Avatars
This is an embedded Voki avatar, using embed.ly for the purpose:
I just made a new Voki. See it here:
http://tinyurl.com/y2mblfxz
Ed Puzzle
Below you can see a couple of EdPuzzle activities, which allow your students to watch a video and respond to some questions outside of the classroom. Almost any video can be used, as EdPuzzle allows access to YouTube, Khan Academy, TedTalks, NatGeo and many other video libraries.
Malta Warmers
WordArt.com can be used to create images made up of words that you choose. This is an excellent warmer activity, or a way of exploring a text.
Another type of online-generated warmer can be a Word Grid, created with LearningApps.
And a Present Perfect tense warmer on Malta:
Malta experiences by Roberta Basarbolieva
Another type of online-generated warmer can be a Word Grid, created with LearningApps.
And a Present Perfect tense warmer on Malta:
Malta experiences by Roberta Basarbolieva
Collecting resources in one place
There are two main tools for creating little, easy-to-access databases of resources that you can share with students or other teachers. One is Blendspace, which you can see in action here.
The other, whose design and editing menus I like more, is Pearltrees, which I've embedded below. Pearltrees works in the same way, and has better design-related capabilities. However, it cannot be embedded by HTML into other pages and blogs.
Presentations, by robertabas
The other, whose design and editing menus I like more, is Pearltrees, which I've embedded below. Pearltrees works in the same way, and has better design-related capabilities. However, it cannot be embedded by HTML into other pages and blogs.
Presentations, by robertabas
Presentation tools online
There are a lot of available web services for creating presentations. Everyone seems to know about Google Slides, an example of which I have here, and which is an online version of Microsoft Powerpoint, which is faster, smoother and more exciting.
Fewer people seem to have heard of Spark Adobe, which I tested here, and Canva, both of which provide you with plenty of free images to choose from. Spark Adobe also has transition and sound effects.
Below is a presentation sample made using Canva:
Travel presentation (sample)
BONUS! A way of doing mind-maps, which can also be used for presentations of sorts, is Mindomo, seen below:
Make your own mind maps with Mindomo.
Fewer people seem to have heard of Spark Adobe, which I tested here, and Canva, both of which provide you with plenty of free images to choose from. Spark Adobe also has transition and sound effects.
Below is a presentation sample made using Canva:
Travel presentation (sample)
BONUS! A way of doing mind-maps, which can also be used for presentations of sorts, is Mindomo, seen below:
Make your own mind maps with Mindomo.
House plan
Drawing and describing house plans is a popular activity for lower level students. This lesson combines that with question structures in an interactive manner
Objectives: revision of furniture vocab; revision of question structures in the present tense.
Step 1: As an open-class activity, have students brainstorm the different rooms in a house and the furniture that goes in them. A spidergram/mind-map diagram is best for this.
Step 2: Give students the exercise below to match.
Step 2.5: While students are working on Step 2, write the basic question words on the board. If students are working together on the interactive whiteboard, then do that right after they are finished.
WHERE
WHAT
WHO
WHEN
HOW
WHY
Step 3: Ask students:
Where do you eat?
Some expected answers can be: kitchen, dining room, bedroom. There is no correct answer, as long as the given answer makes sense.
Next questions to students should be:
What do you eat?
Who do you eat with? / Who do you eat?
When do you eat?
How do you eat?
Why do you eat?
The point of the activity is to form grammatically-correct questions and give them corresponding answers.
E.g. Why do you eat? --> Because I'm hungry. / Because I'm bored.
You can then repeat step 3 with the following verbs and any other verbs you choose:
Read
Drink
Cook
Watch TV
Write
Sleep
Objectives: revision of furniture vocab; revision of question structures in the present tense.
Step 1: As an open-class activity, have students brainstorm the different rooms in a house and the furniture that goes in them. A spidergram/mind-map diagram is best for this.
Step 2: Give students the exercise below to match.
Step 2.5: While students are working on Step 2, write the basic question words on the board. If students are working together on the interactive whiteboard, then do that right after they are finished.
WHERE
WHAT
WHO
WHEN
HOW
WHY
Step 3: Ask students:
Where do you eat?
Some expected answers can be: kitchen, dining room, bedroom. There is no correct answer, as long as the given answer makes sense.
Next questions to students should be:
What do you eat?
Who do you eat with? / Who do you eat?
When do you eat?
How do you eat?
Why do you eat?
The point of the activity is to form grammatically-correct questions and give them corresponding answers.
E.g. Why do you eat? --> Because I'm hungry. / Because I'm bored.
You can then repeat step 3 with the following verbs and any other verbs you choose:
Read
Drink
Cook
Watch TV
Write
Sleep
Office life
There are different sides of office life that our students may need to be able to deal with in English. This lesson will focus on building up their general office-related vocabulary.
You can start by linking your students to the following exercise, which can be done for homework on their own devices, or collaboratively completed on a class interactive whiteboard.
Next, get students to describe what each item is used for, and how often they use it. It would be interesting also to check whether they have any personal preferences when it comes to office supplies.
Do your students deal with office supplies? Well, they now have a problem. They are out of sticky notes, highlighters and staples (all at the same time!) and this impedes their everyday functioning.
They need to write an email to the relevant person, requesting the missing supplies.
First, they can test out their email-writing knowledge through the following exercise:
After the students have picked the correct answers, discuss the basics of a business email: greetings, opening sentences, closing sentences, register.
Then have students respond to the above email from Joe's perspective. Alternatively, have students rewrite Linda's email with a different request, matching their own business context.
You can start by linking your students to the following exercise, which can be done for homework on their own devices, or collaboratively completed on a class interactive whiteboard.
Next, get students to describe what each item is used for, and how often they use it. It would be interesting also to check whether they have any personal preferences when it comes to office supplies.
Do your students deal with office supplies? Well, they now have a problem. They are out of sticky notes, highlighters and staples (all at the same time!) and this impedes their everyday functioning.
They need to write an email to the relevant person, requesting the missing supplies.
First, they can test out their email-writing knowledge through the following exercise:
After the students have picked the correct answers, discuss the basics of a business email: greetings, opening sentences, closing sentences, register.
Then have students respond to the above email from Joe's perspective. Alternatively, have students rewrite Linda's email with a different request, matching their own business context.
Airports
Then launch them into a quick discussion activity to get them into talking about any of the following:
1. Travel
2. Travel problems
3. Problems in general
4. Fun activities
It can also be used as a warmer to a reading text about crazy shenanigans, with a focus on their impact on the city infrastructure, for example.
An actual text that can be linked directly to the above warmer is from the Financial Times and can be found on this link.
An actual text that can be linked directly to the above warmer is from the Financial Times and can be found on this link.
Paperman
Tell your students they will be writing a story. Tell them to put
their pens down and watch the short film, and play them Paperman, below.
Get your students' opinions on it and check if they need any vocabulary to tell the story of the film. Remind them to write in the past tense. Pair them up and give them 20 minutes to summarize the film in writing. Encourage them to describe places and people.
On the board, write these two sentences:
She said sorry.
She said I am sorry.
Ask if they are both correct. Elicit the correct punctuation for the second:
She said, “I am sorry."
Then elicit how to say it when narrating the girl’s words to a friend:
She said she was sorry.
Elicit the differences between direct and indirect speech: punctuation, change of pronoun, change of tense.
In the same pairs, students should continue the story of the film, creating the dialogue between the two protagonists and noting it down. Then they present their stories. They can also act out their dialogue.
If you have stronger students, they can swap their stories after 10 minutes and continue each others’. Encourage the use of different linking words and descriptive nouns.
On the board, write these two sentences:
She said sorry.
She said I am sorry.
Ask if they are both correct. Elicit the correct punctuation for the second:
She said, “I am sorry."
Then elicit how to say it when narrating the girl’s words to a friend:
She said she was sorry.
Elicit the differences between direct and indirect speech: punctuation, change of pronoun, change of tense.
In the same pairs, students should continue the story of the film, creating the dialogue between the two protagonists and noting it down. Then they present their stories. They can also act out their dialogue.
If you have stronger students, they can swap their stories after 10 minutes and continue each others’. Encourage the use of different linking words and descriptive nouns.
Why should teachers have websites?
The first, visceral reaction of teachers when it comes to websites tends to be, "What for? I don't have a business!"
But websites are not just for businesses and advertising (though that doesn't hurt). They can also be used as teaching tools, such as this one. Let's look at a couple of ideas for using websites in the classroom:
1. Putting up your video- and sound-based lessons in an easy-to-access location. You can then teach those lessons from anywhere with an internet connection. (If you don't like sharing, then you can restrict the searchability of your website through the settings).
2. Allowing your students direct access to exercises, tests, or self-study materials that you have chosen for them.
3. Setting up paperless lessons, be it discussion questions, images you want to use in your lessons, or activity instructions.
4. Providing your students with a platform for posting homework and sharing it with the rest of the class.
5. Giving an example to students of how easy and useful it can be to have a website, so they can create their own lesson-related pages.
And below you can see how to make a website of your own!
But websites are not just for businesses and advertising (though that doesn't hurt). They can also be used as teaching tools, such as this one. Let's look at a couple of ideas for using websites in the classroom:
1. Putting up your video- and sound-based lessons in an easy-to-access location. You can then teach those lessons from anywhere with an internet connection. (If you don't like sharing, then you can restrict the searchability of your website through the settings).
2. Allowing your students direct access to exercises, tests, or self-study materials that you have chosen for them.
3. Setting up paperless lessons, be it discussion questions, images you want to use in your lessons, or activity instructions.
4. Providing your students with a platform for posting homework and sharing it with the rest of the class.
5. Giving an example to students of how easy and useful it can be to have a website, so they can create their own lesson-related pages.
And below you can see how to make a website of your own!
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! (Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious)
I thought I'd start with one of my most popular go-to lessons when there is no programme to follow or I have to come up with a lesson on the spot. It works for all ages and levels and can be easily linked to other activities.
Objectives:
- Recycle vocabulary that students know in a new context.
- Practise story-telling tenses, vocabulary and structures.
I start the lesson by writing the word PLANET on the board. I get students to make new words out of the letters as an open-class activity, and clarify the rules as they go:
1. Do not repeat letters unless they are repeated in the word.
2. Do not use letters that are not in the word on the board.
Once students have come up with ten or so words, I put a new word down on the board:
I give students twenty minutes to work in pairs, making words from these letters.
During the twenty minutes I go around, moderating the word creation and helping along students who are stuck. Once the twenty minutes are up, I tell students to start writing a story in pairs, using as many of the words they have come up with. They underline the words as they use them and shouldn't repeat them.
Five minutes in, or once they have written an appropriately-sized paragraph for their level, students pass their story to the person on the left who continues it.
Two minutes later, they repeat this.
I repeat this a couple of times until the time they have is down to 30 seconds and they only have time to read the last sentence and write a short sentence of their own.
Once they are done, students get their original story back, they peer-review it, fixing mistakes they can spot. Then they read the stories aloud, and vote for the best one as a class.
Objectives:
- Recycle vocabulary that students know in a new context.
- Practise story-telling tenses, vocabulary and structures.
I start the lesson by writing the word PLANET on the board. I get students to make new words out of the letters as an open-class activity, and clarify the rules as they go:
1. Do not repeat letters unless they are repeated in the word.
2. Do not use letters that are not in the word on the board.
Once students have come up with ten or so words, I put a new word down on the board:
SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS
I give students twenty minutes to work in pairs, making words from these letters.
During the twenty minutes I go around, moderating the word creation and helping along students who are stuck. Once the twenty minutes are up, I tell students to start writing a story in pairs, using as many of the words they have come up with. They underline the words as they use them and shouldn't repeat them.
Five minutes in, or once they have written an appropriately-sized paragraph for their level, students pass their story to the person on the left who continues it.
Two minutes later, they repeat this.
I repeat this a couple of times until the time they have is down to 30 seconds and they only have time to read the last sentence and write a short sentence of their own.
Once they are done, students get their original story back, they peer-review it, fixing mistakes they can spot. Then they read the stories aloud, and vote for the best one as a class.