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Transcription

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Issue 20, Spring 2010
Competition
Click here to try our
Historic February
figures competition!
Click here to see last
term's winners!
Welcome to the
Mac Mag online!
The Macmillan Magazine
online is a
free-subscription
publication produced each
term by the Teacher
Training Department of
Macmillan ELT, Spain. It aims to provide teachers with a place to share
ideas and experiences. Teachers from all sectors are invited to submit
articles or tips on any area related to teaching.
Articles are categorized according to level (Infant, Primary, Secondary
Vote in our
and General) and there are also specialized sections such as the CLIL
poll!
Corner and Tips and teachers' tales. Don't miss our selection of Website
tips including our Days to celebrate and This day in history sections,
and win some readers for your school in our Historic February figures
Is ICT now an essential part
of language teaching and learning?
competition!
Yes
Have a good term!
No
New TT blog!
Click here access
Macmillan Teacher
Training's new ICT
blog.
Please send
us your
digital tips!
Click here
to read more.
Submit
New words
for the term:
Have you
been
framed?
GENERAL: Dramatising your coursebook
noughties: click
here
Harriet Thompson demonstrates how some simple drama
activities can really help to bring your coursebook to life, as well
as providing a springboard for some extra language practice.
transliterate: click
here
Have you attended
one of our teacher
training events
recently? Click here
to see if you've been
framed!
Back copies
SECONDARY: Authoring tools on the Web
What are Web tools, where can we find them, how can they
enhance language learning and how can we 'author' them to fit
our students' needs? Visi Alaminos provides a comprehensive
explanation.
The MacMillan Magazine © 2008 - Todos los derechos reservados - ISSN 1989-4120 |
Visit our
archive
to
download or print
back issues of the
Mac Mag.
New words for the term
Every week, the Macmillan dictionary team search the media to find out the newest and most interesting words being
used in the English language. You can find their latest BuzzWord on the www.macmillandictionary.com website. Each
term we'll feature two new BuzzWords. The words for this term are:
noughties (n plural):
If you'd never heard of the noughties , well, bad luck because they've just finished! The noughties came after the
seventies, eighties and nineties and refer to the years 2000 to 2009, ie the years where a nought follows the first two
digits of the year. Click here to read more.
transliterate (adj):
Are you able to read, write and communicate using a range of different media, including printed, electronic and online
media? If so you are transliterate! Click here to read more.
Historic February figures competition
March 8th is International Women’s Day and this term’s competition centres around three famous women born during
the winter months. First there’s Rosa Parks, the African American who made history by refusing to give up her seat on
a bus for a white man and subsequently became one of the most important ever civil rights activists. Then we travel
back almost half a millennium to learn why Queen Mary I of England was so ‘Bloody’. Finally, we return to the present
to find out what popular singer Rihanna has been doing lately. As usual, you have to visit our chosen websites and do
the activities.
There are various ways to enter our competition:
1) Print the page, fill in the answers and fax it to us ( 93...).
2) Photocopy the page from the print magazine, fill in the answers and send it to us by fax (93 209 99 49).
3) Send us an email with the answers (d.holmes(at)macmillan.es).
4) Click here for our online entry form. It's very quick and easy.
Please send us your completed entries (one per class) by Friday, March 19th. The winners will receive a set of readers.
Good luck!
1) Rosa Parks (born February 4th, 1913)
Go to Enchanted Learning: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/history/us/aframer/parks/
First, order the lines to make a summary of the Rosa Parks story. Then complete each with one of the following
words:
after
because
despite
so while
a) Many people were very angry, ___________ they boycotted buses in the city of Montgomery for more than a
year.
b) ___________ they were living in Detroit, Rosa and her husband Raymond founded an organisation which helps
young African-Americans and teaches them about human rights.
c) Five years ___________ she wrote her autobiography, Rosa received the Congressional Gold Medal.
d) Rosa Parks was arrested ___________ she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man.
e) ___________ opposition from the city of Montgomery, the US Supreme Court ruled that segregation on city buses
was unconstitutional.
Correct order: 1)____ 2)____ 3)____ 4)____ 5)____
Why not try out some of the Rosa Parks activities on the Enchanted Learning site?
2) Queen Mary I (born February 18th, 1516)
Go to About.com: http://womenshistory.about.com/cs/tudor/p/p_mary_i_tudor.htm
a) Correct the incorrect information (in italics):
King Henry VIII wanted to marry Catherine of Aragon. Correct word:_____________________
Because of this, Mary couldn’t be a queen. Correct word:_____________________
Elizabeth was the mother of Anne Boleyn. Correct word:_____________________
Mary became known as ‘Bloody Mary’ because of her protection of Protestants. Correct
word:_____________________
Mary was born in 1558. Correct word:_____________________
b) Complete this section of the Tudor family tree:
a)____________ b)___________ c)____________ d)____________
3) Rihanna (born February 20th, 1988)
Go to Rihanna’s official site: http://www.rihannanow.com/videos.htm and click on Videos, then on the video
called New Tattoo.
Listen to Rihanna and choose the correct option in each case.
1) Rihanna got her new tattoo a) last weekend / b) last week / c) last night.
2) She got it from Bang Bang - her favourite tattoo artist in a) New York / b) the USA / c) the world.
3) The tattoo is written a) upwards / b) downwards / c) backwards.
4) This is so that a) she can read it herself (in the mirror) / b) her friends can’t read it.
5) The tattoo says ‘Never a failure, always a) a triumph / b) a lesson / c) a success.
6) She says that it means that ‘It’s OK to make a) a mistake b) an excuse c) a complaint – just don’t make them
twice.’
Historic February figures competition entry form
Write the answers to the Historic February figures competition in the boxes below. Then please complete the
information at the bottom (your name, class, school and email). When you've finished, just click on the submit answers
button at the bottom. When the page reloads, you know that your submission has been successful.
Rosa Parks
(ordering
sentences)
Sentence 1:
Sentence 2:
Sentence 3:
Sentence 4:
Sentence 5
Missing word
for sentence
a:
Missing word
for sentence
b:
Missing word
for sentence
c:
Missing word
for sentence
d:
Missing word
for sentence
e:
Queen Mary I
correct word
1:
Correct word
2:
Correct word
3:
Correct word
4:
Correct word
5:
Family tree Person a:
Family tree Person b:
Family tree Person c:
Family tree Person d:
Rihanna - Q1
(write letter):
Q2 (write
letter):
Q3 (write
letter):
Q4 (write
letter):
Submit answers
Autumn historic voyages competition winners!
Many thanks to all those who took part in our autumn competition and a big 'Congratulations' to our lucky winners,
pictured below:
Group 'Pla', Academia Andaluza (Conil de la Frontera):
Coming soon - the Macmillan Teacher Training Department blog!
The Macmillan Teacher Training Department will shortly be launching our new blog! The blog will be available
exclusively to Macmillan Magazine Online subscribers and has been designed to meet the needs of teachers as
technology plays an ever-increasing role in English language teaching. Our Teachers' Day events this year will have a
strong ICT flavour and many of sessions presented by our in-house trainers will include demonstrations of various Web
tools which can be exploited in both Primary and Secondary classes. The blog will include explanations of each tool,
direct links to the sites where they can be found The blog will include explanations of each tool, direct links to the sites
where they can be found plus step-by-step video tutorials illustrating many of the tools including ideas for activities.
All Macmillan Magazine Online subscribers will receive an email announcing the launch of the blog once it goes live.
You will be able to access the blog via the Macmillan Magazine Online.
All subscribers will be invited to post their own comments and ideas.
Please send us your digital tips!
'The digital revolution is far more significant than the invention of writing or even of printing.' (Douglas Englebart,
inventor of the computer mouse)
Issue 21 (May 2010) will see the start of a new section in the Mac Mag Online - Digitips! The challenges of integrating
digital books, interactive whiteboards and web tools into our teaching presents a steep learning curve for most of us.
Therefore the more we can help each other and share tips and ideas the better.
Digitips aims to provide a shared resource where you can contribute tips of anything from one line to two paragraphs
about any aspect of using technology in the classroom that you have come across and feel you would like to share to
help colleagues around the country. If you discover a particularly useful keyboard function, however simple, please
write to us about it! Or let us know if you have a favourite IWB tool or Web tool and tell us about an activity you use it
with. Or maybe you've discovered an activity that works particularly well with your digital book... whatever it is, please
share it with us!
All contributions published will receive a small gift. So please send us your tips and ideas before the end of April.
INFANTS / PRIMARY
Tell me a story
Jeanette Corbett shares some tips for successful storytelling.
PRIMARY
A visual route into grammar
Rocio Martín suggests a colourful way of introducing older pupils to grammar.
SECONDARY
Learn to listen
Katherine Bilsborough has some ideas to give listenings a new lease of life.
Authoring tools on the web
Visi Alaminos gives us a glimpse of the kinds of tools available on the web, what to look for and how to use them.
GENERAL
Dramatising your coursebook
Harriet Thompson looks at how some simple drama activities can bring the language in your coursebooks to life.
CLIL CORNER
Teaching Science through experiments
Jane Kirsch provides some practical ideas for teaching Science through English.
TIPS AND TEACHERS' TALES
As ever, some great teaching tips and tales. Also check out our Mac Mag news and events section where schools can
share their special events with us. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to send in a contribution. A small
token of our appreciation will be on its way to you in the post shortly.
Dave Holmes, Editor
d.holmes(at)macmillan.es
Fax: 93 209 99 49
Tell me a story!
(Infants and Primary)
Jeanette Corbett pulls out some great ideas from the story bag to
help our young learners get the most from their story time.
These storytelling suggestions for young learners are based on a modern children’s story, The Gruffalo by Julia
Donaldson and Alex Scheffler, published by Macmillan Children’s Books, and the classic tale The Three Little
Pigs. However, you could adapt them for use with any stories which you enjoy reading with your pupils. The
activities are both fun and memorable for pupils and they allow them to take away something from the story, as
well as learning new structures or vocabulary.
Suggestions for successful storytelling
1) Use a ‘story bag’ to generate interest before telling the story. Put clues, such as pictures of the characters or
significant objects, realia, or important words from the story in the bag. The pupils pass the bag around, taking
turns to pull out a clue and trying to guess what the story will be about.
2) Employ a variety of tricks when telling the story to keep your pupils interested. For example:
• Use different voices for different characters.
• Point at the pictures in the book to guide your pupils’ understanding.
• Use actions to encourage pupils to participate in the story.
• Cover an important picture with a post-it note and slowly reveal it.
3) In order to ensure that pupils have something to take away from the story, get them to create their own story
envelopes. (This is based on the idea of getting teenage and adult students to recycle vocabulary by putting
words into a bag.) Give each child their own envelope and get them to add pictures to it every time you read a
new story. After reading the story for the first time, ask pupils to create character or vocabulary pictures. The
pictures below are some of those that my pupils created for The Three Little Pigs.
Here are some ideas for ways to use your story envelopes:
• Use the pictures in pairwork activities such as Snap, Guess which one or Mime and say. In Snap, pupils work
in pairs. First they each shuffle their cards and place them face down on the table. Then they both turn the top
card over at the same time and say the word. If they are the same, they shout 'Snap!' The first pupil to shout
'Snap!' wins the cards. The game continues until all the cards have been used.
In Guess which one, pupils work in groups of three or more. First, the teacher displays flashcards of the
vocabulary on the board so the whole class can see them. The pupils then place their cards face down in the
centre of the table. Pupil 1 takes a card, looks at it and keeps it secret. The other pupils have to guess which
one it is by looking at the teacher’s cards on the board and saying the words. If they guess correctly, they win
the card. Pupils take turns clockwise. The winner is the one with the most cards by the time all the cards have
been taken from the centre.
Mime and say is similar to Guess which one, but the teacher doesn’t display the flashcards on the board. When
the pupils take cards from the centre of the table, they must mime the pictures by doing an action of saying the
words silently, only moving their lips. Again, the first pupil to guess the word wins the card.
• Ask the pupils to put the pictures from the envelope in the order in which they appear in the story. When they
have done this, ask them to re-tell the story.
• Get your pupils to hold up the relevant pictures as you re-tell the story.
• Play Story bingo. I normally use this activity to revise the story after my pupils have heard it a couple of times.
Imagine your pupils have nine pictures from The Three Little Pigs. Ask each of them to select six. Then tell the
story again, but quicker than before. When they hear a word relating to a picture card, they can turn that card
over. When they have turned over all six, they shout 'Bingo!' This activity works well because you often repeat
words in a story, so if they don’t hear the first time, they’ll always have a second opportunity.
• Ask your pupils to make sentences about the pictures.
4) One way to ensure that pupils remember vocabulary from a story is to create a chant. This is exciting for the
pupils and they love doing the actions. Click here to see one that I have made for The Gruffalo. Here are the
steps to follow:
• First decide which vocabulary to include from a story which your pupils are already familiar with. For example,
from The Gruffalo, I chose the body parts, such as terrible teeth, terrible claws, etc. My pupils had already learnt
actions for these vocabulary items.
• Next, look at the story again and focus on a repetitive structure to form the basis of your chant. I used I’m
going to… and added various different endings. This structure appears a lot in the story.
• Prepare a worksheet for the chant in which pupils can recycle something from the story. The example
worksheet has two stages. In stage 1, pupils draw pictures in the boxes next to the chant of the characters from
the story who say the words. For example, the main verses are said by a mouse, so the pupils draw a mouse in
the box, and when we come to do the chant, they put their hands on their heads as if they have got mouse ears
• Prepare a worksheet for the chant in which pupils can recycle something from the story. The example
worksheet has two stages. In stage 1, pupils draw pictures in the boxes next to the chant of the characters from
the story who say the words. For example, the main verses are said by a mouse, so the pupils draw a mouse in
the box, and when we come to do the chant, they put their hands on their heads as if they have got mouse ears
and say these words in a squeaky voice. The mouse then meets a fox (verse 1), an owl (verse 2) and a snake
(verse 3). For each animal they draw a picture and decide on a suitable mime and style of speaking. In stage 2,
pupils complete the missing lines with the Gruffalo’s body parts – they have to remember the order in which
they appeared in the story.
• Use a well-known tune to create your chant, combining actions, structure and vocabulary.
• Finally, perform the chant with your pupils and enjoy yourselves!
Jeanette Corbett is a teacher, teacher trainer and author. She currently words as Assistant Studies
Co-ordinator at International House / Academia Británica, Huelva.
This article was first published in ETp Issue 56 (May 2008) and is reproduced with the kind permission of the
copyright holders, Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) Ltd.
A visual route into grammar
Suddenly our pupils are expected to make the leap from learning language contextualised in songs and
stories to assimilating abstract grammatical concepts. How can we make grammar more accessible to
them? Rocio Martín shares with us the visual aids that help her 3rd cycle pupils get to grips with
grammar.
We often find that working on grammar at the end of Primary and even the beginning of Secondary school gets
more and more difficult. Visual aids tend to be a good way of helping pupils get to grips with grammatical
concepts. I find them a useful aid to getting them to understand how the language works, using the premise that
language is like a set of containers; they often maintain the same structures but are filled with different words
that have the same functions.
Colours and symbols
By the time they’re in third cycle, children are moving towards being able to bridge the gap between concrete
and abstract thought. They are becoming familiar with grammar terminology in their own language and many
will be capable of relating this to English. However, given that grammar is still an abstract area compared to the
concrete and functional language they’ve been exposed to so far, we should try to make the concepts as visual
and pupil-friendly as possible. Colour-coded symbols can work well. These are the ones which I use:
The subject symbol
The main verb symbol
Then I use what I call the walking stick verb symbol to refer to auxiliary verbs and modal verbs.
These verbs can’t usually stand on their own, hence they need the aid of a walking stick.
• Pink is related to questions. WH- stands for wh- question words.
• Blue is related to affirmative. A tick is the symbol for affirmative.*
• Red is for negative. A cross is the symbol for negative.*
• The symbol for a complement is C. (Alternatively you could use an ‘O’ for ‘object’.)
* Note: When pupils are responding, I show them three fingers so that they begin to associate these with the
fact that they need to have at least a three-word answer.
I give my pupils the following diagram. It shows how the above symbols can be incorporated into the question /
answer format (which both yes / no and wh- type question formats):
Statements are represented like this:
This next diagram shows how we apply the formulae to specific sentences:
I use a picture of a cupboard to represent words – the ingredients of the sentence - which are ‘stored’ in
isolation before being brought together and ‘cooked’ in the pot. The cupboard / cooking pot connection also
acts as a visual reminder to pupils that they should refer back to the question to build the answer, because most
of the elements in the answer have already been shown in the question.
These diagrams work well in activities where pupils have to order words to build the answer to a given question.
In the classroom I make posters of the cupboard and the pot. I also put the symbols onto cards and laminate
them, so that I can stick them onto a surface (in my case a flannel board) and put the words for a specific
sentence below them.
TAKE THE INGREDIENTS FROM THE QUESTION...
... AND COOK THE ANSWER!
Once the pupils get used to the metaphor, the grammar concepts come to life and assume some meaning for
them. Once the laminated symbols are made, they can also be stuck onto the board and used as headings
under which pupils can be challenged to come up with as many words (in a given time limit) as they can to go
under each. The cooking pot works for my pupils, but I’m sure many other teachers use different metaphors. I
find that relating the grammar to a context they recognise helps my pupils to decode it, understand it and
eventually produce it. Now they’re cooking with confidence!
Rocio Martín teachers at CEIP de Barrantes, Tomiño, Pontevedra.
Learn to listen
‘You gotta learn to listen, listen to learn’ as The Ramones once
sang. This is certainly true in the English language classroom,
although listening tasks would probably top most ESO students’
‘least favourite activities’ list. But why? Katherine Bilsborough
suggests some easy-to-manage tasks designed to increase their
motivation to listen.
A few years ago there was an article in the Macmillan Magazine
called Why do our students find listening difficult?* by Mike
Sayer, the co-author of Time for English 1 and 2. Mike mentioned
two factors that made listening difficult for students: a lack of
context leading to disinterest and stress factors resulting from their lack of control over the Play button.
This article carries on from where Mike left off. It is based on a series of Teacher Training workshops
that I did around Spain last year. The teachers who attended were mostly ESO teachers. They had the
same complaints and frustrations regardless of their teaching context.
I started each session by asking teachers how their students reacted when they saw them reach for the
CD player. Almost without exception the reactions were audible groans, protests and even laughter from
the most cynical students. But when I asked teachers how their students generally did in listening tasks,
their responses were surprising. Students usually do far better at listening than they expect to do. It
seems that our students have good listening skills. What they are lacking is confidence and self esteem.
Over the years I have discovered that by doing a simple fun activity related to the listening in the book as a way of leading into the real listening task – pressure is taken off the students and they usually
perform much better. I tell them ‘First we are going to have a little listening game and then we’ll do the
task’. By the time they get to do the task they have already heard the recording once, are familiar with
the context and feel less threatened.
The type of activity will depend on the nature of the script. Certain types of listening lend themselves to
different activities. Here are a few that go down well with my students.
Comprehension questions
Put your students into small groups. Ask them to look at the comprehension questions in their text book.
Tell them to guess the answers to each question. They should discuss their possibilities and come to an
agreement. Give a limited time for this. Groups will win a point for each correctly guessed answer. Play
the CD. Students listen and award themselves with points. The group with the highest number of points
wins.
Dialogues
Dialogues, especially those designed to practise social English, are ideal for a prediction activity. Play
the first line of the dialogue and press Pause. Invite the students to shout out the next part. Accept any
answers. Some students will probably say the ‘right answer’. This isn’t important. What is important is
that they will be thinking of all the possible responses. Give students plenty of time to respond and then
press Play so that they can ‘check’. Continue in this way with the whole of the dialogue. It’s noisy, but
answers. Some students will probably say the ‘right answer’. This isn’t important. What is important is
that they will be thinking of all the possible responses. Give students plenty of time to respond and then
press Play so that they can ‘check’. Continue in this way with the whole of the dialogue. It’s noisy, but
fun! What’s more, it generates a lot of language.
Interviews
Start by giving your students information about who is being interviewed. Then put students into pairs
and ask them to write down five questions that they expect to hear the interviewer ask. Walk around
looking at the students’ questions and drawing their attention to any errors. At this stage students should
be concentrating on writing questions that are grammatically correct. Explain that if they hear one of
their questions they get a point. If it is worded exactly the same they get a bonus point. Play the CD and
get students to listen carefully to the questions and award themselves points.
CollocationsThis activity can be done with almost any recording. It is great for getting students to think
carefully about which words go together and which words don’t. First, choose between six and ten
collocations from the tape script – making sure that some word pairs at the beginning of the recording
and some are at the end. Dictate the list of ‘first words’. From the example below you could choose
mobile, games, mp3, Internet, wireless, instant, text and social. Then dictate the list of ‘second words’ in
a different order (broadband, messages, access, phone, player, networking, console and messaging).
Give students a limited time to put together words from list A and words from list B, ie to collocate the
words. Students then listen and count how many collocations they have the same as in the recording.
Language chunks
This activity works along the same lines as the collocation activity and is ideal for listenings about a
specific topic. Tell students what the recording is going to be about (the example below is about
someone working in a cafe). Ask them to work in pairs and to write a list of 10 phrases (ie language
chunks with a minimum of two words) that they expect to hear, eliciting a couple of examples to check
students understand the task. If you feel the students may need prompting, quickly sketch a word cloud
on the board containing some word prompts (eg uniform, dishwasher, tables, etc). Play the recording
and tell students to award themselves points when they hear their phrase: 3 points if it is exactly the
same (eg wear a uniform, load the dishwasher, clean the tables) and 1 point if it they’ve come up with a
different (but correct) phrase, eg lay the tables. This activity encourages students to think of vocabulary
in a wider sense than isolated words.
Taken from Voices 3 Students’ Book by Catherine
McBeth
Bingo
Select nine words from the first half of a listening script and another nine words from the second half of
the script. Write them on the board in two columns. If necessary check that students know the
pronunciation. Get students to draw a bingo grid with nine squares and to fill the grid with four words
Select nine words from the first half of a listening script and another nine words from the second half of
the script. Write them on the board in two columns. If necessary check that students know the
pronunciation. Get students to draw a bingo grid with nine squares and to fill the grid with four words
from one column and five from the other. Play the recording. Students listen carefully for their words,
crossing them off as they hear them. When somebody shouts ‘Bingo!’, stop the recording. Tell the
winner to read out their words to check they’re correct.
Two main common denominators underpin all of these activities. By introducing students beforehand to
some of the key words and phrases around which the text is built, they maximise their chances of
decoding and understanding the recording when they hear it. The activities are designed to be fun, which
will hopefully raise motivation levels. Listenings don’t have to be dull or difficult!
Katherine Bilsborough is a teacher, teacher trainer and co-author of the Voices workbooks for all
levels.
*To access Mike Sayer's article Why do our pupils find listening difficult?, go to the Archive section,
click on Printed editions and then on Issue 7 Autumn 2005. Open this edition and then double click on
pages 6,7.
Authoring tools on the Web
In a time not so long ago, authoring tools would have been
considered to be a set of pens and a blank sheet of paper. Then
came the digital age. Visi Alaminos returns to the Mac Mag
Online to reveal what this ‘newspeak’ means, where the tools can be found and how they can be
harnessed for the benefit of English language learning.
As English teachers, we always try to individualise our teaching as much as possible in order to cope
with the mixed ability levels we find in our classes. We often use the many additional resources
included with coursebooks, or search the Web for online interactive materials. My personal aim has
always been to make my lessons as varied as possible and to individualise them, creating activities and
tasks that match both the level of my students and the contents in my coursebook.
The Net offers so many resources and possibilities to create our own materials to supplement the
curriculum that it is almost impossible not to dip right in and try them at least once. Authoring tools
offer us an opportunity to personalise our approach to our students and create activities that are adapted
to their level. Individual differences among students are noticeable and custom-made exercises can help
them to get the feeling they are learning and progressing. Different students have different learning
styles. For example, with vocabulary learning, some work best matching pictures with words, while
others prefer to memorise lists, find the words in a word search or unscramble anagrams.
What are authoring tools?
Authoring tools could be defined as ‘tools for creating materials for interactive media’. In laymen’s
terms, they are exactly what the name suggests: tools which you can use to author your own activites.
They help you to create interactive or e-learning content by means of word-processor style interfaces,
predesigned templates and Wizards (computer programmes or scripts used to simplify complex
operations for an inexperienced user). Again, as is the case with most cyberworld lexis, this sounds
much more complicated than it is. By ‘interactive or e-learning content’ I don’t necessarily mean
complicated WebPages, but rather simple activities such as word searches, scrambled words or
sentences, quizzes, interactive readings, surveys, treasure hunts, crosswords, worksheets with pictures,
quiz busters and bingos. We’ll look at some examples of each later in the article.
Why and when should we use them?
Word searches and memory games are a good way of learning or practising vocabulary, especially given
that students often need to go over the same words again and again to learn them. Students can do
self-study tests (see Worksheets below) which help foment learner autonomy, as they can choose which
areas they feel they need more practice with. Extra reading practice can be gained through treasure hunt
activities and sentence structure and word order can be reviewed by scrambled sentences.
There are numerous ways we can work these kinds of activities into our syllabus. For example, we can
generate cultural-related activities for festive times of year such as Christmas and Easter. We can use
them for extra-curricular lessons or as extra homework for students with special needs. We can even use
them as a basis for extra activities for those students who stay at school while others go on school trips.
What features can we find?
What features can we find?
Most tools are easy to use and provide ready-to-use templates with step-by-step instructions. They offer
the choice to create online (interactive) or offline (printable) activities. Sometimes hosting of the activity
is offered. This means that the materials you make can be stored on the site and accessed by logging in.
What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Authoring tools are fun, motivating and provide a welcome break from the routine of the coursebook
(even though their prime function is to supplement it. They are interactive and as such offer immediate
feedback. They can be personalised and the topic can be chosen by the teacher. And above all, they’re
free! However, they can be time-consuming to prepare and they rely on a fast connection (although the
printed version is always a viable alternative).
Aspects to consider when choosing which site to use
There are so many websites out there that the words ‘needle’ and ‘haystack’ easily spring to mind. Here
are some factors to take into account.
• Registration
Registration is usually easy with a username, password and an email address to confirm registration
being the only typical requests. A verification email is then sent to you to confirm that you wish to sign
up. As these sites are educational in nature, signing up does not usually mean receiving spam in your
inbox.
• Output
By output, I mean how the activity is going to be delivered to students. Some sites (such as Teachers
Direct) give you a choice of making your materials interactive or printable.
• Hosting
Once you have created the activity, does the site offer you free hosting, ie can you save the activities
you’ve created onto the site? Or do you have to download software to make the materials? This is more
inconvenient, as the materials you make won’t be accessible online (and the software download may not
necessarily be free). Ideally, once an activity is created, you should be able to bookmark the page (with
Internet Explorer this means adding it to your Favourites) so that it can be recalled at any time.
• Type of activity
The type of activity you wish to create should govern your choice of site, not the other way round.
Where can I find them?
Now lets look at some examples, starting with a couple of directories where you can find comprehensive
lists of sites containing authoring tools. There is an ‘authoring tools’ section in Christine
Bauer-Ramazani’s site which lists activities according to category (quizzes, surveys, puzzles, etc) with
brief descriptions: http://academics.smcvt.edu/cbauer-ramazani/Links/authoring_tools.htm and there’s a
similar list in my own site: http://www.visi.es/ict/ict_teachers_create.htm .
• Word searches
Word searches or word soups are a favourite for vocabulary revision, so why not create an interactive
one? Teacher’s Direct allows you to do this very easily. The following link
http://www.teachers-direct.co.uk/resources/index.aspx will take you to the ‘free resources’ section
where you will find three options: Quiz-Busters Plenary Quiz, a searchable Educational Internet
Resources section and Wordsearch maker. (Alternatively, if you want to go straight to the word search
secion, click here: http://www.teachers-direct.co.uk/resources/wordsearches/wordsearch-maker.aspx ) .
There’s a step-by-step guide you can follow to create a puzzle with your own topic and word list. You
can print off your final version, or students can interact with it directly online. Each correctly chosen
word is highlighted when the cursor is dragged over the letters. Puzzlemaker doesn’t have an interactive
element but it creates printable word searches along the same lines:
http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/WordSearchSetupForm.asp . Neither site requires you to
register.
• Scrambled words
Here are two sites which create anagrams of words in a chosen lexical set. In Abcteach, as a
non-member, you have access to a pre-set list with over 20 categories (both topic and phonic based):
http://www.abcteach.com/free_word_unscramble_form.php
Signing up as a member allows you to author your own set. Superkids
http://www.superkids.com/aweb/tools/words/scramble/ allows you to create your own word set directly,
but with a maximum of 10 words. In both sites you can print out your activity.
• Flashcards and game boards
Educational Press http://www.educationalpress.org/ contains a variety of activities catering for both
Primary and Secondary teachers. Included is a set of tools which enable you to create flashcards, ‘game
boards’ (bingo sheets and matching activities), study sheets, etc. More advanced users can click on List
Wizard which provides tools enabling more fine-tuned authoring and greater personalisation. The
Language Menu http://www.kitzkikz.com/flashcards/ also allows you to create flashcards.
• Posters
Teachers can create posters and worksheets at 4teachers. Students can create their own posters by
following four simple steps:
• Surveys
Although not strictly a teaching tool, Zoomerang www.zoomerang.com can be a useful tool in the
English classroom. It is a site designed for professional survey makers which offers packages with
different degrees of sophistication. The ‘Basic’ option is free. Students can create online, interactive
surveys on any topic.
• Worksheets
Finally, you can generate your own worksheets at http://www.worksheetworks.com/english.html.
Categories include Alphabet, Alphabetizing skills, Writing, Vocabulary, Parts of speech and Numbers
and Words. Each of these categories contain several options. A user-friendly, step-by-step guide is given
for each, allowing you to choose different options along the way. Here’s an example from the
preposition section of the Parts of speech category:
Like all new resources, web tools can be daunting at first, but once you’ve tried a few of them out you’ll
be amazed at what an amazing resource they are. You’ll also be surprised at how easy they are to author
yourself, and with new sites regularly appearing and technology constantly developing, we as teachers
need never be stuck for ideas for extra activities again.
Visi Alaminos teaches at IES Lliça and gives training sessions on the use of IT for ELT at the
Col.legi de Llicenciats in Barcelona. She is the creator and webmaster of www.visi.es.
Dramatising your coursebook
‘What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out?’ asked Alfred
Hitchcock. A small dose of imagination can help bring your
coursebook to life and provide the setting for some useful
language extension work, as Harriet Thompson illustrates.
Incorporating drama into English class is, for many teachers, a challenge at best. It is often made even
more difficult by cramped classrooms, numerous students and colleagues who believe that the silent
approach to learning is preferable. Unfortunately, I have heard these complaints from many teachers
who have thus been dissuaded from trying it out. However, drama activities can be moulded into many
shapes and sizes and are not necessarily noisy or chaotic. Furthermore, the long term linguistic benefits
far outweigh the inconveniences.
The basic principal of drama is that by creating a more natural environment in which to practise
language, learners are more inclined to do so. In other words, it provides an authentic setting for real
communication. Even shyer or less enthusiastic members of the group can find drama an easier medium
for communication.
Managing the class
Nevertheless, setting up a drama activity is not about a teacher’s theatrical expertise, rather their
classroom management skills. A teacher who uses drama will not be afraid to:
• break from routine
• let students take the lead
• encourage autonomy whilst providing clear guidelines and strict time limits
• find alternative ways of evaluating students based on their communicative merits
From a linguistic viewpoint, a drama teacher will:
• aim to make the class as communicative as possible
• enable students to explore new language
• encourage pupils to become observant and listen to their peers
• disguise grammar through drama games
Let’s look at some practical examples using a text from a coursebook and some different ways to exploit
it.
Mime in pairs
• Divide them into pairs and give each pair a vocabulary item from
the text. Examples from the story Expensive Washing might include:
lottery, blind, ticket, washing machine, wet, suspicious,
investigation. Choose words that students are forced to act out
rather than items they can simply point to (ie trousers), but avoid
new vocabulary.
• Allow the students two or three minutes to decide how they are
going to perform their mime and insist they practise it first.
• Pairs then walk around the room until the teacher says ‘Stop!’
They show their mime to another pair and try to guess the word.
• The exercise is repeated several times until each pair has met
several others. When it finishes, encourage students to return to
their seats and write down as many words as they can remember.
• Then, display the list of words on the board and students compare
with yours. Have them try to guess what the story could be about.
Before students read the text or story, whet their appetites with a
vocabulary exercise.
Taken from 'Expressions 1' by
Barbara Garside, Kate Fuscoe
and Luke Prodromou
Once the students have read the text, there are plenty of post-reading activities which can also involve
drama.
Sentence race
This activity is a fun way to check comprehension and remember events from the story.
• Prepare some sentences from the story on strips of paper (make two sets). You may want to shorten the
sentence or simplify the language. Examples from Expensive Washing could be:
• Write the sentences on the board eliciting words and tell them they have three minutes to memorise
them! If you have an interactive whiteboard, you could simply project the page and highlight the
sentences.
• Divide the class into two groups: Team A and B. Each group sits in a horseshoe formation with a
volunteer standing in front. Show each volunteer a slip of paper with a sentence from the story. They
have to mime the sentence in front of their group.
• The group member who guesses the sentence puts their hand up, says the sentence out loud to the
teacher and is shown a new slip to mime. The winning group is the one who guesses all the sentences
first. Allow the other group to finish.
• Finally, give back the strips and get each group to work together by ordering the story correctly.
• If moving students around is a problem, the activity could be done seated in pairs, with Students A and
B each given a different list of sentences to mime to their partner.
A different set of arms
• Students divide into pairs.
• Student A stands with their arms behind their back in front of Student B. Student B stands behind and
threads his/her arms through. Student A can then provide the ‘voice’ whilst Student B provides the ‘arm
gestures’. You’ll need to exemplify this with a student the first time you do the activity.
• Give each pair one of the sentence strips from the story. Tell them they have to memorise the sentence
and invent another detail.
• They may come up with examples like:
• Give the students five minutes to practise the dialogue and invent the gestures. Student A does the
speaking while Student B provides the hand movements.
• Finally, all the pairs stand in a circle, in order of the story and act it out in this very comical way.
Interview the characters
Dramatis personae
Any text or story contains a large number of characters whether or not they are actually mentioned by
name. In the story Expensive Washing, we are introduced to Miguel, the bar owner, the blind lottery
vendor, the lottery organisers, the investigators, the court. There are also other ‘background characters’
such as Miguel’s friends and family, local people in the bar and witnesses in court.
• Get students to look back and the story and make a list of people /characters associated with the events
in the story.
• Ask for volunteers to play some of the characters and organise them into different areas of the
classroom.
• Write the characters names on the board and get the remaining students to invent questions. Tell them
they are journalists and that they are going to prepare questions to interview the story characters as part
of a special press conference. They must work quietly in pairs.
• Meanwhile, go round the classroom and prepare the other students for their interview. Ask them their
names, their occupations, how they were involved in the story, etc.
• Reorganise the students back into an ‘interviewees’ and ‘interviewers’ panel by sitting them in front of
the class as if they were in a press conference and let the interview process begin. You can act as
moderator, facilitating language and encouraging students to communicate their ideas.
Drama activities involve building trust between teacher and student as well as cooperation between
peers. Students will also see their confidence increase when it comes to speaking and their listening
skills finely tuned as concentration and paying attention are a vital part of drama. As you start to
integrate drama you will notice that it plays an active role in developing key competences not only
linguistically but in addressing the challenges for lifelong learning.
Harriet Thompson is a teacher, teacher trainer, writer and director of the theatre groups ABC and
ACTion English. She also writes and performs storytelling workshops.
Teaching Science through experiments
In this term’s CLIL Corner, Jane Kirsch shares the plan
she and fellow teacher Roser Nebot devised for their practical Science
course for 2nd ESO students at IES Manuel Blancafort in La Garriga,
Barcelona.
One of the biggest challenges facing Science teachers in Secondary schools is how to teach the relatively complex
subjects of Physics and Chemistry (difficult enough in the students’ first language) to students with elementary or
pre-intermediate levels of English.
With this in mind Roser Nebot and I developed a practical Science course for our 2nd ESO students, which takes the
emphasis away from teacher-led explanations and involves students in their own learning. In these classes language
remains an important tool in the transmission of scientific knowledge. However it is used in conjunction with other, more
visual, ways of conveying knowledge.
In this article we suggest five ways to help students learn scientific language and concepts in English.
1. Use realia and drawings to pre-teach the vocabulary for experiments
Before starting a practical activity with students it is a good idea to elicit the materials they need by asking them to point
them out or hold them up. Concept-check questions can also be asked to double-check understanding, eg ‘Where we
do we keep cold water?’ ‘In the fridge.’ It is also useful to have a list of materials in front of students on a worksheet and
to encourage them to draw pictures of the materials to help them remember.
2. Ask students to draw what they see during experiments before getting them to put what they are observing
into words
In this experiment students put some drops of colouring into a beaker of cold water and a beaker of hot water.
4. Give students time to think of questions to ask in a plenary session at the end of a class
The teaching team at IES Manuel Blancafort, where these lessons took place, noticed that students in CLIL Science
lessons tend to ask fewer questions (whether in English or in their mother tongue) than students in an L1 Science class.
As a result we decided to create an activity where students work in groups and write the questions they want to ask at
the end of an experiment. The advantage of creating these questions together is that the pressure to construct
grammatically correct sentences on the spot is reduced. It also means that students become more comfortable asking
questions about science in class and need less prompting in future lessons.
5. Use information gap activities to encourage students to speak to each other in English
Students almost always use their native language to communicate with each other in class. However, we can design
activities to get them speaking to each other in English. One way to do this is with an information gap activity. This task
(illustrated below) requires students to work in groups to write down the most important characteristics of convection,
conduction or radiation based on information they find on the Internet. They then regroup and share their knowledge.
Jane Kirsch is a teacher and teacher trainer. She is currently studying for a PhD in Education, specialising in
CLIL.
Here are links to the two websites cited in the above worksheet with information about heat transfer:
http://www.mansfieldct.org/schools/MMS/staff/hand/convcondrad.htm
http://www.wisc-online.com/objects/index_tj.asp?objID=SCE304
Send your tips & tales to:
d.holmes(at)macmillan.es
or fax 93 209 99 49. All
contributions will receive a
reply and we will send a
selection of Macmillan
readers to your school if
your tip is printed.
The verb of the day is…
In September, at the beginning of the school year, a 10-year-old pupil sneezed while I was talking to her. It was a
wet and windy sneeze and the force of it hit me straight in the face! I said, 'Put your hand over your mouth when you
sneeze'. But the pupil didn't understand.
From this situation came my first VERB OF THE DAY, an activity which has since become the routine with which I
begin every lesson.
1. Write The verb of the day is... on the board
2. Mime the verb of the day. The pupils say what they think the verb is. If they don't know the word in English, they
ask 'How do you say .... in English?'
3. Give them the verb in English. Get everybody to mime it and repeat it.
4. Ask the pupils how they think it is spelt. Write it on the board.
5. The pupils add the verb to their list at the back of their notebooks (with an illustration or translation) while you take
the register.
Starting the lesson with a word of the day is nothing new. But this version of the activity has confirmed to me that the
pupils don’t need to learn the names of more animals or types of food. They need USEFUL VERBS.
The first 10 verbs on our verb list are as follows:
The verb of the day is…..
1 put your hand over your mouth
2 sneeze
3 cough
4 yawn
5 (don’t) drop litter
6 put it in the bin
7 play a CD
8 rub something out
9 underline something
10 turn the light on / off
We now have a list of 51 verbs. By the end of the year it will be over 100. We regularly incorporate the verbs into
games and activities. Most importantly, however, the verbs regularly come up naturally in the course of our lessons.
As a result, there are fewer breakdowns in understanding and a greater sense of being able to use English in
genuine every-day communication.
Mark Ormerod - teacher, teacher trainer, author of 'Summer Time' and co-author of 'Find Out!'
Four corners
This is a great activity for practising the question form. Write four numbers
on the corner of the board which have a relevance to you. There's nothing more
interesting for students than their teacher's private life (within reason!).
Students have to form questions to guess the connection between the numbers
and their teacher. Needless to say the questions must be asked and answered in
English.
For example, the number 2 might spawn the question Have you got two children?
Actually, this is true in my case but that’s not the connection I was thinking
about. They continue to ask questions (eg Have you got two pets at home?) until
they come up with the right answer. When they have discovered the four numbers,
the teacher can either finish the activity choose a student to do the same on
the board.
The activity really catches their imagination and they even discover
Yolanda Iborra Bernabeu, Colegio Calasancio, Alicante.
University challenge
Each year Macmillan rewards the two students who receive the highest marks in the entrance exam for L
’Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona with a cash prize of 400€ plus a set of Macmillan books. This year, first
prize went to Pau Ortega of IES Baix Camp in Reus and the second prize was won by Núria Ventós of IES Joan
Guinhoan in Riudoms. Both Pau and Núria are pictured below receiving their prizes from Macmillan
representative David Sanahuja (click on photos to enlarge).
Have you been framed?
Welcome to the section of our site where it's the teacher's turn to win a prize! If you are the lucky teacher whose face
we have framed in the photo below, please contact us and we'll send you your prize. You can click on the photo to
enlarge it.
Congratulations to last terms winner: Elisa Arrieta Murillo of IES Vall d'Arús in Vallirana, Barcelona. The
photograph was taken at last October's Digital Training event at the Hotel Comtes de Barcelona.
Here's a list of all our previous winners:
Issue 18 (autumn 2009):
Barcelona Teachers' Day: Mercè González Forcadell (Colegio Vidal i Barranquer, Cambrils)
Valladolid Teachers' Day: Isabel Alonso (Colegio Discípulas de Jesús, León)
Issue 17 (summer 2009):
Sevilla Teachers' Day: Francisco Gallardo (Escuela Bilingue Paddington, Mairena del Aljarafe)
Granada Teachers' Day): Carmen Ruiz Sánchez (CEIP Profesor Tierno Galván, Granada)
Issue 16 (spring 2009):
Madrid Teachers' Day: David Bradshaw (Colegio Alameda, Madrid)
Macmillan events 2010
Click here to find out where and when our Teachers Day events will be taking place this year. You can reserve your
place online.
Website tips
Here's this term's selection of days to celebrate, and websites where you can do so. There's something for
everyone...
Days to celebrate:
February 14th - Valentine’s Day
http://www.dltk-holidays.com/valentines/worksheets.htm
Valentine’s Day worksheets for younger learners.
February 16th - Pancake Day
http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/pancake_day_puzzles.htm
Pancake Day printable puzzles for Primary levels.
http://www.stuff4teaching.com/school-chat/154-pancake-day-shrove-tuesdayMore
Pancake Day activities: games, a quiz and lots of information about the history of Shrove Tuesday and how Pancake
Day is celebrated around the world.
http://a4esl.org/q/h/vm/valentine.html
Test your Secondary students’ knowledge of Valentine’s Day with this online quiz!
February 21st - International Mother Tongue Day
http://www.celebratelanguages.com/
Stacks of resources with the theme of languages around the world.
March 8th - International Women’s Day
http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonrepro/lessonplans/womwrite.htm
Get your students to put themselves in the skin of a famous woman in history such as Sally Ride, Joan of Arc or Marie
Antoinette and write about how they felt!
March 21st - International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0212302/index.html
Learn what it’s like to be a kid in different countries. Lots of dynamic activities for teens.
March 21st - World Poetry Day
http://www.theteachersguide.com/poetrymonth.htm
Acrostic poems, Bio Poems, Diamond Poems, Cinquains… learn how to create these and many more.
This day in history:
51 years ago:
February 13th, 1959 - Barbie went on sale for the first time.
http://www.chiff.com/toys/barbie.htm
An informative site dedicated to the history of the ever-young doll who turned 50 last year. There’s even a video
showing how Barbie has changed through the ages. Ideal for a reading comprehension activity for Secondary students.
http://searchwarp.com/swa134012.htm
16 more Barbie facts!
http://www.barbie.com/activities/fashion/makeover/makeover.aspx
Activities for younger Primary pupils – give Barbie a fashion makeover...
http://www.mattel.com/games
… or try out a Barbie fashion shoot!
78 years ago:
March 30th, 1932 - Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic
http://www.patriapress.com/earhartre.html
Download a ready-made webquest about the ace aviator and a teacher guide to the activity.
http://teacherlink.ed.usu.edu/tlresources/units/Byrnes-famous/Earhart.html
Lesson plans for higher Secondary students for individual or group work.
http://www.allaboutspace.com/history/us/bioprintouts/earhart/
Sign up to the Enchanted Learning site to download this worksheet for older Primary or younger Secondary students.
However, there is a subscription fee.
http://www.instructorweb.com/lesson/ameliaearhart.asp
Sign up for free for the InstructorWeb (the Limited Access option is sufficient). Then type Amelia Earhart into the Google
‘Search InstructorWeb’ box. A reading comprehension lesson plan with multiple choice questions is available.
http://www.first-school.ws/t/cp_transportation/ameliacp.htm
Why not try a colour dictation with your young Primary pupils?
195 years ago:
March 29th, 1815 - Jane Austin completed her novel Emma
http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/austen.htm
Loads of links, lesson plans, web quests and information about Jane Austin and her novels from the excellent AC
Nancy-Metz school site.
This term's festivals:
Easter:
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/teacher/easter.htm
Tons of activities, crafts and information from the excellent Woodlands Junior site. Even ideas for your interactive
whiteboard!
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/easter/
The Enchanted Learning site never disappoints – loads of crafts and worksheets for Easter and spring.
Downloadable worksheets from this issue:
There are 1 files.
Gruffalo_chant.pdf
This worksheet belongs to the article 'Tell us a story' by Jeanette Corbett. Click on the file name to open it.

pdf version

Transcription

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