Podcast in Language Teaching Class

   

    I choose to use the Hobbit (BBCDramatization) as the podcast in my class. It is from the Arts & Entertainment section in BBC World News for Children.

    This podcast reminds me of one interesting experience when I was young. When I was still in primary school, I listened to the storytelling program from the radio for half an hour every day. The stories are produced from traditional Chinese martial stories. My mother often asks me to retell the story I heard from the radio. After a period of time, I gradually became the best story teller among the students in our class and all of my language skills benefited a lot from the story retelling experience.

    The Hobbits is also the most famous magic novel in English speaking countries, both the children and adults like it. By using this podcast, the students could also use it as a story telling resource. They can hear it every day without limitation of time and location. For the students who are in the low level, the teacher could ask them to listen to the story and retell it as much as they can, after that, they can get the reading sources to review the things they heard. For the students who are in the comparative high level, teacher could ask them to retell the story in front of the whole class. Students’ four language skills (listening, speaking, reading & writing) will be improved in this kind of practicing.

ePals： A Global Window

Nowadays, the internet has become the biggest net in the world, people could get news, share moments and buy anything on this net. There is also a raising trend of taking an online course in many countries. Students from different countries desire to learn from whole world and the ePals just feed this need perfectly.

Just ePals introduced itself, it is the leading provider of safe collaborative technology for schools to connect and learn in a protected, project-based learning network. With classrooms in 200 countries and territories, ePals makes it easy to connect learners locally, nationally or internationally. On this website, both teachers and students could join in a class or a project. For example, for the students they could join a project started by a teacher who is from Texas State in the U.S., the teacher hold this project for providing his students chances of communicating with  people from different countries. The students in his class could get close to the culture of his/her assigned country. They will present what they learnt at the end of the project. The students or teachers who join in this project from the other place could also get a chance to talk with a native English speaker. With this example, it is not hard to find that all the participants in this project got what they want to learn in this interactive, opening teaching environment.

I had learned in a university which locates in an undeveloped province in China. In my spare time, I had tutored the pupils for a long time. The biggest problem I found for the students is not the lacking of knowledge but their limited horizons. They didn’t know how big the world is and sometimes they even showed the emotion of resistance to discover the world. I believed that the world will be connected by the internet and one day the on-line class will also become the window for these students. Through the internet, they may know the world beyond the hills which are around them. And their teachers could also get the newest teaching materials for their students with visiting the online classes.

Amazed Tool: Stupeflix

I have to say that the Stupeflix is an amazed tool for making a short presentation with pictures and music. It is a really interesting when I found that I could also create a short movie with such several simple steps.

In L2 class, one of the biggest problems for teacher is to attract students. A good opening is necessary for this. With using the video produced by the Stupeflix, teacher could present the theme of the class perfectly and also catch the students’ attention. That’s why I said that the tool is convenient and perfect.

Using Voice Thread in L2 Class

In this mod, I have chosen Miao’s and Sugar’s voice thread for using, because they have a clear instruction in directing and one thing is more important is that both of them used the resource from students’ daily life. That could activate students’ motivation and lead the student to think.

From this course, I have learnt using a lot of tools of teaching and the voice thread is one of my favorite one. It solved a problem that the students could not communicate with others with their own voice after class in traditional teaching environment. There is a big difference between communicating in words and speech. The later one have a characteristic of immediacy, it could train not only the students’ speaking system but also their thinking system. For L2 learners, speaking out could also practice their mental quality and response speed, that’s what the writing down could not give to them.

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.