THE FINAL TASK!

Hi everyone!

As teachers, we can find a great amount of resources in the internet, and the best ones will be created by our colleagues. Using their experiences and ideas, we can improve our job and including new tools in our daily lessons.

For instance, I’m going to develop an activity from Rocío’s blog

https://tictacenglishblog.blogspot.com/2020/03/my-book-using-storyjumper.html

I did an activity using storyjumper tool, it was a story “My best friend” (about pets). When I saw Rocío’s project, some new ideas came into my mind. What about a picture dictionary using storyjumper? So, here’s my new project.

In an ordinary situation, I would develop this project with my students from the 4th grade in Primary Ed. However, this new context forces me to imagine how it would be…

First of all, we need to establish groupings (2/3 members) and set the vocabulary we are going to use. Then, students will look for the pictures they need in the internet and save them in a folder.

               At this moment, we have to watch a tutorial about storyjumper working.

And finally, they are going to create the picture dictionary as in the example.

Read this book made on StoryJumper

Hope you like it! 

See you! 

Teacher Carmen María

Great blogs, great teachers!

Hi everyone!

I'm going to talk about some great blogs:



The first blog has been created by Rocío Arroyo: 


https://tictacenglishblog.blogspot.com/

Rocío proposes interesting reflections and activities in her blog. Moreover, she has posted useful resources and materials, just like her Genial.ly project about “The Body” (which is giving me some new ideas…), the storyjumper project about toys (adapted to pre-primary education children) and the Edpuzzle project (also about toys) for older students. That’s a great job!

 The second blog I’ve chosen is from Esther Vega:


https://bloggingislearningenglish.blogspot.com/


     Esther has chosen a great template structure for her blog, and a good colour too; but maybe she had to add some pictures to make her blog more attractive. The content is related to Secondary Ed. Students, and I’m very interested in these stages. I usually teach in Primary (or Pre-Primary) Education, so I don’t have opportunities to put into practice this kind of tasks. However, I want to know how these tools work with older students. For example, her Pixton project is amazing! I love it. And also, the timetoast project about Women who changed the World. Good job, mate!


The best way of learning is sharing!

See you!


Teacher Carmen

Genial.ly and speaking tasks

Hi everyone! 

This is a great presentation about India, using Genial.ly application.

First, we have chosen the topics we have to work on, in this case, and as in the instructions you have posted, our presentations using Genial.ly will be related to English speaking countries.

               This year, I’m working with children from 3 to 10, so it will be difficult to develop this type of activities using this tool. Thus, I’m going to prepare this task for children from the 3^rd cycle (in a hypothetical case). We will give children a checklist to verify all the process.

1.      Establish the topic (English Speaking Countries)

2.      Establish the groups: I use Class Dojo tool.

3.      Before we start using Genial.ly, we need to set up the information and facts we want to present (brainstorming) in the whiteboard, set the pages and take a look at the structures we need to use. In this stage we need to guide students, because they’re not autonomous enough.

4.      We introduce students to Genial.ly tool, showing the main tabs in the website, we use “presentation” templates.

5.      Students select the country for the presentation (in groups).

6.      Students start surfing the internet to find the information they need (sometimes the research will be in Spanish) and a picture for each content.

7.      Students start preparing the presentation, they select the best template and they change it as they wish.

8.      The teacher will be helping them in all the stages of the task. At this point, we are going to give a feedback about their progress (using a checklist) and taking notes. (draft)

9.      Before they present their work to the class, we will check once again the final product.

10.   They have to read and prepare the presentation.

11.   Finally, they present the product to the class.

This type of tasks would last 4 lessons (3 lessons for preparing the presentation, and 1 to perform the task). These tasks, in my opinion, would be very motivating, although it would generate some difficulties in their development.

This year, I’m using Class Dojo in my lessons, so I usually use the group generator to establish grouping. However, we can distribute students bearing in mind the difficulties they’re going to find along the tasks and autonomy.

We are going to use checklists to control the progress of the task, and cheat sheets or tip sheets to remember some of the procedures we have to develop: How to search for information in the internet, how to save pictures in our folders, how to copy and paste information…

In conclusion, I find this tool very interesting and motivating, however it will be more useful in the Secondary Education, where students have the minimum contents to develop this task in an autonomous way. Using this tool, students get a great final product, developing oral and written skills, moreover, they will improve all the key competences we have to reach in this stage.

See you!

Teacher Carmen María

Storyjumper: My best friend

Hi everyone! 

In our lessons we are working on descriptions and animals. So here we've got our contribution using this motivating tool: Storyjumper. 

Read this book made on StoryJumper

This is my reflection about using this tool in Primary Education: 

We can consider this tool as a good resource to develop creativity and imagination in our students, and also working on the contents in our curriculum.
For this task, we are going to work in pairs in the 3rd grade in Primary Ed.
Sequence of tasks: (using 2 lessons)
1- Choose the topic (in this case, it will be “pets”, descriptions, abilities and likes and dislikes)
2- We have to write a draft: state the title of the story, number of pages, and write the sentences using the models from this unit:
a. Colour/size
b. Favourite things
c. Abilities
d. Likes
3- The teacher checks the content and gives the feedback.
4- Then, they have to sign up in storyjumper website, and search the pictures they are going to need for the story (characters and backgrounds) depending on the sentences they wrote.
5- They create the story (with some help)
6- Finally, the show and tell the story to their classmates (using the whiteboard)
7- We are going to use simple co-evaluation and self-evaluation sheets to assess the final product.
Main Goals:
 - Listen and identify the general ideas in a story.
 - Tell a story, using verbal and non-verbal communication, and bearing in mind rhythm and intonation.
 - Understand written texts related to familiar topics (pets).
 - Write, using previous models, about common topics (pets), using physical descriptions and abilities.
Additional objectives we achieve using this tool:
 - Develop creativity and motivation.
 - Promote the use of ICT in a significative way.
 - Encourage students to create their own materials.
This tool gives students a great chance to develop creativity, imagination, and the final product will improve students’ motivation. They will enjoy working on their stories, showing and telling them and learning English at the same time.
As we stated before, we are going to use simple co-evaluation and self-evaluation sheets (using faces, considering the storytelling, pictures, attitude, script…), giving students a feedback of their work process and final product.
In my opinion, this tool is useful in the 2nd or 3rd cycle in Primary Ed.; though, in these levels would be a very guided work, so we couldn’t develop all the aspects this kind of tool would offer us.

See you!

Teacher Carmen María

Let's talk about sports! edpuzzle tool

Hello everyone!

This is my reflection about EDPUZZLE tool to develop listening activities.

Preparing activities based on authentic materials is a complex task in Primary Education, because children are in a starting point of the language knowledge. Therefore, the first step is choosing the appropriate input, which will be related to their interests and hobbies, also bearing in mind the vocabulary and grammar which appear in the video.

Pre- listening task will be linked to this type of contents (vocabulary and grammar), then we’ve got some multiple-choice questions during the listening, and finally post- listening task will help us to consolidate contents in relation to other language skills, for instance writing or speaking.

               EDPUZZLE tool can help us to prepare motivating listening activities and will provide us an extraordinary opportunity to start “flipping” our classroom.

               As we stated before, the most difficult part is finding an appropriate video, in this way, I’ve chosen a video according to the unit we are working on in 3^rd grade: Sports (we will learn about favourite sports and abilities). The video language level is not difficult, so children will understand most of the words and expressions, so they will feel more confident in the listening task.

               Objectives:

- Listen and understand personal opinions related to the main topic.

- Express orally our personal opinions and interests in relation to the main topic.

- Create a brief text, using models, to express our personal interests in a written way.

Sequence of activities:

1.      Pre-listening tasks: introduce the topic using flash cards and warm up activities with the key vocabulary.

a.      The fastest rabbit: set the flash cards on the whiteboard, choose two children and they have to listen to the word that I say and point the correct picture. The first one to point the correct flash card wins.

b.      Listen and say: draw and name some doodles doing different sports in the whiteboard; we work in pairs. One child asks: What’s (name)’s favourite sport? And the partner has to answer: (names)’s favourite sport is…..

2.      Listening task: this task can be developed using the flipped classroom learning, so children can do this activity at home, using EDPUZZLE tool and then we will obtain the results. If we use the tool in our classroom, we have to prepare some computers to work in pairs, they watch the video and answer the multiple-choice questions. Moreover, we can use this video working with all the students at the same time. We reproduce the video in the digital board and then we answer the questions in our notebooks.

3.      Post-listening task:

a.      Writing task: using a model, students write about their favourite sports, giving some reasons why. “My favourite sport is……., because I love……”

b.      Speaking task: using the same model, students can tell the class about their favourite sports.

Working with students at this level, before speaking or writing about this topic, we have to set up, using a brainstorming activity, how to express opinions and reasons, giving some examples.

EDPUZZLE is a good option to customize videos and adapt them to our reality and needs, using authentic materials, ICTs, and motivating activities. On the other hand, we can find difficulties regarding connectivity or technical support. Furthermore, if we use this activity in a “flipped” way, we can find complications with some parents’ attitude. In my opinion, if we show this type of activities to our children and we give some information about them to their parents, we can improve listening skills in an interesting way.

See you!

Teacher Carmen María

Time Toast!!!

Hi everyone!


I’m going to share a super-motivating activity related to reading skills.

This week, in the 4^th level of Primary education, we are working on daily routines and hobbies. In groups, we have read letters from different children writing about their activities and hobbies in the afternoon and evening.

Then, they’ve taken notes of the main information (activity/day/time), and using the Time Toast tool, they’ve created a Time Line.

Here’s an example of one of the texts we’ve used, and the time line they’ve created.

MARY'S WEEK

                    Hi! My name is Mary and I’m 10 years old. I live with my family in Brighton.

 I love going to school, but I’m very busy in the afternoon and in the evening.

On Mondays, I do karate with my friend Lola at seven o’clock, we are wearing the orange belt!

 At half past three, on Tuesdays, my brother and I learn to cook at my uncle’s house, we make delicious cakes, yummy!

On Wednesday, I go to the English Academy at six o’clock. My teacher Brian is the best one! 

Then, on Thursdays I play football with my friends, our team is “Red lions”, and we are in the second place in the league.

On Fridays, I practise the piano at home at half past four, because I’ve played the piano since I was 6, I love classical music.

At the weekend, I usually go to the cinema with my family and friends at nine o’clock on Saturdays and we have popcorn and candy.

Finally, on Sundays, we go to my granny’s house and we stay there all day long.

This is my busy week!

https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/mary-s-week

In this activity, we have practised all the structures of the unit, and also, we have developed reading skills, searching for the main information in the text (scanning). Working in groups and using ICT develop digital competence and learning to learn competence.

               The advantages of using this tool are that is easy to use and very motivating, they have to search the information in the text, pictures to add to the time line and they also have a very attractive result, that is the best part of the process.

               First of all, they read the letter and they take notes. Then, they search for pictures to add to the time line in the internet and finally they create the time line: add the events (we have stated dates using the specific days of this week), add the pictures (main picture and events pictures) and then they show the time line to their partners.

               Time toast is a very useful tool, but we can only use it in a basic way at this level. Perhaps, this is the main problem I’ve just found. Children enjoy a lot using this type of resources and obviously, using computers instead of writing in their notebooks. At this level, children know how to use computers, and how to search for information in the internet, however we’ve found problems saving pictures in the computers, but it was not a big deal.

Next time, we can use different kind of texts, for instance short biographies or longer texts about interesting topics, and also, they can create their own time lines using information about their life (important events) and show them to the class.

Time toast is a great tool and there are huge possibilities!


See you!


Teacher Carmen María

Reading Habits

At the present time, reading habits have changed in a deep way. When I was a child, the only way to keep in touch to new releases was the bookshop or the library in our town. Nowadays, technologies make easier this access and also, they have altered the way we read, places and moments.

If we analyse these photos, we realise that times have changed. Bookshops, which are not only a place to be quiet and read books, have become in a multi-purpose place, we can talk about literature, have a coffee or listen conferences and talks. People enjoy reading there, and I suppose that they choose books themselves.

Pictures 2 and 3 are related to my childhood; we have a little library at home, my mom and my granny read a lot, and this is the best influence I can have. Actually, I started reading sci-fi book, thrillers and fantasy novels in English when I bought an e-reader eight years ago, and this is the kind of literature I usually read. Moreover, I love reading comics and manga in both languages, Spanish and English, so every night a take a book and enjoy getting into “new worlds”.

At school, we have to take into account topics related to our students’ interests and not forcing them to read books, but motivating them using resources and ICT tools.

As English teachers, we have to promote reading habits, using reading skill in a motivating mode, and it will help us not only to improve our English level and but also love Reading.