Ipads in class

Last week I had the pleasure of attending FECEI in Madrid, where I gave a talk on using ipads in class. If you would like to access the powerpoint of some of the ideas discussed, please click here

Getting it Write

Getting it Write
Link to presentation from GRETA conference, October 2012
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1h69LZQQAbNP2XionpLIX0ipMIx6Nruj5_F1k3yqzl4I/edit

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Abstract: Most of us consider ourselves 'good communicators', yet often we forget about written communication, especially in class. Students often reject writing as boring and uninspiring. This workshop will look at a variety of communicative techniques to get your students writing better and getting their imagination going through stimulating and challenging activities.

LACK OF IDEAS

• Students need help using their imagination. Telling them to start writing a story isn’t enough for them.
  • Help them by providing visual clues to the story.
  • Make it a non threatening task by telling them that there is no wrong answers.
  • Give them the start of the story and have them finish it. It will be easier for them if you feed in the information slowly

LACK OF STRUCTURE

• Students are often unaware of how to structure a piece of writing. It is our responsibility as teachers to help them through this. They need to learn how to put their ideas together in logical order.
  • On scraps of paper ss write words and phrases with all their ideas
  • Get in pairs and choose favourite 4 ideas
  • Then use each idea as a paragraph, so students need to build the story around the ideas and include useful linkers etc.
  • After the students write the story at home

LACK OF FEEDBACK

A writing only notebook. This way correction can be more useful for the students.

• If students are handing in pieces of writing on pieces of paper, they tend to get lost, making our corrections redundant.
• If they have a notebook with all their writings together, they can easily look back at feedback and avoid making the same mistakes over and over again.

Play on words

There are emails circulating about the "Washington Post's Mensa Invitational", which has actually nothing to do with either The Washington Post or Mensa, but it is pretty funny. If you type it into google, you will probably see lots of posts or you could just click here to see the website.

The idea is either to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
For example: Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.Or you can to give an alternate meanings for common words.
For example: Flabbergasted (adj.): Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

For higher level students, it would be interesting to play such word games as this in class as warmers or coolers. By doing so they students become more aware of the parts of speech of words (nouns, adjectives and so on..) and also learn to look at words more deeply. If we look at the second example "Flabbergasted" the new mean not only uses part of the original concept but also plays with the word "flab" which students may not have known.

Word as Image

I just saw this video on YouTube and thought it was great, and that you could really use it well in class to get the imaginations going and to help students remember the meanings of certain words.

Firstly show the students the video (be careful about what level you are showing it too, watch it first!!) so they can get the idea. Then using the vocabulary studied in class, give each student a word and get them to draw a cartoon to describe it.

Visualising Music

While I was sitting on the metro listening to my ipod I realised that visualising music could be a fun way to exploit vocabulary in class and to use song in other ways...so here's what I did.

I chose a song with plenty of flowery vocabulary and LOTS of phrasal verbs and fixed phrases. I then picked out a set of 15 different words or phrases from the lyrics. The students had to, individually draw a picture representing what they thought the word/phrase meant.

Following this, the students showed each other their pictures and their partner had to try to identify the word/phrase (and a lot of the time they chose correctly!!) Then we looked at the words, their ideas and had a feedback session, focussing in on the more difficult words. We then did the usual drilling and putting the vocabulary in context.

After, I showed the students 10 song titles and they had to guess which one was the song where the vocabulary came from. They then were allowed to listen to 15 seconds of their chosen song before confirming. This gave them time to think about the vocabulary and listen to the tune and see if they matched.

I gave the students the lyrics cut up and they had a race to put it in order while listening to the song. Finally, the students had to decide what the music video was like, write a short description adn compare it to the real thing.

Fun class

“Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image” Goethe

Recently, a friend of mine passed me a link to their flickr album to look at some photos. After browsing for a while, I found that FLICKR has some really good and interesting photography...and it got me thinking.
With a group of students (young teens) I decided to exploit flickr a little and bring some photography into the class. We were studying adjectives of feelings and emotion at the time. During the class, we looked on flickr on the "most interesting photos from the last seven days" section. I had previously selected the photos I wanted to show the class.
While the students looked at the photos they had to write down an adjective for each to show how the photo made them feel. After, they compared the adjectives with their partners and chose their two favourite adjectives for the photos...but not tell anyone.
The students then had to go home and take a photo to reflect that adjective and bring it to class. We then made a powerpoint with all the photos, the class had to individually write what they thought the adjective was.
In the feedback session, each student had to say the adjective and the "photographer" had to say whether it was true or false and also explain their photo/adjective choice!

Long time coming

It's been a while since my last post...guess things like summer holidays and the like can get in the way. You get out of the loop a little and it takes some time to get back into the swing of things.

Anyway enough of the excuses and on to some ideas....