You Don’t Have a Chroma Key. So what? How to Easily Change the Background of your Videos

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Have you heard of Canva? I am sure you have.  Canva is free but, did you know that as a teacher, you have access to all premium features?  If you haven’t applied yet, you can do it here.   We will need the premium account for what I am about to explain here.

The problem

You and your students love role-plays. It allows them to practise specific vocabulary, work collaboratively, improve their pronunciation and their social skills.  There are so many possibilities: job interviews, presenting the news, ordering food at a restaurant, buying a house, …etc.

They are working so hard and doing so well that you’d like to record their performances. But… the background for their videos is always the same… the walls of the classroom. And… you don’t have the money or the expertise to set up a green screen, the famous chroma key.

The solution

What if I told you that there is an easy way to change the background in their videos without placing a green screen behind the students, i.e., without having to set up a chroma key?

Here’s how to do it

  1. Let’s assume you have already recorded your students’ performances.
  2. Go to canva.com and click Create a Design. Choose Video.
  3. Choose a background or upload one.
  4. Upload your students’ video
  5. Remove the video background
  6. Done

Not clear enough? I have also recorded this step-by-step video (2:37)

  • 0:00-1:30: static background
  • 1:32: animated background

 

Thanks to Natalia from https://natalialzam.wordpress.com/   for her inspiration to create the First Dates background.

Sentence Translation? Yes, but Gambling

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Ready for a fun, challenging collaborative activity? Here we go!

If you are thinking translation activities are boring, as I might have in the past, I am here to show you how wrong you are 🙂 . They can be fun and engaging, but most importantly, they help put the focus on structures or vocabulary students are struggling with.  I can almost guarantee learning success as long as you go over the translated sentences once the activity is finished. That’s key for fixing the target language.

This activity, which is really an adaptation of the game Sentence Betting, is easily one of my favourites when giving my students a writing activity. For 5 reasons:

  • All the class is involved
  • It focuses on specific problems
  • Students work collaboratively
  • It is fun and simple, but effective
  • it works well with any level.

Level: Any level

PREPARATION

  • Sentences. Prepare some sentences to be translated in advance. I would suggest 5-6 sentences.
  • Slips of paper. Fold a regular sheet of paper horizontally and cut it in half. You will get two slips of paper (This is a good opportunity to recycle the back of spare photocopies). Cut as many as you need bearing in mind that each group will need as many slips of paper as sentences you will give them to translate, ie, if you are going to ask them to translate 5 sentences, each group will need 5 slips of paper.

MATERIALS

  • Optional Money notes or Points. You can really play the game without money, but if you want to download some fake money, you can find it here. Alternatively, they can bet points.  All teams start with €1,000 or points.
  • The Betting Grid. Well, this will be later, to keep score, but it never hurts to know. On the board, draw a grid like the one in the picture below. This will help you keep score of the money teams win or lose.
  • A timer: to monitor the time. It is a good idea to display a timer so that students know the time they are allotted. Online, here

Time: about 20 minutes

THE ACTIVITY

The idea is to give students some writing practice, focusing on specific grammar or vocabulary in the form of sentences to translate. I like to give them a mix of easier sentences and more challenging ones. They will work collaboratively in groups and once they have translated the sentence within their groups, they will have to bet a sum of money depending on how confident they feel about their translation. They can win or lose this money. All teams will start with €1000,(choose the currency)

HOW TO PLAY

  1. Divide your class into small teams of two or three people. Give each team a number or a letter (Team 1, Team 2) or let them choose their own name.
  2. In advance, tell the class how many sentences they will need to translate.
  3. Explain you will give them one sentence at a time to translate, in my case in Spanish, and their aim will be to collaboratively, in their groups, translate the sentence.
  4. Not all the sentences pose the same difficulty, so the time allotted to translate the sentence will vary depending on the difficulty. Before they start translating a sentence, inform them of the time they have. It is always a good idea to display a digital timer on the board.
  5. Have groups write their sentences on the slip of paper clearly writing their Team number, letter or name.
  6. Once the time is up,
  • Ask Teams to bet money (or points) depending on how confident they feel about their translation. Write their bet on the board next to their Team number, letter or name.
  • Instruct someone in each team to hold the slip of paper containing the translated sentence up. Quickly go through all the translated sentences, adding the money/points they have bet if the sentence is correct and losing this money/points if the sentence is incorrect.
  • It is really helpful if you appoint a student to add scores on the board.

Note: Be strict with spelling mistakes or any other tiny mistakes. Students love it when you are strict and don’t give away the points easily.

  • Continue until all the sentences have been translated, at which point the team with the most points wins! Make sure the final question is challenging, it adds to the fun when there are two or more top teams!

Follow-up

Revision is a crucial phase in the process of fixing content. Once the activity is finished, do some oral retrieval practice. Read the sentences aloud, one by one, and have students orally translate them.

Want to reinforce? Repeat the activity the next day. I mean, the follow-up activity  🙂

Rewordify: Simplifying Text and Much, Much More

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Looking for a time-saver? Here’s one! Free, online and you don’t even have to register. It simplifies a difficult text but can also work with the original text; it has a clickable built-in dictionary, the possibility of listening to the pronunciation of highlighted words and automatically provides a variety of printable activities based on the vocabulary of the text.

Rewordify, what else?

Imagine the following scenario:

  • The problem: You come across an interesting article about Queen Elizabeth II, such as this one from the BBC, but… it’s too challenging to give your students.
  • The solution: Go to Rewordify and paste your text  into the yellow box. Click Rewordify text.  Done!

Is it too simple? Do you need a more difficult version of the text? Would you prefer to see the highlighted words in a different colour? Would you rather see the original text and the revised text in two separate columns? No problem! Just choose your preference by going to Settings in the upper right corner.

  • The problem: you have a text that needs to be worked on but…you don’t want to rewordify it.  You’d like to work with the original text, click a word and read the definition and, there’s no harm in asking, also hear how the highlighted words t are pronounced
  • The solution: Select Display mode from the Settings menu, then choose the second choice: Don’t reword words/tap to see the definition.

More?

  • The problem: Yes, Cristina. I agree, it’s an awesome tool! Pronunciation, definitions etc… But, I need my students to work a bit on the vocabulary and do some exercises and I don’t really have much time to prepare these activities.
  • The solution: Click on Print/learning activities and explore all the printable activities Rewordify offers you. A cloze text? No problem! A multiple choice quiz? Easy!!

Have a look below at all the possibilities

 

But that’s not everything Rewordify can do for you: If you need your students to work on Parts of Speech, Rewordify has you covered, too. To top it all, it’s free and online and you don’t even have to register. ( I know, I  have already said this at the very beginning of the post but there is no harm in repeating it, I guess) 🙂

PD: as always, this is not a sponsored post; I only write about what works for me.