Hello everyone! "According to informationcollected by Android App Locket, the average user actually checks their phone around 110 times per day." We are so addicted our mobile phones that we cannot imagine living without them. Even the youngest generation use mobile phones proficiently, today. When we take into consideration these situations, one thing comes to our minds: We can turn mobile phone overuse to a beneficial condition. But how? And the other idea preoccupies us: That being the case, why do not we use applications? Today, I would like you to introduce an English language learning/teaching app called Johnny Grammar's Word Challenge.
This app is developed for English language learners by British Council. It has 60-second quizzes which include grammar, words and spelling categories. It is completely free and really simple to use, download it, register or play as a guest. When you click to play button, three categories will be appeared.
There are 12 topics under the section "grammar" which is available from easy to hard level. Choose the topic you want to practice and start your 60-second quiz and facilitate your learning. At the end of the quiz, you can also see your correct and wrong answers and receive feedback which is crucial for improving your language skills.
When it comes to looking "words" section, there are 10 categories which include common topics like hobbies, food&restaurants, idioms etc. You can choose easy, medium or hard level according to your proficiency, for each topic again.
The last section is called spelling. You are given 2 options, one is misspelled and the other is correct form. You can also earn badges and challenge with other players.
After learning a grammar topic, your students can play a 60-second quiz about that topic as an extra practice so as to consolidate their knowledge. They can compete with each other entertainingly and help one another by explaining why the answer is wrong. Student - student interaction will facilitate learning much better. Do not forget, what the key point is improve your target language and enjoy it at the same time. Therefore, I highly recommend you this simple, free and helpful app. If you have any comment or favorite app to suggest me, please leave a comment below. See you!
Hello there! Do you love to read? Are stories catching your attention? If your answer is definitely yes, it is so nice to know that there are bookworms among us like me, too. But what if your answer is no? What if you don't like reading books or novels? When we ask someone, who literally avoid reading books, about the reasons for this issue, nearly all complain about they are bored while they are reading: The length of the book, lack of visual items, not focusing on the book exactly make the process difficult for them. But as you would appreciate, in the golden age of technology, we have an easy solution for this complaints: Digital Storytelling
What is Digital Storytelling?
Digital storytelling is activities which are based on telling stories with the help of technological tools or software in a nutshell. It enables you tell stories through a great variety of audio, images, voice, videos, musics or text.
How did the process develop? What were the steps we did?
In this project, we worked in pairs and my project partner is my dear friend Kıymet Yasavul. We chose to create a fictional story, out of 3 options which are telling a story about friendship or a demonstration of how to process. Our story is called "The One Eyed Hero" (you can also find it at the end of my post) which is about a girl, actually our hero, stopping at nothing. I should admit that it was a really long process for us. Firstly, we wrote our script and created a storyboard which was the basic issue of this project. Inasmuch as we haven't limits while we create it, finding a story which satisfied us took time. We tried to make it a creative and entertaining one and we also created it based on a social meaning. After we had finished our story, we searched for images in compliance with our characters and events on the Internet, especially on the site Deviantart which includes great pictures people drew. We printed out pictures and drew them again by ourselves with carbon papers. On the following day, we painted them, it was the most entertaining part of this process because it has been a long time since we painted pictures, then we cut them. We downloaded some musics which support the points of our story. We thought we could record our voices, music and video simultaneously, however it was a more difficult process than we thought and it made us really anxious at the beginning. Firstly, we recorded our voices and music. For music part, we used "Aero Playlist Player" program which enabled us play two songs at the same time. Since our voices were echoed in the empty classrooms, we did it on the outside. At this point, everyone's laughing or talking was heard in our recordings -hopefully we could be successful at the final trying- Finally, we adjusted the voices-music and video clips via Windows Movie Maker. So, it was a difficult but mostly entertaining process for us. In order to we really satisfied with the result, we have already forgotten problems we encountered. :)
While we were painting pictures :)
What is the role of the collaboration in this process?
Two people means two different point of views, more creative ideas, less fatigue and saving time. Throughout this process we also motivated each other and we both take responsibility which was the key point that took away us the satisfying result more easily. All in all, thanks to collaborative learning, we developed our project and finished it in a better way in every aspect.
Will student's creating digital stories contribute to their foreign language development?
There are numerous advantages of Digital Storytelling for educational purposes. It provides encouragement and motivation for students as they learn how to use technology for the purpose of their EFL improvement and their development will be faster and easier under favor of these enjoyable activities. Digital stories can addresses both visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners at the same time. Additionally, students who play a part in a digital storytelling will enhance their language skills by developing ideas in foreign language, writing scripts, pronouncing them and so on. This also improve the formation of collaborative learning which is a plus for development of empathy and responsibility. The only thing you should do is keep your students informed about tools and create the task's processes step by step.
As a teacher you are the one that make a choice. You can keep away from innovations or provide your students with creative tasks or information. "In the age of information, ignorance is a choice" as Donny Miller said. But, if you ask me, for the sake of your students do not make a choice like this. You can see our digital story below. See you in my next posts!
Hello everyone! Hardly a day goes by without people using technology in today's world. Everyone, from the youngest to the oldest generation, integrate technology to their life in some way. What about integration of technology into learning/teaching process? As you know educational technology is so popular. However, to what extent we can implement it in education is still a problem. We are acquainted with such complaints as from language learners and teachers: "Learning/teaching a language is so difficult. Monotonous lessons facilitate problems as well. How can we alleviate this situation?" Easy. One of the answers to this confusing questions is websites.
Websites are really good options which provide various sources you can benefit from them with fast and easy access, all you need is only an Internet connection. Finding ELT websites which involve good quality and confidential information, on the other hand, is quite difficult. Today here I am with an English Language Teaching/learning website recommendation to you: ESLgold
What is this website exactly? What are the target audiences?
Eslgold is an ELT website which gives you opportunities to improve your English skills in several fields according to your level. All materials are free of charge to teachers and students. Unfortunately, I could not find any information about authors team. But if you want keep in touch with them, you can send e-mails and follow them on other social media accounts. (Facebook, twitter, youtube, google+)
This site involves flash cards, grammar explanations/exercises, topics for conversations, videos for grammar rules or speaking tips about some topics, podcasts, textbook recommendations, some links for reading materials and so on. Are you a beginner? You choose beginner section and start by checking topics under this section. Are you need help with reading, writing or listening? There are various quizzes, conversations and exercises about each of them. Are you looking for TOEFL/TOEIC resources? Knowledge about these exams, textbook recommendations, strategies as well as guides to preparation are available. Do you want to practice your English for business skills? You are in the right place. So, everyone learning English, from the beginner to the advanced, are the target audience. But I'm not sure whether children like this site or not since it is a little bit complex for them.
As you can see below, there are also 2 sections called talk and learn which include such topics as word of the day, places to study, phrases for conversations etc.
What about the purposes of this site?
This website aims to facilitating english language learning/teaching process through rich resources which provide students with improving their language skills whatever their level is and teachers with hundreds of materials, inspiring ideas and lesson plans. As far as I experienced, I did not encounter any broken links or any spelling or grammatical errors.
Pros and Cons
There are so many advertisements which divert your attention, thereby irritating you.
There is no date shows when the site has been updated which requires searching for it one by one every time.
Images about almost each topic are available. These are full of happy people, so it can be motivating and appealing for you. :)
I did not come across any games which are really impressive for especially young learners.
Thanks to site map, you can access easily what you are looking for.
By the way, you can apply this website to your lessons under favor of various materials. For example, you can use conversation topics with images on this website as a speaking task. You can ask for students what they feel or see when they look images and discuss in pairs and then perform it to the rest of the class. You can give this site to your students as an extra practice in order to reinforce their grammar knowledge. You can also take advantage of a lot of podcasts which I introduced to you here.
Lastly, the authors of this website are open to your comments and suggestions which you can share with them in an online survey. Please have a look at this website and fill out the questionnaire. Are you using websites for your English language learning/teaching process? If any, which websites do you benefit from? I'm looking forward your comments. See you!
