Blogging in EFL

I've created a Storify pulling together articles about blogging in the classroom.  If you're new to blogging, you'll find some handy tips and ideas here.

Live Typing

LiveTyping.com looks like a fun way to get students writing.  I came across it on Live Feast, Ana Maria Menezes blog, while looking for ideas for mini sagas.  I like doing "live writing" with my students which involves appointing a typist or passing the keyboard around the class and getting them to create a group story or other writing text.  With LiveTyping.com students can replay what they've written and it can be emailed or posted on your class blog.  If you're working with tweens or younger teens, it's better to put the students in smaller groups and have them email their live typing to you so you can show it to the class when finished.  Some more ideas for using this tool include:

1.  Grammar/Vocabulary drills where students write sentences including specific grammar and/or vocabulary.
2.  As you can adjust the playback speed, you could create an online reading task with comprehension questions for homework or in class.
3.  Students practise reading aloud.
4.  Use live typing to give instructions.
5.  If you have a class blog, add live typing questions/information to pictures.

There's something hypnotic about watching typing being played back so it will keep younger students attention for a while!

English for Critical Thinkers

English for Critical Thinkers is a project by Don Wilson to create lesson plans based on video.  What's interesting about this website is that the content is based on topics often not covered in course books so can sometimes be controversial, which makes it all the more interesting!  Suitable for CEFR B1 to C2 older teens and adults.  I love using materials created by other teachers as a change from the coursebook and I find students appreciate them too - the lesson plan about Garzon looks especially interesting as it's a big topic in Spain at the moment!

Phonemic Typewriter

Phonemic Typewriter is one of many phonemic typewriters on the Internet.  What I like most about thiswebsite is that you have a lot more control over what you want to type, such as marking stress, which many other websites don't allow for.  It's easy to use, just click on the phoneme you want to use, and you can easily copy your online texts into a Word document.

It's especially useful for transcribing listening texts to show the changes that occur in connected speech.

NY Times - The Learning Network

I've just rediscovered this fabulous website The learning Network at the New York Times.  There are lots of activities based around news articles that are very accessible to Intermediate+ English Language Learners and many are also suitable for teens. 

As well as using for non-exam Intermediate and Upper Intermediate (teenage) classes, I've found articles that are especially useful for exam classes and can be used for extended reading and speaking activities that relate quite nicely to course book topics.

Using authentic materials is always stimulating and motivating for students, especially teens, so it's well worth spending some time to look on the webiste for activities you could use to supplement your course.  

FECEI Madrid

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to talk at the first FECEI event in Madrid.  Speakers included Carol Read and Russell Stannard who, although ill, was able to "attend" via Adobe Connect.  The atmosphere was very relaxing and friendly and the whole event was a pleasure to be at.  Let's hope it's the first of many more!

Delta, Masters or Lifelong Learning?

I've just been reading an interesting discussion on Alex Case's blog tefltastic.com, "Is a TEFL Diploma worth more than a relevant MA" which made me think about the whole question of Diplomas and Masters, and formal education in general!

I want to raise the question of cost and relevance of these qualifications for some (perhaps the majority?) of us. I've just completed the Delta which, although I learned a lot and enjoyed it, has little relevance to my teaching context because I teach mainly kids and teens. So, you might ask, why did you do it? Well, here are my main reasons:

1. I felt there were gaps in my knowledge that I wanted to fill to become a better teacher.
2. I like learning
3. everyone knows that to get on in TEFL you have to have a Delta or Masters
   

I'm also lucky to have a school that sponsors teachers to do the Delta by paying for half, so I decided to take the plunge. That's very lucky because the total cost of my Delta (Modules 1 and 3 = Distance, Module 2 at IH London) was about 3,500 pounds (oops, can't find the pound sign on my Spanish keyboard) plus living expenses for 6 weeks in London. If you take into account how much an EFL teacher earns in Spain, that's a lot of money. So, I was really grateful for the help, but there are, of course, conditions, such as staying at the school for the next 3 or 4 years or pay back proportional percentages of the part paid by the school. As a result of doing the Delta, I've had a small "promotion" (reduced teaching and I now do a few training sessions), so in a sense it has paid off - but there s a huge discrepancy between the cost of the course, and the level of promotion/remuneration as a result of doing the course! Perhaps I should have done Modules 1 and 3 without the course to reduce costs slightly?

So, I chose a very expensive way to show existing or potential employers my level of knowledge/competence as a teacher, especially as (as I've already mentioned) I'd already started studying the Delta without realising it before actually doing it. This leads me to look at my reasons for doing the Delta. Points one and two are intrinsically orientated. I was already reading articles and books, and doing my own research into areas I didn't know much about, to become a better teacher. Point three is externally orientated - showing potential employers that I can do this. Looking at it this way, I seem to have spent a lot of money to satisfy other people. Hmm.

As far as relevance is concerned, well, I'm still working on that one. I enjoyed the course, but I also enjoyed the autonomous learning I was doing beforehand. And now I'm back in the classroom I'm finding it difficult to put into practice a lot of the ideas with younger learners. But, I think I've improved as a teacher because I have a better understanding of how languages are learned, the methodologies, etc. so in that respect it was worth it!

I've always been a learner. So, after the Delta, now what? Well, I'd love to do a Masters, for similar reasons to doing the Delta. I've been looking at online TESOL Masters with a technology element and apart from the fact that there aren't very many online courses (ridiculous given that most teachers work overseas!) there isn't one that matches up to what's actually happening in the big wide world. I don't blame the universities - technology moves so fast and it would take a team of super workers to amend courses to keep up with developments.

Anyway, doing a Masters is completely out of my financial sphere. Again, I could ask my school to help but the cost is so enormous that I'd spend the next 3 or 4 years paying it off. I'd love to see an alternative Masters level programme for "Lifelong Learning". Maybe there is one? Wouldn't it be great if you could research a topic then submit an essay to an "expert" for marking? For each essay you get so many points until you've got the required number to be equivalent to a Diploma, Masters, Doctorate, etc. That would hugely reduce costs and you'd be researching topics that are relevant, current and up to date.

I'm not the first person to think like this, and I think I'm part of a growing minority (perhaps the silent majority?) looking for affordable, relevant education. Two years ago, I took part in a brainstorming session held by FECEI in Spain to talk about the future of English language teaching and academies. Some high profile EFL experts were there, including Nik Peachey who gave a presentation about his idea of a potential future of education (there were 5 potential futures in total). In a hypothetical academy of the future, Nik talked about "Google Academy", where learners are awarded points according to online exercises they do, articles they read, contributions to blogs, forums, etc. they make, and so on. Learners follow their own learning path and get awarded points according to how far they go. Watch the video here. I really like the sound of this. Do you? Of course, I don't think it would suit all learners (age, learning styles 'n all!) or all types of degrees (medicine, etc.).

Well....I can't see this happening now. I think there are too many interests at stake to allow free, or virtually free formal education, not to mention that people like me would be out of a job! But it's a nice thought. So, I´ll get back to my unguided, unrecognised, book and online research, aka "Lifelong Learning" which has no status in the world of education even though, in my opinion, lifelong learners are truly learning, as opposed to practising for an exam. Of course, I won't be writing long essays and dissertations, but I'll be preparing training presentations (hours of research and preparation), lesson plans to share with colleagues (hours of research and preparation), writing on my blog and experimenting in class (hours of research and preparation) to come to my own conclusions about what works and doesn't work (critical thinking?). Is this as good as a doing a Masters? What do you think?

Vizlingo.com

Vizlingo is a great new webtool for sending short video messages. The message consists of a short clip to represent each word in a sentence mashed up to produce one sentence long video. Sounds cool eh? It's still very new and at the moment there isn't a clip for every word, but it's still very useable in class. I've used it as a simple guessing game to review vocabulary and grammar.

Here's how:

1. Register (so you can save the URL).
2. Type a sentence. Click CREATE and watch the video. If you want to change the clips, click on the clip (there is a row below to see alternatives.
   
3. When you are happy with your Vizlingo, click on SEND. Choose COPY (this is the only option available at the time of writing)
   
4. You can either open an email and send the URL to yourself, or copy and paste the URL into your blog/website.
   

Classroom Ideas

Repeating the same structures will make the activity easier for lower level students - and a nice way to drill grammar. For higher levels, you can mix and match a range of structures or vocabulary to get them really thinking!

1. For younger students, do a couple of examples with the words so that they can talk about the relationship between the clips and the words. It's worth spending time discussing why the clips are connected to the words. When the students are ready, give them a worksheet with the sentences, hide the words (zoom in your browser so that only the video shows) and they can match the video to the sentences. It's best to do this in pairs or groups.
   
2. For older students, again, do a couple of examples with the words so they get the idea of what they have to do. Then, put them in groups, hide the words (zoom in your browser so that only the video shows) and they try to guess the sentences by just looking at the video.
3. Make it more fun by playing for points.
   

Notes

1. Some of the clips are quite abstract so give them clues if necessary.
2. Sometimes there are no clips available for certain words. This will improve as the site gets bigger but for now, try to use words where there are clips (as you will see in my example activity).
   
3. There is no option to hide the words at the moment, so zooming in with your browser is the workaround for hiding them.
4. There is no facility to embed in a website at the moment, but again, the site is very new and this may be added later.

Click here for an example activity.

School Breaks

Is it that December was busier than normal or that a three and a half month term, without a long weekend or other longish break, just makes everything feel busier? Maybe it's the weather changing? Whatever the reason, the good news is the Xmas hols brings a whole two and a half weeks to switch off and relax. Well....almost.

Half way through the holidays now, and already I feel refreshed and ready to go again. December is really "pesado". The students are tired, restless and don't turn up to class half the time. The teachers are tired, short on patience and everybody is just waiting for Christmas to arrive - or, I should say, a decent break.

If only Spanish schools had a half term similar to the UK or USA. Well....I don't think this will happen any time soon because there are so many one day fiesta holidays. But I do think that students (and teachers) suffer from learning fatigue when a term lasts 3 to 4 months without a chance to switch off for a few days. What do you think?

Our Mobile World

The new "e" is "m". We've moved on from "eLearning" to "mLearning" and nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the world of EFL. It seems that if you aren't downloading the latest mLearning app and learning something new every spare minute of the day, you've lost the plot. The edublogs telling us about Smartphone apps to help our students learn English "anytime anywhere". These apps, we are told, help you (or your students) to learn English quicker and better than anything else to help their dreams to come true (ie. get a job). Instant learning, and access to the world, literally at your fingertips.


All this sounds great - and I'm all for learning. In fact, I've been an active learner all my life. But I sometimes wonder where all this "m" availability of knowledge is taking us. I know that for myself, if I have 5 minutes to wait for the dentist (or the usual 30 minutes), I enjoy sitting and staring at a blank wall, or looking at the pictures of smiley people wishing my teeth were as brilliant white as theirs. I love the feeling of freedom of responsibility for my time that washes over me as I convince myself that there's nothing I can do. And I don't feel guilty about doing nothing - after all, it's not my fault the dentist is running late, is it?

Or, is it? Lately, I've started getting that niggly feeling that I should be doing something while I'm waiting in a queue, or sitting on a bus or even walking down the street. I've got a Smartphone therefore I've got access to knowledge therefore I should be using it. Shouldn't I?

Well...these are questions I ask myself daily. I've also been asking my teenage students these questions and I've had some interesting answers. The most common answer being they don't have this problem. Most of them either don't have Smartphones (and until very recently didn't know what one was) or don't have Internet access because it's too expensive. And those lucky enough to have a Smartphone (or more commonly a Blackberry) say they wouldn't "mLearn" anyway because they prefer chatting with friends on Facebook or Tuenti in their free time. Anyway, they've got so much homework from school and English academy that the last thing they want to do is get their phone out when they have 5 minutes and use it for even more learning!

So, I can relax a little, because where I am, mLearning isn't going to take off for the time being, and certainly not with my teens. Or maybe it isn't for teens - ever? In the meantime, I can look longingly at those amazing apps (and some of them truly are!)and I can hope that my students don't get left behind in a world that is surging ahead as far as technology is concerned. As far as people are concerned though, who knows where we really are.

Qwiki.com

Qwiki.com is a video version of wikipaedia, and some people think it might eventually replace the word based version! Well.....maybe this is so but not for a while yet. It's a great website that puts together a topic related video presentation, complete with voice, relating to the word or phrase you type in the search box. At the moment it is still in Alpha version, which means it's newer than new, and there are a lot of inaccuracies and missing information. But the idea is great and it probably is the future of encyclopaedias. For now, though, you could still use it in class to introduce topics or as extra listening practice. Make sure students know it is still in the testing phase and get them to spot the mistakes! Or ask them what they would add to the video to improve it.

phonetizer.com

Phonetizer.com is a great website for converting text into the phonemic alphabet. It could be useful for students to help with pronunciation.

Shame I didn't know about it a few months ago - it could have saved me hours of transcribing text into phonemic script while I was doing the Delta!

Storify.com

Every now and then I find a site that really grabs my attention. Storify.com, that I saw on Nik's Learning Technology blog is one of those sites. It's a tool to collect materials from a range of websites, such as Twitter, Google, Facebook and Youtube, so that you can put together your own story, as well as add content from your own favourites. It's simple to use and easy to share by email or embedding in a blog.

Although intended to create stories, it's a great tool for studying because you can collect materials relating to a specific topic and store them in one place. Here are some ideas for using with students:

• Encourage extensive listening/reading by collecting online content relating to a topic for students to read at home.
• Collect content relating to a grammar point and give it to students for homework/revision.
• Help students generate ideas for reading/speaking tasks by collecting further information for them and putting it in a story.
• Use it in class to "present" online content - video and grammar explanations.
• Get students to create their own and share with their classmates. Follow up with writing or speaking tasks discussing the most informative, interesting, etc.

Here is an example of a simple storify I have prepared to help my students review Present Perfect Simple.

Delta Module 2

A very long 2 months after finishing the Intensive Delta Module 2 at IH in London, I finally received my results - a Pass - whooooo!!! I did, however, have to specifically ask for the results by email - as they'd been sent in the post! After a summer of hell, two months wait and the prospect of waiting another two weeks, and knowing that if I lived in the UK I would have already received them, it was just too much to bear. Anyway, thanks IH for sending me an electronic copy, but maybe a shift to 21st Century communication might be in order?

Wallwisher

Good use of Wallwisher with my Intermediate teenage group this week. I used it as a warmer vocabulary review - Describing a Person. I posted a couple of images on Wallwisher with prompt questions and as they came into the room they had to write a sentence to describe the pictures using vocabulary from the previous lesson. It took longer than I hoped it would, mainly because of the mini keyboard I have in my classroom, but is a great warmer to get students reviewing vocabulary, writing sentence level and prepare for the class. See here.

Kids and Blogging

After the success of my 12 year old class on Kidblog, I decided to take the plunge and set up a blog with my 11 year old class. The main reason I want to use blogs with my younger students is to get them writing in English. There's always a groan when I ask them to get their notebooks out, partly, I suspect because they feel nervous about writing in another language, and partly because it's very hard for them. Unless there is a gapfill, they are reluctant to write anything at all.

These problems are especially noticable with my 11 year old class of 9 boys and one girl. Their writing is illegible at times and some of them have real difficulties copying from the board. It is difficult to keep their attention for more than 5 minutes and the result is usually quite poor.

I started a Kidblog with them this week and I'm thrilled with the reaction from the students. Sharing a netbook, one student was the "teacher" reading the instructions, while the other student typed a short paragraph about themselves. I gave them a couple of prompts but they asked if they could write other things too. Of course I was happy to accommodate! They were engaged and motivated to write. Some of them writing much more than I asked them to. Most of them asked basic grammar, punctuation and vocabulary questions - they were really trying to get it right! Others were slightly more nervous. The girl, M, was very reluctant at first, but when I realised her partner was still waiting to write his post when everybody else was almost finished, I couldn't get the computer off her.

Homework is to write three sentences using Past Simple about what they did at the weekend - I've asked them to write it on Sunday night. M, very enthusiastic now, has already written hers using "going to". Other students in the class have commented that she's "cheating" because it's still the week. And other students are leaving comments for me and their classmates, asking me questions and rewriting their original messages in multicolour - all without prompting from me.

It's early days, and they're very excited about having a blog, but if this continues they are going to be writing an awful lot of English - and hopefully enjoying it. Of course, I will still need to do pen and paper writing, but there will be less of it and hopefully they will lose some of their negative attitude to writing tasks.

I'd like to use the blog mainly as an online learning diary, but also do a couple of projects during the year. Maybe later in the year I can involve parents - but as it's an English only blog, they can only write in English!

Kidblog

I would never have guessed that my pre-teens would take to their blogs so enthusiastically. The two most disruptive students who "hate" English (so they tell me) are quite happy to send each other messages, send me messages and do their writing homework on the blog. One is even arguing that my translation of a word is wrong because he looked it up on Google translate - this is great!

Now I'm wondering whether I should introduce Twiducate as a messaging platform (like Twitter) to further encourage communication (writing) in English....but I don't want to overload them with too much.....

Audioboo with FCE Exam Class

Class Profile
Age: 16 - 66
No. of students: 12
Exam: First Certificate in June 2012

This is a very mixed age and ability class, some students have been coming to the academy for years, whereas others are new.

Background
I would like to get my students talking between classes and I think having students record themselves between classes is a great way to practise English outside of class. Unfortunately, some students have a very strong reaction to recording their voice, apparently.

The other day, I decided to spend 10 minutes in class showing my students Audioboo and explaining the benefits. I intended to:

• play a "homework question" in Audioboo that I had prepared earlier
  
• Demonstrate how easy it is to use Audioboo
  
• Invite one or two students up to record something short.
• Tell students that this part of their homework was purely optional, but had great benefits, etc.
  

That was the plan. Unfortunately, it didn't quite go like that. Although I had tested Audioboo earlier in the day on my classroom computer, when I went to the website to play my recording, it didn't work. I went on to record something again to show students how to do it, but "somebody" had removed the microphone from my classroom. All of this only took a couple of minutes but I when I looked around I saw a sea of confused faces. Finally, one of the adult students said "I don't understand what we have to do". I perfectly understood her of course - having some mad teacher standing in front you clicking buttons and nothing happening doesn't look good. Fortunately, another student piped up that he had downloaded the recording onto his iPhone earlier in the day. He played it to the class. My helpful and enthusiastic student went on to say that if you have iPhone or Android, etc. you can download Audioboo and use it on your phone. To which half the class looked at him blankly. Suddenly, the previously mentioned confused adult said - "I'm not recording anything. I haven't got a microphone!"! I looked at her and could see she was visibly frustrated and confused and there were a few nods of agreement, so I decided to leave the subject of Audioboo for another day. I briefly mentioned that this homework was optional, and that we would return to the subject another day.

The moral of this story? Just a gentle reminder that, in exam classes especially, some people don't find learning English easy or enjoyable. They are learning because of outside pressures, such as work or parents, and just need to get that piece of paper at the end of the exam. Mixing in a bit of something else they're not very comfortable with, such as technology that isn't working properly, is enough to turn them right off!

Reflections - Introducing Kidblog to After Elementary Pre-Teens

Age: 12 years old
No. of Students: 7
Blogging Platform: Kidblog
Other websites: ABCYa Wordle
Time: 60 minutes

Background
After some thought of whether to use PBWorks or Kidblog I settled on using Kidblog with this class. The reason being that our computer equipment is netbooks and to use a wiki for collaborative projects works best when all of the students are logged on. I am, however, considering using PBWorks for some project work with this group. All of the students have netbooks and use them at school therefore are quite familiar with using computers on a daily basis - although they generally do quizzes and browse websites, rather than create their own work online.

Lesson Outline
In this lesson, the students will prepare a short text about themselves, create a Wordle of the text, embed it in the blog and in the process learn how to log in, and navigate the blog. I had already created a model and logins for all of the students.

1. The students prepared 6 sentences about themselves on paper and it was corrected.
2. I showed the students the blog and the model, then demonstrated how to log in to the blog.
3. We went through the first part of the handout for vocabulary, and I told the students that they were to login in as themselves and type their sentences as a paragraph.
4. We went through the second part of the handout (ABCYa Wordle Instructions) and I demonstrated. The students copied and pasted their sentences into a Wordle and saved the Wordle to the netbook
5. We read the last part of the handout (embedding image in Kidblog) and I demonstrated. The students embedded their images.

Reflections
The class was a complete success. The students were able to read the instructions, and follow the demonstrations with very few problems. One of the boys (yes I said "boy") even noticed a typing mistake in his paragraph and insisted on repeating the whole process all over again to get it right! If I was to do this class again, I would probably do it exactly as I did it.

I think one of the reasons this class was so successful is that the students are used to using computers. Kidblog, although not perfect and it has its limitations, is ideal for kids. I had already set up the accounts so there were no logging in problems. ABCYa is also intuitive, and as the kids are already used to using computers generally, there weren't the usual basic computer problems such as where to save images, and finding them afterwards. Demonstrating the stages supported difficult vocabulary in the handout.

The writing task was easy and something they have done in the past and the tasks chosen to familiarise them with blogging were ideal - challenging enough to engage them but not so challenging that they had lots of technical problems that can be demotivating.

I should add that this is was a small class. Whether the class will be so successful with 10+ students remains to be seen, and something that I will be trying with another class in the next couple of weeks.

Reflections - Introducing Class Blog to Intermediate Teens

At last! Success!! I managed to get two classes using their blogs this week - with mostly success.

Teenage Intermediates
Age: 13 to 17
No of students: 8
Blogging Platform: Blogger
Equipment: Netbooks x 4 (1 netbook between 2 students)
Classroom layout: Smallish classroom consisting of chairs with table flaps - students need to be careful not to drop the netbooks.
Time: 90 mins

Background
All of the students had previously told me they already have email addresses and as they are 13+ I decided to stick with Blogger for them. On the day, one student said she didn't have an email address. Most students have very basic computer skills with only two of the eight who had a "feel" for how to fix something that went wrong. All say they don't use computers at school.

Lesson Overview
1. We went through an overview of basic computer vocabulary such as screen, scroll, arrow, mouse, keyboard, type, etc.
2. I had prepared a model of what they were to do. I showed them the model, and demonstrated how to do it.
3. The students who had gmail addresses created a Google account and I gave them permission to join the blog. The students who did not have gmail addresses created a Google account then I gave them permission to join the blog. One student had a problem with this and was unable to join the blog. He said he would do it at home when he had more time.
4. The students took turns finding a favourite song (with strict instructions that there should be no nudity or bad language) and wrote five sentences. Then the second student did their video.
5. Homework is to comment on their classmates songs.

Reflections
I am very happy with the students as most of them managed to complete the task without too much trouble. They do not have experience of blogging, generally got on with the job and enjoyed the task of contributing to the blog.

The bad side is that yet again, using Blogger with students creates problems. Last year and the year before, I also had one or two students who had problems with Google accounts, even though I had already set them up. Sometimes Google decides to do a security check, other times the anti spam code is too difficult to read and it takes forever to create the account because of this.

Another problem is that using one netbook between students causes it's own problems in that students need to check who is logged on, etc. For less computer savvy students, this can be confusing.

This year, partly due to this class being smaller, partly because it is my third year using Blogger with students and feeling confident in managing the class and partly because of time, I decided not to give students a handout with instructions or set up the students' permissions before the class (even though I've experienced the same problems in previous years!). On reflection I think instructions would have given the students more security and allowed them to at least try to complete the task and overcome problems themselves.

To Consider for next year

• Use a different blogging platform - Google is too unreliable - maybe edublogs
• Prepare a basic handout - at least students can try to follow instructions and it also encourages reading and autonomy.
• Make sure all students have already been invited or been set up before doing a task.
  

I have learned a valuable lesson here, although I know Blogger well, have used it with classes for some time and can easily fix most problems, I need to be available to all students throughout the class to help students with little hiccups. It is not feasible spending time trying to set up an individual email account as it can end up taking a lot longer than anticipated.

For all the problems, the students did a great job, and enjoyed the class. I am pleased to note that some of them had already done their homework three or four days early! Click here to see their work.

Introducing my students to ICT - Part 2

After spending most of my free time this week checking and testing netbooks because our IT man was busy with more important things (totally understandable at the beginning of a new academic year), setting up a netbook logging system for teachers, setting up blogs and preparing lessons plans to get started, the lessons were cancelled. I am sure this is not something new. In fact it happens to me every beginning of the year, and at various times during the year. Basically, our internet connection is faulty. After three years of connected classrooms, it is still hit and miss whether you can use a Youtube video with your classes that day or not.

This is both good and bad. The good is that teachers are trying to make their classes more interesting and relevant to their younger and teenage students by using technology to engage them, something which the academy has encouraged from the beginning and which is also sold as part of "the package". The bad thing is that teachers do sometimes have to spend a lot of time preparing, only to have to abandon the lesson because of some problem with the Internet. Some teachers have given up using more interesting websites, etc. with their classes all together, sticking with the IWB and Powerpoint, or nothing at all. Others are just frustrated - including me.

Perhaps this is one reason why ICT has not taken off very much in language academies. After all, it is only an (expensive) tool that is not a requirement to learn a language, although I believe it can be especially motivating for younger and teenage learners. So, I will persevere, continue to spend lots of my free time preparing for ICT lessons as well as a backup plan, lobby the powers that be that we need a better more reliable connection, and equipment, and continue using ICT with my students - as far as is possible.

Introducing my students to ICT

This week is when I introduce two of my classes to their class blogs/wikis:

• I'll introduce my Intermediate teens to their class blog by getting them to write about a favourite song. It usually takes about 60 minutes getting them to create Google accounts, sign into blogger, find their video on Youtube, embed it and write 5 sentences about the song. In class, they'll comment on two classmates' videos and for homework, they´ll comment on the rest.
• For my younger teen elementary class, I'll be introducing them to their class wiki by getting them to find some pictures of their favourite hobby on the Internet (safe site), and writing about when, where, why they do it.
  

My new job

Since I started back at work on 1 September it has been very busy as usual. As the newly appointed ICT Support Trainer, this year I'll have fewer classes and teaching hours, so that I can provide ICT training, lesson plans, advice, etc. to teachers on how to use technology with their students. It's an exciting new role as my "hobby" is now part of my job.

There are hundreds of amazing edublogs out there giving all sorts of advice and news about teched, especially using blogs and wikis, but many of them are for teachers in mainstream education. My challenge is to weed out the tools and ideas that are suitable for kids and teenagers (including exam classes) who attend a language academy for 3 hours a week after school/university, and that don't take up too much class time or teacher preparation time.

It's been a while...

Phew....glad that's all over. I did the distance Module 3 (which I'd recommend to anybody thinking of doing the Delta) which compared to Modules 1 and 2 seemed more relaxed, although still hard work of course. I was quite pleased with my result, a merit.

I did Module 2 at IH in London in the summer, enjoyed it and met some great people on the course.. But it was gruelling! I've passed the course, and now just waiting for the results of the final assessment. I wasn't sure about doing the intensive because I like to spend time reading and getting my thoughts together before putting fingers to keyboard, which there wasn't time to do with a 2,500 word essay, plus supporting detailed lesson plan, to write every week. But at the same time, I couldn't face another full year of studying and teaching full-time. So...I think it depends what type of learner you are as to whether the intensive is good or not so good for you.

The Delta is hard work, and sometimes you feel overwhelmed by the amount of information, theories, methodologies and everything else you have to read and do in class. Then you realise that there are no hard and fast answers, right or wrong way, to anything in language learning, and that after all that you can still make it up as you go along if you want. You might wonder what the point of it all is.

Well.... I've come out the other end much more aware of the different theories and methodologies and what types of situations and learners they appeal to (if you believe in Gardners Multiple Intelligences, which I recently read is now being questionned). You learn how to keep up to date with the latest theories, where to look for ideas and how to implement them in class. I'm full of ideas and looking forward to getting back into the classroom next week. Even though I teach kids and teenagers, and the Delta is for adults, I think there is a lot that can be applied to younger learners.

Delta Results

Just an update to say I actually passed the exam surprisingly! Even better, I passed with merit! How that happened I don't know but maybe all that writing in Paper 2 actually paid off.

Some advice?
I haven't thought much about the exam since I did it but from what I remember, I knew something about almost everything I saw in Paper 1. The problem was time.

I started with questions 1 and 2 as warmers. I think I got most of the terms right or mostly right because I'd seen them in various practice tests (this is where IH really comes up tops!!!). Then, I went straight to question 4 because this carries the most points in Paper 1. In my paper, question 4 was long. I found myself clock watching and just writing one or two things for each part before moving on to the next part because there just wasn't enough time to give full answers. I didn't have time to finish all the parts before moving on to question 5

Question 5 was pretty straight forward (carrying the second highest marks in the paper), but I was already over time so rushed through that before whizzing over to Question 3 which was, for me, the easiest. Strangely, it was about identifying the characteristics of an anecdote. Strange because the night before I'd thought about different genres and realized I hadn't really considered an anecdote so had spent time thinking about characteristics of this genre just before the exam. I couldn't believe it when I saw question 3!

I remember feeling really disappointed after Paper 1 and thinking I really hadn't done very well. It was rushed, I didn't have time to think, to finish my sentences and I couldn't write any faster than I was. My hands were aching and I started to think about resitting the exam in June.

I was dreading Paper 2, especially after thinking so badly about Paper 1, because I still wasn't confident with all the theory in English language teaching. During the course I hadn't done very well on Paper 2 questions because, being more practical than academic, I was struggling with all the methodologies and theories and found it difficult to relate to life in the classroom.

After the half hour break, and a coffee, the exam started. I decided to start the paper with question 4 because it carried the most points. Straightaway I met a term that I hadn't heard of. I knew that this question usually requires you to pull together knowledge from all different areas of language learning and teaching and some of the answers I'd seen to previous past papers sometimes seemed bizarre and way out of the box. I started writing about things I remembered from the course and my reading, but at the same time trying to think "out of the box". I wrote anything that came into my head related to the question, or vaguely related to the question. 3 pages of writing later, and 40 minutes, I stopped writing and moved on to the next question. I remember feeling pleased that I'd written so much because in practice exams I'd never been able to think of anything to write!

I went on to questions 2 and 3 because of all the Paper 2 questions I'd completed, I'd done best with these questions, although not great, in practice tests. I relied largely on memory and exam practice tests for this and stuck to the proscribed answers as far as possible.

Finally, I turned to question 1 of Paper 2 (assessment), which even now I know little or nothing about. I had 15 minutes left by this time, and again, relied on memory of course materials and a bit of luck!

So, I'm pleased I don't have to go through all of that again in June!

What do you remember about your Delta exam?

Triptico Word Magnets

Some great news if you use Triptico's Word Magnets. There is now a downloadable desktop app that you can download for free (after registering). This means you no longer need internet access to use this invaluable resource.

If you haven't used it before, it's an application that jumbles words or sentences in real time. With the online version, it wasn't possible to save prepared activities before class so I used it a lot as an end of class filler game or for short on the spot revision activities. I would get students to close their eyes and not peek (always great fun!) while I typed in a sentence and jumbled it. Students love coming up to the board to reorder the sentence.

With the new desktop version, you can prepare activities before class and save them to use later or again in the future. Of course, if you've got an IWB you can use that to do the same thing, but I find Word Magnets is much quicker.

Another game on the desktop version is Find 10. Students have to pick the 10 correct answers out of 15. For EFL, it might be better sometimes to have students find the 10 incorrect items and correct them. Some ideas for using this game:

• Find the 10 incorrect sentences and correct them
• Find the 10 nouns, adjectives, or other parts of speech
  
• Find the 10 incorrect irregular past tense verbs
• Find the 10 incorrectly spelled words
• Find the 10 incorrect phrasal verbs/verb+preposition structures

There are lots of possibilities. A nice warmer/end of class/revision activity!

As well as the two games mentioned, there are a number of other useful classroom applications, including a student picker, timer and a games scorer.

To download the desktop application, click on the title of the post and register with the site. You will receive an email with a password. When you have your password, login to the site and follow the instructions to download.

Doing the Delta

Well, I've now finished Module 1 of the Distance Delta (about a month ago and it took this long to recover!) and will get my results in February which seems a long time to wait but I guess Cambridge have their reasons. What can I say except juggling a full-time teaching schedule (and extras) with all that reading is pretty tough. I've learned a lot, especially how to speed read and discovered that it's not my thing. But, I really enjoyed the course and now getting down to the task of rereading all those things I didn't have time to absorb properly or read properly that were really interesting and I want to know more about.

As far the exam is concerned, Paper 1 was evil and Paper 2 wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. During the course, I generally did quite well on the Paper 1 tasks (language knowledge and definitions, etc) and not so well on the Paper 2 tasks (methodology, etc.) During the exam, however, I feel I did better on the Paper 2 tasks than the Paper 1 tasks largely I think because of the time constraints on Paper 1.

Anyway, I really have no idea whether I have passed or failed but I do know that I've learned a lot, I found it really interesting and already I can see changes (for the better) in my teaching. So, my conclusion is that the Delta is definitely worth doing if you're interested in staying in the Tefl field. I'm looking forward to starting Module 3 in February (yes...I'm doing Module 3 before Module 2 which I'll do next year) and if I've failed the Module 1 exam, I'll be resitting it in June. I just need to practice my speed writing skills!

Englishcentral.com

Well, things have been a bit hectic over the last few weeks with starting the Distance DELTA and starting the new year.  I haven't had much time to keep up with my PLN and probably won't until December (after the exam!).  In the meantime, I'm going to refer back to an excellent website that I came across last year and has been written about all over the ELT blogosphere for the past year or so.  I've already mentioned it on this blog but as we're having a big push on pronunciation and speaking skills at my academy I thought I'd revisit it.

Englishcentral.com is a free site where learners can practice their pronunciation by watching a video and repeating the dialogue.  Students score points according to how accurate they imitate sounds and intonation, etc.  Although it's not 100 per cent perfect (I only scored 850 out of 1000 as a native speaker - perhaps it's my British accent!) it is a great way for students to get an idea of how good their pronunciation is - and it's fun!  There is a huge selection of videos now categorised by topic and level so there is something for everyone.  Teachers can set up groups and invite students by email then monitor progress.  No marking is required by the teacher as this is all done automatically.  At present there is no breakdown of strengths and weaknesses, but I understand there are plans for this in the future. 

I would definitely recommend this site for adult learners who are concerned about their pronunciation and use it for occasional homework for teenagers.  It would not be very practical in a class full of teenagers except for demonstration purposes, but it might be possible to use it with an adult class. 

Here is an introductory video to show you how to get started!

My New Class Website

Well....summer is almost over and school starts in a couple of weeks.  I haven't spent much time thinking about work this summer but I have reorganised by class blogs and created a new class website.  You can check it out at Cool English.

Teens and adults were really enthusiastic last year when I first introduced class blogs and the kids loved seeing their projects on line - so did their parents!.  But one of the challenges I had was keeping on top of the administration of so many blogs.  I usually teach 6 or 7 levels so I didn't introduce blogs to all my levels because of the time involved.

This year, I've set up a class website with yola.com.  The ideas is that it will hold all the static information common to all or most levels and the individual class blogs have links back to the main class website.  This will hopefully reduce the amount of time administering the blogs and allow me to introduce blogs for more levels. 

I chose the free version of Yola because

• there is no advertising (very important for me)
• it is easy to use
• has a huge variety of templates (some of them more customisable than others)
• 1GB of free storage space
• up to 5 websites on the free account
• fast, efficient and friendly support
• if I want to upgrade for more storage and other benefits, the annual fee is very reasonable
• it looks good!

Last year I used Google sites which I think looks a bit dated unless you have the time and the skills to snaz it up a bit.  With Yola it is easy to create something that looks fresh and modern, and hopefully appealing to my students whose ages range from 5 to 65!

BBC Bitesize

BBC Bitesize is a site for native English kids but some of the games and exercises could be used for English language learners.  Some of the games and activities can be embedded in a class blog or website too!  (See my Lesson Plans and Activities blog)

I only looked at a few activities but I really liked the KS1 punctuation game and the KS2 Word Types games which could be easily incorporated into an EFL class.

Compare and Contrast Map

Another great writing tool - especially for discursive essays.  Compare and Contrast Map allows students to organise their content before writing an essay.

Biocube

Just stumbled across a great note taking site on Larry Ferlazzo's blog.  Biocube allows students to take notes online when writing a biography.  No registration required.  Students can then print out their notes and write the biography.

This is a great tool to use with writing skills classes to help students organise and plan their work.

Twiducate

A couple of weeks ago the buzz on Twitter was about a new social media tool that is taking the world of education by storm. www.twiducate.com is fantastically simple to setup and an amazingly easy to manage social media platform created for teachers by teachers. It's a kind of a cross between a forum, a blog and Twitter.

What I like about Twiducate:

1. To open an account, type in your email address, a password and a few details and you have a completely private classroom.
2. Create additional private classrooms.
3. Setup student accounts - type in a name and a password is automatically generated - no emails required!
4. Post links to useful resources on the class page - dictionaries, websites, etc.
5. See who is online
6. Embed photos and videos easily
7. Amend and delete posts and comments
8. Minimum learner training to use.

It has almost everything you need for a private classroom social network.  There are a couple of things I'd like to see added:

1. Tagging options - so that you can organise content by topic or another criteria. 
2. The ability to upload content directly - to showcase student videos, photos, etc.  At the moment you can embed but that means you need to upload content elsewhere on the net. 

Twiducate is only about 6 months old so they are still adding new features.  Maybe these options will be added in the future.

I used this in class for the first time last week as an end of course activity. It was with a class of 8 to 10 year olds - they were not all my own students.  Because it was the end of the year, I invited another class to join us.  I had originally planned for my own students to add their own avatars and use their own names but because of the last minute I didn't have time to assign logons to other students joining the class.  Instead, this is what I did:

1.  Showed the students Twiducate on the whiteboard and elicited what it was.  Some knew about Messenger and thought it might be similar.
2.  After giving out logons and passwords and showing the kids how to log on, I typed a question and showed them how to type their reply as a comment.  At this stage I wasn't focusing on accuracy - the main focus was on learning how to use Twiducate.
3.  I showed them the home icon (to refresh).  I typed another question and asked them all to respond again.  This time I asked them to check their spelling, capital letters, etc.
4.  After a further question from me, I invited one student to type a question and asked the other students to comment in reply.
5.  Finally, all students typed questions and commented on each others questions in reply.

This was a very simple activity with minimal preparation (although I had already set up the classroom and created logins for students).  Within 30 minutes all the students were using Twiducate confidently and easily.  More importantly they were enjoying it and checking that their questions and responses where correct before posting them.  It wasn't long before some of the kids were experimenting with language they'd learned over the year and producing more complex language.

Although it was clear that some students had very little experience of using a computer, and were perhaps a little bit more stressed than other students in the beginning, the feedback from the children was that they enjoyed the activity and would like to do it again.

Generally, the class was successful, but I do think it would have been more fun for them to have their own logon names and avatars to personalise it.  I also feel I should have added some pictures somewhere to make it more colourful.

I was very impressed with how easy Twiducate is to use for both the teacher and younger learners.  I think this will be a useful addition to classroom resources next year for younger students.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is brilliant!  At least I think it is - until I want to find something that is.  I've got over 500 bookmarks collected over the year and recently it's been quicker to Google something than look for it in my Delicious account.  Not that this is the fault of Delicious.  I just haven't been tagging properly.  The problem is though, I'm not sure of the best way to tag.  Do you add as many tags as possible to each item and end up with a list of tags for everything you've ever looked at but depending on what you were thinking about at the time depends on the tag? Or do you keep it simple and choose two, three or four well chosen tags?  Well, I've tried both which is why today I decided tackle my tags and Delicious account.

It has taken hours to reorganise and retag, delete duplicate pages (yes!) and I'm still not finished.  So - the system I've decided on is to keep the tagging simple.  It's quicker and hopefully more efficient so I won't have to spend ages thinking of every use for a particular tool or website resource.

I also took the opportunity to move over to Diigo - something I've been thinking about for a while.  I've got no complaints against Delicious, but  since I learned that Diigo has added features - highlight, comments and sticky notes so that you can annotate pages your bookmarked pages.  This is really useful for bookmarking pages with a specific idea in mind - later you can search your commented or highlighted pages and find it quickly - brilliant!

Let's see if my new lean tagging machine is still working in 6 months time!

The end of the year

A few days ago I read a post on Jason Renshaw's blog showing an interview with Stephen Fry.  It was an amazing and inspiring video that got me thinking about this year.

I'm now heading towards the final lap of the year and next week the end of course exams start and, apart from my younger learners, I doubt many students will come for the final two classes of June.  I'm in my fourth year of teaching and this has been the most difficult year for me.  I seriously considered giving up my teaching career and returning to the UK and a variation of my previous job, working in IT.  I'm not sure why I found this year so challenging, maybe it was the long, wet winter we had in Seville.  Maybe it was the fact that I have to supplement my income doing extra work to make ends meet every month or maybe it was because I felt I was still making the same errors I've been making since I first started teaching and I shouldn't be.

On the positive side, I achieved everything I set out to achieve at the beginning of this year.  I have used ICT in new and interesting ways with my students setting up blogs and wikis and using online tools.  I've developed my personal learning network which has been an enormous help.  I've plucked up the courage to comment on other people's blogs and have even set up an account on Twitter - although I haven't really got my head around that yet and who any posts I send my messages to will go to as I don't know anybody who uses Twitter. 

Whatever the reasons for my negative feelings, I learned a lot about myself, my students, my strengths and my weaknesses.  And, inspired by the Mr Fry interview, which basically says "stop moaning and get on with it" I've decided to do just that!  I've also decided to do the modular Distance DELTA.

So, my aims for the next year are:

• doing the DELTA
• stay positive and enthusiastic!
• continue to support and encourage colleagues who are not very confident with technology
• continue trying to share my knowledge of Web 2.0 tools with those colleagues who are interested
• widen my personal learning network (and make some friends on Twitter:))

What are your aims for next year?

Images

If you are always struggling for copyright free images and clipart, try www.openclipart.org.  It's still in beta but there are thousands of what look like really good clipart images.  If you're an artist, you're invited to upload your own images.

Google Search Stories

Use Google SearchStories to create a short story video with music in less than 5 minutes. To create a video story,

 1. Type the key points of your story.
2. Choose the type of search (map, news, blog, images, etc).
3. Choose your music - there is a good selection of sound tracks.

Here is one I created in about 3 minutes!



How to use it in class?

1. The video I've created will be used as a warmer to revise future forms with Upper Intermediate teenagers.

2. Students can create their own using vocabulary and/or structures learned in a unit or section of the coursebook. The video would be a useful revision resource reminding students what they know (and have forgotten).

After the video has been created you upload it to the Youtube searchstories channel - from there you can embed it in a blog, share it on Facebook, email it to friends or share it in some other way. You will need a Google account to do this.

Prezi.com

I've been playing around with a free online presentation tool that I came across last week.   www.prezi.com has been around for about a year now and has made big waves in the world of presentations.  I've seen it around but only just got round to giving it a go myself over the past week.

It works on the principal that you use size to emphasise and after years of using Powerpoint this was the most difficult thing to to get used to.  The application itself is simple and easy to use - much easier to learn than Powerpoint.  Well....this is my first presentation, and there aren't enough images and too many zooms no doubt, but I'll definitely be using this again.  I'm sure it'll get easier and I think it will be much easier to use in the classroom - and should grab the students attention (or make them motion sick!).  The zooming effect is certainly very powerful when using a projector.

Hypothetical Situations - Present Time on Prezi

English Attack!

www.englishattack.com is another new video website just starting out - it looks like it's going to be very interesting.  Students learn English from video clips - something especially engaging for students.  The site gives full instructions on how to use it.  There are also plans for a teacher's area in the future - I imagine where you can register your students and monitor their progress.  Great for homework tasks!

The student watches the video, goes through a series of exercises including comprehension, vocabulary, expresssions and grammar, then play games to consolidate new language learned. Looks pretty good so far.

Apart from giving students homework tasks - how would I use it in the classroom?

1.  I'd show the video and do the comprehension questions as a team quiz.

2.  Copy and paste other questions into a Word document and create a normal listening gapfill, quiz, etc.

3.  Have students consolidate their learning at home for homework by playing games.

As already mentioned, it is still a very new site and some areas will no doubt be improved as time goes on.  The main problem is speed.  Another suggestion I would have for the builders of this website is that students can skip a step.  At the moment, you have to go through all 7 stages - I guess this is to ensure that students have learned something, but there are always times when you are interrupted and want to pick up where you left off (or as a teacher you might want to quickly look through all the activities without actually doing them!).

Best EFL Teaching Videos

David Deubelbeiss, the found of EFL2 Classroom has compiled a video list of the Top 100 videos to use in the EFL classroom. Some of them I've used (with positive results) and others are new ideas. A good place to start if you're looking for an inspiring video for your lesson.

To view the playlist, hover your mouse over the top right corner of the video and click on the right down button. The video list appears. Scroll down to view the list and click on the video you want to watch.

Get Writing!

Some great ideas to get students writing in this eBook from David Deubelbeiss.

Open publication - Free publishing - More writing

Life of an EFL Teacher - Intermediate Reading

www.readableblog.com is a blog written by an English teacher in simple "readable" English for Intermediate and above students.  Possibly an additional resource for authentic materials - or extra reading practice at home for students?

Guide to Creating Videos Online

www.freetech4teachers.com has produced this video making guide - no need to purchase expensive video or editing equipment! Here is a summary of some of the best online video making tools, as well as things to consider when making a video using images from the web.


Making Videos on the Web - A Guide for Teachers

Youtube Worksheets

With Vidinotes.com  you can create a worksheet from a Youtube video. This is another free website where there's no need to register.  To create a worksheet following these steps:

1.  Find Youtube video.
2.  Go to Vidinote website and download video in flv format using KeepVid (follow instructions on website)
3.  Upload the flv format video to vidinotes.com (this may take a couple of minutes).
4.  Play the video.  Click on the "capture" button for the scenes you want to capture.
5.  You can give the images titles if you want.
6.  You can capture up to 30 frames of the video.

Once you have all the images you want, you can either print directly to your printer or create a PDF with it.

I think this would be a great way to create storyboards of videoclips for students - get the students to write the story.

Thanks to Nik Peachey for spotting this tool.

Conjugating English Verbs

www.conjugation.com is another new website for students of English.  They type in the word and get the conjugation tables for that verb.  Another good use would be for verb structures - ed and gerund structures.  One feature I like is that you can submit your own examples. 

How would I use it?  Well...apart from letting students know the site exists to help them with homework and writing, a nice activity would be to get students to write an example of the use of a verb and submit it to be posted on the site.

Free Technology for Teachers.

If you are interested in knowing more about free web 2.0 tools on the internet, subscribe to www.freetechnology4teachers.com.  The blog is not dedicated to EFL so not everything is useful for the EFL teacher. Take a look - you'll be amazed at what is available!

Create a comic strip!

www.chogger.com is a new quick and easy to use comic strip creator.  To use you need to register (very quick and simple).  You can either upload photos/pictures from your computer, take photos of yourself with your computer webcam or draw the pictures directly on the storyboard (you can use Paint to do this).

Online Jeopardy Template.

 www.jeopardylabs.com is a website where you can create an online jeopardy game without any technical knowledge.  After a quick registration process, click on create a template and you're ready to go.  All you need is the questions ready.   After you have finished the game, remember to either email it yourself, bookmark it or post it to your blog so you can use it again. Here is a template I created.    My Jeopardy Template

Make a Beast!

http://bit.ly/bFpOmP
Create a beast on this website.  No need to register or login - all you need is an email address to send the postcard.  Students create their beast (very good body vocabulary revision) and send it to their friends after writing a short message.  Get your students writing - and having fun in the process!

Online noticeboard

Here is an interesting idea. WallWisher is an online notice board. After creating an account, you can create a wall and invite people to post their comments. See my wall below. How would you use it with your students? Leave a message. Click here then double click anywhere on the page to create a "sticker" and leave your ideas.

Do you Blog?

If you are interested in creating a blog like this one in Blogger, here is a link to Russell Stannard's videos about Blogger.  The list includes most of the basic functions you will need to get you started. 

Don't forget, if you want to ask me any questions, just get in touch either here or by email.
Good luck with your new blogs!

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/blogger/index.html

How to transform a class....(forever I hope!)

Friday classes are always the most difficult here in Seville because most of the students don't want to be there.  Things are even worse in the weeks between Semana Santa and Feria and attendance can be a bit sporadic to say the least.  Today, when only 4 of 9 students turned up I decided to use the computers.  Not having anything planned for low level, badly behaved and boisterous teen/pre-teen boys I knew that more than 20 minutes doing grammar and vocabulary exercises on the computer would be too much.  I thought of bookr and this is what I did:

1.  Distributed the netbooks (and got them hooked up to the network which always takes time!)
2.  Got them on our school website and a couple of grammar exercises
3.  While they were doing that, I went into www.pimpampum.net/bookr and started creating a book about Feria.
4.  Slowly they started looking up and watching with interest.  They asked me a few questions, I showed them what to do.
5.  They eagerly typed in the URL and started creating their booklets - they wanted to choose their own topics.  No problems there - they all had very clear ideas about what they wanted to create!
6.  When they had done a couple of pages, they published their books and emailed them to me.
7.  Here is the end result http://kidsefl2stuff.blogspot.com/2010/04/our-online-books.html

This lesson, totally unplanned, was one of the biggest successes I've had with this class.  They created these books in less than 30 minutes - two of the boys had to restart from scratch because of loss of internet connection - and were completely engaged and focused on their work.  The language is simple, but they had a lot of things to contend with because of technical issues, as well as time constraints, but I would say WELL DONE BOYS!!!

Create Videos for your Classes!

Video Creation In The Classroom

View more presentations from Richard Byrne.

There are a number of FREE online and offline applications to create videos that you can use as warmers, grammar presentations, listening activities and just a bit of fun in the class.  They are simple and intuitive to use and you can create a short video in as little as 5 minutes longer than it would have taken you to create the activity on paper!

I usually find the online applications the simplest.  They have been designed for people with no special technical skills and are quick and easy to use.  You usually have to register with the company first, although with some online apps you don't even have to do that. They are not designed to create feature length films, but short movie clips of about 1 to 3 minutes long is usually the limit for ELLs anyway. 

Installable programs usually have a lot more flexibility and features, and you can make longer videos, but can be more complicated to use.  Again, the free versions are designed to be simple and easy to use with no expert technical knowledge required. 

See this slideshow produced by Richard Byrne of some of the favourite FREE applications used by educators around the world.  There is also some guidance on copyright and where to get those amazing pictures to illustrate your videos for free!

Engage your students and increase your own skills in the process.

Lyrics Training

If you teach teenagers or you're learning a modern European language www.lyricstraining.com is a really interesting site to practice listening skills in a number of modern European languages, especially English.

It's a fairly new site so there isn't a huge selection of songs yet, but there's enough to get you started.  Find a song, play it, and complete the gapfill as you listen.  If you can't keep up with the song, the video stops.  Hit the backspace key and the video replays the line you are waiting on.  It's as easy as that.  No login, sign in, membership or anything else to do.  And it's a nice change to listening to the news!

The songs are organised according to difficulty (easy, medium, hard) and each song has three levels of difficulty for the gapfil - beginner, intermediate, expert -  There is a simultaneous translation option and a points scoring system.

If you decide to create an account, you can create your own lyrics training videos.  Choose a song, find the video on Youtube, find the lyrics and away you go.  OK - well... you have to synchronise the lyrics with the video but they've even made that easy.  After copying and pasting the lyrics, play the video and press CTRL + RETURN on each line of the lyrics when you hear the words to synchronise them.  It's as easy as that.  Click the HELP button on the website to get full details.

Ideas for use in small classes:

1.   Last 5 minutes of class, play a song and students can either shout out the word, write the word on mini whiteboards or paper, or have one student typing on a classroom computer.

2.  If student computers are available, students can do alone or in pairs.  Have a competition to see gets the most points.

3.  Assign students songs to listen to for homework.  Although there isn't any monitoring facility you can always test who has done it by asking them the key words in the next class!

This is a new site so it is still being tried and tested.  But I've been using it to practice my Spanish listening skills - click here to try it out.

Creating Movies

National Geographic has a wildlife movie making site suitable for kids. There's no need to register, log in or do anything complicated. Kids can simply click on the link to the website and drag and drop clips of animals into the movie making frame, add sounds, background musice and, the all important, subtitles to practice writing.

Visit it here or see a lesson plan on my Teachers EFl2 Stuff website here.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons Images and Sounds

Some more on Creative Commons.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons in the Classroom

View more presentations from Jessicacoates.

This is something that's been on my mind recently. A useful reminder that we should make sure that we are not using copyrighted materials.

Movieclips Revisited

movieclips.com has been around a while but was only available in the United States until a couple of months ago.  I have to say I think it is a great site!  There are hundreds of movie clips organised by genre, mood, action, etc.  It could really cut down on the time spent hunting for an appropriate video to use in your lesson.

WordFormation Exercise.

Click here for a word formation activity.

Bookr

Bookr is another one of those really useful free online applications where there is no need to register. It uses Flickr images to create booklets. All you do is type in your text to accompany the images.

I've used it in class (and with ELI Online stuff) to present stories or information in a more interesting way (and to keep students engaged).  It is very quick and easy to use - if you want to use images it's a lot quicker than Word or Powerpoint (providing the images you're looking for are the types of things you can easily find in a photo from Flickr).  Why not give it a go?

For students it's also a fun way to present a biography of their favourite person, or any other project and to get them writing!

Word Formation Exercise

Here is a link to a word formation exercise.

Word Formation in English

Word Formation in English

View more presentations from teflang.

A very in depth look at word formation in English - not for students. Good reference for teachers.

Wordle.net and Word Clouds

If you've used Wordle you'll know what a great application it is to use in the classroom. Wordle has been having some legal problems and went offline for a (very) short while, but in the process there was a lot of activity getting together a few alternative sites. None of them have the simplicity of Wordle but here are a few.

I created the word cloud here at Word Mosaic. It doesn't have the flexibility of Wordle but you can create shapes, and embed in blogs and websites.

ABCYa is another site where the word clouds are almost the same as Wordle.  Advantages here are that you can save and print the word clouds easily.  There are some limited editing options too and no registration is required.

Wordsift.com is another site that I've used in class with higher level students as well as for personal use.  You just type in your text and the cloud is created.  However, this site is more than just a word cloud creator - there is a visual thesaurus and pictures.  When you click on a word in the cloud a visual thesaurus displays related words, pictures related to the word and a list of related videos.  There are some other features, such as sorting into categories, that I haven't explored yet.  Although the cloud isn't very interesting, you can drag the words around, add the images to the cloud and sort the words in the cloud in various ways.  One of the drawbacks is that it isn't easy to save but if you can always take a screenshot (press the print screen button on your computer to save it as an image) or if you have Windows Vista or 7, use the built in snapshot feature to save it.  This site was created by Stanford University to aid the teaching of English.

Tagcrowd is a very basic wordcloud that looks similar to Wordsift but without the extra features.  There is no control over output but you can embed in blogs and save it.  No registration required.

Tagul is a word cloud with a difference. I played around with this some time ago and you really need to spend some time to get it right.  If you have the time and patience, the end result is pretty good because you have a lot of control over output.  As well as that, you can add links to the words (a bit like a blog tag cloud) .  I ended up using Glogster to do what I wanted to do with Tagul as it was more straightforward but it could be a useful tool.  One drawback is that you can only have 10 word clouds, but registration is free.

VocabGrabber is similar to Wordsift and acts like a thesaurus as well as a word cloud so it is useful for higher level learners.  You can click on the words in the word cloud and the words pop up in a visual thesaurus with related words, there's a dictionary definition and a list of quotes or references using the word.  A very neat tool, again, I've used with my students with a positive effect.  If you want to pay, (about 3 dollars a month or 20 dollars a year) you can subscribe to a host of other  useful features.

Glogster

Glogster is the buzz word on the block at the moment and not being one to be left behind I've had a quick look at it.  Glogster is an "online poster" applications - in other words, instead of cutting up pictures from magazines and bits of card to stick on the wall, you collect pictures and words and stick them on an electronic "poster".  The great thing about it being electronic is that you can add links to other websites, videos, music, etc.  I can see how this would engage students.

There are two Glogster sites so be sure to register with http://www.edu.glogster.com/.  The difference between the two is you have more control over privacy, students will be protected from inappropriate content and you can create student accounts.  Registration is free and until 28 February, you get 200 free student accounts with it.  After that, you get 100 free student accounts unless you sign up for the premium account which, of course, costs money.

Have a look at the Glogsters available for public view to help you with ideas.  My immediate ideas are for students:

• Obvious but effective - create a personal Glogster with links to favourite photos, videos and other personal information.
• Create a Glogster of links to exam practice - at the end of each unit get students to create activities and upload to class blog or wiki creating a Glogster for an index.
• Create a biography of a famous person
• Any project based work from the coursebook could be done using Glogster

For teachers to use:

• Instead of writing lists of contents, create a Glogster to link to different things (see my useful links page) a very simple but effective Glogster.
• Grammar/vocabulary based Glogsters.  Each object links to another example of use of the grammar/vocabulary point - a variety of texts, speaking, video and grammar practice activities - put it on the class blog and the student has an instant revision package.  Where possible get students to contribute.
• And, something I'll be doing to introduce myself to new classes in future, a personal Glogster of me with interesting (and not so interesting) facts about my life.

Whether I will be able to have my students use it, I'm not sure, but time permitting I will definitely be giving it a go.

ESLBits.net

http://www.esl-bits.net/ has lots of interesting stuff, especially for PET practice.  There are interactive exam style exercises for students to practice listening and reading skills for the exam.  I'd probably avoid the advanced listening section - although you never know, there might be students out there who'd like to read and listen for up to an hour! 

I've only used the exam practice activities as team games in class or for homework.  See this homework activity on 10 Minute English.

The Big Challenge

A colleague mentioned http://www.thebigchallenge.com/ website today as his students (who have obviously been using this website at school with their new netbooks) had told him that there were some excellent games here.  After having a quick look at the website it isn't just for games (in fact there seems to be only one quiz of four different levels) it's a competition website for schools in England, France Germany and Spain.  Teachers and students can partner with students in the countries of the languages they are learning, find penpals and do a host of other things.  It was also interesting to note that 8 of the 10 most recent classes that have registered, and looking for English speaking penpals, were from Spain, and most of them were from places very close to where I'm based.

It occurred to me that (certainly here in Spain) the language learning is being taken a lot more seriously and even in the three and a bit years I've been here I can see an improvement.  It makes me wonder just how much longer language academies in Spain have got.  Last year I was thinking 10 years.  I'm beginning to wonder if it'll be a lot less time before we start seeing student enrollment drop off for kids as the school English language teaching gets digital and students are able to connect digitally with native (and non-native)speakers of English....