New Year’s Resolutions on Genially

 

A new year has begun and I always like to talk with my students about their resolutions and plans for the next twelve months. It’s fun to get to know a bit more about them and, at the same time, they revise future tenses and their uses in a different way.

I have used Genially before either to prepare my presentations or to make students create their own. However, this time I wanted to try something different: to design an attractive, fast speaking activity for a very small group of five B1 students who have never used this tool before. Ideally, the activity shouldn’t take more than one session.

·         At home, I chose a template for the presentation: an infographic of a Christmas tree with several cards. I assigned 3 cards to each student and created 3 more for me (as a model). I used the nickname “The Teacher” for my cards, and each one of them opens a window with one of my new year’s resolutions.

Design stage

·       In class, I share the infographic with them, and tell them that they should choose a nickname and write their resolutions on the cards I assigned to them (1, 2, 3, 4 or 5). Resolutions should be anonymous, but they can use images or videos. I inserted a video to remind them some useful language (differences between future simple and be going to).      

·         Each student was given a secret number and they started writing their resolutions on the cards under an anonymous nickname. They couldn’t do it simultaneously, because Genially doesn’t offer that option, so it took a while to have all texts in the cards.

·         Finally, once the tree was completed, we read the resolutions and tried to find out who wrote what. That was the funniest part! First, they had to guess who the author was, and then they explained a bit more about their plans, hopes and expectations for this year.

The activity has to be clearly structured and easy to understand, so it does not consume a lot of time. I think the result was simple but great. The students really enjoyed the session: even the shyest ones participated and had a laugh! Besides, they learnt to manage a different and extremely powerful tool to prepare their presentations. Besides, the final product was so beautiful that we decided to share it on our school’s Instagram!

You can see the result here:

https://view.genial.ly/61cae6a65926570df2887737/interactive-content-new-years-resolutions

Ideas for the future

This course has been really interesting and we have shared a lot of material and ideas to use in class, soI'd like to say thank you to all the participants!

I especially liked the EdPuzzle video shared by María (https://nextstepmaria.blogspot.com/) about GuyFawkes Night, since it is a great way to show students a bit of British culture while they practise their listening skills. I would love to prepare something similar for my students! 

Besides, I think that advanced students may enjoy creating their own EdPuzzle video about traditions and festivals in English-speaking countries. Then, other students can use this material -so the teacher saves some time, which is always nice :)

A travel diary with StoryJumper

My youngest secondary students find it extremely difficult to write more than two sentences in English, so you can imagine how they reacted when I told them they were going to write a travel diary… Besides, most of them have never been abroad and don’t know much about other cities and countries. Therefore, I decided that creating a StoryJumper booklet about an imaginary trip to a different country would get them out their comfort zone.

They worked in groups of four; I tried to organize them in a balanced way, so each team has students with different proficiency levels. This can motivate students who really struggle with writing, although there are always some of them who prefer to hide and leave the others work…

The objectives of this activity were:

• Write an imaginary travel diary using StoryJumper.
• Use past tenses.
• Discover and learn about a different country.
• Work in teams and distributing tasks.

Obviously, StoryJumper is a great tool to encourage learners to write, due to its user-friendly interface and attractive, highly visual final products. Students feel they are actually creating something interesting and beautiful, so most of them are very careful and interested in presenting a good piece of writing with nice pictures.

This is how I planned the task:

• First, I created and shared an empty booklet with each group. All members could edit it, while I was there as a “ghost” user to revise their work and correct their mistakes at the end.
• I created a model in order to show them some ideas and shared it with them. Of course, they had previously studied the past simple tense in class.
• Later, we had a couple of sessions in the classroom with laptops to research, write and create the booklets. They needed extra time at home, since it took more time than I expected...
• Finally, each group presented their booklets on screen to the rest of the class. After presentations, each student was given a rubric to evaluate the work of the other members of the team.

I must say that not all groups were able to complete the task successfully. Some of them had problems with the app and decided to create a slideshow using different programs. I think that this could have been avoided if the task had been conducted in class exclusively, so I could have helped them solve technical issues. Besides, some of them used Google Translate at home to complete the task… Again, I avoid assigning writing tasks for home because I want to make sure students write their own texts. However, the task was more time-consuming than I expected, so for the next time, I’ll definitely simplify it, or redefine it as a long-term project.   

But there were many positive aspects too. Some of the presentations were nice (like these ones about Peru and Lanzarote) and even the students were surprised about the quality of their work (they are only 12 years old!) Besides, all groups had the chance to learn something about different countries and places, which is great.

To sum up, this is just a trial which makes me want to continue exploring the possibilities of StoryJumper. For future sessions, I will take into account the following:

• The length of the task (and the model text, if any) should be adapted to the group.
• It’s better to work in pairs or individually, since it is not easy to manage the whole booklet by large groups.
• It would be nice to share the booklets in the school’s website to make the results visible.
• Although I recorded my voice for the model, I did not ask my students to do so, but that would have been a good way to practice some reading and pronunciation.

EdPuzzle_Space Oddity

These days, we have been talking and learning about a topic my students really love: music! They enjoy sharing their preferences (interestingly, not all of them are reggaeton fans!) as well as discovering new instruments and styles. I use any chance I have to introduce culture-related topics, and I think it is important that English learners are aware of the enormous influence of some English-speaking artists and songwriters. Therefore, I decided to use a beautiful video by Andrew Kolb, which illustrates the lyrics of David Bowie’s Space Oddity.

The objectives of this session are:

• Learn new vocabulary related to space and space travelling.
• Revise stative verbs, present simple and present continuous.
• Listen to Bristish music and get to know David Bowie.
• Read and understand a story (with visual aid).
• Sing a song focusing on pronunciation.

I included the video in the following sequence of activities:

• First, students got to know David Bowie by reading their biography (a group of students had created a TimeToast timeline about him)
• Then, I asked them to revise stative verbs at home, and after that, in class, they watched the music video and answered the questions.
• In class, we watched the video together and read the lyrics. They had to summarize the story.
• Finally, we listened to the song and sang together. That was the best part!

·       Although I did not really flip the classroom, I asked my students to revise some concepts before watching the video. Stative verbs are not totally new to them, but they learnt about them a couple of weeks ago, so they still need to consolidate some ideas… Still, it was a nice way to revise them without consuming extra class time.

Students enjoyed the activity, despite the fact that some of them were reluctant because they claim they do not like “old-fashioned” music… In the end, they found the activity interesting and liked the EdPuzzle format, because they had never used it before. Besides, I’m happy we could re-use material created by the students to introduce the task.

Next time, I’ll try to include other type of questions –not only grammar exercises-, because what students enjoyed the most was discovering the story of Major Tom.

A Time Line with TimeToast

 Last week, my students used TimeToast to create a timeline about a British or American band or artist. The main objective of this activity is to read, understand and summarize a brief text by selecting the most relevant information. At the same time, we had the chance to review the past simple –especially irregular verbs!

Creating a timeline with this tool makes them focus on the essential facts of the text and therefore work on their mediation skills. At the same time, they are creating a new, visual product with images and data, which is always rewarding.

First, I chose and adapted some texts and biographies of famous UK and USA bands and artists. In order to facilitate understanding, most of these texts were taken from Wikipedia in simple English, as language is clearer and easier to understand. I added a picture and removed some of the verbs in past simple, placing gaps and brackets instead.

Then, I let students work individually: they had to read the texts and fill in the gaps with the correct form of the verb. After that, they had to find another student with the same text (I managed to form heterogeneous pairs) and read it together.

Finally, I guided them through TimeToast (it took a while for them to sign up, since their digital skills are not extraordinary…) and I told them to create the timeline with the most important facts about the band or artist they had just read about. Years and dates were used as markers to help them.   

During the activity, students were really focused on the task and collaborated all the time. They really liked the option of including pictures and they felt quite happy to see how their work was transformed into a visual product. Although they haven’t finished yet (work in progress!), the results were quite good:

David Bowie

The Beatles

 Spice Girls

I would definitely love to repeat this task with other groups and levels. Still, I think I need to explain more carefully how to summarize information and transform long sentences into short ones, since some of the students weren’t able to do it correctly (they would just write single words from the text, without a proper sentence structure).

So, TimeToast has proven to be a great and fun tool in order to:

-          Make students enjoy reading and working on a text.

-          Teach them to select and summarize the most important ideas in a text by placing them chronologically.

-          Revise grammar and learn new vocabulary about music and art.

Reading habits

 

Since I was a child, I have always been a total bookworm. My grandfather taught me to read when I was three years old and he really succeeded in instilling in me the pleasure of doing it. While it is true that my reading habits have progressively changed, I still love discovering new worlds and lives throughout the pages of a good book.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Red_House_School_English_class.jpg

Children do not usually choose what they read, unless they feel highly motivated to do so. Instead, they generally read the texts their parents or teachers pick for them. This is quite tricky because, although they may seem interested in what they are reading, sometimes they may feel forced to do it, and that could be counterproductive when it comes to educate engaged readers. However, it is also true that children tend to imitate what they see at home or at school, so it is important to transmit them that reading can be fun and exciting, as well as a daily activity they should integrate in their routine.

 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2005_Baimasi_China_58727908.jpg#mediaviewer/File:2005_Baimasi_China_58727908.jpg

As adults, this “forced reading” comes to an end, so we either decide to keep reading for pleasure or simply dismiss it as an ordinary life skill. Those who read because they actually enjoy it are, in my opinion, more open-minded and able to think critically than their non-reader counterparts are. A good reader can plunge into a book for hours and feel like s/he has been under the skin of different people for months or years. It is such an immersive experience that one can remain seated without moving even within the busiest of environments.

 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2011_handheld_device_5817790915.jpg#mediaviewer/File:2011_handheld_device_5817790915.jpg

With the recent technological revolution, reading habits change. Not only do we have access to a much wider range of books and texts to be read than before, but also the formats have become incredibly diverse. While some of us still prefer the good old print books and their unmistakable smell and presence, there is no doubt that modern e-books offer a number of advantages, such as mobility or the possibility to save many books in one single device. Needless to say that people with vision problems, such as the elderly, can greatly benefit from this format and continue enjoying an activity that could otherwise be problematic for them.  

    

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABundesarchiv_Bild_183-20728-0003%2C_LPG_G%C3%BCsen%2C_Vorsitzende_der_LPG_mit_Kind.jpg

If I had to describe my experience as a Spanish reader, I would use this picture. As I said before, the role of my family was essential because there were many books at home and they spent a lot of time reading, especially my grandfather. 

 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A2008_BostonPublicLibrary_2223721594.jpg

Regarding English, I started reading seriously when I was at university and my research activity began: only during this period did I use electronic devices to read. Until then, I had used Spanish texts for pleasure (literature: novels, poems, plays…) and English for research (essays, dissertations…) However, this line has become blurrier during the past ten years and now I read texts of any kind in both languages. I often say that enjoy reading whenever I have the time and the space, but it is true that the busy pace of daily life render them virtually non-existent. Therefore, I force myself to find these times and spaces as a gift, at home, after a hard day of work. For a couple of hours, I can be someone different and I can live a different life. And, of course, always beneath paper sheets.     

Welcome!

Hi everyone! I’m Marta and we’ll be learning English together this year. In this blog, you will find some interesting material to practise your skills and improve your English day by day. Are you ready to go?