Here are some activities we have all used in an ESL classroom but re-imagined with technology
Mimes
Aim: present continuous interrogative form
Level: pre-intermediate, intermediate
Time: 10-15 minutes
Preparation: You will need one android or iphone and Vine app
Create a Vine account, and share your profile (or your class profile, if you chose to create an account for classroom use only) with your students. Install croak.it for the noises.
Procedure: This is the original activity: one students needs to mime an activity in front of the class and keep on miming until the class guesses the activity by asking questions. My students usually cheat, they start with one thing and when they have to repeat the activity they do something completely different. So the student who is acting out the activity leaves the classroom and makes a Vine clip. You can assign a student who will be recording but there is no need since Vine is so simple. You just look in the camera and put your finger on the screen and hold. The videos are 7 seconds short, which is short enough for this activity. And the clip plays over and over again until you stop it, or they guess the activity. Make sure you delete the videos at the end of the lesson. There are no privacy setting on Vine and all the videos are public.Before you do that you might want to download them and send them to their future selves. Use Letter2Future to send the videos and your students will be able to see themselves miming ten or twenty years later.
There is another variation of this activity for shier students. They will make noises of impressions of other sounds with their mouths, hands or feet. They can use Vine if they are making sounds with their mouths but if not they need a voice recorder. Croak.it is a simple, easy to use voice recorder that you can use to create 30 seconds short voice messages.
Drawings
Aim: present continuous affirmative
Level: pre-intermediate
Time: 10-20 minutes
Preparation: Windows 8, instal Voice and Pen application
Procedure: Students try to guess a Present Continuous sentence in someone's drawing. You need an online whiteboard for this activity. I think A Web Whiteboard is perfect. You don't have to create an account, just invite your students by sharing the link. I have some experience with using online boards in the classroom and it can get messy unless you make sure only one student is drawing at a given time. They will try to draw over or erase what others are drawing, so you have to think of an idea that might help you. My method is waving. Only one student is drawing and the rest have both hands in the air. Don't forget to save each drawing before erasing the board.
There is another tool that you can use for this activity. It is called Voice and Pen and it's a windows 8 application. The best part of this is that you can record the drawing process and their voices while they are guessing. You only need one computer and an overhead projector. You can play the recording and discuss the grammar mistakes they made while guessing and even make an art wall in your classroom or a digital art wall where you will post QR codes of their videos.
Here is my drawing:
Mimes
Aim: present continuous interrogative form
Level: pre-intermediate, intermediate
Time: 10-15 minutes
Preparation: You will need one android or iphone and Vine app
Create a Vine account, and share your profile (or your class profile, if you chose to create an account for classroom use only) with your students. Install croak.it for the noises.
Procedure: This is the original activity: one students needs to mime an activity in front of the class and keep on miming until the class guesses the activity by asking questions. My students usually cheat, they start with one thing and when they have to repeat the activity they do something completely different. So the student who is acting out the activity leaves the classroom and makes a Vine clip. You can assign a student who will be recording but there is no need since Vine is so simple. You just look in the camera and put your finger on the screen and hold. The videos are 7 seconds short, which is short enough for this activity. And the clip plays over and over again until you stop it, or they guess the activity. Make sure you delete the videos at the end of the lesson. There are no privacy setting on Vine and all the videos are public.Before you do that you might want to download them and send them to their future selves. Use Letter2Future to send the videos and your students will be able to see themselves miming ten or twenty years later.
There is another variation of this activity for shier students. They will make noises of impressions of other sounds with their mouths, hands or feet. They can use Vine if they are making sounds with their mouths but if not they need a voice recorder. Croak.it is a simple, easy to use voice recorder that you can use to create 30 seconds short voice messages.
Drawings
Aim: present continuous affirmative
Level: pre-intermediate
Time: 10-20 minutes
Preparation: Windows 8, instal Voice and Pen application
Procedure: Students try to guess a Present Continuous sentence in someone's drawing. You need an online whiteboard for this activity. I think A Web Whiteboard is perfect. You don't have to create an account, just invite your students by sharing the link. I have some experience with using online boards in the classroom and it can get messy unless you make sure only one student is drawing at a given time. They will try to draw over or erase what others are drawing, so you have to think of an idea that might help you. My method is waving. Only one student is drawing and the rest have both hands in the air. Don't forget to save each drawing before erasing the board.
There is another tool that you can use for this activity. It is called Voice and Pen and it's a windows 8 application. The best part of this is that you can record the drawing process and their voices while they are guessing. You only need one computer and an overhead projector. You can play the recording and discuss the grammar mistakes they made while guessing and even make an art wall in your classroom or a digital art wall where you will post QR codes of their videos.
Here is my drawing:
What's happening at the moment
Aim: present continuous affirmative
Level: pre-intermediate
Time: 10-15 minutes
Preparation:You need to explore and find live stream from a place that your students might find interesting. Here are some ideas:
Procedure: Students watch what is happening at the moment in space, in Africa, under the sea and under the microscope and make Present Continuous sentences about the things they see. Encourage them to take screenshots of the moment they are writing about and use Haiku deck to share their sentences.
Different parts of the world
Aim: present continuous negative
Level: pre-intermediate
Time: 10-15 minutes
Preparation: share a link from any world clock site with your students. Here is my suggestion Every Time Zone
Procedure: Students use the Every Time Zone to check the time in different parts of the world. They need to make sentences about what people aren't probably doing at that part of the day. If you use Edmodo then they can share their sentences with the class and you can comment and point out the grammar mistakes that they have made.
No comments:
Post a Comment