Modern Life.

I've created some "Potatoes", that is, interactive activities, to practise describing people, routines, and aspects of every-day life in general.

Our Wiki and a Webquest about war

I created a wiki where we can interact more directly than here, as there, you can edit the content. Here it is

I have also created a Webquest, that is, a project where we will go trough some activities which will make us reflect about a controversial and interesting topic: war. You will listen to some songs about it, you will investigate a bit and then, you will create an opinion about the topic.

I hope both resources will be useful and interesting. Why don't you have a look and tell me your opinion?

Reflexió sobre "L'àrea de llengües i les TIC"

Acabat el curs "L'àrea del llengües i les TIC" he de dir que he quedat encantada amb els coneixements adquirits. Sens dubte, compleix les meves expectatives inicials, ja que considero que la meva pràctica docent i l'aprenentatge dels meus alumnes milloraran amb totes les eines que he pogut conèixer a través d'ell. Crec que els meus alumnes podran gaudir-ne més de l'aprenentatge de l'anglès, la qual cosa farà que aquest sigui més fàcil. Les noves eines apreses faciliten la tasca de proposar activitats més variades, més properes als seus interessos, i amb finalitats reals més evidents per a ells.

La finalitat d'una llengua és la comunicació, i per tant, és indubtable que una eina de comunicació com les noves tecnologies ha d'anar lligada a l'aprenentatge de les llengües. En un món com el que vivim hem d'aprendre a desenvolupar-nos i a fer un bon ús de les TIC, que tanta informació i utilitats posen al nostre abast. Per tant, crec que l'aprenentatge de llengües i l'ús de les TIC es complementen meravellosament.

A més, sobretot a l'hora d'aprendre una llengua estrangera, Internet ens obre una nova finestra al món i per tant fa que els contexts d'ús de la llengua durant l'aprenentatge siguin més reals, la qual cosa no sempre és fàcil en el nostre cas. En veure aquests contexts reals, els alumnes poden veure millor la finalitat de les activitats, i per tant, l'aprenentatge resulta més productiu.

Amb aquest curs he aprés bones maneres de dur a terme tot això. És cert que no sempre ha sigut fàcil poder aplicar totes les activitats degut a la manca de temps, però per al proper curs, ara que ja conec les eines, prepararé la meva programació tenint-les en compte, i així aquest problema quedarà resolt.

Per a concloure, només puc tornar a repetir que he quedat molt satisfeta, i que esper que això es reflecteixi en els meus alumnes.

My poster about Poe.

I decided to create a poster with Glogster about Poe, one of my favourite writers.




By creating these poster I developed my capacity of using information and new technologies, and I improved my language skills. Also, I had a great time! Therefore, I encourage you to create one.
I suggested these activity as an optional one because we don't have time to do it in class before the term finishes, but if all of you did it, we could present your posters during the third term. I really think it would be a great and valuable experience.

I hope you do it!

Poster by Eloy.

Eloy decided to delight us with a poster about paintball. Great work!



Just a couple of corrections: it is not "actue" but "act", and "it has", not "it have".

Activity with Glogster

My dear students, I would like you to create a new poster, but this time, an "interactive" one, and about any topic you like- in English, of course. You can do it by using the tool "Glogster".

This is a tutorial about how to use Glogster, and here, one more.

And here you have a wondeful example:

Wiki about Romanticism

Together with some teachers of Spanish and some teachers of Catalan, I have created a Wiki about Romanticism. If you want to have a look, which would be great, click here.

By doing this, we tried to:
-create a site where students can relate the literary manifestations during these period in the three languages they know.
-serve as a model for further work for students, in which they will develope their reading and writing skills, as much as their capacity of collaborative work, and their digital and communicative competences.

I found the experience really rewarding: the topic was appealing, so the task became easy, and the process was fun because we collaborated and communicated a lot to each other.

So, my dear students, I think creating a Wiki about any topic you like is a great way to develope a lot of capacities while you are having fun. Why don't you try?

Reflexions sobre les activiats amb video i àudio.

Activitat 3, parlar.

Per a aquesta activitat vaig decidir utilitzar un exercici oral del llibre de text, que consistia en descriure un dels cinc animals imaginaris proposats per tal de que els companys endevinessin quin animal s'estava descrivint. No varem poder exposar les imatges a un format digital per que aquest exercici no estava disponible al cd de classe; encara així, vaig decidir-me per aplicar el vídeo amb aquesta activitat degut a que pareixia motivadora, divertida i adient als continguts que estàvem tractant- de fet, als alumnes els hi havia cridat l'atenció ja avants de que jo la presentés, la varen trobar al llibre i varen riure molt amb les imatges.També per això vaig preferir aplicar aquesta que no caviar-la per altra.

A l'hora de posar-la en pràctica, els alumnes varen preparar la seva descripció durant cinc minuts, i tot seguit, un per un, varen explicar-la als companys per a que endevinessin l'animal. Ells disposaven de les imatges al seu llibre de text.

En quant al fet de gravar als alumnes, va resultar en part decepcionant, ja que esperava que la idea els motivés, en canvi, molts no varen voler ser gravats, i molt menys, penjats al bloc. Encara així, amb els que varen estar disposats, varen fer una activitat de visionat dels vídeos per tal d'aplicar l'autoavaluació, que va resultar molt satisfactòria. Els alumnes varen veure les seues errades i es varen corregir a ells mateixos fàcilment, cosa que varen trobar útil i els va agradar.

Conversar.

Per a aquesta activitat vaig proposar que els alumnes mantinguessin una conversa, per parelles o grups de tres, sobre el que havien fet el cap de setmana, ja que estàvem tractant el Past Simple i el Past Continuous. Es varen preparar durant cinc minuts i després varem escoltar totes les converses.

Tal i com a l'activitat anterior, molts alumnes no valen voler que els gravés, a pesar de tractar de motivar-los explicant que veure les seves pròpies errades els ajudaria molt. Realment no esperava aquesta resposta negativa, però no vaig voler pressionar-los. Vaig fer la part d'autoavaluació amb els alumnes que si havia pogut gravar, i, novament, va resultar satisfactòria. Aquests alumnes, a més de l'aprenentatge que els otorga la realització de les activitats, rebran 0,5 més a la nota final.

My students in 2nd ESO describing an imaginary animal:

And talking about their weekend:

I'm really happy with all the work you are doing!!!! It seems some people decided creating a conceptual map in the end, which was not so popular as a Wordle about vebs- by the way, why did you all chose verbs and not adjectives or nouns? Anyway, I'm grateful about any effort you decided to do. I hope all these activities were useful and interesting, at least a bit. Let's keep working like this!!! :)

Conceptual map by Miranda:

Poster with new vocabulary by Carles:

And by Víctor:

Thanks guys!

The first personal conceptual map!

Isma has been the first one to dare sending a conceptual map on his own. I'm really happy, it is wonderful!

And Hamza has done a new poster with some vocabulary:

Wonderful work!

And still more Wordle!

I'm very happy with your work, my dear students! Below you can find some more posters. Now, why don't you try with the activity about charity? I think you will find it interesting and useful.

This one by Thierry:

 

By Isma Hihou:

And by Andy:

Wonderful work guys! :)

Conceptual map about UNICEF.

Here you have the first result! Doesn't it look great? :)

To enlarge the image, click on it.

 

If you want to add more, please, send it trough a comment or an e-mail. I can't wait to see it!

Charity

After talking about charity in class, I think you can investigate a little bit about the topic. Let's read some information about some charitable organizations, and then we will create some posters with the main information found, using this simple tool to create conceptual maps.

These are the articles, choose one:

Unicef.
Amnesty International.
Oxfam.
Or, if you dare, a longer and more detailed one, about The Red Cross.

I hope you find this activity useful and interesting.

And here one more, by Leandro. Fantastic!

And I'm still willing to see some more, please!

Some more results.

Wordle about Henry VIII and The Tower of London.

Here you can see some of the results from the previous activity. They look great!

If you want to add more, just copy and paste the link as a comment, so I can upload it.

Henry VIII and The Tower of London.

To understand better the first story in your book "Strange Tales" it would be great that you learnt about its context. That means knowing a little bit more about its setting, the wonderful Tower of London, and the character Henry VIII. To do so, can you watch some of the following videos? You may find a lot of new vocabulary. Why don't you take note of the new words you find useful? We will look up their meaning and then you will create some posters with these words, using this simple tool.
(To watch the videos or to open the tool, just click on them).

Let's go! I hope you enjoy it!


The Tudors song.The wives of Henrry VIII.
Henry VIII.

Anne Boleyn.

Elizabeth I.The Tower of London, video 1 and 2.

Gosths in The Tower of London.

Hi everyone!

Here you have my blog, where you will find resources and activities to improve not only your language skills, but also your knowledge about new technologies.
These two concepts are quite related to each other: learning a language doesn't mean learning a set of grammatical rules and doing "fill-in-the-gaps activities", it means learning to COMMUNICATE, and, of course, new technologies are a source of communication. Thus, they are going to be really helpful in our task of learning a language, and, the best you can use a language, the best you can understand all the information new technologies offer you. So, the relation is easy to see!

I hope you find this experience as exciting as I do.