Being interactive while teaching and learning

Out of the blue we bumped into this webpage called: Interactives - Spelling Bee.

It is worth to have a look at it (and to use it!).  Contestants (out students)  in grades 1-8 will listen to three stories, one at a time, and then spell words from each story. Students in high school will listen to separate sentences and then spell the words from each sentence.

The aim of this webiste is, as it is explained there: "an interactive Web site where students can learn grade-appropriate vocabulary by practicing how to spell specific words and using contextual clues to understand their meanings. The activities at each grade level are designed to let students work at a pace that is appropriate to their skill level. Students hear words multiple times that they are asked to spell, typing and retyping words until they are prepared to submit their words for scoring."

For more information visit this link, where you can find a detailed explanation of what Spelling Bee is about.

We have been happily surprised by this website and we think it deserves to have a careful look at it. It seems really interesting and useful.

Learning English with the British Council

The British Council has a very good webpage named Learning English where we can find useful exercises four our students whether to do them in the class or to ask them to do them at home.

We want to show an example of exercises of listening.

Since listening is one of the skills less focused on throughout the course due to the time constraints, it is very recommendable to provide the students with good listening activities.

The example we present is a video about "how to ask somebody to repeat something".

What is specially good about these exercises is that they consist of the video, some preparation exercises (important!), then a task based on the video once they have watched it and finally they have the transcript available.

We want to encourage all of you to be aware of the existence of these exercises and to take them into account. They can be excellent resources for using in class, for homework or for those students who are eager to learn and improve their English level. And what's more, it's easy and for free!

PODCASTS

Podcasts are a useful tool for improving our English.

But let's start by explaining what is a podcast: According to the Wikipedia, "A podcast (or non-streamed webcast) is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication. (...) The mode of delivery differentiates podcasting from other means of accessing media files over the Internet, such as direct download, or streamed webcasting. A list of all the audio or video files currently associated with a given series is maintained centrally on the distributor's server as a web feed, and the listener or viewer employs special client application software known as a podcatcher that can access this web feed, check it for updates, and download any new files in the series. This process can be automated so that new files are downloaded automatically. Files are stored locally on the user's computer or other device ready for offline use, giving simple and convenient access to episodic content."

As we said above, podcasts are a useful tool for improving our English because there are thousands of podcasts in English available for free which you can download and put into your iphone, ipod or mp3 or 4 and listen to them, especially when you are going to work, to the faculty, on the tube, etc. 

One easy way of finding interesting podcasts easily is in the itunes program. If you do not have an ipod or iphone, don't worry, you can download it anyway.

So, download the program, install it into your computer and once you have it, go to the itunes store and look for podcasts. Choose: audio podcasts. Scroll down the page and look for the section named "outstanding supplier". There you will find the links to BBC, CNN, The Wall Street Journal among others. 

BBC has a wide repertoire of podcasts. You can find podcasts which talk about the English language (Talk about English, The English We Speak) and others that talk about history (A History of Mozart in Dozen Objects, A History of the World in 100 objects, Secret History of Social Networking,etc) among others. 

We specially recommend the one called 6 minutes of English  because they are usually interesting and short, so you do not get bored. However, we invite you to inquiere into this program and find the podcasts which most interest you. It's very easy and interesting!