Category Archives: Writing

Voicethread and my students

Create your own stuff, Resources, Slides, Speaking, Writing, Writing skill, , , , , , ,

I’ve been meaning to use this tool for  quite a long time but  the right time never seemed to come.

I think this little dialogue performed by my most elementary students is a nice way of showing you what Voicethread is. VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways – using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam).

I want to thank María Sánchez and Rocío Ibias in the first dialogue and Eva Bedia and Ainhoa Nuevo in the second (from IES  Cesar Rodríguez – Grado) for their enthusiam. Thanks girls, I would never  have done it without you!

To use Voicethread you need to register but it only takes a minute and it can help you a lot improve your speaking and writing abilities. How ?

  • You can  record yourself describing pictures
  • You can  add comments to photographs
  • You can tell a story using different pictures

It also has a lot of potential for teachers.

  • I intend to use it for debates on issues: by asking students either to record themselves or  type their own ideas
  • I have already used it to record students doing role-plays

I’m sure you have plenty of ideas to use VoiceThread. Why don’t you share them with us ? Please, send a post if you want to contribute with your own ideas.

Writing a narrative

General, Writing, ,

This is a writing exercise for my PAU students and I thought you might find it useful. In this written exercise they’ll have to make good use of the vocabulary they have learnt about travelling and going places, the connectors they have studied and they’ll also have to put in practice some of the tips I have given them about the Writing Process, which if you are interested you’ll find published in this blog, here.

This is the idea:
Students, in pairs, are asked to write a narrative. They have to use words from both word clouds, i.e, they have to use connectors from the first word cloud and specific vocabulary from the second. Ask them to write their narrative in coloured  paper which you’ll later post on the walls of the classroom for student to vote for the one they like best.

 

Make sure that you:

♣ begin by describing when and where the story takes place

♣ describe the events in chronological order

♣ use the different forms of the past tense

The Writing Process

Writing, ,

We all know how hard it is to write , even in our own language so when the task is writing in a foreign language it seems  like a higher mountain to climb.

Why do students find writing such a difficult process?

The reasons are several and they can vary from student to student. I find that most of my students leave their written assignment until the last minute and writing requires time ; most students ,when they finally get down to writing , don’t really know what they want to say or where to start , there isn’t any  brainstorming process and students, very seldom , write a first draft.These are important strategies to consider , especially when your essay is going to be graded.

This is my small contribution to helping you write better. I only hope you find it useful!

Writing can be fun

Writing, Writing skill

And this is another superb site I strongly recommend. There are lots of sites that help you improve your listening skills but Writing Fun by Jenny Eather is one of the few sites I have seen that really helps you improve Writing. Poor writing skills is an issue almost everyone tries hard to overcome but we find it really hard because we never seem to have enough time to go through all the steps that good writing requires and that’s where Writing Fun helps you. Let’s see how to use it

♥Choose the type of text you want to write:narrative, description, persuasion, letters,emails,invitations…

♥Read the different examples mousing over the tips on the right to see the examples

♥Print it  or

♥Write online with the help of the text organiser.

Isn’t it just great!!