Technology: The Teacher’s Guides To Technology And Learning

Here is a great guide for us teachers to use technology! The authors give us a nice walk through very good resources we can incorporate in our own teaching. Enjoy!

http://www.edudemic.com/guides/


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Video: Why Infographics?

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News: 6 Qualities of Successful ESL Teachers

"While the numbers of ESL learners in English-speaking countries is vastly increasing, the numbers of qualified ESL teachers is not meeting this growing demand.

Despite “formal” qualifications and ESL specific training, what skills are most important to make a difference for these students? As a regular classroom teacher and ESL teacher in several ESL programs both here in the US and abroad for over three decades, I wanted to share with you a few insights. You will not be surprised.  Most of these qualities are what make good teachers no matter what subject or population of learners being taught."

Continue reading here: 6 Qualities of Successful ESL Teachers

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News: Scaffolding for Deep Understanding

Hello all, today I would like to share an interesting article with you. Scaffolding for Deep Understanding talks about the different types of learners and gives a strategy on how we can help students become more 'expert' in learning. I hope you find it useful!

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News: Lesson Plans and Resources for Arts Integration

"Dance in science, pop art in Spanish, or photography in math -- there’s no end to the ways arts can be integrated into other curricula. Educators from Bates Middle School, in Annapolis, Maryland, share arts-integrated lessons and resources that you can use in your school."  By Doug Keely

Lesson Plans and Resources for Arts Integration

Teaching Teamwork Through Video Game Development

Teaching Tip: Enhancing Textbook Stories with Role-Playing

Hello all, Chris here with a quick tip to make the stories typically found in textbooks come alive. I have recently started having my students act out the scenes in the stories of our textbook. In general, language textbooks feature one or more stories per chapter. Often they are presented in a cartoon or comic form to provide a visual of the action. Rather than having students just read the stories for themselves, read them aloud in class or listen to a recording of the story, I have started having students take the roles of the characters in the story and then come up in front of class and act the story out as they read them to the class. This can be quite humorous as students relish the chance to act and show off in front of their classmates. This also has the benefit of enhancing students' attention to the text and it allows for an easier discussion of the text as well as focusing on new or difficult vocabulary. You can also raise the students' awareness of the new vocabulary and how it is used in context as well as new grammar.

I encourage you to try this format with your students. If you are teaching with a book that does not provide any pictures to go along with stories, it is also a great opportunity to have students draw their own (brief) storyboards. This will also serve as a demonstration of their comprehension of the text.

Brock Dubbels : Ways to Teach with Games and Shared Simulations

You can use games in your classroom for inquiry and training!

Brock Dubbels : Ways to Teach with Games and Shared Simulations

Video: How do you motivate the unmotivated to learn?

Hi all, Claudia here,

I would like to share this video with you about motivating people. This of course applies directly to helping unmotivated students. Enjoy!

"How Do You Motivate The Unmotivated To Learn?" from LarryFerlazzo on Vimeo.

Teaching Tips: Preparing for a new year

Hello all, Chris here. A new school year is right around the corner which means it is time to start preparing lesson plans and activities. A really effective way to ensure that you always have activities ready is to write out your activities in detail by including information such as the length of the activity, purpose, what cultural and language aspects it covers, materials you will need (handouts etc), and during which part of a lesson/unit the activity is to be used. It is really handy to make PDFs of all of your activities and organize them by type or lesson. Then you can simply print what you need whenever you need it.

A new year also presents an opportunity to review and revise lesson plans or to really shake things up and approach lessons in a new way. This is especially true if you are implementing a new textbook or other materials into your curriculum.

What are some ways that you prepare for a new year or semester? We would love to hear any tips or strategies you might use!

Teaching Strategies: Incorporating Variations of the TL into Class Activities

Hello everyone, Becky here!

In order to incorporate the use of different variations of the target language into beginning language courses, students can role play speakers from different regions in short dialogs they create using the chapter's vocabulary. They can also role play different characters in an interview setting. One person can be the interviewer and the other a famous person. The pair can prepare questions and answers based on their roles using the structures they learn in beginning courses, while adopting features of the speech of the famous person's variation in their speech. After performing this interview in front of the class, the classmates will guess who the famous person is and where he/she is from.

Enjoy!

Group Activities: Strip Stories Part 1

Hello all, Chris here. Today I would like to discuss a specific activity type which has several applications and variations in language teaching - Strip Stories. First off, what are Strip Stories? A Strip Story is a story which has been separated into smaller segments from beginning to end. These story segments do not have to contain much or any text at all. In fact, a Strip Story could insist entirely of pictures similar to what one would find in a comic book. The name for these stories comes from that fact that the various segments of the story are often given to the students out of order by cutting them into little strips of paper.

There are numerous formats in which one could present a Strip Story, for example:

• A story which has been separated into either individual sentences or groups of shorter sentences
• A story with pictures and limited text
• A story consisting purely of pictures (comic style)
• An audio text with several short tracks
• A video which has been cut into its individual scenes

This activity provides a fun and useful way of introducing new texts and/or new vocabulary and grammatical items. There are several parts to a Strip Story activity including pre-, during, and post-reading activities. This is not purely a reading activity however, and there are several supplemental activities that can be done to enhance a Strip Story which will lead students having a greater command of the vocabulary, as well as improving their reading, writing, and oral skills.

I will now outline a basic Strip Story for you including various supplemental activities.

1. Pre-Reading Activities (Activating Background Knowledge/Preparation)

Before simply diving into a new text it is helpful to activate background knowledge that the students have and to prepare them for new vocabulary and grammatical structures they are going to encounter in a text. To do so, there are several possible activities. These include but are not limited to:

•   Vocabulary Bingo
•   Matching with vocabulary pictures and words
•   Drawing pictures of important vocabulary and playing a Pictionary/Memory type of game
•   Short interview activity to activate background knowledge of the subject area (partner or small group)

2. Reading Activity (The Strip Story)

The actual Strip Story can be done numerous ways and this will largely determine the types of activities you will do before, during, and after the reading. For this example, I will discuss two of the formats mentioned above:  

• A story which has been separated into either individual sentences or groups of shorter sentences
• A story with pictures and limited text

A story consisting purely of text works as well as any of the other formats. I have found that texts which feature some sort of riddle or puzzle typically add a good challenge for students as getting the order of the story right becomes all the more imperative in order to solve the puzzle. However, virtually any narrative text will do. First off, the story will have to be separated into various 'strips'. Depending on the level of the students, these can be limited to single sentences or slightly bigger chunks of text. As the teacher, you will have to determine what works best with a given text. It is helpful to create a digital version of the text you will use in order to make it easier to use as a handout later. I typically create a table in MS Word (any word processor will do) which has one column and several lines for the text. A 1x10 table is a typical size. Once a text is broken down into 'strips' you can then type these into the table. Whenever you wish to do the activity, simply print as many copies as you need. It is best to do this activity in small groups. Each group should receive a copy of the story which has been cut into its various strips and mixed up so as not to be in chronological order. Students should be made aware of the riddle or puzzle (if used) which needs to be solved. This can even be listed on one of the strips you provide the students which will require them to recognize it as the riddle to be solved and not as part of the story sequence.

Once each group has their materials they may begin by trying to place the story in the correct sequence which will not only test their puzzle solving skills but also their ability to correctly read and process information in the L2.

I will discuss the other formats for the strip story in Part 2 of this post along with the various post-reading activities that can be done. Stay tuned!

Teaching Strategies: Mnemonic Devices for German

Dan here again. I'm playing catch up on adding useful tricks and tips. Here are some more mnemonic devices for remembering lists in German:

Accusative Prepositions to the tune of "Camptown Races":
Durch, für, gegen, ohne, um, doo-dah, doo-dah,
Durch, für, gegen, ohne, um, oh doo-dah-day.

Dative Prepositions to the tune of Strauss' "The Blue Danube":
Aus, außer, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu

Possessive Pronouns to the tune of "O My Darlin' Clementine":
Mein und meine,
dein und deine,
sein und seine, ihre, ihr,
unser, unsre,
euer, eure,
sein und seine, ihre, ihr

I'm a newbie at this blogging thing, so including mpegs is something I'll have to work on. Nevertheless, a quick search will turn up these melodies if they aren't coming to mind right away. The words for each will fall fairly intuitively into place.

Teaching Strategies: Organizing Groups

Hello all, Chris here. Today I would like to share a few tips with regard to organizing your students into groups. It may seem pretty easy to oragnize your students into groups, and really it should be. However, students often end up working with the same classmates over and over which can lead to students getting tired of 'group work'. To add some variation to group work as well as adding some language practice into grouping process I regularly use the following:

Randomizing Groups: To ensure that students are always working with different combinations of their classmates (to avoid repetition) I like to randomize the groups. I have also combined some language practice with this process! To organize students into groups I will first announce how many groups we will have and how many students per group there will be. Then I tell my students that we will begin by counting from 1 until we reach the group's maximum size - 4 or 6 or 8 for example. This is of course done in the target language so that whenever there is group work the students are also practicing their numbers. This is less important at more advanced levels but provides an excellent practice opportunity for beginners. It also requires the students to pay attention as they will have to find their group partners after everyone has been assigned a number.

To further ensure random groups I always try to vary the group size from activity to activity. In other words I might use groups of 4 in one class session only to use groups of 8 in another. You can also add further randomness to the groupings by choosing which direction you will have the students count. For example you could start on one side of the classroom and then go up and down the rows. Or you could start at either the front or back and go across the rows.

• What other ways could be used to organize students into groups?
• Besides numbers, what other language component could be added when organizing groups?
• How do you use group work in your classes?

Questions and comments welcome!

Speaking Activities: Scrambled Info Search

Hello all, Chris here.

Today I have another activity type to share called a Scrambled Info Search. This is a fun activity that
simultaneously involves the entire class and offers students a chance to practice asking questions. The activity is also adaptable for a variety of topics and levels. For this example, the topic will be hobbies.

To begin the activity, I have each student write down one of their hobbies on a scrap piece of paper. Once they are finished I collect the answers and then randomly redistribute them to the students. In the event that a student does happen to get their answer returned you can switch their answers with another one. You may also wish to write a few false answers of your own and include these among the sheets you pass back to the students while keeping that number of original answers from being returned. Once all of the students have a sheet returned to them they must then attempt to find the original owner by going around the class and asking their fellow students. For example if a student chose to write 'I like playing sports' then a student would have to ask fellow classmates 'Do you like to play sports?' until the correct owner is found.

This is the basic activity. There are several ways to adapt the activity or add further steps or requirements to enhance it. These will be discussed in a future post. Questions and comments welcome!

Group Activities: Memory Chains

Hey all, Chris here.

Today I would like to share a fun technique for group activities which allows all students the chance to participate and simultaneously forces them to pay attention! This technique is easily adaptable and scalable for various class sizes and levels. It can also be used for a variety of lessons and topics, from pure grammar practice to advanced conversation.

Using a memory chain as the basis for an activity or as an enhancement to one is rather simple. I will provide an example of how I used this activity as part of introductions on the first day of a class.

First I put up 3 questions on the board:

Wie heißt du? (What is your name?)
Wie alt bist du? (How old are you?)
Welche Hobbies oder Interessen hast du? (What are your hobbies?)

The number and/or difficulty of questions is entirely variable. The more questions you have the more students will have to remember which makes for a more challenging activity.

I then divided the students into groups and instruct them to form a circle. Larger groups make for a more challenging activity. If your students are lower level I would suggest limiting the group size to 5 or 6 students with 2-3 questions. For more advanced classes I have used 3-4 questions with groups of around 10-12 students.

Another alternative is to have the class act as one big group in which case there is only one question.

I demonstrate how the activity begins by asking a student in one of the groups the aforementioned questions. After the student finishes answering they turn to the student to their left and ask 'Und du? (and you?) The student will also answer the questions and must then restate the previous student's answers. This requires the student to use the 3rd person form to answer. The activity continues as subsequent students must answer answer the questions for themselves while also having to remember what each of the previous students answered. Needless to say, the last student in the circle will have the most difficult task.

This activity is an excellent way for students to practice verb conjugations in the first and second person form.

As an additional challenge, you can stipulate that if any student cannot remember what the previous students have answered or states any incorrect information, the group must start over at the beginning.

To add in practice of the plural 'wir' (1st person plural in German) you could ask students to also remember anything they share in common with other students in the group. After they have completed the circle you could ask them to report on these - such as 'Tom und ich kommen aus Chicago' or 'Sarah und ich sind zwanzig Jahre alt'.  

The teacher should monitor the groups to make sure the students are making progress and to help out if there are any questions. It may even be helpful to join  a group and participate.

As a preparation for future activities, the teacher may wish to jot down notes on student responses which could for example be used in a Jeopardy style game where students would guess which of their classmates provided the answers.

Overall, this is a fast and fun way of ensuring all students participate and its great adaptability and ease of use are helpful for newer and more experienced language teachers alike. As with any type of activity, overuse is not advised as students will quickly tire of it.

Questions and comments welcome!

Using Movies in Your FL Class

Hi everyone! Becky here. Below I have included some ideas for working with movies including pre-viewing, while watching and post-viewing activities.

Ideas for working with movies:

Tailor activities to use in your class in conjunction with specific moments in the curriculum. To focus on specific objectives (for example, listening comprehension and making suggestions) and content (such as cultural, communicative, grammatical and lexical).

Pre-viewing Ideas:

1: Start a conversation about the central topics of the movie. Have students observe relevant images or symbols and comment. Look at the map and discuss the geographic location, why the setting is important and what life might be like for people that live there. Look at the DVD cover and try to determine who the character is, where he or she might be, what kind of movie it is, what are typical characteristics of this movie genre, etc. According to your experience, what opinion do many North Americans have of this person? Are there people in your country that generate such a reaction?

2: Show the trailer. After seeing it the first time without sound, have students comment about what they have seen and try to predict what the movie will be about. Use questions like: What kind of mive do you think this is? Where does it take place? What socioeconomic background do the characters come from? What can you tell about the characters? Then, hand out phrases and fragments of the dialog from the trailer. After the second (and maybe even third) time without sound, have students put pieces of the dialog from the trailer in order according to the images. After students have put the dialog in order according to what they see, turn on the sound and watch the trailer one more time. Have students correct the order if necessary after viewing. (Suggestion: Create a word document, put the phrases in order, print two copies, keep one for you and cut the other one up and hand out the pieces in mixed order and have students arrange them as a class).

3: Present pictures and descriptions of movie characters and have students match descriptions with pictures after seeing the trailer. Have them revise their answers throughout the movie.

During the movie:

4: Always instruct students to take note of new or interesting vocabulary for post-viewing discussion. During the film, show English subtitles to help students match what they hear with what they read. For shorter movie clips in other classes, I find it helpful to play the clip without subtitles so that students must really try to understand what characters say in context through listening. While showing movies and movie clips on the computer, my students and I find it helpful to pause the movie to point out vocabulary preceding a scene or to listen to important or difficult short sections multiple times until students understand what they are hearing. I often stop the clip or full film at crucial or difficult moments to check for comprehension, to allow students time to complete sections of worksheets and to answer questions. Create a post-viewing activity in which students must recall the context of given colloquial expressions or provide the context and have students come up with their own definitions and employ the expression in a new context.

5: Have students perform several activities in order (according to the chapter of the DVD for organizational purposes).

Chp 1 - Expressions with a specific verb fill in the blank to complete the word and put synonym next to it so the student understands the meaning.

Chp 2 - What do the following phrases mean? Try to define them according to the context you hear them in.

Chp 3 – Listen and choose. Copy the entire dialog and focus on a lexical aspect to have students choose the correct form or word choice based on what they hear.

Chp 4 – Complete the table with the results of the meeting/conversation that took place in the movie.

Chp 5 – Listen and complete the dialog according to what you hear.

Chp 6 – Have the dialog prepared and ask students to indicate who said what by placing the characters’ initials next to each phrase.

Post-viewing discussion:

6. Answer comprehension questions orally. (If you had been there, what would you have done? Include expressions you are working with in class.) Match the colloquial expressions from the movie with the expressions on the right that mean the same thing. Classify the following words and expressions in four groups. Read words and interviews from the director and comment.

7. Choose a crucial moment in the movie and re-enact the scene allowing each person to vote for the decision they think is right. Relate the movie with a historical moment in the target culture when relevant (in the case of the movies I work with, the United States). Discuss art as a historical witness.

8. Hold an interview panel in which a talk show host (one of the students) interviews various characters from the historical moment and the movie (other students). In such an activity the talk show host directs the conversation between the director of the movie, characters from the movie, and other historically important people of the time so that each student practices the language orally and also must be familiar enough with each figure to be able to play his/her part.

Sample Lesson Plans:

Materials: Internet (at least to prepare the movie clips from Youtube; you can save them to your hard drive or your jump drive if your teaching location does not have internet at the following websites: http://vixy.net/, http://keepvid.com/ ), computer and projector OR DVD player and TV to play videos