Create guides and tutorials with TILDEE

There is no better way to learn than by teaching. Getting your students involved in teaching is an effective way to get them to use new language and structures in a useful and purposeful way. TILDEE is a free tool that helps you to create and instantly share tutorials on any subject. In the example (http://www.tildee.com/y8A3tj)you will see that a teacher has written a tutorial on English expressions, however, I see this tool as being used by students to create easy tutorials that will enable them to use new language for specific purposes. See this example of 'How to make a fruit smootie'

They can easily share their tutorials with their teacher and classmates too which enriches the whole language exchange. There are other tools for making guides such as http://snapguide.com/, however the point I'm trying to make is that the actual practice of getting students to create guides and tutorials is very rich language learning strategy that has now been made easy and engaging with tools such as the two I have mentioned here. Getting students to create and 'teach' gives them the opportunity to use language in an active way.  They learn by 'doing'.  Check out the examples and please share with me any tutorials you create with your students!
I will leave with this Chinese proverb:

  I hear and I forget.  I see and I remember.  I do and I understand!

DIGITAL STORYTELLING

DIGITAL STORYTELLING



I have posted before about the educational value of creating digital stories but I am going to add some new thoughts.  We can all create a good story.  No matter the age of the students you are teaching or what their interests or 'learning-language' may be, I can guarantee you that they have a story to tell.  Let's help them as teachers to find their  voice and to put their stories on the web where they can be shared with others in their class, school or even other schools around the world.

Some benefits which will come out of storytelling:

These aren't my own but I couldn't have said it better! (By : Med Kharbach)

•  It develops creativity and critical thinking
•  Students who are shy or afraid to talk in class get a chance to speak out their minds
•  It empowers students voice to deliver rich, deep message that is capable of conveying a powerful message.
•  It helps students explore  the meaning of their own experience, give value to it, and communicate that experience with others.
• It promotes the notions of life long learning and independent learning
•  It develops students communicative skills
•  It is a reflective process that helps students reflect upon their learning and find deep connections with the subject matter of a course or with an out-of-class experience.
•  It fosters students sense of individuality
•  It also gives students an opportunity to experiment with self-representation and establish their identity
• Students creating digital stories develop proficiency with multimedia applications

What I can add is the additional and obvious language learning benefit.  Getting students to write in a language which is not their native tongue is hard enough.  Giving them the opportunity to write about something that interests them is a must and if you add the 'wow' factor of an engaging tool, you've won half the battle!  Sharing their stories with their classmates is also a rich language learning strategy.  They have to read and understand (hopefully!) others' stories which means that they are receiving more language input than if they had simply written down a story in paper-form and handed it in to the teacher.  

The following link will take you the article written by Med Kharbach where you will find a long list of great 2.0 tools that can be used to write digital stories:

LIST OF FREE DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLS FOR TEACHERS

Get creating!

GRAMMAR GAMBLE

Grammar is not usually fun so why not try making it fun with GRAMMAR GAMBLE?
Learn and practise grammar as a game with the whole class.  What I like about this game
is that you can practise specific grammar topics that you may be learning at the moment.
If not, you can go straight into playing the game and competing against others from all
over the world with mixed grammar-related questions.  The more confident you are with
your answers, the more you will 'gamble'.
Very practical and engaging!

USING POLLS WITH STUDENTS

Let’s talk about POLLS. 

A poll is a survey used to give a public opinion about a specific topic or question. Using a poll with in your class allows you to ask one multiple choice question and receive results which will reflect how other students feel about a particular subject.  Nowadays, most polls are being asked online.  An online poll tool gives you the opportunity to receive instant information or feedback from other students in your class.  You can use create polls to use on your computer or on any device such as a smartphone, ipod or ipad.

Some easy sites to make polls are:

1.      http://www.polldaddy.com/
2.    http://www.polleverywhere.com/
3.       http://www.surveymonkey.com/
4.       http://pollcode.com/
5.       http://www.polljunkie.com/
6.       http://newpoll.net/

Look at this example.





Let students control some of their own learning by giving them the opportunity to be active and  feel that they are the 'creator' of learning activities such as this one!

WORDSIFT

Here is a tool I came across that I think could be useful for teachers working  on reading skills.  I think it could best be used by the teacher with the whole class, projecting the text in question using the OHP and working on the text as a group activity.  As well as working on reading skills, teachers are introducing key vocabulary in a visual way which facilitates comprehension, esp. in a foreign language.

Wordsift visualizes texts and picks out the most frequent words used.  Wordsift also does a google image search and retrieves images to match the two most frequent words found. Examples from the source text containing the most frequent word in the text is displayed under the Visual Thesaurus word web.  One intended use of this feature is to organize the text to preview key vocabulary. 

CULIPS

ESL PODCASTS

A Canadian based website with playful podcasts to help you learn English. Culips podcasts have a lot of cultural contents and we talk a lot about life in Canada and in Montreal in particular.

THE TIMES IN PLAIN ENGLISH

Reading a newspaper can be a frustrating experience, even in one’s own language!

 Add to the equation a language which isn’t your native tongue and the task becomes even more cumbersome.   Try using ‘The Times in Plain English’.

 The Times in Plain English brings you important news from America’s best sources of information. The writing is in clear, readable English.  It’s a great for learners of the English language because it avoids:

• Complex sentences
• Compound sentences
• Distractions from the main thought
• Comparisons
• Metaphors, similes and analogies
• Argot, slang and idiomatic words
• Contractions
• Adjectives

This is a great reading resource for English teachers!