Bookr: Tell Your Own Story

My Winter Vacation by Yuechen Sun :: bookr ::pimpampum  

    As a digital storytelling tool, Bookr do not allow oral narration and music, but I have to say it is really convenient for using. You can make a story book with very few steps. You just need to type what you want to say and then search and add a suitable picture for your words. 
    For most language learners, writing practice is difficult but avoidless. For young students, encouraging them to write their own story with pictures by using an online tool sounds like not so scared for them. In my class, with using the story I created on Bookr as a sample, students will be asked to practice using the past tense to describe their vacation experiences. Making story books could be their homework after a grammar class. It could also be their holiday tasks. Pictures will catch their attention and encourage them to create better story.

A Great Tool for Presentation: Digital Storytelling

    Today, I have read a an article named 7 things you should know about Digitalstorytelling, from it, the digital storytelling is “The practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component.” In fact, this is a simple way to present a group of pictures. We may saw this kind of things on YouTube or in many occasions for many times before. And today I found that it makes easy for everyone to tell a story vividly and we can also make one for our teaching using.

    For language teachers, in most classes, they may have a theme to develop. A true story of the teacher told with the digital storytelling method will be a perfect opening. It could catch the students’ attention immediately and help them to understand the theme of the class better. For students, they will use several different capacities when they are asked to do a presentation with digital story telling method. They need to write a script to be the structure of the presentation, choosing the suitable music and pictures to express their content is also a challenge to young students. Sometimes they also need to work together and they need to learn to discuss with their group members. All of these abilities are necessary for students and of course they will benefit from using this method.

                          

Monopoly in L2 Class

    

  According to the Wikipedia, the serious game is designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. Serious game will sometimes sacrifice fun and entertainment. Serious games are not a game genre but a category of games with different purposes. 

    I chose a famous game called Monopoly. I’m familiar with this game because I have played this game in paper version for many times when I was young. I think this game could be used in the L2 teaching class. From the process of playing this game, the students would be able to know the vocabulary and foundational sentence structures in trading. From reading the clues on the card in this game, students need to listen to the others carefully and understand them completely. During the game, the teacher should walk around in classroom to answer the question from students, because they might feel difficult in understanding some sentences. After the game, the teacher could give the students a dictation with the vocabulary or sentences used in this game to assess whether the students have leant enough knowledge and skills.

Using ZUMA in L2 Class!

    In L2 teaching class, teachers need to spur the students’ concentration by using different kinds of method, sometimes include using games. Gamification has become a popular concept in teaching process. It is the concept of applying game-design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging. Everyone loves game, because the design of game always satisfied human’s need for reward. Sometimes with playing games, second language students could learn with higher efficient.

    Today, I will introduce a famous casual game called “ZUMA” and the method of using it into a L2 teaching class. It is a famous game produced by Popcap Company, many people love it. I have played it for many times before. In my opinion, with using this game in the L2 class, students would be able to learn how to use the words of color and the word of locality correctly.

    In this class activities, the students could work in pairs and during one students handle the mouse to control, the other one could help him by giving instructions in English. Like: “Click the red one on the right side!” “The blue one on the bottom!” We all know that sometimes the audiences feel the same level of nervous as the player. Students can change in turn after one game. Before the game, the teacher could act as a model by using the images from the game to show how to help each other to finish the task in game. During the playing process, teacher could walk around and give advices for students. In the next class or after the gaming class, teacher could ask students to write down the sentence they used in the activities assess whether the students have learnt how to use the right word to describe the color and direction.