying, to a considerable extent. Doing will produce learning, photocopying is much less likely to, if you ask me.

Don't go looking for things on the Internet, I always say: have things come to you. The DT Monthly Newsletter always brings lot...

Wordle: create and edit your own word clouds

This one I came to me from Ana Falcon by email on the ELTECS-Latinamerica list...Wordle allows you to take a text and turn it into a word cloud and then to customise it in a variety of cool ways. My original text was about El Alux, a spectacular bar located underground in a cenote, a geological formation in the Yucatan.

What could you do with Wordle with learners? In her message, Ana suggested "You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends". My suggestion would be that it's another example of something you shouldn't be doing -- but that your learners might enjoy, especially if they are young.

Would they actually learn anything from it...? I'm not entirely convinced that they would. But they would have fun doing it, and it would involved actively doing something; it could be a way of persuading them to look back at previous texts (or finding new ones); it might be a way of revising vocabulary if what you asked them to do was turn a text they had "done" into a Wordle; and if you had a class blog it would produce some attractive images (you would have to take a screen capture and edit it [how?], as it's not possible to create an image directly at Wordle).

The ELTECS lists are well worth subscribing to -- apart from anything else for the links Ana suggests at regular intervals.

Just landed in my mailbox

Inside Out: useful stuff landing in your own mailbox

I'm not 100% convinced that cricket is a topic that is going to excite your learners but (as I used to play myself) it caught my eye in my mailbox.

It's a free "e-lesson" that comes to me from Macmillan's Inside Out every Monday (along with one for business English), as I subscribe to it.

Personally, I prefer not to download, print and use lessons (are they really any better than your textbook?), but they can be great if you're teaching 1-2-1 and don't have a coursebook.

And I also think it's so much better to have things come to you, rather than waste time searching the digital dungheap (aka The Internet).

>> More stuff in your mailbox

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...!

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"

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
  

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

Cuisenaire rods

Red, 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

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.

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.

Using the Board

Another new article, on Using the Board, on my favourite ELT site: teachingenglish.org.uk.

They probably taught you most of what the article says on your CELTA course, but it's an important enough issue to look back at.

splendid-speaking.com

Splendid Speaking, which concerns itself with "Speaking skills for advanced learners of English", has free materials that you might find of interest if you are teaching CAE or a similar sort of level.

Storytelling

Andrew Wright was one of the speakers at recent the annual ELT Conference at IH Barcelona, giving two inspiring sessions on storytelling.

Storytelling is perhaps not quite the right term for the technique Andrew was suggesting -- with the teacher's role being more to get the kids to tell the story, collectively.

Andrew has an excellent book on the subject, Storytelling with Children (OUP), and he's also the author of 1000+ Pictures for Teachers to Copy.

On his website, Andrew has a series of articles on storytelling.

Best of Larry Ferlazzo

One of the best collections of useful websites out there has got to be Larry Ferlazzo's. Though it's not designed exclusively for English teachers, you'll find lots of interesting sites there.

The trouble with such collections is they just get too big (there are over 7,000 links there). Now, however, there's a new section with a pick of the best sites.

It also publishes what must be one of the very best RSS feeds for teachers.

Blogging, Storytelling, Video links

Two great sets of links, both of which came from recent additions to Larry Ferlazzo's amazing collection of links:

• Using Blogs to Promote Authentic Learning in the Classroom
• Digital Storytelling

Note also this link, which I discovered by exploring from the second of the above:

• Video in the classroom

How should you use technology in the classroom? Your learners should create things with it. It shouldn't just be you finding and printing stuff for them, or displaying it to them on an interactive whiteboard.

Make your learners creators of content, not merely consumers...

I don't remember who first said that, or where I heard it -- but that's the secret of using technology I believe.

BBC World Service Radio

BBC World Service Radio

One for your learners: BBC World Service Radio, which you can listen to live as well as to featured programs (eg. the "Dollar a Day" series, in the image, above, an excellent one).

Recommend your learners to change the default start page of their browsers to the BBC and recommend them to listen -- every day. How many of them are in jobs in which they do listen to music or the radio on their headphones..?

It's such good practice, if it's regular -- as well as being a great radio station!

>> An alternative: npr.org

Mr. Picassohead

Portrait drawn on Mr. Picassohead

My RSS feeds brought me another great link from Larry Ferlazzo this morning: Mr. Picassohead, which now allows you to save and send the picture you have created (see example, above).

You could have your students create portraits as a way of learning "face vocabulary", as Larry suggests, at quite a low level.

Personally, I'd have them work in pairs and ensure that they had the vocabulary to make suggestions ("Let's choose that one...", "Why don't we...") as well as the vocab to operate the tools together ("Drag that over there", "You have to click the Rotate button", etc), especially at a higher level.

See also Making animations with Dfilm

More evidence that Google is Evil ,- ) !

My husband... Now would that be "Google search" or "I'm feeling lucky"?

Ananova.com's bizarre news "Quirkies" section is one of my default start pages -- partly because some of stories amuse me greatly and partly because there's often a text there that you can use in class.

Among the headlines this morning, "Wife's £5m Google surprise":

A woman is suing her husband after she Googled his name - and found out he had won £5m on the lottery. >> Full story

What could you do with such a text...?

• Before reading, you could speculate from the headline what the story might be, something which you might do in pairs, with each pair then telling the whole class "their" story
• During reading, you could get people to determine which pair they think got closest to the actual story, which can get them to read more closely, and gives a natural reason for "talking about meaning"
  
• After reading, there are any number of discussion points that might come up -- do they believe the story, what can they guess about the people involved, have they ever "Googled" their own names (or those of their spouses!)
  

Persuade your learners to change their default start pages to a website where they are going to get themselves some reading (or listening) practice -- it's one of the most useful things you can do for them!

50 Web 2.0 Ways To Tell a Story

Another link, suggested by Ana Falcon, that came to my mailbox in the ELTECS Latin America news list -- 50 Web 2.0 Ways To Tell a Story.

I think storytelling -- getting your learners to write stories, to tell multimedia stories -- is one of the most interesting things you can do in a language class. Apart from the obvious opportunities for learning and using language that such a project provides, it's the creating things aspect of it that attracts me -- and it's one of the best possible uses we can make of technology, as it takes much fuller advantage of the potential of technology than, say, seeing and using the Internet as a bank of images for use in class.

You want good group dynamics in your class? Get your learners to create and share something together.

The article (or wiki, to give it its proper term), contains lots of useful ideas and links, including links to audio, images and video available under Creative Commons licences -- ie. that you can use without infringing copyright.

The author, Alan Levine, has the commendable rule that "the media files you use in your story have to be ones that are licensed or shared with permission to re-use". However, my suggestion would always be that your learners create their own images, audio files, etc.

The more they create themselves, the less they steal from other websites, the prouder they will be of their work; the "pride in creation" is wonderful for motivation, for wanting to learn...

>> ELTECS news lists
>> More good stuff in your mailbox
>> Creative Commons
>> More on digital storytelling
>> Er... What's Web 2.0?

More image links and ideas for using them

Yet another useful link from Larry Ferlazzo's amazing collection, to Nations Illustrated, which has over 7,000 images -- free for non-commercial use -- organised by countries of the world.

I like Larry's idea of exploiting the fact that you can send the photo's as e-cards to a friend (or your teacher)... Perhaps you could also have your learners create a story based on a series of e-cards sent to you from different places around the world...?

Note also the "play puzzle" feature, if you're a jigsaw puzzle fan, which allows you to turn the images into jigsaws. I wonder if you could have people doing that in class in pairs, perhaps with one person having the original picture, which their partner isn't allowed to see... Or have them work together to work out how the puzzle must fit together logically ("that bit must go there", "that can't be right...").

>> In the same post, on About.com, Thirty Free Image Resources on the Web

Role playing games for language learning?

Third World Farmer: Wheat and corn are planted, but I can't afford a chicken, and my kids are sick...

The (free) online role-playing game Third World Farmer is one I'd come across before, and one I'd recommended to language learners -- as one they might like to play in their own time, outside class. In reading, and understanding, and responding to the instructions, I think they would learn some English, in an enjoyable game, which might also heighten their awareness of some of the problems people in the third world face.

But maybe in fact it's one that you could use in class with learners... I very much liked the ideas for using the game on Nik Peachey's blog.

We should be using technology "not just to play but to learn language", as someone (Gordon?) who came to my CELTA session today suggested. Nik suggests getting people to do such things as compare strategies, rate and debate the game... There is "language" in the understanding and playing of the game and a lot more language (and interaction) in talking about the game...

You want to build that "after-the-technology" stage into your lesson plan.

More sources of (good) images

Things that matter to me... the pictures of my kids in my wallet

In one of the CELTA sessions this week I mentioned the website of the freebie newspaper 20Minutos as an alternative source of images. They have a great Fotogalerías section, which is a much better source than Google-is-Evil if you are looking for topical photographs, especially ones that will be relevant to Spanish students.

An alternative is Yahoo News, which has a similar, magnificent news photos section.

Newspapers have a vested interest in providing quality images; Google has zero interest in the quality of the billions of images it steals from other websites.

I still think that an even better alternative is for your learners to create their own images (above, another one someone took during the session Wednesday -- my own kids, so I gave myself parental permission to publish ,-) !

Videos for learning to use technology

This one came to my mailbox from one of the ELTECS news lists.

It mentioned a post on Nik Peachey's Learning technology teacher development blog for ELT, which referred to the materials on teachertrainingvideos.com.

Teachertrainingvideos.com has lots of things of interest, particularly for ELT, for anyone looking for something to "help them to incorporate technology into their teaching".

A possible alternative would be TeacherTube.com.

Nik Peachey's blog is similarly of interest, covering a wide range of the technologies available to us.

Great new things from a great ELT site

TeachingEnglish.org.uk, possibly the best site on the Web for ELT...

One of the first things I do every morning is check if there's anything of interest in my RSS feeds [explanation] -- what useful new content might have appeared on websites I know are interesting, but haven't got the time to check.

Via RSS, I track the excellent TeachingEnglish.org.uk site, which this morning has three new things of interest:

1. An article on presenting new language
2. An article on how to set up a class magazine project (something which, personally, I would suggest you do online with a blog)
3. A question: