jueves, 16 de abril de 2015

Task 8 - Create a Pass the paper Powerpoint

This is a funny activity that will help us to practice the second conditionals in our 2nd of ESO class. It is a pretty easy excercise in which we will pass a paper ball. The person that has the paper ball in her or his hands when the music stops has to complete the sentence that will appear in the slide.
It is not only a funny game that will help our students to practice their grammar skills (this same game can be used with many different purposes), but it will help them to be creative and to think fast in English.

Task 7 - Listening Worksheet from ESL Short stories

Today we are practicing with our students listening comprehension and to do so we have selected the listening audio from ESL Short Stories, a webpage which offers a lot of stories for teachers to use as listening activities or even for the students to practice. It also offers comprehension and vocabulary activities and even crosswords related to each story.

We have selected the story called "A Good Sandwich" to create our listening worksheets. The activities are aimed to students with of 3rd of ESO, and the objective is to develop their comprehension skills, which sometimes seems difficult for our students. 

This are the workseets created in order to practice their listening comprehension. Hope you like them!



Task 6 - Create a video with Animoto

This activity is aimed to promote reading in the School. Students of 4th of ESO (A2 level) will create their videos in groups to explain why it is important to read for them. They can use the sentence "When you read..." as a starting point, and use any picture, quote or sentence that they like.



On the 23rd April (International Book Day) they will show their videos to younger students of 1st ESO, that will vote their favourite Animoto video. The winner will receive extra credits and it will be published on the School webpage.



And this is one example of which could be the final result:


Task 5 - Write a book with Tar Heel Reader

We have been using TarHeel Reader as a tool to work with the writing skills of our students. In this case we are addressing this exercise to our A2 students of 2nd of ESO. We are goingo to show them the beginning of a story that we have created: "Department of Missing Socks"
The idea is that they will create a continuation of the story working in pairs and by using this same tool. In this sense we will provide them with a very interesting tool to create a text in a different way.
You can see the whole story by clicking"here!

Task 4 - Create an image based speaking activity using VoiceThread

I really like this tool in order to practice our students pronuntiation and help them to loose their fears to talk in English.
In this case I have created this activity for students of 1st of ESO as it is very easy. They only have to answer the questions formulated. They can either write their answers or to record their voices, which is fantastic idea for them to actually being conscious on the way they speak in English.
In this exercise I was unable to record my voice as I don't actually own a microphone. However I'm willing to use this tool with my future students. Click here to see the activity :)

Task 3 - Create an image based writing activity using PicLit

    At the beginning of the course we will divide our class in four or five groups (depending on the number of students). This groups we will work together on a project or final task at the end of every didactic unit and every single member of the group will have a responsibility, a role within the group that will rotate after the end of the tasks.
This groups will be based on the sailing teams of the Ocean Race, a sailing competition around the world. The idea is to learn to work in groups, cooperate and help each other through a sport competition that will motivate them and help them to open their minds, not only to teamwork but to discover and appreciate different cultures throughout the world.

    Every team will create their Team panels, with the positions on board (roles in the group), interesting facts about the members of the group.

    In this activity, aimed to students with an A2 level of course 4th ESO (it could be applied to any course). The students will be required to look for a quote (from a song, a poem or famous quote) or to create their own motivational sentence to encourage the team through the race/course. They will create their motto using Piclits (PicLits.com), a creative writing site that will match images with their quotes that will inspire the rest of the class.

Here you can find some examples:




Task 2 - A set of worksheets for A2 level students

I have selected four different worksheets to be used with students of 4th of ESO, that are supposed to have an A2 level of English.

  1.  This first worsheet is designed to put in practice the different uses os the future tenses "will" and "going to" and it consists in three different excercises. 

  • In the first one, students must circle the correct verbal tense. 
  • In the second one, we needto fill the gaps with the correct future tense.
  • In the last exercise, students must decide if the rules explaining the future tenses are true or false, which I think it is very interesting for the students to infer the rule from the examples

This worksheet has been selected from the webpage https://en.islcollective.com/ and the author has provided a black and white worksheet in order to be copied and a key to correct the exercises

 

2. This second worsheet consists in a game. This las 3 worksheets will help our students to describe people both physically and psychologically.
This is the classic game of "Gess who". The students will be divided in couples and each couple will be provided with a board with different characters. Each student will pick one that her or his opponent might guess by asking questions about the characther's physical features.
The author of this worksheet provides us a guide with possible questions that will imply the use of present simple tense.


3. This worksheet is a funny and motivating way to learn vocabulary to describe people personality. By the description os the star signs the students will have fun explaining if they feel reflected by the adjectives of their own satr sign or guess their mates horoscopes.

4. After all the vocabulary learned with the previous exercise, the students are able to complete this excercise of collaborative writing, found in the beautiful book written by Jane Arnold Imagine that! in which we can find different exercises dealing with affective elements


Task 1 - Summary of the legal framework of the use of ICT in the ESO

Real Decreto 1105/2014, de 26 de diciembre, por el que se establece el currículo básico de la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y del Bachillerato

Vivimos en la actualidad una auténtica revolución tecnológica. En unos pocos años, los avances informáticos y tecnológicos han ido creciendo y formando parte casi inherente de la sociedad actual del mal llamado Primer Mundo, de tal modo que nos resulta imposible recordar cómo viviamos, cómo trabajabamos, cómo nos comunicábamos antes de la era digitial.

     De este  modo, si la realidad ha cambiado de un modo tan radical, parece lógico pensar que también nuestra forma de enseñar y aprender (pues nunca dejamos de aprender) también debería de cambiar y adaptarse a una nueva de hacer las cosas, mucho más adecuada y coherente con la realidad que se impone fuera del aula. 
De este modo, el marco legal educativo de nuestro país debe reflejar, y así lo hace, esta necesidad de cambio acorde a nuestro presente y a la realidad del alumnado. Esta realidad la marca su condición de "nativos digitales" que les conlleva un conocimiento casi natural de la presentación y transferencia de información y el uso de herramientas tecnológicas de una manera que, para los no "nativos" no nos resulta tan intuitiva.

    Las nuevas tecnologías serán, de este modo, aprendidas y desarrolladas, por ejemplo, en el aula en una asignatura específica para la opción de Enseñanzas aplicadas en el curso de 4º ESO, Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación, que dotará a los estudiantes con las habilidades y destrezas necesarias para aplicar los medios informáticos, intengrándolos de manera más eficiente en el mundo laboral.

   Por otro lado, las nuevas tecnologías se integran de manera transversal en todas las materias cursadas en la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria. 
Esto se llevará a cabo mediante el uso de medios audiovisuales en el aula tanto por el profesorado como por los alumnos. Esto nos ofrece la posibiliada no solo de ilustrar la información de un modo más eficiente y atractivo, sino ofrecer la creación de proyectos mucho más motivadores y acordes con el mundo actual.
Por otro lado, será una herramienta básica para dotar al alumnado de autonomía como estudiantes y futuros trabajadores y les acercará al conocimiento y comprensión de las diferentes culturas de un mundo cada vez más globalizado.
Es por ello necesario un profesorado preparado y curioso en la adquisición de los conocimientos necesarios para acercar al aula de un modo coherente y natural a esta revolución tecnológica en la que vivimos inmersos y que, parece, solo puede evolucionar.
Finalmente, y como facilitadores de nuevos conocimientos, la ley educativa nos insta a integrar las nuevas tecnologías en nuestra realidad educativa, pero también a abrir los ojos a nuestros estudiantes, de los peligros, límites éticos y aspectos morales que implica su uso.