SPEAKING: LINKS AND RESOURCES

Hi everyone,

Here is a brief list of some articles and resources you may want to have a look in relation to the Speaking session.

Speaking: Links and Resources

Hope to see you all soon!

SPEAKING: PRESENTATION

Hi again,

I've been having problems uploading the presentation, but it look like I've found a way at last...so here it is!

Slideshows, Podcasts etc...

A couple of links:
Firstly,
http://www.brainshark.com/mybrainshark
 Here you can do a few things, for example:
- upload a Powerpoint presentation and add voice to it
- create a posdcast

Here is my example, which you saw last Wednesday in our brief Bulgarian session!

Secondly, you can create quite fun presentations (flicks) with your photos at:
www.picturetrail.com
There are many special effects, wallpapers, backgrounds to use...
Here is mine:

Integrating skills through songs

Hello everybody!

I just wanted to congratulate Neda for the great course she has given us and all the brilliant ideas she has shared with us.

I also wanted to let you know that I have already put into practise some of her activities, in particular the one involving the song "Something". I really liked that activity because it worked all skills, students had to collaborate to reach a goal, it is quite enjoyable and it promotes creativity. For all these reasons, I adapted it for my 3rd ESO students. I used the song "Love is all around" and we dealt with the topic of St Valentine's Day, love, relationships, etc... and it worked quite well! Students were more willing to listen and to write, and also very interested in reading what their classmates had written. I will definitely use it again.

I really enjoyed this course. Hope there is another one next year!

Elena Luque

THEATRE IN CLASS!! 1,2,3 ACTION!!

Hi partners!! I am Sara Cledera I work in Villa Del Río with students who are studying 3º and 4º ESO. I would like to explain you my experience with them when I try to work with tasks which are not related to "grammar" or "irregular verb list". 

As we have discussed in the last sessions in the course, our students sometimes do not feel motivated when they do "writing" or "reading" skills. 

Throughout my experience with teenagers that are not always really into English, I have realised that if you propose them theatre, they usually change their views from the language.

From my point of view, students do not feel stressed and they have fun learning role plays. Futhermore, when they are learning the script they are working on the four skills "listening", "reading" "writing" and "speaking" . Finally, I can say from my experience, when a student participates in an English theatre, He/she changes his/her mind  in the second language positively.

INTERACTION MATERIALS

Here are the materials from Thursday´s session on Interaction. PowerPoint and links will be uploaded shortly...

INTERACTION MATERIALS

INTERACTION RESOURCES AND LINKS

Below you´ll find attached the resources from last week's session on Interaction. Any questions, please let me know.

INTERACTION RESOURCES AND LINKS

INTERACTION Slideshow

Hi again,
Here you have the slideshow from last Thursday's session. Keep us posted on any activities that you try here.

Strangers and Interaction

Here's an interesting article about Interaction in Cities which I came across a few days ago. Did you know that Interaction between Strangers is a subject at university?

Although no linguistic implication is discussed, it seems to me that the ways we as "individuals" may choose to interact (or not) with strangers may also shape how we choose to activate our skills and use language in context.

Read it here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/09/stranger-studies-101-cities-as-interaction-machines/62315/

Writing session tasks

Hello again,

Here are the handouts for the tasks to go with Thursday's session. I'm afraid they won't mean much to you if you didn't come on Thursday...

Writing Session Tasks

Writing Links and Resources

So, here are some links that you might find useful and interesting to explore.

WRITING LINKS AND RESOURCES 

WRITING Presentation

Hello,

I hope you enjoyed Thursday as much as I did! Very nice to see so much creativity around : )

Here is the presentation. I'll follow up with the handouts and resources very soon...

READING Presentation

Here's the slide show from the session on "Reading" last Thursday, 7th Feb.

Learning and teaching by e-Twinning

Hi guys,

I would like to share with you this tool in order to practise foreign languages, mainly English. Besides, you could enjoy with your pupils, and motivated them with this subject. In my opinion, it is a comprehensible tool because you and your students will know others schools, students, teachers, educational systems, ever their countries. I hope you enjoy working with e-Twinning.

If you want to explore e-Twinning follow this link:

e-twinning

English Workshop: Listening / Language and Music

Great to see so many keen teachers at the first session of the English Workshop at the CEP in Córdoba, and pleased to find some faces from last year's course, too!

As always, time just flew by and we'd only just scratched the surface of so many interesting and important issues. With this in mind I think it'd be great to use the blog as a place to sound off anything we haven't had time to deal with in depth during the session and an opportunity to get things off our chests...Who knows, they may just be a solution for a tricky situation around the corner.

Something that kept on cropping up again and again was the problem of large classes and the difficulties of teaching language (and not only language!) with sometimes 30 or more students who aren't always motivated. Motivation is of course central to creating a positive learning environment and it is part of our responsibility as teachers to get and maintain our students motivated. But what do we do with those that just don't want to be motivated? Do we persevere, perhaps at the cost of the rest of the class? Do we crack on without them? How do you find the right balance? It'd be great to hear your thoughts on that, so over to you...

I look forward to seeing you at the next session on the 7 February where we'll focus on the reading skill.

Neda 

This is the presentation on Listening / Language and Music (24th January):

Listening / Language and Music: Links

Here are some of the sites and articles I looked at to compile my lecture. I hope you find them useful.

The Listening Skill

The British Council have a nice collection of concise articles with practical tips on a great range of topics. http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles

Improving ESL Learners' Listening Skills: At the Workplace and Beyond

 The five language skills in the EFL classroom

Silvia Vernier; Gabriel del Moral; Sandra Del Giusti; Silvia Barbuzza (2008) "The five language skills in the EFL classroom ". En: Nueva Revista de Lenguas Extranjeras, Nº 10, p. 263-291.

Dirección URL del artículo: http://bdigital.uncu.edu.ar/2647.

Music and Song in the English Classroom

http://www.tuneintoenglish.com/

THE EFFECTS OF SONGS IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM ON
TEXT RECALL AND INVOLUNTARY MENTAL REHEARSAL

A dissertation by Claudia Smith Salcedo. The document is very long but interesting to dip into.

Using Songs Effectively to Teach English to Young Learners

A succinct article with suggestions for using songs with kids.

The 100 best London Songs 

Music in the English Classroom: going beyond the lyrics

by Fernanda Pereira ELEUTÉRIO, Isabella Araújo OLIVEIRA, Mariana Santiago SILVA

Profa. Ms. Márcia Helena Venâncio Faleiros (orientadora)

An overview of the benefits (linguistic and cognitive) of using  music in the classroom.

Music, language, and the Brain

Language, Music, Syntax and the Brain by Aniruddh D Patel

An article on the overlap in syntactic processing of syntax in language and music. Uses a lot of scientific terminology but is clearly written and overall provides an insight into this interesting area of research.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/november16/music-111605.html

Brief report on another remarkable area of research of cognitive neuroscience involving experiments with music. Dr. Nadine Gabb has conducted studies which have shown that trained musicians outperform non-musicians in a number of studies centred on detecting split-second differences in rapidly changing sounds.

Videos:

Music, Brain and Education Panel

Influences of musical training on language processing and executive functioning

Other interesting stuff:

Music and Language: A Fragment by T. W. Adorno

Webpage of psychiatrist and educator G. Lozanov 

7 laws of Suggestopedia / Reservopedia  (Principles of Lozanov's teaching method)