Category Archives: Resources

English Media Lab

Games, Grammar, In the Computer Room, Vocabulary, , , ,

I’m sorry I haven’t posted for some days now but I’m up to my eyes. Preparing and marking exams takes up most of my free time. June is chaos!

I imagine you have plenty of ideas  when half the class is taking an exam and the others ,sort of have already passed all the tests, but here’s another one in case you’re running short of them.

I have taken my students to the computer room and let them roam a bit about this website. English Media Lab offers Grammar, Vocabulary , Pronunciation  , Videos and Games for different levels, though I have only used the  Elementary Level. They have all loved the Memory Games revising Vocabulary and they’ve made me promise to take them to the computer room once again before the course ends.

The website is a bit confusing because it has a lot of things and it might sometime take you outside their own website. I don’t really mind as long as the new website has what I’m looking for. Anyway , have a look at it and tell me what you think!

VEO: A video Converter

Audio, freeware

VeoVideo Converter is a site in Spanish which converts any type of video online. It’s versatile and very handy. Paste some video URLs or upload videos from your PC and convert them online to MP4, FLV, OGV, AVI, MP3, OGG y WebM  to name a few.

What I like most about this site is  that not only does it convert your videos so that you can see them in your PC  but also in your  Android, iPhone o Windows Phone and tablets.

The only thing you need to do is register for free and paste the URL  or upload the video you want to convert and you’ll receive a link in your email with the link to download the video.

Another important feature of VEO is that it offers the posibility of downloading  just the audio from Youtube .

Writing and Speaking Elementary : Describe a game

Pictures, Speaking, Students' Corner, Writing, , , , ,

Of all the skills a student has to become fluent at when learning a language  writing is, for me, the most boring one. I don’t think it’s the hardest by any means, this prize is awarded to Speaking but the truth is that students find it boring and we, teachers, almost always put off marking essays for as long as we can.

On the other hand, I find that it’s much easier for students to write a worthy piece of writing  if you provide a model, some guidelines to follow and also give them a topic  they are mildly interested in .

Last week’s topic for composition was Writing about a Game. I asked students to think of a game or a sport and answer the following questions

♥What’s the name of the activity? ♥How many players are there? ♥ How does a player start the game?♥What do the players do then?

I also asked some students to record their work and this is what they did (I used a tool called Fotobabble. I wrote about Fotobabble here). Thank you folks, good job!
Lucia Gonzalez Hide n Seek


Alba Feito “Marbles”

<iframe style=’border:0;’ height=450 width=400  scrolling=no  src=’http://www.fotobabble.com/api/fotobabble?apiKey=test&format=HTML&displayFormat=Player&id=cFo4UFNsVitSWjg9&height=450&width=400′></iframe>

Carolina Macas The Handkerchief

David Díaz The Liar Dice

 

Video Lessons: TedEd-Lessons Worth Sharing

Audio, Lesson Plan: Intermediate, Listening, , ,

I’ve known about TED (Ideas Worth Spreading) for quite a long time but although I found their videos very interesting I thought they were too long or too difficult for my classes. Now TED has launched a  new  site, called TedEd,  with  a collection of educational video lessons you can choose by subject and view in class or assign as homework. Every video is accompanied by a lesson with Quick Multiple Choice questions that check your general comprehension. If you have one wrong, you can always check with the video hint and you can also have Think questions that further explore the topic.

For teachers , one of the most powerful features is the FLIP THE LESSON where you can customize the lesson by editing the title, giving your own instructions, select  or deselect any multiple choice questions…etc.

This is a lesson I have flipped for my students. I used the video Questions No One Knows the Answer To to give my students some practice using Reported Speech Questions. You can see my lessonhere

 

Learn how to write an informal email with SlideRocket

General, Resources, Slides, Students' Corner, Writing, Writing skill,

Edit: Sliderocket is no longer free. Therefore, I have uploaded the presentation to Slideshare

SlideRocket is an online presentation tool that helps you create , manage and share your presentations. With this tool you can create better slideshows more quickly from within any browser.You can also upload your  PowerPoints or Google Docs presentations. Presentations are stored on SlideRocket’s servers and can be accessed from any device that is connected to the internet. For casual users , it’s free.