Sunday 27 March 2011

Dropbox

I have created a folder containing two Excel spreadsheets, one with links to all the work I have done for a university module, and another with a grading system I hope you will find usefull. This is the link to the folder: https://www.dropbox.com/home/New%20Technologies#:::38700016 However, if you do not have much time, or are just interested in one of the documents, here you have the links:

  • To the grading system:
https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/New%20Technologies/grading%20system.xls?w=6f892caa

  • To all the work and documents:
https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/New%20Technologies/New%20tech.%20Portfolio.xls?w=40db0ca1

Thursday 24 March 2011

New website!!

WORK IN PROGRESS

This is, or will be, our new meeting point. Soon all the materials appearing in this blog will be moved to the following website:

http://marian-hg.webnode.es/

Bits of me-Picasa

Tuesday 22 March 2011

Wikispace

New wikispace about idiomatic expressions in English.
Please go and have a look!
Hope you find it interesting, and if you want to add something, please let me know!

http://idiomatic-expressions.wikispaces.com/

Monday 21 March 2011

Survey

Survey that can be used after working with the webquest about the three unusual hotels, or any other webquest activity!

Click here to take survey

Tuesday 15 March 2011

Friday 11 March 2011

Three Unusual Hotels WEBQUEST

I have just created a webquest that can be used as a follow up for the reading activities suggested in the Powerpoint presentation.

http://www.zunal.com/webquest.php?w=90340

Tuesday 8 March 2011

Class survey

Ok, I have just answered to the survey in our class blog : http://mastersecundariapamplona.blogspot.com/?zx=f601a83d37aba0e6

I think it is time for me to get some rest now.

Hot potatoes

This link will take you to a folder in eSnips.com containing five interactive exercises created using the Hot potatoes software. They aim at different topics and contents, and I have included the five kind of exercises available in this program: multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises.

http://www.esnips.com/web/marianHotpotatoes

Reading activities (PPT)

Monday 7 March 2011

Some useful websites for English teachers, and students!

First of all, I would like to point out that all the websites seen in class can be very helpful at a given moment, depending on our specific needs, and the needs and level of our class.
I will start talking about the websites devoted to grammar. The Punctilious website contains an extent list of grammatical issues, as well as a guide to writing and composition. It offers very detailed information about many different grammar points, together with interactive activities related to the topics presented. Users can access theses exercises either from the theoretical section to which they relate to or from the index page by clicking on Quizzes. Moreover, these quizzes are connected to the section of the guide pertaining to the grammatical issue(s) addressed to in that quiz by a link that appears immediately before the quiz’s name. I find this system very useful, since students can revise the grammar point by doing the activity, and if they have any doubt, they can go and check on the explanation given. On the other hand, the fact that this website does not offer a printable version of the exercises is not very convenient since this makes it more difficult for teachers to make use of this website outside the computer room. However, it is also true that we can just copy the quiz and paste it on a word document and use it in a regular class.
The second website I have been exploring is the English page.com. Although I find this web less thorough than the Punctilious website, I like the idea of the weekly lesson changing every certain period of time. It is a useful tool for the days we do not have much time to prepare our class. I have also found very interesting and convenient the “English Reading Room”, section in which we can practise reading different types of authentic materials, from magazines to online books. This website contains many “multiple choice exercises” which are very useful to revise different grammatical aspects. On the other hand, this website uses the grammatical material, mostly theory, but also some exercises, from the Punctilious and a4esl what makes me prefer those two websites when trying to get a grammatical explanation.
The third website I am going to comment on is the a4esl, which offers a collection of online exercises. What I find most interesting is the fact that this website divides the activities according to their level of difficulty, what I think is something very important, and that the other websites have not taken into account. I think English the easy way is the most convenient website to use with lower level students since the explanations are more straightforward, and it still offers some exercises.
When looking at the writing websites, I noticed a big difference in the levels of the three websites; I would say the “Owl Purdue online writing lab” is for groups with a higher level of English, while “English the easy way” is, as its own name indicates, easier to manage and to use, at least from my point of view. The “Punctilious” website offers a big amount of information, but I think that at some points that is not very practical for the teacher, for instance when we do not have all the time we wish to prepare a class, and we need something that goes more straight to the point we are aiming to.
The listening websites we have had a look at in class have been very revealing to me since I did not know anything about them, and therefore could not give them any use. “PodOmatic” is very useful because it gives us access to a very wide variety of podcasts we can listen to in our classes, as well as the possibility to “Become a follower” of the podcasts we are more interested in and then receiving updates when they publish a new episode. It is also interesting the language courses they offer, that can be also used in our lessons for specific purposes. Besides, it allows us to record and publish our own podcasts, a very good way to practice and improve our students’ pronunciation, as well as ours. The “National Geographic” website is also a very helpful source of listening material, with the advantage of the videos included. I think this website is very attractive, not only because of the topics and the videos, but also because it is authentic. Moreover, we can use the news items included in the “Daily news” section and practice reading. On the other hand, I do not think I would use the “TVonline” web because I think it is very difficult to find something interesting and once you do, it would be very time consuming to give our students the instructions to find it by themselves. Neither found I the “focusenglish.com” very helpful because it only offers us a very limited range of sentences, although it is also true that we can take examples from it and use them to complete other exercises. To end up with the listening section, I will comment on “qualitytime-esl” website, which is the one I found most interesting. It offers a wide variety of listening exercises for pre-intermediate or intermediate students we can easily use in our classes. They have three sections; My English, in which we can practice some helpful everyday topics of basic spoken English, such us introducing ourselves, or “small talk”. Another section is the “5-minute-TOPs” which is based on famous lyrics and quotes from well-known songs to practice structures. So they state the structure and give us different songs or quotes we can use to practice it. Besides, on this website we can also find some of the scripts of the podcasts.
The last websites I am going to comment on are the reading websites. I have been looking at the three reading websites we have in our list and I believe the three of them are very good. I think the “ESLmonkey” is for lower level students and the other two for higher courses. It is very helpful the fact that two of these websites contain listening activities so that we can offer our students a more complete lesson with a more intensive practice of the four skills.
On the right hand side column I have included these links and some more.
Marian Hidalgo

Content and Language Integrated Learning

Skola workshop on CLIL:
These videos have been very clarifying and have helped me to understand much better the meaning and the way to work with Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), which up to now was almost unknown to me.
CLIL is a response to the modern, globalised world we live in, in which English has a clear dominance in higher education, although, as they point out in the video, the CLIL methodology can also be practised in other languages.
This approach appeals mainly to the generation born after 1990, who, as Stuart Pola in the SKOLA workshop says, “learn as they use, and use as they learn”. This may also be the reason why older students, those born before 1990, tend to struggle when working through this new way of learning; CLIL represents an approach to language learning very different to the traditional one.
Another characteristic aspect of CLIL is its interdisciplinarity; it crosses the traditional boundaries between academic disciplines, so that teachers must work to develop not only the learners’ language skills, but also their subject knowledge. In this sense, the ideal CLIL practitioner should reunite the characteristics of a language teacher as well as those of a language specialist. To achieve this, the CLIL teacher must, among other strategies, try and create links between language and content, using techniques employed in other subjects to promote language work, as well as increase the levels of scaffolding of the contents and concepts worked on in class, employing a logical progression of learning and often checking the understanding of learners.
This approach offers an authentic framework to the target language, providing contexts so that learners learn the language in a more natural way. However, it is also true that we have not yet arrived to the stage in which we have enough well trained CLIL teachers nor are there enough resources, since this area of language teaching is developing faster than teacher training. Finally, another problem CLIL practitioners have to face is the question of the assessment: what do we evaluate, language or content? How? Personally, I think this approach can be very successful in enhancing language learning. It can develop a positive attitude towards the learning process, but I consider that we should not make use of it until all of these questions are solved. Only when every aspect of it is clear, a real success can be achieved.
Marian Hidalgo