Our Class Blog

I don't know how much you use technological tools in or out of your classroom, but I am determined to use such tools as much as possible. As my students are learning English to pass our proficiency exam, their time is limited and they generally tend to write purely Academic English.

Thus, I wanted to urge them search the internet as usual, but in English websites and share what they find inspirational, interesting, or enjoyable on a blog so that they may be exposed to English more. I do not correct their grammar not to discourage them, but I do give feedback on their common mistakes during our writing sessions. They seem to enjoy the process.

Here is our class blog and you can't imagine how interesting their posts are!
http://preinta.blogspot.com.tr/

By the way, you are more than welcomed to share any comment :)

Best,
Ayca

How To Make Your Students Speak

Teaching English is not a piece of cake, but what challenges teachers most is speaking, I believe.

We teach grammar.
We teach reading.
We teach listening.
We teach writing.

...but when we ask our students speak, they are either shy or half of their speech is errr, uhmmm, wellll, one word and again errr, uhmmm..

Thus, today I'd like to share a nice activity, which challenged my students and helped them in an enjoyable way. In this one, all you need is some piece of paper, a pen, and some creativity. I prepared my cards with some words that my students can talk about including computers, football, movies.

The rules are simple. One student starts voluntarily or you may know how to choose him/her :) Then, the one chooses one card among a group of cards, one word on each. The student has 30 seconds to think and then s/he is supposed to talk about the word on the card for a minute without saying errr, uhmmm, oh, welll.

I know this is not easy, but it is fun and when students accept the challenge, you can see them controling their speech and producing more accurate and fluent sentences. If you believe that your students will be frustrated, you can change the time interval - 30 seconds maybe or you can simple give your students 3 mistake chance and they will have a better opportunity to speak.

Have fun!
Ayca

Great Websites and Apps

With the advance of technology and smart phones, the dynamics of the class have already changed. Students from different backgrounds, age, and level groups are surfing the internet almost everywhere, but can we help them use the internet in a smart way to improve their English?

I can hear you saying a big "Yes!".
Then, here are my favorite websites and apps.

https://www.coursera.org/

Coursera is a website letting you have online lesson notes, watch videos, do some activities, and even receive a certificate if you complete an online course. Moreover, it's free!

http://www.sparknotes.com/sparknotes/

I remember my literature courses when I suffered and tried so hard to understand Shakespeare! I needed some support to understand basics of Psychology and Sociology. If the case is similar to you or your students, here is Sparknotes. It is a great website for people who are interested in works of literature, mythology, or other subjects with lots of explanations, summaries, examples, and tests.

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

Not everybody is lucky enough to be student in MIT. However, if you have an access to the internet, you can also have an access to the materials of MIT courses. What a great source!

http://www.hackcollege.com/

I adore blogs and read them constantly, but this blog is a must if one is a students. With the slogan of "Work smarter, not harder", the website gives some great tips on college life. Simple, but effective!

https://www.pinterest.com/

I don't believe you if you still don't have a pinterest account. It is an amazing micro blogging website based on visuals and you can start having fun. Pinterest offers many categories and I'm sure there is one for everyone.

http://getpocket.com/

Do you find amazing articles, visuals, or websites, but don't know how to save them. Then, Pocket is for you. It is a simple application saving your e-mail adress and when you have a link to save, all you need to do is to send it in an e-mail to add@getpocket.com from the registered e-mail address.

https://www.quizup.com/

This is madness! This is fun! QuizUp is a game app and you can take some quizzes on almost every subject online. My favorite is "spelling" for sure, but be careful! When you start, it is hard to stop!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/

You must have heard or visited "buzzfeed.com" once. It is so popular, but this website deserves its credit. An amazing website on life, entertainment, news, video, and more. Easy to read and definitely contributing!

http://www.ted.com/

Well, I know... TedTalks is very famous, but I cannot take myself talking about it every time I have an opportunity because it is great! No matter who you are - a teacher or a student - you can watch videos on so many different topics, use them as clas activities, assign them as an assignment, and all of them are inspirational. Also, there is an app for it, so please do click it :)

http://www.thersa.org/events/rsaanimate

This website is another great one and it is somehow for advanced learners, but still I love it. RSA, explains all the complex concepts in the simplest way: by using animations. All the videos are so much fun and attracting, so if you want to discover, go for it!


Do you have any favorites?
...and yes, this post is a bit long, but if you are interested please keep sharing. :)

For the love of learning,
Ayca

A Speaking Activity: Can You Define It?

Hi all!

Today's activity is a speaking one and I remember being a part of it when I was in U.S. - Spring International Language Center. My experience was definitely amazing, so I wanted to share it with you. 

The activity is appropriate for any levels if you can adopt it based on the needs and abilities of your students. My version will work better if you work with at least intermediate level students who are at least secondary school students. Also, your class size should be 20 at most. You can also divide the class into 2 groups if you prefer that.

Here are the steps:

1. Prepare the class setting. You will need a wide screen TV or a projector. Also you need to arrange the seats. Considering that you have 10 students in your class. Place 5 chairs facing the screen and the others facing the opposite. 
2. Tell your students to have a seat. When they sit down, 2 students will be facing each other. (One is looking at the screen and the other is not!)
3. Turn on the projector and explain the procedure. 
4. The procedure: The ones facing the screen will watch a movie for two minutes and telling what is happening in the movie. After a minute, the students will switch their seats and the other student will continue talking about the movie. 
5. After they watch it, they will be summarizing the movie together discussing and filling the gaps in their minds if they have any. Or you can ask a possible ending!
6. At the end, you can re-play the movie or show the end, this time all the students are watching.

For the movie, I advise you to use Pixar's short movies. Here is a link!

Please share if you have any advice or concern,

Best,

Ayca

A Writing Activity: Self-Storming

Sorry for neglecting the blog for such a long time due to my busy schedule! Yet, I am back here :)

Today's activity is an enjoyable one aiming to improve the writing skills of the students. Most of the students start writing without any graphic organizer, so they lose the track of their ideas. With the help of this activity, one can teach students how to conduct a brainstorming on their own and organize their thoughts on a specific issue before starting writing.

Here comes the steps:

1. Specify the topic that you want to work with. It can be about anything appropriate to the level of the students. (Animal rights, environmental issues, social responsibility, impacts of social media, world history, sharing a memoir, healthy food...) 
2. Share the topic that you have chosen with your students by simply writing the title onto the board.
3. Explain your students the process: First, they will be listening to a soothing music and taking notes on the topic in general. Second, they will be grouping and organizing their ideas based on a graphic organizer. Third, they will be sharing their ideas in an organized way in pairs and they will give feedback to each other. Last, they will start writing after they receive a consent from the instructor. 
4. Turn on a soothing music. You can use this link if you wish.
5. Tell your students to start working individually. Ideally, they can work for 10 mins, but you can extend the time if you think they need more time.
6. Use the graphic organizer and explain how to use it with specific examples.
7. Tell your students to work with the graphic organizer and give feedback to their peers.
8. Check out their graphic organizers and give feedback before they start writing. 
9. Collect all their papers (brainstorming, graphic organizer & the writing) at the end of the class and give feedback to their writings.

I believe that many students start writing without concentrating on their ideas, so they need to learn how to organize their thoughts. This activity can be adapted to various levels and can teach many students the importance of using a graphic organizer.

Love,
Ayca

Challenge - Spelling Bee

Challenging good students is sometimes a big problem for most of the teachers. Because they are aware of the fact that their level is higher than their peers, the goodies sometimes feel detached from the basic activities and wait expect a challenge to show that they are good. Here is a well known activity adapted as a challenge and engaging no matter the age and level of your students. 

1. Make groups of two/three. 
2. Explain your students the procedure: This is a challenge. The teacher will be reading a word/phrase aloud for once and the groups will be writing it on a piece of paper/mini-board. (If you think that this is a waste of paper, you can number the group members as 1,2,3 and all the 1s can come to the board and challenge for their groups.)
3. State the rules briefly.
4. Ask them to get ready.
5. Let the challenge begin.

The rules: 

1. The words will be read aloud only once! 
2. They have 10 seconds for spelling.
3. For each correct spelling the group will receive 10 points.
4. No native language! If they speak in their native language, erase 10 points.

*You will get surprised their excitement when they are challenging. If you think that you need more rules, feel free to add more but don't overwhelm students with too much rules.
*The ideal time for this challenge is 20 minutes. If you go further, it is getting pretty tiring for the teacher.
*The activity is great for vocabulary revision, but you can also add some target(challenging) vocabulary to make it more fun.

Love,
Ayca

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Educational Tools

It's an undeniable fact that technology changes every second and keeping up with it is getting harder and harder, but there are certain tools making every teachers' lives easier. Here are some of my favorites!

Blogger: Blogger is an online diary that can be used as a tool for online portfolios, self-evaluation, progress reports or writing exercises. It's possible to upload photos and videos on blog posts which make it pretty effective and more fun. The audience settings can be either private for the student and the teacher or public. This is in my list, because I believe that online portfolios are easier to save and share. Also, keeping a diary is undeniably beneficial for your students from all age and level. On one hand it is easier for students to keep record of their improvement, on the other hand it is easier for teacher to give a feedback. 

Doodle: It's a great tool for easy scheduling and great time saver if you or your students need to arrange an event that is appropriate for everybody's schedule. Try it once and it will be one of your favorites!

Dropbox: It's an online sharing tool. One can upload any documents including photos, homeworks, sound files and share it online without much of an effort. This is pretty useful when you need to share files with your students and you need more than 25 MB space. 

Facebook: Facebook is great for networking. One can share almost everything online and connect with almost everybody with the help of Facebook. However, it is possible to find similar tools for educational purposes if you have ethical concerns or your students are too young to have a Facebook account.

Glogster: It's a social tool allowing one to create interactive posters. You can create and share your posters or your students can create of their own. It's easy and fun! The tool is definitely great for project assignments.

These five tools are from the first part of my list. More will be coming soon :)

If you have any favorite educational tool, please share with us!

Love,

Ayca

* You can click on the name of the tools to discover more!

The visual's source