I Recorded Short Story Contest

10 Mayo 2013 — Cristina Cabal

Welcome to our I Recorded Short Story Contest. Open to all my students until May 31st!
Are you willing to try your hand at writing a short story in English and then reading it? This could be your chance to be internationally known; who knows who might be visiting the blog and listening to your stories and , well, you might end up being a well-known writer !!!
Yeah! I know !, Probably too far-fetched ! But ,what is undeniable is that this activity can help you improve writing and pronunciation, and this  is what  really matters!
As in every single contest of some importance , there are RULES. These are mine:

♥Entries must be in English
♥They must be recorded using the online tool Sound Cloud (Tutorial in Spanish , here)
♥Recording should last up to three minutes
♥Stories must be entirely your own work and must be previously unpublished
♥Only one entry per person
♥There is no set theme
♥Closing submission date: 31st May 13
♥Top three prizes to be determined
♥Winner will be announced the first week of June ,online and in this blog
HOW TO SUBMIT A SHORT STORY
♥First, you need to record yourself using SoundCloud.
♥Then , go to the comments section in this post
♥Write your full name
♥Write the name of your short story
♥In the Share box of your recording Copy/paste the link provided by soundcloud (starts with https)

Good luck !! Some pictures that might inspire you ,below!!!

I got this fantastic idea from the wonderful blog -MCargobe’s Blog-Room- written by a colleague from the EOI Valencia, which I highly recommend if you are willing to practise your English. Click here to see her blog.

Posted in Audio, Create your own stuff, Students' Corner, Writing, freeware. 3 Comments »

SoundCloud: need to share a recording?

3 Mayo 2013 — Cristina Cabal

Are you running out of time to test your students’ speaking ability? Are you  a student and looking for an easy-to-use tool to send your teacher your speech? I’ve found the perfect tool for you! It is called SoundCloud and has been around for some time now ,so one can only assume that it is entirely reliable.
Sound Cloud is an amazing site which has a lot of potential for teaching and learning English. What can you do with SoundCloud? You can upload your own audio and you can record yourself. You are then given a unique url and the possibility to embed the audio in your own website or blog.
Why am I so enthusiastic about my students using SoundCloud? Because my students willl be able to send me their recordings and I will be able to correct them by inserting comments about their pronunciation, grammar…. directly into the recording and exactly at the exact second at which the mistake is made.

You need to register but it is completely free up to two hours ; then, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan or delete some of your recordings.

Below I’ve embedded a SoundCloud Recording to tempt you to try this useful tool!

Snow Patrol - You Could Be Happy [HD] by Cristina Cabal
 

 Here’s a tutorial I found on the Internet which clearly explains how to upload and share your recording.

 

and now, for teachers, here’s a chopped tutorial from Princippia Innovación Educativa, about how to insert comments on a Souncloud Recording.

Posted in Audio, Create your own stuff, Resources, Speaking, Tutorial, freeware. 2 Comments »

Acapela.tv: converting text to speech in a funny way

27 Marzo 2013 — Cristina Cabal

This site is plain fun ! Acapela .tv is a new site that has a lot of potential for the language class.
Choose a real character or a cute cartoon and make him speak. Choose from a range of voices that interpret and read content with meaning and emotion. This text to speech tool is great to do dictations or revise vocabulary among other things.

HOW I’M PLANNING TO USE IT

♥I think it might be funny to divide the class into two groups -the class I have in mind, right now , is a small class of nine students; with larger classes I might need to divide it into three or four groups.

My aim with this activity will be to make sure students revise some vocabulary related to money for their next test. So, the class is divided into two groups. They need to listen to their cartoon speaking, write down the words the character asks them to revise and be able to explain them to the other group. Each character will say the same number of words and you know the rest… don’t you?? A competition , as usual, something that I , a very competitive person, just love.

A nice memory of a former student from Denmark , Patrick, who helped me teach English . Hope you like it, Patrick!

♥My next step will be asking selected students from different courses to do the job. The volunteers will need to go home , register and create a character to revise vocabulary . Obviously, they’ll need to copy the link provided and send it to me so that I can display it when playing the game in class.

What do you think? Will they like it?

Posted in Audio, Create your own stuff, Funny Stuff, Games, In the Computer Room, Resources, Students' Corner, Vocabulary, freeware. No Comments »

Traditional Recipes from Asturias

20 Marzo 2013 — Cristina Cabal

.”Better late than never” or so they say.
This booklet with Traditional Recipes from Asturias was written with lots of love by my former students from the bilingual stream at IES Cesar Rodríguez and with great memories of these amazing students I fulfill my promise . I only hope you are still reading this blog, one year later!


I have used the highly recommendable tool issuu . Click to enlarge.

Posted in Students' Corner, freeware. 2 Comments »

Creating Word Clouds with Tagul

4 Marzo 2013 — Cristina Cabal

And again it’s this time of the year when all my free time goes to preparing and marking exams so I don’t have much time left to dedicate to the blog. To tell you the truth , I don’t feel inspired! I start a sentence , I know I want to say something … but inspiration never comes. So I’ve given up! maybe , next week, I’ll be back to my usual self. Meanwhile , enjoy this site for creating Word Clouds. It is called Tagul .



Get Adobe Flash player


Posted in Create your own stuff, Resources, freeware. No Comments »

How to Download the Audio File from YouTube

28 Febrero 2013 — Cristina Cabal

A very short post to share  this tool with you.

ListenToYouTube.com is an online application for converting YouTube flash video to MP3 audio. The service is fast, free, and requires no signup. All you need to do is copy-paste the  YouTube URL, and the application will  extract  the MP3, and give you a link to download the audio file.

Posted in Audio, Resources, freeware. No Comments »

QR Codes in Education Part 1

13 Diciembre 2012 — Cristina Cabal

My intention when I started writing this article was to show how I was planning to integrate QR Codes in my classes but then I realized that there was much explaining to do before this article served its purpose. I am familiar with QR codes but I wondered if my readers were. For this reason, I have decided to split this post into two.Here you’ll find the theory , and in QRCodes Part 2 (coming shortly) you’ll see some of my ideas to introduce them in the classroom, or rather as homework ,as students in Spain aren’t allowed to bring their mobile devices to the school.

It was not that long ago when I saw for the first time a QR Code . I remember I was in Ikea and thought … what the heck is this? And then I thought … Do I really want to know? And then some time later…. But are they really here to stay?Now, it’s crystal clear to me that QR codes are here to stay and I am only beginning to test their potencial in education.

 But what is a QR code ? QR is short for Quick Response (they can be read quickly by a mobile phone)They are white and black barcode squares that can be easily generated and that allow you to encode text , urls, images and audio files among other things - lately they have become more sophisticated as you will see below. Now you can only begin to imagine the possibilities for education.

But how do we generate a QR code?

 GENERATING A SIMPLE QR CODE

Nothing could be easier. If you google “QR code generator” you’ll find lots . The ones below are just some of them:
Kaywa QR Code ( it allows you to encode URLs, text (160 characters), phone numbers,sms.   

GO QR.Me  (same as above but it allows you to encode 300 characters)

 

CUSTOMISING YOUR QR CODE

Now, we all know about QR codes: they are black and white squares, containing encoded data. Boring, isn’t it? Why don’t we decorate and make our QR code more stylish ?

 QRstuff is definitely my favourite  

VisualLead lets you integrate a QR Code into an image , blending QR Codes with a design or image of your choice

Now , we have created our QR code. What’s next?

GETTING A QR Code Reader

Lots of modern phones can read QR codes but first you need to download a QR reader/scanner. For example , in my mobile I have installed AT&T Code Scanner but there are lots of them you can download for free. For iPhone, Scan is a good one, and for Android there’s QR Droid.

 HOW TO SCAN A QR CODE

To scan the codes, all you need is a mobile device with a camera, and a QR code reader or scanner app to interpret the data in the code. Open your QR reader on your phone or ipod and center the QR code within the frame provided and let the magic begin!

Holding your breath for Part 2?

Posted in Create your own stuff, Resources, Tutorial, freeware. No Comments »

Classroom timers

26 Noviembre 2012 — Cristina Cabal

Something fun! and something to have fun with!  These classroom timers are a nice alternative to the normal sandtimer that I have downloaded to my ipad.

The website is called http://www.online-stopwatch.com/ and it offers a bunch of fun timers for the classroom, including timers you can use when two teams are competing against each other.

Click on the pictures and have fun!

Posted in Funny Stuff, Resources, freeware. No Comments »

Vocaroo: Free Tool to Record and Share Audio

22 Noviembre 2012 — Cristina Cabal

I just love this useful tool to record audio .I love it for many reasons:

♥You don’t need to register and it is free

♥ It is very easy to use

♥You can record yourself or upload a recording

♥ It can be easily shared  or embedded in a blog. It also gives you an url that can be sent via email.

Listen to me saying hello

Audio recording and upload >>

Posted in Audio, Create your own stuff, Resources, freeware. No Comments »

Stonehenge: one of the world’s most ancient landmarks.

22 Octubre 2012 — Cristina Cabal

and one of the most mysterious , too! In fact, over the course of years, scientists and philosophers have tried to attribute their origin to Merlin the wizard , to druids and even there are some crackpots who think aliens were involved but the truth is that even nowadays , after countless studies , nobody can say for certain why it was built.Was it an observatory,  a temple for sun worship, a healing centre, a place to bury the dead or  a giant calendar? How did they manage to carry the huge stones  and then, without any metal tools or machinery  build this impressive , unique structure?

I’ve selected this video about StoneHenge  for my elementary students. I have chopped the original from YouTube using TubeChop because it was too long and probably too difficult, too. Hope it is useful!

I have decided on the True/Flase exercise because I think it is  easier  than the Open Questions option.

AFTER WATCHING THE VIDEO, DECIDE WHETHER THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS ARE TRUE OR FALSE AND CORRECT THE FALSE ONES.
1. StoneHenge is in Northern England
2. According to the Medieval legend Merlin, the wizard, built it.
3. According to recent scientific studies,it was built 500 years ago.
4. Each of the stones weighs between fifty and eighty thousand pounds
5. The stones were carved using metal tools.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Posted in Listening, freeware. No Comments »
« Older posts