Useful resources for learning&teaching English
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It concerns me that we don't have enough time to work phonetics and rhyme in Primary Education. This is one of the reasons because I love working on poems and chants because they are very useful for becoming confident in English.
Improving students' pronunciation helps with reading, writing and communication and also it makes they feel comfortable and confident when they talk in English.
So, as you can imagine, the resource I introduce to you today is an excellent one because it can be shared in an educational web and students can practice by themselves in their laptops and computers at home. Click on the image below and have a look.
Hi everyone! Some of you already know that this school year I have been working through projects. That means that I didn't follow a student's book or any activity book. I tried to have my own projects in the English lessons and also I have adapted some activities so that English could participate in students' projects. This is an example today. I teach in a group where students have been working on Geology a long the school year. We have learnt a lot of facts about the Earth in the English lessons. Also, some of us have participated in different acts for supporting and taking care of our planet. Have a look on the resources: On May 14 2016, Greens from all over Europe demonstrated against coal mines in Lusatia, Germany, an iconic symbol of the fossil fuel industry that is wrecking our climate.
Click on the boy and you will find an interesting linked page about Geology
After that, here you have an amazing portal!
Identify Rocks Game
Click on birthstones and play the rocks game
Furthermore, if you click on this link you will find a useful National Geographic Quiz for your lessons.
Today is a very special day for American people. They celebrate the "Red Nose Day"!
It consists to be funny for money and give it to help kids who need it most. Personally, I think that it is an excellent idea to laugh, give and save a kid, as Ngosa. Watch the video below and try to understand the required information.
How old is Ngosa? Where does she live? How many people are there in her family? What is her favourite animal? What is her favourite colour? What is the adjective Ngosa uses for his father? What does she like to do with her sister? What time does she wake up every morning? What are the activities she does in the morning? Who is Rebecca? What is Ngosa's favourite food? Does she go to school? What are her favourite possessions? What does her teacher look like?
Each school year I meet some students with language problems, mainly in English because is a foreign language. So, I have been searching for some resources to help them to be aware about the difference between spelling and sounds.
Finally, I decided to give a phonemic approach to spelling.
I didn't use to do phonemic exercises in my English lessons but from now on, I will do them. Look at the example below.
Rhyme is found in poetry, songs and many children's books and games. Most students also love to sing and recite chants and poems. A good activity for children is to learn vocabulary through meaninful and funny activities. Listen to my helper and you will have a simple example of what I meant.
Simple words that rhyme add a magical touch to our pronuntiation exercises.
People who came to my workshop in APAC ELT convention last February listened to me talking about introducing surprises and new styles of teaching in our lessons. One of them, was to give musical versions to poems, vocabulary and verbs as well. Here you have a good example.
I have just find JoeZoo Express out and I'm very excited about the possibilities we have as teachers.
There are many things we can do but one of the most important is to use rubrics to give feedback and grades to students because it offers a free rubric builder. We can customize the rubric to meet our specific needs. Also, we can create, save and insert it into students' documents shared in a educational blog, as an example.
Maybe it can take some time to understand all of the features of it but there are lots of videos that will walk you through the settings and use of it.
Here you have the first one. You can subscribe it and follow its playlist of tutorials.
Kids Wordsmyth is a great visual dictionary that I learned about through Richard Byrne blog. It is a type of resource that I like to link to and feature prominently on this blog (useful webs for children, right side).
Students can search for words, hear them pronounced, read definitions and see illustrations of words as I said. Thus, when they don't understant the definition, the picture could help students grasp the description of the word.
Also, the dictionary is arranged in a virtual book with tabs for each letter of the alphabet.
You can ask many people about human rights and everyone will have different opinion about what they are. Some dictionaries describe them as a privilege but I worked them with children and we talked about something more basic.
Many people know something about their rights. Generally they know they have the right to food and a safe place to stay. But there are many other rights. Here you have the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in a simplified form,easier for teenagers.
Furthermore, if you click on the picture below, you will find some human rights quotes from famous people around the world.
Hi everyone!
Today is a rainy day in my town and I spent my morning reading about social networks. That made me think about them and teenagers and I prepared an oral activity to find out how children use them. Also, surfing on the internet I found the file below. Have a look at it. Personally, I think that as adults and teachers we have to work personal identity in networks.
Let's make students aware about what do they mean.
This is a good file for the oldest children in primary schools and for the youngest in the secondary ones. Although it talks about mass media in Britain in 2012, you can compare some of the teenagers' opinions with ours.
A-Hello, can you help me? B-Sure! How can I help you? A-Where is the...? B. Go straight ahead. Go past the traffic lights. Then, take the (first/second/third) street on the(left/right). It's (opposite / next to) the ... A- Thanks B-You are welcome
Before CB exercises let's have a quick review on comparatives and superlatives. Here you have a image with some information from 3 planets. Can you follow the example and use the adjectives below. Remember the rules of comparative and superlative adjectives.
A new month is here and this time it seems that spring is definitely with us.
The weather warms, flowers blossom and students of all ages look forward to have their "colònies" and the summer break.
For those reasons, they are sometimes excited. Working on poetry and values can help them to remind some rules for living all together and having good relationships.
