Introductions Practice in the EFL Classroom with Authentic Content

Besides using Haiku Deck app to create visually-appealing presentations, what if you used it with students to help them use language with content produced by real people. So, it is the old "this is..; she does this and that" with a twist in authenticity.

Take, for example, this presentation:


Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

• The teacher could ask students to present her in the form of a paragraph with the most important information. 
• Students can prepare questions based on the information presented, and then another students would act out as if she were the lady. 
• Students could work on expanding the information on a slide as if they were the woman, i.e., they could talk about her 3 sons and husband (slide 2)

I'm sure you'll find wonderful "about me" presentations to work with language authentically in Haiku Deck's Pinterest Board:

Of course, it would be great if students could use one of the sample presentations to prepare their own "about me" page. 

Do Something for Teens

Do Something is a non-profit organization in the intersection of teens and social change, activism.

There are tons of ideas on their site to help young people take action. I especially liked one about what makes you mad and the call for changing things around.
http://www.dosomething.org/actnow/actionguide/become-activist 

As I have a tight schedule, I was considering adapting the idea to something simpler:


>> Groups decide what make them really mad
>> They make a fact sheet with 8 facts about their issue, starting with, "Did you know that...?"
>> They create a motto about the situation
>> Students then write a manifesto about their topic to raise awareness and finishes the manifesto with the life motto they've created.
>> Taking a step further, we could vote for the best group motto and then create posters and even print T-shirts with the motto on it.

Simple and sweet. I guess this would be a great opportunity to talk about community issues, have students as agents of awareness & change, all that being done in English. What do teachers think?

A Brain-Friendly Activity - Instructions for a Bad Day

I've been teaching teens this semester. And I can feel their different states of mind, the introvert struggling, the extroverted always trying to shine, the quiet with so much to say, the lost with so many words to shout...There is so much going on with every single one of them that we, educators, have different reactions to it. Some do their best in trying to reach the learners in very unique ways, others just keep going with content, and there are those who just ignore the collective state of mind, telling themselves that students' personal lives are none of their business. They are there to teach, not to learn about students' lives, anxieties, or personal imbalances. Such a twisted approach to teaching... In fact, we all know that the brain learns and retains through positive emotional connections. If we, teachers, establish a pleasurable learning environment for our learners in which we talk about things that really matter to them, that touch them, that is related to what they are going through, chances are that we'll be nudging students toward their learning, helping them engage with English, you, and their own learning processes.

Today, I just came across this very interesting video, which was part of a project that involved students in a school in which teenagers were struggling with friends' losses, a poet and volunteers who worked for free to put this video together: Instructions for a Bad Day




It really touched me. So, I thought that what if we used this video to talk about something that happens more often than not in our teenage years, a bad day. There are so many ways we could work with it:

• Asking students about their bad days
• Encouraging them to give advice for their friends in relation to bad days
• Asking them to watch the video and choosing the best pieces of advice
• Creating a cartoon based on the video
• Making a digital poster based on the main parts of the video

And here's the text:

More about this project, check Shayne Koyczan's page: http://www.shanekoyczan.com/2012/02/29/instructions-for-a-bad-day-pink-shirt-day-student-collaboration/

I thought this was just such an inspiring video to reach out to our students and to connect with them in a very meaningful way. Any other ideas to work with this video?

mLearning - Evernote as a Trigger for Writing

In the Binational Center I work for writing is taken seriously. There is a program for all levels. For the Teens and Intermediate courses, students work on paragraphs, but when they get to the Advanced level, the requirement is more demanding. Learners are exposed to different kinds of genres and are supposed to hand in a fully-developed composition. A dreading activity for many.

This semester, I have a group of very young teens who are Advanced students, so this was an extra challenge, as they are still very raw in terms of writing skills and styles, but I am an optimist by heart and always believe that depending on the way you develop the activity results are unexpected, but impressive.

I decided to try Evernote as a writing portfolio and it has proven to be an effective move towards engagement. The writing task was for students to choose a story in their lives and write about it. As a pre-writing activity, we told each other some funny, sad, embarrassing stories to each other. Then, instead of projecting the PPT slides to go through the idea of how to structure the stories, this time still paragraphs, I had previously downloaded in each iPad the PPT to Keynote so that students had more control over their activity. They worked in pairs, exploring the concepts of topic sentence, adding details and concluding ideas. We went over some stories in the Keynote app together and discussed how effective the introducing sentence was, how we could make it better, if the reader would be interested in keeping reading with that introduction, etc.

In the second stage of the activity, I asked them to open Evernote, add their names in the title of the note and they had a chance to write their stories in class. They used the Longman dictionary app in the iPad and were totally into their writing. As we work with process writing, I, then, could open everybody's work on a single notebook (the ipads are all synchronized with the same Evernote account) and printed the paragraphs to correct them using the proofreading symbols. In the following class, a question surprised me, "teacher, do you have our paragraphs?" Never have I had my teens students so interested in their pieces of writing. Again, I handed out the iPads and before I realized it, they were reading each other's texts! I gave them the printed version of the first draft with my comments and the symbols for them to figure out what was wrong or missing, so a focus on the structure, but with my comments focused on the content. They grabbed the iPads and worked on the second version of their paragraphs. I could give individual assistance to all and also encouraged peer correction for the faster ones. They helped the ones who had more difficulty to develop their ideas.

The results? On one single Evernote note, I had students' first and final drafts. I could easily visualize their progress with not much fuss. They were totally engaged in the activity and could easily play around to edit their texts. It didn't even seem to be the dreaded writing assignment that had been for so many years haunting English learners. And in the next writing activity, they can easily refer back to their notes, which I can share via email or link with them. I really feel that just the fact that you are using their means has made a difference in their reaction and attitude towards writing. Besides that, their reading audience was amplified. Classmates read their pieces, and even other Advanced groups who were also writing their stories in another Evernote notebook.

Here are same samples of students' writing (published with their permission):

1st Draft

I'll never forget the day my brother got stuck inside a suitcase. Me and my family were still living in the United States when this happened, it was a very cold day so me and my brothers were stuck at home  bored out of our minds with nothing to do but watch tv. After a while my mom called us all, including my dad , and said that her boss and his wife were coming by for a visit. When they arrived they were caring a giant suitcase ( don't ask me why because I don't remember) anyway they sat down in the living room and my parents began talking to them. My brother,who was seven at the time, had the briliant idea of going inside the suitcase and shutting himself in there, okay i'll admit it I helped him. We laughed for a while and then he said he wanted to get out , I began pulling on the zipper to open the bag but something was wrong, the zipper was stuck. Well that was all it took as soon as I told him I couldn't open it he began crying and screaming and that caught my parents and our guests attention. In the end my dad had to break the zipper to get him out of there, it seems funny now but back then it was pretty scary, at least for my brother.

2nd draft

I'll never forget the day my brother got stuck inside a suitcase. My family and I were still living in the United States when this incident happened. It was a very cold day so my brothers and I were stuck at home  bored out of our minds with nothing to do but watch TV. After a while,my mom called us all, including my dad, and said that her boss and his wife were coming by for a visit. When they arrived, they were carrying a giant suitcase ( don't ask me why because I don't remember). Anyway, they sat down in the living room and my parents began talking to them. My brother,who was seven at the time, had the brilliant idea of going inside the suitcase and shutting himself in there.Okay i'll admit it, I helped him. We laughed for a while and then he said he wanted to get out.I began pulling on the zipper to open the bag,but something was wrong, the zipper was stuck.Well, as soon as I told him I couldn't open the suitcase he began crying and screaming, which caught my parents and our guests' attention.From that point on I couldn't tell who was panicking the most, my mom or my brother.My father tried opening the bag too, but it was no use that zipper was not going to budge.In the end my dad had to break the zipper to get him out of there.It seems funny now, but back then it was pretty scary, at least for my brother.

---

1st Draft
I will never forget the day that a hook entered my cuticle. Last vacation, I was having a trip with my brother, my parents and my grandparents. We have gone to Araxá, a small city in Minas Gerais. It is a very cool place. When I arrived there, the first thing I did was wait for my mother to do the check in. There was nothing to do in the city, so I stayed at the hotel, doing some wonderful activities, like riding used bikes every day, swimming, sleeping, watching TV, running, fishing...

The routine was the same every day, but it was relaxing. Until the accident happened: In one of these days I was fishing like how I fished every day, but when I was putting the bait in the hook and a little kid pulled the fishing rod. The hook entered my cuticle, got stuck in there and my finger started bleeding. I went to the hospital in the city and the doctor cut the hook. After some hours, my finger was ok and I came back to the hotel. It was a great adventure, and I enjoyed it (except the part that the hook hurt me).

2nd Draft

I will never forget the day that a hook perforated my cuticle. Last vacation, I was preparing a trip with my brother, my parents and my grandparents. We went to Araxá, a small city in Minas Gerais. It is a very cool place, since there is a very low chance of violence and there are many special places to meet in the hotel, like the Burle Marx garden, or the presidential room. When I arrived there, the first thing I did was wait for my mother to do the check in. There was nothing to do in the city, so I stayed at the hotel, doing some wonderful activities, like riding used bikes every day, swimming, sleeping, watching TV, running, fishing...                                                                                                                             The routine was the same every day, but it was relaxing until the accident happened. In one of those days, I was fishing like I fished every day, and a little kid pulled the fishing rod while I was putting the bait in the hook. The hook perforated my cuticle, got stuck in there and my finger started bleeding. I went to the hospital in the city and the doctor took out the hook. After some hours, my finger was ok and I came back to the hotel. It was a great adventure, and I enjoyed it, except the part that the hook hurt me.

---

Have you used Evernote as a writing Portfolio? How?

Edit Teaching - Homework

Oh, this is a very touchy aspect of our teaching...


When have we innovated in homework assignments? We generally have the same language structure for homework instructions, "do pages x and z, ex. A, B and C for next class".

In our edit teaching mode, what if we did it differently for a change?

Some ideas:

• Ask your students how they could practice what they've learned and make a list on the board; decide as a group for two or three options the students can choose from. Give choices!

• Find exciting ways in which students can practice, but still have fun and create things, not just reproduce! Here's an article I wrote a while ago for the Young Learners and Teens IATEFL SIG that can give you some clues. 

• Create a google docs with a situation (based on the topic or language structure the students have been studying) and invite students to add their thoughts, sentences, solutions, images. Make it a learning mosaic. 

• From time to time, include parents and family members as part of the homework carrying out. It must be something simple and enjoyable for the family. Check this article. 

How about moving from boredom to creation, engagement and a smile in our students' faces?

Any other ideas to shake the homework world and still make it meaningful and effective?


Other ideas for small changes in the classroom:

#editteaching 1: Music Playlist 
#editteaching 2: Box
#editteaching 3: Color
#editteaching 4: Dice
#editteaching 5: Word Harvesting

Edit Teaching - Cards

Today I observed a sample class and was just reminded about the many uses we can have for a deck of cards. 


How about using them to add some movement to your class? Just by handing out one single card to each student, you make an eye brow raise. Students are immediately hooked.

What can you do with the cards?

• Use them for pair work and group work. Group students according to the numbers, color or suits (clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades)
• You can use the cards throughout the class to regroup the students in different ways
• You can ask the students to add up the numbers they've got in their cards and make a list of XXX (according to the topic of the unit) that needs to have XXX number of items based on the addition they've got. So, for example, if they got 10 summing up all the card numbers in the group, they will write 10 things in their list.
• Use the number the students have in their cards to ask them about personal things: tell me XXX places you'd like to travel to; give me XXX names of people who inspire you; list XXX things you don't want to do today; 

Can you think of other ways to use cards in the classroom?



Other ideas for the small changes in your classroom:


#editteaching - Day 1: Music Playlist 
#editteaching - Day 2: Box
#editteaching - Day 3: Color
#editteaching - Day 4: Dice
#editteaching - Day 5: Word Harvesting

Edit Teaching - Word Harvesting

Did you roll the dice?

How about ending your class differently this time? Before it starts, post a lot of random words around the classroom. You can even ask your students to help you. Let curiosity mount! And make it a kinesthetic moment of your teaching hour.

In the last 5/10 minutes of your class, invite students for a WORD HARVESTING. They may pick and choose any word and as many words they want from the classroom walls. Then, give them 1 minute to write their life motto using the words they chose. They hand it in to you.

Hummm. This might work wonders and you can even use it for another class.


Previous #editingteaching ideas:

#editteaching - Day 1: Music Playlist 
#editteaching - Day 2: Box
#editteaching - Day 3: Color
#editteaching - Day 4: Dice

Editing Teaching - Roll the Dice

Who doesn´t like to roll the dice?

Well, we keep the challenge of changing bits of our lesson plan to make our classrooms more engaging, fun, with powerful human touch added to them.

In your next class, try this one!

Give each group or pair of students a die. There are different ways to use it.

1. Write on the board numbers 1 to 6 and categories (food, color, hobby, TV show, music, etc); Sts roll the die and ask a question to their peers based on the topic they got (numbers on the board).
2. This is one is playful and serious at the same time, for students need to really pay attention to language structure to be able to do it.
   You start with the beginning of some questions on the board; the students need to choose a question to ask to his/her peers and will need to complete it with as many words as he/she gets on the die (i.e., What type of ....? If he gets n. 4, he/she will have to add four words to the question, "What type of FOOD DO YOU LIKE?"). With numbers 1, 2, 3, it is more challenging, so you could either, tell the students that if they get 1 and 2, they are free to choose how they will end the question, or you can have questions on the board that can take one or two words to complete them. It is up to your imagination!

Any other fun and fast ideas for DICE to give a boost of energy and fun in our classes? I´d love to hear them!

Previous #editingteaching ideas:

#editteaching - Day 1: Music Playlist 
#editteaching - Day 2: Box
#editteaching - Day 3: Color

Editing Teaching - Color

Though I should be expecting the unexpected coming from students, two teachers have already posted their students' reactions-recordings, and I'm totally in awe! 
Justine and her student recorded this: http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=ZoIUfHE 
Dani's students recorded this:http://vocaroo.com/i/s0WQONEteBaQ 

Amazing stuff happening with not so much sweat on our part or big preparation, but with very powerful outcomes. 

Day 2 was about the BOX. 

Day 3 is all about COLORS!

The challenge today is very colorful. 

Ask your students to pick a COLOR. Any that they like. You have also to choose one. 
You can start with very unusual questions for them to talk to each other:

"What's the smell of your COLOR? Why do you relate it to this smell?"

"What's the sound of your COLOR?"

Any unusual question will do.

For the rest of the class, every example and idea you give will be related to this color, be it a grammar point, a story, or new vocabulary you've been exploring. Your students should do the same!

I'd love to know your group's reaction!

Have a great PINK teaching day!

#editteaching - Day 1: http://collablogatorium.blogspot.com.br/2012/10/editteaching.html
#editteaching - Day 2:  http://collablogatorium.blogspot.com.br/2012/10/editingteaching2.html

Editing Teaching - Box

First, we had the playlist idea.

How about using a physical object today?

Find a nice box to take to class. It can be a colorful one, a plain rustic one or even one that has an intriguing detail on its outside. You want to awaken your learners´ minds, spark curiosity, stimulate imagination. 

Tell them that the box is a special one because it has something very dear to you. Ask them to try to guess. Then, put another box beside your box and tell the students that that box is theirs. 

Ask them, 

"What´s inside your box? It can be an object, a wish, a feeling. Be creative."

Give students some time to think about their boxes and then for peers to try to guess each other´s box content. They can reveal it by the end of 3 minutes. And you can decide when to say what´s in your box - at the end of the class, or online in a specific link. Remember, our teacher´s imagination is the limit for the Editing Teaching challenge.

What else could you do with the box in you class? If you try this idea, I´d love to hear from you.

Have a great teaching day!
#editteaching 

Day 1 - Your students' playlist

From Inertia to Editing Teaching - A Challenge

Many times we are trapped in our own routines, hectic lives and infinite tasks. It is hard sometimes even to breathe. Inertia takes over, and we see our personal and professional lives as if it were part of a film.

I know there are many challenges around for teachers, and I could name a few that you could follow for 30 days to make our lives more bearable and pleasant, but what if we set TWO WEEKS at first not to make revolutionary changes, but just small ones.

Our brains love surprises. The unexpected, unpredictable hooks us up, grabs our attention, so how about very simple changes that won't be radical at first, but could cause some tectonic shifts in the long run in terms of our pleasure in teaching our classes and our students' joy to be in class, connected, absorbed, hyped.

What if you invited your co-workers to join us for TWO WEEKS and take action, move and shake a bit? So, here I am making it public the idea of the EDIT TEACHING movement.

For the next two weeks, I'll blog every single day - which is already part of my own call for action - about a very simple idea that we can do in class to EDIT our TEACHING a bit, to make those changes that in the long run can ignite us to keep in the loop to continuously seek for the new experience, crossing the boundaries of our daily inertia, making us effervescent, upbeat, lighthearted educators.

THE FIRST #EDITTEACHING IDEA

Start your next class with a very simple question to your students, "What's in your playlist?" Give them five minutes to talk to each other about it, to see what they have in common and something new they learned about a song, singer or band. I'm sure that they will have something to say and you will connect in a more personal level with them!


Our twitter tag will be #editteaching . I'd love to hear from educators if they try this idea out for the next  TWO WEEKS! Ready to edit your teaching routine to smile and connect more often?

Still on the Mantras for Tired Teachers

In my last post, I talked about the three mantras for tired teachers, and mentioned that my learning goal of the month was to not only learn, but also test the pedagogical possibilites of QRcodes. I'm delighted  to say that I followed the two first mantras (learn and try) and am here to share (as part of the last one!) the results of my classroom results.

I studied QRcodes, thought of a lesson plan that fit my students' needs and school curriculum. It all started when I told my adult students how the advertisement industry was using QRcodes and Augmented reality in their campaigns (we were discussing about the world of advertisement). They had a question mark on their faces, for they'd never heard of QRcodes or Augmented reality. I explained it, then, there was a brochure in our school with a QRcode. I showed them how it worked. Most of my adult students own a smartphone. So, I sent my customary email of the day and included links to free app downloads of QRreaders for iphones and android phones. Plus, I added they homework in QRcode to make them curious and willing to take their time to download the apps.

I used http://qrstuff.com to generate the colorful QRcodes with amazon links to specific products. We were practicing how to say in different ways how something was expensive or cheap, as explained in my last post:

2. Try, fail, try again in class                                                                                
Learning is not enough. Practice really makes perfect. Test with a plan.
I learned about QR-generators and found powerful free QRreader apps to encourage my students to download them.
I planned a shopping activity with QRCodes to practice talking about things that are too expensive and a bargain.
I invited my students to download the app to their cellphones (I gave suggestions for either Apple and Android smarthphones)
I feel ready to try. Here are the colorful QRcodes I prepared for the activity.
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1_N-ykajXMynurxERnk3E3ZBAkjt-b6JDUBMwn6fkTBg 

I was ready for the classroom trial. I had my cellphone with a QRreader app and my son's iPod touch. When I got to class, I asked if some of them had downloaded the app. Yes, Yes, Yes! So, we were ready. First, I elicited from students the dialogue we were practicing and the expressions they could use to say something was way too expensive or a good deal. Then, I handed in to the groups different QRcodes in different colors. They scanned them, and had a wonderful practice using real products from Amazon. I was careful to choose products that might really interest them (GPS running watch, Nespresso Coffee Maker, Gold bracelet, Watch, Touchscreen digital camera). The students were really into the activity and practiced extensively ways of talking about a purchase. I asked them to stand up and change partners holding their cellphones and their products. So, they had on the cellphone screen the product they wanted to talk about and they could also use the QRreader history to browse other products they had scanned. Some students had the cellphones, others asked about the products. The hard part was to make them stop!!! After that, we talked about the products and prices and what they would really buy, students were curious about how to buy online, what the shipping costs and taxes were, if it was reliable to buy online. What a wonderful discussion in which all the students had an experience to share! I was ecstatic with the positive results of my own learning.

Challenges and tips:

• Such an activity will only work if your students have smartphones with data plan or ipod touch devices with wifi (and wifi at your school). Or if you bring your own devices to class. 
• there needs to be preparation beforehand and, at least, some students need to download the scanning app
• The content you choose to be scanned must be exciting, close to students' reality to make the effort worth it.
• Encourage other teachers to join you. It is REALLY fun and brain-friendly.

For ideas on how to use QRcodes in the classroom check this PPT:

Three Powerful Mantras for Tired Teachers

We can easily picture educators who suffer from an ongoing, cronic burnout. No motivation, no strength, happiness in the eye, passion. Many become the complainers, resistant, tired souls that simply let life pass by, waiting for the day they can retire.

I'm an optimist at heart and truly believe that if one decided to become an educator, there's always a passionate soul that is dormant somewhere out there. It is just a matter of refocusing, finding a new purpose, meaning to what we're doing. It's about finding opportunities to ignite that passion again.

These are, then, my three mantras for those who have no escape but to seize the day, become happier, self-fulfilled educators touching students' lives in very meaningful ways:

1. Learn, learn, learn something new                                      
In my case, I've decided that this is the QR-Codes month. I want to test pedagogical uses for them with my adult group. I've read about it, asked around, saw videos, and checked wonderful PPT with educational ideas for them.
So, just set up a XXXXX month. What are you going to focus your learning efforts on this month?

2. Try, fail, try again in class                                                     
Learning is not enough. Practice really makes perfect. Test with a plan.
I learned about QR-generators and found powerful free QRreader apps to encourage my students to download them.
I planned a shopping activity with QRCodes to practice talking about things that are too expensive and a bargain.
I invited my students to download the app to their cellphones (I gave suggestions for either Apple and Android smarthphones)
I feel ready to try. Here are the colorful QRcodes I prepared for the activity.
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1_N-ykajXMynurxERnk3E3ZBAkjt-b6JDUBMwn6fkTBg 


3. Share, share, share your successes and failures                  
I'm already sharing my ideas here with you, but I still want to go beyond and share how the activity went once I get my feet wet with my students. Can't wait!

What would be your mantras to keep your passion for teaching and learning alive?

Twisting Homework Work - A tool, A thousand Ways to Engage students

She was meant to be a star. Her photos were all over, Vogue magazine, among all renowned international magazines you can think of. One day, though, ...

How about a bit of homework revolution for a change?

Add this sentence to the board, send the photo to your students and tell them to access http://photofunia.com, upload the photo you sent or students can upload their own to continue the story.

This idea can be used for storytelling, vocabulary practice or any grammar point reinforcement activity.

Students, then, share in class their stories and the photos they edited and added to the story.

I can bet here that you'll be surprised by students' creativity!

Other possibilities:
Every end of class, you add an edited photo of one of the students and they have to come up with a creative sentence about it as homework assignment.

email an edited photo to students with a reminder about the homework assignment they have. (the photo is, then, just a motivational sparkler for the assignment)

Ask students to choose three people in their family, edit the photos in photofunia and talk about family members in class.

Can you think of other classroom activities to use the editions in Photofunia?

Icebreakers, not Sleeping Pills

I remember when I had English classes, most of them started the same. The teacher would tell the rules of our class and write on the board the test dates for us to copy. Then, there would be some kind of warmer that sometimes was colder than being in the Antarctic with inappropriate clothes for the weather. Yes, I have a vivid memory about that, and not so much about fun, engaging activities during the first class. Funny thing is that even the simplest activity would please me as the first day was always an exciting part of my school year. We met the new teacher, new friends and old ones. The book was new, new pens, pencils and notebook, ready for action.

First day at school, buh. It was pretty boring so I spent my time decorating my hand :)
The only interesting thing he said was "if you want to see more photos of this building, you can go to flickr.com" yay!

Now, as a teacher, I really spend some time to find simple, pleasant activities to make my students remember why they enrolled in an English class in the first place. If the students don't know me, in the past I used to write some numbers on the board for students to figure out what they meant for me. It was a lot of fun, lots of questions and discovery. Personal. Then, they'd do the same with their peers. It has always worked. No need for much preparation. And if teachers want to play safe, this activity is engaging and effective.

However, with so much out there at the tip of our fingers, I've been trying to go beyond, to make my first day a more memorable first encounter, a more critical-thinking enhanced class.

This is my plan. First, I'll show some pictures of mine. Students need to guess what it is about, who those people are. Plus, they can ask me some questions. I created this by grabbing my favorite photos set in Flickr and adding them to a Gallery (you can only do that by using other people's photos)
Here's my presentation. Can you guess things about me from the pictures?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlaarena/galleries/72157627143771675/


Oh, but wait a minute! This class was mine last semester! I'll need to be more creative than that, for they know a lot about me. So, I'll do the opposite. I'll show images to tell them 7 things they don't know about me and they have to guess what's the story behind it.
Here's my selection of images:



Then, I'm going to show students powerful images with colors, emotions, places, people and they will have to relate the images with their lives, themselves or their vacation. By doing that, I'm sure I'll be able to learn more than ever about my students, their passions, and interests. Isn't that a good start for us to make informed decisions when we're planning our next lessons?





Another way to do the students' part is for them to look for any images in their cell phones or wallets, they show to peers, and peers try to guess from the image a bit more about them. If students don't have images in their cell phones, they can find any object in their purses and wallets to share with their pairs.

And if you're willing to see more fantastic examples of icebreakers, here are some that educators at the school I work for prepared:
http://ctjconnected.blogspot.com/2010/07/language-learning-tips.html
http://ctjconnected.blogspot.com/2010/01/ice-breakers.html

How about test dates and rules? Not in my first day of class when I want students to turn on and not OFF. I want to open up their brains for an exciting, enticing journey. I want them to want more, to be there with me next class. Test dates and rules can wait another class, or, if not possible, the end of the class.

How about you? Any other tips?

m-Learning - Screencasting App

I downloaded showmeapp to my iPad.

You can write on the whiteboard and record a screencast, or you can use an image to record your impressions, stories, tutorials using it.

Here's my example for basic students:


http://www.showmeapp.com/sh/?i=5220

I uploaded it from my iPad straight to the site. From there, you can embed the video or share it in social networks.

How can we use showmeapp in the classroom?

You can give the device to your students and ask them to record a tutorial, an explanation about certain topic, a summary of the class.
You can think of riddles, brainboosters and challenges. Record them and ask the students to solve them.

In this video, I talked about my family and friends. I could ask questions related to what I said.

Now, I have a challenge for you: I made a mistake in the video. Can you tell me what is wrong?

Animal Zooburst

I've just seen my 8-year-old son spend a long time focused, enjoying himself and practicing a lot of English. He found out how to search for the animals he wanted to include in his digital 3D book, he asked questions, he wrote, he made choices, he practiced, he enjoyed himself, he learned. And it was a very simple activity of creating a 3D book with Zooburst.

His English teacher knows how to explore the little ones' interests in engaging ways. It doesn't take much, but simply eyes wide open on the part of the educator and the willingness to keep learning and finding exciting resources for our digital kids.

Here's the result of our forest creation with wild animals:

Warm-up or Follow-up? Just Do it!

Mission Amy is a blog I follow for inspiration. It makes me want to do things. It makes me feel like moving, taking action.


One of Amy's questions to her community of readers was the following?

What are your Do's, Don'ts and Duhs?

Here is the result she compiled and the present she gave back to the community: a blog to whomever wants to feed it. Motivational, as always, reading all the life statements the readers wrote.

Now, what if we did this in class with our students? A simple question, just some minutes in class to write their answers. Afterwards, students might create a class poster, a collage, a scrapbook page to become a class album, a digital collage in Glogster, post-its on Wallwisher or Squareleaf, a video...Let you and your students go wild!

Lesson Plan - World Cup Finals Video

Everybody seems to be talking about soccer at this time of the year, and,  we, educators, are always trying to find the most effective way to incorporate current news in our lesson plans. The World Cup will keep current for some more weeks, so let's not miss the chance to use precious resources out there in cyberspace to do something fun, effective with our students. Tasks that keep them on task, eager to contribute and produce.

Today, I'll show you a video a friend of mine, Cleide, a very talented teacher at Casa Thomas Jefferson, recorded and the pedagogical suggestions to go with it:

• First, brainstorm with your students words related to the World Cup, favorite teams, best players, gaffes that have happened. Take this time to work on vocabulary development.
• Ask your students to watch the video, and focus on the following:

Which World Cup is she talking about?

Was he a huge soccer fan?

What made her change her mind?

How did she feel at the end?

Suggestions for Wrap up:

• Students imagine the Finals of the 2010 World Cup series, deciding which teams would be playing and what the score would be. They draw their World Cup Finals scene. Post the drawings in the classroom. As the teams play, just keep hanging the ones that still have the right prediction. At the end of the World Cup, the class will be able to see who was right.
• Students record a video in this Plain-English style (drawings with voice) narrating the Finals (Great for creatively using the vocabulary they had been exploring)
• Groups make a big poster to keep track of the games and the scores. Every week, a student is in charge of scorekeeping.
• Students predict who will be voted as the best soccer player and the best Goalkeeper in the Cup.
• For more advanced students, your might really enjoy exploring photos, videos and World-Cup related stories that Lonely Planet is featuring at http://www.lonelyplanet.com/south-africa/travel-tips-and-articles/42/60294 . You can assign different posts to different groups, and after they read them, they can report how people are celebrating around the globe.
• Students can go to http://www.flickr.com/groups/1384096@N25/pool/ and explore the World Cup photos taken by users. Or even better, they can search for specific photos using tags, such as "south africa worldcup". Great chance here to enhance your students' digital literacy.

Just some ideas for now. Please, add any other suggestions as a comment. We'd love to have a nice pool of cool classroom activities related to the World Cup.


Some links of interest:
http://pocketcultures.com/topicsoftheworld/tag/worldcup2010/
http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/
http://www.worldcupblog.org/ 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2010/default.stm