Sunday, February 5, 2012
STUPEFLIX
Friday, January 27, 2012
MULTIPLE INTELLENCES AND TECHNOLOGY
MULTIPLE INTELLENCES AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE EFL CLASSROOM
This past Summer I took a two-week long Multiple Intelligence course in Canterbury and I must say that it took my mind off
technology for a while and opened up my mind to many different types of
activities which I had forgotten worked so well with EFL learners. I'd
been so obsessed with using technology in my classroom that I'd been putting
off doing pair work, oral activities or activities in which students get out
from their desks and move around the room. Those ‘linguistic’ activities which
are typically used by language teachers had been set aside whilst I was trying
out all the amazing new Web tools with my students.
As a language teacher of many years, I was actually
surprised as I reflected upon my current teaching habits and techniques and how
they have been changing over the past couple of years. It's not that I
had been purposely avoiding activities involving movement, personal reflection
or tedious grammar activities. It was
simply the fact that I was so involved in my new ‘techy tools’ that my classes
were beginning to feel like a broken record.
Now, If there is one thing that I learnt in the
Multiple Intelligence course, it’s that we must VARY our lessons in order to reach ALL of our students. Students
learn in different ways, with stronger or weaker degrees of ‘intelligences’
influencing them along their learning journey.
We are all born with the seven intelligences, however we have predominant
ones which are often manifested in our ability or inability to learn something
new.
Upon further reflection, I realized that by using copious
amounts of technology with my students, I wasn’t failing them or their
intelligences entirely! I was in fact
working on a variety of intelligences without actually realizing it.
For those of you who are not familiar with Gardner's 7
Multiple Intelligences, they are:
- Visual-Spatial
- Bodily-kinesthetic
- Musical
- Interpersonal
- Intrapersonal
- Linguistic
- Logical –Mathematical
At a quick glance, it may appear that
when teaching English we are automatically working on developing Linguistic
intelligence. But by integrating music (Musical), getting students to share
their opinions (interpersonal), keeping a journal or self-evaluating log
(intrapersonal), putting together a digital story (Visual-Spatial); we are in
fact working on various intelligences. If
we teachers take a look at the list, there are probably one or two that we
systematically avoid. Either they don’t appeal to us or we feel we
know little in that particular area and thus we avoid them. Let someone else teach that!
To make a long story short, the course In MI has
really enhanced my thinking in my EFL classes and recently I seem to be looking
for and analyzing which ‘additional’ intelligence-s’ I am touching on, along
with the more obvious Linguistic one. I
try to add a lot of VARIETY to my
lessons in the hopes that if the verb ‘to be’ doesn’t enter into their heads
through the grammar exercises, it may finally get there through chants, visual
games or the making of comics!!
This whole reflection today has come about
because of a fantastic lesson I had with my students this week. It was an activity that I did with fellow
teachers on the MI course and I think it’s worth sharing it with you. From my own interpretation, I’d say that all
but two intelligences are worked on in this activity and as an added bonus, the
students had a lot of fun and laughs whilst doing it!
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2.
Students sit in pairs, one looking at the wall, the other looking at
the video on the screen.
3.
The latter must describe to his/her partner everything that is
happening in the skit. The present
simple or present continuous tenses work best and the video is very visual
and eventful.
4.
Even if they don’t have the vocabulary to say everything, tell them to
keep talking, fitting in any words they don’t know with their native
language. They have to sit very close
to each other in order to hear above
all the noise the others are making.
5.
Halfway through the video, stop it and have partners switch their
tasks.
6.
Once the video is done, show it to the class again and go over any
words or actions they had trouble describing.
7.
As a last reflection, you can get them to think about how the skit depicts
Mozart’s personality and his ability to play his music no matter what was
happening around him. Come rain or
come shine, he never once stopped playing!
 |
If you are looking for the ‘techy’ in this activity, sometimes a simple
computer, projector, screen and a youtube video suffice!
Susan
Monday, January 16, 2012
VOCALYZE
Listen to your favourite blogs wherever you go. Vocalyze can read out blog or news articles rather than you having to read them yourself. If you're in the car, for instance, and don't have time to stop and read, Vocalyze allows you to listen to the blogs you follow, rather than reading them. Readers can listen on a web browser or on their mobile device - iPhone or Android phone. It reminds me a bit of Qwiki, which I mentioned a couple of months ago, where information on any subject you've searched for is then read out to you. This could be a useful tool for language learners. I tried it out today and find it quite interesting. The only thing that annoys me a little is the digital voice that's used to read out the text. It's not always easy to understand what's being said due to a lack of expression in the voices used. Other than that, I consider it a cool tool.
Listen to your favourite blogs wherever you go. Vocalyze can read out blog or news articles rather than you having to read them yourself. If you're in the car, for instance, and don't have time to stop and read, Vocalyze allows you to listen to the blogs you follow, rather than reading them. Readers can listen on a web browser or on their mobile device - iPhone or Android phone. It reminds me a bit of Qwiki, which I mentioned a couple of months ago, where information on any subject you've searched for is then read out to you. This could be a useful tool for language learners. I tried it out today and find it quite interesting. The only thing that annoys me a little is the digital voice that's used to read out the text. It's not always easy to understand what's being said due to a lack of expression in the voices used. Other than that, I consider it a cool tool.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
VOKI
There are so many ways in which you can use voki, depending on the task or the time of year. For homework at Christmas time, I got my students to make up vokis wishing me a Merry Christmas or telling me what they plan on doing during their Christmas holidays. Below are a couple of examples. Some of the more timid students opted for typing in the message and not using their own voices. Both options are valid and the important thing is that they enjoy it and get some English practice at the same time.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
TOONDOO
Let students be creative at Christmas time by making comics with TOODOO. Although there isn't a lot
of writing involved, they do have to invent a short dialogue and get it corrected (hopefully by the teacher
and not by google translator!) before putting their comic online. They seemed to enjoy the activity and I'm hoping
they'll use it for expressing themselves on other occasions now that they've become members.
This is another example of a toondoo made by a student, although they used my login name! I assure you it's not mine!
This is another example of a toondoo made by a student, although they used my login name! I assure you it's not mine!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
WALLWISHER
Here's an example of my students' wish board for Christmas. Wallwisher is like a digital 'post-it' notice board and can be used
in a variety of ways. In this case, students have posted their wishes.
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