Category Archives: Speaking

SoundCloud: need to share a recording?

Audio, Create your own stuff, freeware, Resources, Speaking, Tutorial, ,

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.

Comparatives and Superlatives Practice

Games, Speaking, Writing, , , , , , , ,

I wanted to say Happy Tuesday but this weather is really getting me down in the dumps. You might not believe it but it has been raining nonstop for more than two months now and I feel I need some sun to cheer me up. Added to this is the fact that I’ve been working mornings, afternoons, evenings and also two weekends in a row. Only today, I am quickly writing this post to leave again to go to work .

Anyways, these are two activities I’m planning to use with my Elementary students to practise  Comparatives and Superlatives. I found them via BusyTeachers and they are just what I need right now: highly motivating activities which require no preparation . Thank you  so much for sharing,Susan. (see her profile here).

Look Around You Race
Students in groups of four compare students in the classroom. Set a time limit of about 5 minutes and on your signal each group of students should write as many comparative and superlative sentences as they can about the people in their classroom. At the end of the time period, have one group share their sentences. If another group has the same sentence as the first group, both groups should cross that statement off their list. Continue until all groups have read all of their statements and any duplicates are eliminated. The group with the most statements remaining wins.

These Are the People in Your Family
Students are given about 10 adjectives that can be used to describe people: hard-working, tall, young, old, funny, intelligent, tall, fat, happy, pretty… Then challenge them to write a sentence using the superlative form of each adjective about a person in their family. Once the sentences are completed, each person should write a list of the family members who appeared in their sentences. Students in pairs exchange the lists of people but keep their sentences to themselves. Each person should ask questions about their partner’s family and try to match each person to their superlative adjective. For example, a person might ask, “Is Lucas the oldest person in your family?” The other person should answer with a yes or an explanation. “No, Lucas is only four years old.” Give students time enough to ask each other questions, and then see who in your class figured out the most family member qualities!

Tag Galaxy: Flikr Images to create a 3D photo-sphere

Create your own stuff, Pictures, Speaking,

Do you know anyone, especially students, who would not rather have a lesson spiced up with pictures?   Now, this  is  an amazing tool to work  with and  just plain fun! Tag Galaxy appeals to all visual students and it helps spice up a boring lesson. Have I  just said” boring lessons”??? Sorry! a slip of the tongue!!

How does it work? Easy peasy! You enter a tag  – I wrote Hobbies-  and as soon as you click GO , you will see a 3D galaxy with lots of planets of different sizes. The biggest one is for my Tag ( in this case Hobbies) and the smaller  planets will be words related to the keyword orbiting around my keyword

At this point you might click on another planet to combine words ( Hobbies+ books) and form a new galaxy.

Click on the big planet and see your picture collection , straight from Flikr  assembling.

Spin the globe  with the mouse. Click to select a picture and get a close -up. Cool!

Tag Galaxy in the classroom: I’m sure my students will be delighted to watch the whole process but leaving aside the cool part, I think using this wonderful tool can be highly motivating for my students.

♥ At the moment I’m teaching  Simple Past tense to my Elementary students and  I’m planning to use it  to do some speaking with the structure:

When did you last….? (play football)

I last( played football )( three weeks ago) +  the follow up questions.

♥It could also work  for Picture Description

♥Writing Skills: Students are given the beginning of a story such as: it was a stormy night … Students write “storm” as the keyword and the picures will help them spark their creativity.

Let’s go to the cinema!!!

Slides, Speaking, , , , , , , , ,

This is a very simple activity to do some speaking about films I intend to try with my Elementary students. Nothing too complicated but I guess they’ll love to see how  film titles are translated  into English. Who, in the name of God, translated the film DIE HARD  starring Bruce Willis  into LA JUNGLA DE CRISTAL or SOME LIKE IT HOT starring Marylin Monroe  into CON FALDAS A LO LOCO. Was it Google Translator???

Anyways, there is a whole lesson plan about films ( complete with vocabulary, listening, reading and writing) that I created some time ago, if you feel like doing some more practice ( Click on the picture if you are such a hardworking student), otherwise and for the time being we will just focus on speaking.

THE GAME: SPEAKING. The game is easy: the class is divided into two groups. In turns, one member from each group sits on the Hot Chair facing  away from the whiteboard. The members of their group have -like one minute- to describe, without mentioning the title ( that goes without saying, but just in case, I’m saying it), the film being displayed .

They will need to talk about.

Kind of film/ Nationality of the film/ director/ plot/

Some hints:

♥The film ‘_______’ is a(n) _______ film which takes place in _______.
♥The film is set in __(ancient Greece)__.
♥The story is based on __(a popular novel)__.
♥The film is directed by _______.
♥The main character(s) in the film is/are _______.
♥_______ is a character who _______.
♥__(Johnny Depp)__ stars as __(Captain Sparks)__.
♥In the film , __(Jack Black)__ plays __(a rock guitarist)The story is about _______
♥The best scene of the film is_____

Retelling a text using Wordle

Create your own stuff, Speaking, , , ,

This is not the first time I have used this strategy to invite my students to do some speaking but it is the first time I have used it with absolute beginners. It has taken me sometime to bring myself to do this kind of activity with my 12-year-old  absolute beginners. I am always afraid the task may seem to them like a high mountain to climb, but they have been studying with me for four months now and I feel they are up to the challenge.

I really feel that I can insist, until the cows come home, English  is not only about learning grammar, but if students are not actively taking a role in their education, there is little I can do.

So I have used a text, they had previously worked  with, to ask them to retell the story. The text was about Education and it told the story of two children Eduardo from Angola and Nabyrye from Uganda. Easy text and all about present simple, which is what they have been studying. Two texts, so great to do pair work!

I have used a tool I have used other times, Wordle, to create Word Clouds to help students remember the story and retell it.

Two useful tricks when using Wordle

♥ If you want a word to be bigger than the rest, just type it twice.

♥ Insert (~ ) between the words you want to keep together.

I have posted about Wordle to revise vocabulary here and to do  a Writing Activity here

Have a nice week!!