June 1, 2010

PROJECT: Describing pictures / Making deductions

Last week, the focus of the lesson was MODALS TO MAKE DEDUCTIONS: must, may, might and can't. Students, listened to dialogues and did exercises.
Today, I had planned something different for them:
  1. I gave each student a different picture and asked then to write a written description where they would also use modals for makind deductions.
  2. While students wrote the descriptions I helped with vocabulary and had a look at some mistakes.
  3. I asked students to practise reading their texts in pairs so that they would pay attention to words they could not pronounce and pauses.
  4. I used a voicethread presentation I had prepared beforehand to record sts reading their descriptions.
  5. After doing all the recordings, I showed them the full voicethread presentation so that they could listen to different descriptions. (They really paid attention!)
MY OBJECTIVE: to show students what kind of picture description is expected of them on the final oral exam at the end of term, to help them notice how important pronunciation/ rhythm is when recording, provide students with various picture descriptions.

2 comments:

Jennifer Voorhees said...

Thanks for sharing the Voicethread of your students describing photos. I really appreciated seeing how Voicethread is actually used in an EFL/ESL classroom. I was thinking of doing something similiar in my ESL class. Your example has given me some more ideas.

Unknown said...

I loved the way you've used voicethread with your students. I'll do something similar. I've asked them to draw their houses and I'll scan their pictures so that they can describe it via voicethread. Let's see how it works.