Back in black

Hey everyone!

Summer's almost over in this part of the world, and it finds me on the other side of the river! Taking advantage of this (in theory) quiet Argentinean week, I'll start something I have promised some of you: to share some websites I've been using and how.

Here's my first post regarding this topic.

The only requirement: sit back and enjoy The (mandatory) Doors as you read :)

To begin with, simple and effective tools to use in the classroom (great to work with interactive whiteboards):

tripticoplus.com (Similar to the first version!)

barryfunenglish.com

Score boards, timers, student selectors, etc. These two websites provide a set of easily customizable tools, allowing the teacher to use them in any way he/ she can imagine.

Both sites require a free account.

Glogster and educreations 

Although they have different features, they are both very powerful tools for assessment through production. They are both very flashy and engaging, great for working with multimedia. I have used them to assess grammar, to work on pronunciation, on linkers, for creative writing, among others.

They are not difficult to use, though I have always use them with youngsters; some adults may find it a bit challenging. After devoting 1 hour of class, students were able to create posters and stories like the ones below:

Mybrainshark is one of the best applications I have seen and used in the last two years. It allows you to upload power point presentations and add narration to it, without losing the animation features.

It's easy to use and very effective. A free account is required.






Here's another great site to create lessons: lessonpaths.com (ex mentor mob).

Here's an example you might have seen in one of my previous posts:

Create your own Playlist on LessonPaths!

Well, that's all for the moment. If you have any questions or you any other ideas on how to use any of the resources shown in this post, post a comment!!! 

Stay tuned,

Claudio

We close the year with more songs

Hey everyone!

As I mentioned in my previous post, this is the last worksheet of the year. I would like to thank all the people (over 12.300 visits!) who visited the blog and especially the ones who took the time to send me comments, mails, and feedback; I look forward to receiving a lot more next year!

Since students and teachers as well found the song activities appealing, I created a task to assess the use of the second conditional with many popular songs.

Here's the audio.









Here's the worksheet.



Happy holidays!
Claudio

Traffic rules

Hey everyone,

The year is finishing and so it's the blog's activity; I'm sharing the second last activity for this year. Thank you all for your encouraging comments and the many many visits you paid the blog this year. I look forward to getting more feedback and reaching more teachers in order to share, discuss and make this experience even more enriching.

This is a lesson I created and used with my A2 students to talk about rules. Throughout these activities students will recognize and differentiate the use of can, can't, have to and be allowed to, classify and apply them. It was a very meaningful lesson for my students; I hope it can be useful to yours as well.

As a follow up, students could go to glogster and create a poster with the traffic rules (or any other kind of rules) in their community, or the most important to them.

What do you think? 

Here's the worksheet

Warm regards,
Claudio