Check this out! If you want to encourage your learners to write and speak English this is a great tool to do it, especially with younger learners and teenagers. Xtranormal.com is a site where you can choose backgrounds, characters, sounds, actions etc and make a movie either by recording your voice or by typing in text that is then read back by an automatic voiceover (in a range of accents). It's like Voki, but you can get a lot more elaborate! When you have made one, you can e-mail it, embed it, download it (interestingly), share it on Twitter, Facebook etc etc....
Here's an example:
ICT Blog movie
by: JGakonga
It's free to play with and to make your first couple of videos (they give you 300 points to start with) but you do have to pay after that - I think it's quite cheap, though, and the three or four free ones that you are allowed on a free log in may well be enough for most learners.
Showing posts with label Speaking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Speaking. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Friday, September 30, 2011
My Brainshark.com
It's been a while since I've put a new entry on here - a combination of being away all summer and struggling to get back in the swing of things since we got back!
This site is a real winner, though, so I hope you find it useful. It does the same kind of thing as Present Me, but with audio instead of video, but it is sooooo much easier to use - I really like it.
Essentially, it's a tool to record presentations, but you can also use it to narrate over a document or over pictures. You have to register on the site, but it doesn't take long and it's free. Once you've done this, you can upload a Powerpoint presentation or a document, or pics and then record your presentation over it. I've used it for Powerpoint and the nice thing about it is that you create the presentation for one slide at a time, so (for learners) if you make a mistake, you don't have to re-record your whole presentation, just the last slide, and you have the option to listen to each slide again before you save it. When it's saved, you can embed it into a blog (see below!) or send the url link to a friend, or your teacher. This is brilliant for Business and Academic English, but your general English learners might like it, too. The other way you can use it is as authentic listening practice. There are loads of interesting presentations on the site that are freely available. You could assign one for the learners to listen to (maybe with some comprehension questions) or ask them to find one they like and tell another learner about it when they come back into class.
If you want some help using this, here is Russell Stannard's video to show you how.
This site is a real winner, though, so I hope you find it useful. It does the same kind of thing as Present Me, but with audio instead of video, but it is sooooo much easier to use - I really like it.
Essentially, it's a tool to record presentations, but you can also use it to narrate over a document or over pictures. You have to register on the site, but it doesn't take long and it's free. Once you've done this, you can upload a Powerpoint presentation or a document, or pics and then record your presentation over it. I've used it for Powerpoint and the nice thing about it is that you create the presentation for one slide at a time, so (for learners) if you make a mistake, you don't have to re-record your whole presentation, just the last slide, and you have the option to listen to each slide again before you save it. When it's saved, you can embed it into a blog (see below!) or send the url link to a friend, or your teacher. This is brilliant for Business and Academic English, but your general English learners might like it, too. The other way you can use it is as authentic listening practice. There are loads of interesting presentations on the site that are freely available. You could assign one for the learners to listen to (maybe with some comprehension questions) or ask them to find one they like and tell another learner about it when they come back into class.
If you want some help using this, here is Russell Stannard's video to show you how.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Present Me
Present Me is a really nice tool for encouraging your learners to get speaking/ presentation practice outside class. Learners can register and then upload a Powerpoint presentation and record themselves talking through the slides. If you have Business English learners, or people studying for IELTS/ academic English, this is brilliant, but even some of the ESOL exams (eg the City and Guilds Level 1 and 2 Speaking and Listening that I'm currently doing with a class) involve learners giving a presentation, so this is a good way for them to practice, send it to you and get feedback before they do the real thing in class.
It's relatively easy to use, but here are Russell's detailed instructions, which are very helpful. There are various levels of it, but the most basic is free, and frankly would be fine for most learners. This allows you to upload up to 50MB of material and speak for 15 minutes.
Tweet
It's relatively easy to use, but here are Russell's detailed instructions, which are very helpful. There are various levels of it, but the most basic is free, and frankly would be fine for most learners. This allows you to upload up to 50MB of material and speak for 15 minutes.
Tweet
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
VYou
This is another real winner from Nik Peachy - I think the man should have a knighthood, personally. Where does he find all this brilliant stuff??!!
One of the most motivating things when you are learning a language is to get involved on a personal level with native speakers of that language in my experience, but this can be a tall order. If you are in your home country, there won't be many English speakers around probably, and even those people who are living in an English speaking country (ironically) sometimes find that making friends and interacting outside of their own language community can be difficult. This site is a great way to practice your listening, but in a very personal way. If you click on the site, there are hundreds of people there with a brief description of who they are, categorised under 'hobbies, entertainment, professional sports etc etc. You can ask any of them a question and they will send you a video reply (presumably within a couple of days). You can also watch video responses to questions that other people have asked. Predictably, some of the responses are a bit lame, but some people are just great. One guy will write you a song about any idea that you send him!
If you'd like to be a participator as well as a listener, the sign up process is very easy and quick. And, of course, if you'd like to talk to me or ask me a question, here I am - go right ahead!!
The only potential problem with this is the obvious one that it's not filtered, so you might get some unsavoury content, but having had a quick surf through it, it seems OK.
Tweet
One of the most motivating things when you are learning a language is to get involved on a personal level with native speakers of that language in my experience, but this can be a tall order. If you are in your home country, there won't be many English speakers around probably, and even those people who are living in an English speaking country (ironically) sometimes find that making friends and interacting outside of their own language community can be difficult. This site is a great way to practice your listening, but in a very personal way. If you click on the site, there are hundreds of people there with a brief description of who they are, categorised under 'hobbies, entertainment, professional sports etc etc. You can ask any of them a question and they will send you a video reply (presumably within a couple of days). You can also watch video responses to questions that other people have asked. Predictably, some of the responses are a bit lame, but some people are just great. One guy will write you a song about any idea that you send him!
If you'd like to be a participator as well as a listener, the sign up process is very easy and quick. And, of course, if you'd like to talk to me or ask me a question, here I am - go right ahead!!
The only potential problem with this is the obvious one that it's not filtered, so you might get some unsavoury content, but having had a quick surf through it, it seems OK.
Tweet
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Using Video
Using video in class is a great idea for all sorts of reasons - it brings novelty and interest to the class, learners get visual paralinguistic clues to help them with listening comprehension, and if they are learning in their own country, it may even help them to assimilate culturally to English speaking environments.
I remember the days (and it's not that I'm old - although I am!- it's not that long ago!) when using video in class meant booking out the TV and video, lugging it through to the class, and then finding that someone had gone off with the remote and you couldn't use it anyway! Mostly I didn't bother. The IWB has revolutionised this and now it is a matter of a few clicks to a wealth of resources on the net.
You Tube is, of course, a brilliant site, with such a wide range of material that most of us don't ever look any further, but this website has a list of other video material that is also good for a change.
One example is the How Stuff Works website. This has lots of great text as well as video clips, on a wide range of factual stuff. This example is about bullfighting in France (who knew?!). The French version doesn't kill the bulls and they are the star of the show, which is quite nice. It's a nice little video - only 2.5 minutes and with lots of opportunity for discussion of animal rights, risky sports, etc. There are loads of other videos about different countries and cultures - you're bound to find something that will appeal.
Another good video site is CNN Student News. It sells itself as:
'CNN Student News is a ten-minute, commercial-free, daily news program for middle and high school students produced by the journalists and educators at CNN. '
and it really is good. Although it is aimed at teenagers, it's also very good for adult language learners. Each show has a transcript, which is great, and a daily discussion and newsquiz, so all of your materials are there for you. What more could you want??!! As with any topics that might be upsetting, controversial or sensitive, you will, of course, have to make your own judgement about what will work with your class.
Finally,of course, don't forget the TED site (see other blog entry on this) - if that doesn't make you think, nothing will!
Tweet
I remember the days (and it's not that I'm old - although I am!- it's not that long ago!) when using video in class meant booking out the TV and video, lugging it through to the class, and then finding that someone had gone off with the remote and you couldn't use it anyway! Mostly I didn't bother. The IWB has revolutionised this and now it is a matter of a few clicks to a wealth of resources on the net.
You Tube is, of course, a brilliant site, with such a wide range of material that most of us don't ever look any further, but this website has a list of other video material that is also good for a change.
One example is the How Stuff Works website. This has lots of great text as well as video clips, on a wide range of factual stuff. This example is about bullfighting in France (who knew?!). The French version doesn't kill the bulls and they are the star of the show, which is quite nice. It's a nice little video - only 2.5 minutes and with lots of opportunity for discussion of animal rights, risky sports, etc. There are loads of other videos about different countries and cultures - you're bound to find something that will appeal.
Another good video site is CNN Student News. It sells itself as:
'CNN Student News is a ten-minute, commercial-free, daily news program for middle and high school students produced by the journalists and educators at CNN. '
and it really is good. Although it is aimed at teenagers, it's also very good for adult language learners. Each show has a transcript, which is great, and a daily discussion and newsquiz, so all of your materials are there for you. What more could you want??!! As with any topics that might be upsetting, controversial or sensitive, you will, of course, have to make your own judgement about what will work with your class.
Finally,of course, don't forget the TED site (see other blog entry on this) - if that doesn't make you think, nothing will!
Tweet
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Nik's Daily English Activities
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!
Tweet
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!
Tweet
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Animoto
This is a really nice site for creating videos of pictures or video content that you can upload from your own computer or from the internet (or from samples on the site). You get to choose a soundtrack for it and different backgrounds and the result looks something like this:
There are lots of potential applications for this. The video I made depicts a trip to Egypt; you could ask your learners to watch the first time to see where I went, and then a second time, ticking off vocabulary on a list of things they saw (eg sail, pyramid, camel, seagull - including some likely things that weren't there -hotel, shops, bus). Then ask them to describe the trip as if they went, or to prepare a tour operator's persuasive sales pitch for the trip. The possibilities for this to be a catalyst for lots of language work are limited only by your imagination. You could also include pictures of your learners or of places that are familiar to them.
My only criticism of the site is that, although it's free, they do keep asking you if you want to upgrade and this can be a lttle annoying......
Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com. When you've made your video, you can save it, facebook, tweet or embed it, and it's very easy to use. You do have to register to use it, and the free version only allows you to make 30 second long videos - if you want to make longer ones, you have to sign up and pay. Still, 30 seconds is still enough to make something worthwhile for a language class.There are lots of potential applications for this. The video I made depicts a trip to Egypt; you could ask your learners to watch the first time to see where I went, and then a second time, ticking off vocabulary on a list of things they saw (eg sail, pyramid, camel, seagull - including some likely things that weren't there -hotel, shops, bus). Then ask them to describe the trip as if they went, or to prepare a tour operator's persuasive sales pitch for the trip. The possibilities for this to be a catalyst for lots of language work are limited only by your imagination. You could also include pictures of your learners or of places that are familiar to them.
My only criticism of the site is that, although it's free, they do keep asking you if you want to upgrade and this can be a lttle annoying......
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Jing
This is Russell Stannard's favourite, and it really is a fantastic tool. Like some of the other great ideas on the net, it's very simple, but has loads of useful applications. It's a screen capture tool, so you can use it to very easily take pictures and make videos of what is on your computer screen. Whilst you are showing the screen, you can also tape your voice explaining what's going on, or (if you have the Pro version) also use a webcam to make a video of yourself. The basic version is free, or you can download the Pro version very cheaply ($15 a year - about £10), and this gives you a few more options. When you have made a video, you can save it on your computer, or upload it to the server and have a url or an embed code to retrieve it by. There's a little yellow sun that sits on the top of your screen, so it's always there, easily accessible and it's a very simple application to learn to use.
This is a set of training videos from the Teacher Training Videos website that will show you how to use Jing.
There are loads of ways to use this tool. For me, it's an excellent way to get a 'connected classroom' going. You can really easily and quickly make videos that you can e-mail to your learners and motivate them to continue to study throughout the week. Some ideas -mainly from Russell - thanks :)
- Send them a short video of yourself talking, explaining what the homework is this week
- Put their homework on your screen and then talk them through the mistakes rather than using a correction code
- Put the vocabulary from the lesson on a word document, and show it, talking them through the meanings.
- Rather then just sending the url for a website that's useful, send a captured picture of it, with notes attached.
- Get learners to download the free version and ask them to make their own videos - you could ask them to find an image they like on the internet (perhaps one from the Google Art Project) and describe it. These videos can be embedded on their blogs or they can share the urls with you and with each other
- I think that with more and more distance and blended learning teacher training, this kind of feedback will really help to bridge the distance between tutor and trainee and reduce the feeling of isolation often experienced.
Here are some more ideas from Russell.
I recently sent out my first Jing feedback on some homework that a learner had sent to me, and she was really surprised and pleased. She wrote back:
Hopefully it'll be motivating!
I really like the idea of using this tool for giving feedback to learners. This is a link to an excellent article about this, and here's an example of a video I made on Jing showing how you can give feedback on written work.
Not many limitations with this - it takes a little while to upload a video after you've made it, and the maximum time you have is 5 minutes, but you can always make a series of more than one video if thats' a limitation. All in all, a real winner!
Tweet
This is a set of training videos from the Teacher Training Videos website that will show you how to use Jing.
There are loads of ways to use this tool. For me, it's an excellent way to get a 'connected classroom' going. You can really easily and quickly make videos that you can e-mail to your learners and motivate them to continue to study throughout the week. Some ideas -mainly from Russell - thanks :)
- Send them a short video of yourself talking, explaining what the homework is this week
- Put their homework on your screen and then talk them through the mistakes rather than using a correction code
- Put the vocabulary from the lesson on a word document, and show it, talking them through the meanings.
- Rather then just sending the url for a website that's useful, send a captured picture of it, with notes attached.
- Get learners to download the free version and ask them to make their own videos - you could ask them to find an image they like on the internet (perhaps one from the Google Art Project) and describe it. These videos can be embedded on their blogs or they can share the urls with you and with each other
- I think that with more and more distance and blended learning teacher training, this kind of feedback will really help to bridge the distance between tutor and trainee and reduce the feeling of isolation often experienced.
Here are some more ideas from Russell.
I recently sent out my first Jing feedback on some homework that a learner had sent to me, and she was really surprised and pleased. She wrote back:
Hey..
Wow this is kool
I didnt expect you talking to me
I did this in my email program, really quick
cheers
Hopefully it'll be motivating!
I really like the idea of using this tool for giving feedback to learners. This is a link to an excellent article about this, and here's an example of a video I made on Jing showing how you can give feedback on written work.
Not many limitations with this - it takes a little while to upload a video after you've made it, and the maximum time you have is 5 minutes, but you can always make a series of more than one video if thats' a limitation. All in all, a real winner!
Tweet
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Web Quests
WebQuests are interactive journeys that learners can make to find specific information using the internet and then report back on it in various ways. They bring ICT to task based learning and can be very motivating for learners.
This is a link to a ready made WebQuest in which you plan for a trip to Australia. The introduction states:
In this Webquest your objective is to find out about the culture and lifestyle in Australia. When you go there, what differences do you find? What do you like and dislike about it? What do you miss from your own country? What would you like to bring back from Australia?
and then there are five tasks to complete. These practise all four skills and also include a lot of helpful functional language. The first task, for example, asks learners to use certain sites to find out specific information, giving them lots of practice in reading.
This is a link to a ready made WebQuest in which you plan for a trip to Australia. The introduction states:
In this Webquest your objective is to find out about the culture and lifestyle in Australia. When you go there, what differences do you find? What do you like and dislike about it? What do you miss from your own country? What would you like to bring back from Australia?
and then there are five tasks to complete. These practise all four skills and also include a lot of helpful functional language. The first task, for example, asks learners to use certain sites to find out specific information, giving them lots of practice in reading.
But it's not all about using the net to find information - the learners are also required to do something with it!
So, after they have found out the information, there are speaking and writing exercises, including sentence stems to help with language activation (although there would probably need to be some teacher input on the 'I wonder (whether/ if)' structures, too).
There is a wide range of material here, covering grammatical areas such as comparatives and superlatives as well as the functional language. Plenty for several lessons. In fact, that might be my only real criticism - by the time you get to the end of it, you might well be heartily sick of the subject!
There are lots of WebQuests ready made and available on the net. The original idea was:
'developed by Bernie Dodge at San Diego State University in February, 1995 with early input from SDSU/Pacific Bell Fellow Tom March, the Educational Technology staff at San Diego Unified School District, and waves of participants each summer at the Teach the Teachers Consortium.'
and their website has loads of resources, There is also a linked site - Quest Garden which has templates to make your own WebQuests. You can register for a free trial for 30 days, or sign up and pay for a member ship, but it's only $20 for a 2 year subscription, so it won't break the bank! Making your own might be very helful if you were, for example, teaching CLIL and had specific content that you needed to cover. Other than that and if you are teaching general English, making your own is a lot of work and there are many good WebQuests already out there so you could use 'off-the-peg' ones!
Monday, February 14, 2011
Slide.com
I'm not sure that this is really very valuable for language learning, but it's a bit of fun and very easy to do! You can go to the site and upload a few pictures to make a slideshow, as you can with other sites, but you can also put different effects on them
With these pictures, for example, I asked my learners to guess who the people were and to describe them. I then went on to a lesson about families. I think that the puzzle aspect makes it that bit more engaging, and you can press the 'View All Images' button to see the images without them changing every second! It's quite limited in scope but it's a nice little gadget to warm up a lesson!
Tweet
With these pictures, for example, I asked my learners to guess who the people were and to describe them. I then went on to a lesson about families. I think that the puzzle aspect makes it that bit more engaging, and you can press the 'View All Images' button to see the images without them changing every second! It's quite limited in scope but it's a nice little gadget to warm up a lesson!
Tweet
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Slide Share
This site is really interesting. It's a huge bank of slide shows on any subject you care to imagine. I searched for 'efl' and found this one. There's no sound, it doesn't give you a presentation, but it's a great way of getting information on all kinds of subjects.
View more presentations from Bertha Leiva.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
English Central
This site is an amazing one for listening skills, learning vocabulary and practising pronunciation. It has a really wide range of video material at different levels, (indicated easy, medium and hard) that you can listen to and transcripts below them so that you can read along as you listen. That in itself would be helpful, but this site goes a whole lot further! As you watch each video, you can go back a line at a time and listen again (helpful), you can slow down the speed of the speaker (very helpful - I particularly love this feature) and you can click on the more difficult vocabulary in the transcript and it will give you a definition and a pronunciation guide (how much help do you need?!!). Fabulous! There is such a wide range of material it should appeal to adults with a wide range of interests and to young learners. You can register on the site and it will keep a track of your scores, but you can also use it without registering, and in either case it's free.
After you've watched the video, you can also use a microphone to record yourself reading each of the lines and the site gives you a score. Most of the videos have American accents, so you won't get 100% scores if you don't mirror that, but it's quite forgiving of other accents and even when I put on my most RP voice (ie quite different to an AmEng accent, but perfectly acceptable) it gave me a high score.
I think that this is something that you could set as a homework task, allow learners time to listen, understand the vocabulary, practice some of the pronunciation, and then come to class prepared to discuss a video that they have watched. It may be that you want to give them all the same one or they could each choose one and describe theirs to a small group as a jigsaw activity.
I think that this is something that you could set as a homework task, allow learners time to listen, understand the vocabulary, practice some of the pronunciation, and then come to class prepared to discuss a video that they have watched. It may be that you want to give them all the same one or they could each choose one and describe theirs to a small group as a jigsaw activity.
Limitations - I'm stuck to think of any!
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Vocaroo and AudioBoo
These two sites are both great for recording yourself or for your learners to record themselves. They're both great and both have their places. Vocaroo is really easy, straightforward to use and is a great tool for learners to use and e-mail their recordings to you, their teacher. AudioBoo is a bit more complicated although the layout is very nice, but you can do a lot more with the recordings you make.
With Vocaroo, the website interface couldn't be more simple.
Press where it says 'Click to Record', speak, and then click to finish. You then have the option to listen to what you've recorded, record again if you want to and then send it as an e-mail or post it on the net. I really like the idea of getting learners to record themselves speaking for homework and for them to send this to me.
Here's a bit of 'The Jabberwocky' by Lewis Carroll that I recorded:
The second audio site I tried was AudioBoo. This is much more sophisticated, and Russell can tell you better than I can how to use it: Here's a Boo that I made earlier, one of the downsides of it is that when you've made your boo it seems to take an extraordinarily long time to load to the computer, but once you've done it, it's saved and you can then tweet it, embed it, send it to facebook etc. You can also follow other people, so there is a lot of potential for authentic listening practice here.....
With Vocaroo, the website interface couldn't be more simple.
Here's a bit of 'The Jabberwocky' by Lewis Carroll that I recorded:
The second audio site I tried was AudioBoo. This is much more sophisticated, and Russell can tell you better than I can how to use it: Here's a Boo that I made earlier, one of the downsides of it is that when you've made your boo it seems to take an extraordinarily long time to load to the computer, but once you've done it, it's saved and you can then tweet it, embed it, send it to facebook etc. You can also follow other people, so there is a lot of potential for authentic listening practice here.....
Which of these sites is more sutable for your learners will depend a lot on your learners. If you have young, digital natives who are comfortable with Twitter, etc, they'll probably get a lot out of AudioBoo, but if you have less tech-savvie learners, or want to do some recording very simply, then, I'd say Vocaroo is better.
Tweet
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Worldmapper
This site is really interesting, especially if you have students who are quite politically aware (or you feel you'd like to make them more politically aware!). It has a wide range of world maps that are distorted according to various criteria. You can choose what you'd like to see -anything from numbers of people in tertiary education to internet use, and a whole raft of other things. Below is an example of one showing GDP, showing how the purchasing power of various currencies varies form country to country and therefore the discrepancies in power between nations. It's a bit of an eye-opener....
I think that this would work very well with educated teenagers or adults who are interested in world events. A simple print out would make a great warmer for a discussion on the topic and could be used for work on comparatives and superlatives, too. If you were teaching articles with geographical place names, it might make an interesting alternative to the 'take a trip round the world' activity, too.
I suppose that the only limitations are that the class would need to be fairly well educated and have a good sense of the actual geography of a world map (this wouldn't work so well with my ESOL class of middle aged South Asian women, I don't think) and that they need to have a background of expressing the kind of critical thought that this discussion would entail.
I think that this would work very well with educated teenagers or adults who are interested in world events. A simple print out would make a great warmer for a discussion on the topic and could be used for work on comparatives and superlatives, too. If you were teaching articles with geographical place names, it might make an interesting alternative to the 'take a trip round the world' activity, too.
I suppose that the only limitations are that the class would need to be fairly well educated and have a good sense of the actual geography of a world map (this wouldn't work so well with my ESOL class of middle aged South Asian women, I don't think) and that they need to have a background of expressing the kind of critical thought that this discussion would entail.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)