This blog is absolutely brilliant! Nik Peachey has so many great ideas for using the internet, and this is a list of dozens of websites for learners to use outside the class. It's also a great one for you as a teacher as many of these ideas can be adapted to use in class.
Here's an example - A city love story using a short film (9 minutes) from You Tube about Beirut. I used this is class - opening with a discussion of places you have been that have surprised you (because they've been better or worse than expected) and then discussed people's impressions of Beirut.
I then showed them the first minute (showing what a beautiful city it is) and asked for impressions.
They then watched the next 6 minutes and noted the things that the girl and the boy like. It's not in English, but there is really nice language in the subtitles (he likes the elasticity of cheese, for example!). We did watch the end of the film, but my main focus was then on the learners writing what they like about their cities or towns. It was really inspiring!
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Showing posts with label Quizzes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quizzes. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Quizzes
Quizzes - there are gazzillions of them (yes, that is a real number...) on the net. Just put 'English Quiz' into Google and you'll see that I'm right. They're quite good if you want to do a bit of form focused grammar practice, or if you want to learn vocab in lists. Does that sound a bit old-fashioned? A bit Skinner-esque? Get out the carrot and stick?
I guess it'll depend a lot on the kind of learners that you have whether or not these will be motivating or effective. I think that there is a place for this kind of material, if only because it raises awareness of language form and because using ICT you get instant feedback. You could use it to give practice in a specific area for homework or ask learners to find a couple of quizzes that they found helpful and swap them with each other as a warmer for the next class. It's probably worth using with an eye to how your learners enjoy it, though.
About.com has a wide range of quizzes at all different levels. This is the page showing you all of the options:
As you can see, there's loads of stuff! It can be useful if you want to give learners specific practice in a particular area, but the layout isn't all that motivating. Here's what they look like:
Another quiz site that has a huge amount of material is http://a4esl.org/ . As well as thousands of quizzes to practice vocabulary and grammr, there are also bi-lingual vocabulary quizzes in a really wide range of languages. This can be quite fun to do with languages you have never learnt - I got a surprisingly high score in Croatian based on some cognates and a bit of lucky guesswork!
This site also has some really nice links to VOA Special English (where you can read and listen to a special news programme) and to a variety of podcasts designed for esl learners.
I guess it'll depend a lot on the kind of learners that you have whether or not these will be motivating or effective. I think that there is a place for this kind of material, if only because it raises awareness of language form and because using ICT you get instant feedback. You could use it to give practice in a specific area for homework or ask learners to find a couple of quizzes that they found helpful and swap them with each other as a warmer for the next class. It's probably worth using with an eye to how your learners enjoy it, though.
About.com has a wide range of quizzes at all different levels. This is the page showing you all of the options:
This site also has some really nice links to VOA Special English (where you can read and listen to a special news programme) and to a variety of podcasts designed for esl learners.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Hot Potatoes
Hot Potatoes is a quiz maker. You can download it for free from here, and it has a range of different types of quiz, ranging from a crossword, to multiple choice questions, matching activities and clozes. It's nice in that you can produce quizzes that are applicable to your learners and include colour, pictures, and useful feedback with the answers.
This picture shows you the screen you get for making a JQuiz:
This picture shows you the screen you get for making a JQuiz:
It's a great tool if you have something specific that you want to test your learners on, and they can be saved to use with further classes or to share with colleagues or on the net. It's worth considering, though, that they take a lot of time to make and a very short time for the learners to consume. Also, although you can include feedback with the answers, on the whole, they are a testing, rather than a learning tool. They do take a lot of time to develop and there is already a huge amount of quiz type material on the net, so if you want to test your learners on standard grammatical items, it's probably best to do a quick Google search. If you want to develop more specific quizzes, though - this is your tool.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Eclipse Crossword
Eclipse crossword is a really nice site for creating crosswords (does what it says on the tin, really!)
You can download the programme so that it's on your desktop and it's very easy to use. All you need to do is add in the words you want with definitions, and it does all the work for you. You can print out blank copies, copes with the clues and answers on (useful if you forget the words you put in!) and you can save your word lists and crosswords to re-use. Great for recycling vocab (I often give my learners one at the beginning of the lesson with words from the past week - it's a useful 10 minute filler while you wait for the adult stragglers). You can also get your learners to make them for each other. What's not to like?
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You can download the programme so that it's on your desktop and it's very easy to use. All you need to do is add in the words you want with definitions, and it does all the work for you. You can print out blank copies, copes with the clues and answers on (useful if you forget the words you put in!) and you can save your word lists and crosswords to re-use. Great for recycling vocab (I often give my learners one at the beginning of the lesson with words from the past week - it's a useful 10 minute filler while you wait for the adult stragglers). You can also get your learners to make them for each other. What's not to like?
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Friday, January 21, 2011
Breaking News English
What is this?
click here for the site
This site is a teacher's dream. It has an enormous amount of topical material on it, prepared in a manner that means it is very easy to 'download and teach'. The site consists of an archive of news items, to which a new story is added every three days. These are all current affairs stories, but are on a wide variety of topics such as politics, sport, news, health, celebrity. It would be hard not to find something that would be relevant to your learners. Each article is also available as a podcast for listening practice.
This side of the site is its main focus, and you could be forgiven for using only that, but in fact, there is a wealth of other material here, too - interactive quizzes, dictogloss activities, matching, hangman, flashcards. The are also links to Sean Banville's blog which has some great ideas for classroom activities and methodologies, and to his other websites which include News English. com (a site with easier news items) and Listen a minute.com, which has easier listening activities. And all for free - the man deserves a knighthood!
How might you use it in a language teaching context?
How you use this will depend on the facilities available to you. Even in a class with no computers, the text and some of the activities can be printed off and photocopied for use in class. If you have access to computers, the possibilities are more numerous. Possibilities include predicting content and checking against the text, written or aural and using the games and quiz software to increase learner's awareness of vocabulary, collocation and structure. It would also be easy, given the amount of material on the site, to set up a jigsaw reading/ listening exercise where each pair int he class have the autonomy to choose a text that interests them, read/ listen to it and subsequently report back to other learners what they have found out. Tasks could usefully be set for homework, and there is sufficient variety of material and activities to help to maintain learners' interest and motivation.
Limitations
As the text is all newspaper based, the themes are largely of interest to older teenagers and adults, so the site is not so useful for teachwers of yound learners. Also, as has been noted, the level makes it less suitable for learners under intermediate level. Apart form that, the only difficulty in using this excellent site is in being selective abot the material you use - there is simply too much and it can be a little overwhelming! It is perhaps a little churlish, though to be ungrateful when confronted with such riches!
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click here for the site
This site is a teacher's dream. It has an enormous amount of topical material on it, prepared in a manner that means it is very easy to 'download and teach'. The site consists of an archive of news items, to which a new story is added every three days. These are all current affairs stories, but are on a wide variety of topics such as politics, sport, news, health, celebrity. It would be hard not to find something that would be relevant to your learners. Each article is also available as a podcast for listening practice.
This side of the site is its main focus, and you could be forgiven for using only that, but in fact, there is a wealth of other material here, too - interactive quizzes, dictogloss activities, matching, hangman, flashcards. The are also links to Sean Banville's blog which has some great ideas for classroom activities and methodologies, and to his other websites which include News English. com (a site with easier news items) and Listen a minute.com, which has easier listening activities. And all for free - the man deserves a knighthood!
Why is the content good for language learning?
The content is generally of quite a high level. However, the texts are generally quite short (some are marked 'easier') and so, with preparation it isn't unreasonable to think that this could be used with intermediate level students or above. As has been noted - the content is authentic newspaper text and as such, with repeated use, will help learners to develop the vocabulary they will need for reading text of a more formal genre. This might be particularly applicable to learners who are aiming to use their English in a context of academic study or business.
How you use this will depend on the facilities available to you. Even in a class with no computers, the text and some of the activities can be printed off and photocopied for use in class. If you have access to computers, the possibilities are more numerous. Possibilities include predicting content and checking against the text, written or aural and using the games and quiz software to increase learner's awareness of vocabulary, collocation and structure. It would also be easy, given the amount of material on the site, to set up a jigsaw reading/ listening exercise where each pair int he class have the autonomy to choose a text that interests them, read/ listen to it and subsequently report back to other learners what they have found out. Tasks could usefully be set for homework, and there is sufficient variety of material and activities to help to maintain learners' interest and motivation.
As the text is all newspaper based, the themes are largely of interest to older teenagers and adults, so the site is not so useful for teachwers of yound learners. Also, as has been noted, the level makes it less suitable for learners under intermediate level. Apart form that, the only difficulty in using this excellent site is in being selective abot the material you use - there is simply too much and it can be a little overwhelming! It is perhaps a little churlish, though to be ungrateful when confronted with such riches!
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