What's the time in Montreal? : an IWB activity

This is an activity shared by a colleague of mine, Stela Morgado.

Language focus: the time

Level: Basic

Device: Interactive White Board

Site: http://24timezones.com/ 

Interaction: student - student

Time frame: 10 mins.

Connection: online

Stela describes the activity:

Project: What time is it in...? 

1. Go to the website http://24timezones.com/  

2. Invite a student to come to the board and choose a place around the world. Click on the place. 

3. The student should then choose a friend and ask "what time is it in London?" (for example).  

4. Elicit alternative ways of asking about the time: What´s the time...have you got the time, etc. 

5. One of my B1 students, Crissiê, invented a follow-up activity. The T can publish the link at Edmodo. Ss take turns choosing places and asking the time around the world to other students through the reply icon. (I´ve attached the photos of Giselle and Geovana during the activity).

* Alternative topic: What´s the weather in...? What´s the temperature in...? 

Ss can use the site http://weather-finder.com/?gclid=CNvq_qHW2L0CFUoV7Aod4B8AEA or upload an app to the mobile(e.g A weather life)- Suggestion from Patrick a Basic 3 student. 

Telefable - The eyebrow story

I've found this story via David Deubelbeiss' tweet this morning.
As he suggested, it's a great story you can use in class. CLICK on the image to read this cute story.

HOW TO USE IT IN CLASS?

• Use the first page to ask students to describe Sean in pairs. Then, ask some students to tell the group. I believe many students won't know the word EYEBROW. 
• Ask them "How would you describe his eyebrows?" then go to page 2
• You can have students read it silently while you pass the pages, ask different students to read it aloud or read it yourself.
• "One day it was very windy".  Stop and ask "what do you think happened? "
• "I have an idea " Ask students to talk together and think of what idea Sean had.
• Ask students what new words they've learned.

These are some structures from the story, you can work with. Ask if students can remember the original sentence, then get students to say different variations.

It was so (windy) that ...........

He (ran) as ...... as he could

Do you have any other ideas? David, any ideas?

MORE STORIES 

PROMETHEAN Activity: Images hidden behind TIC TAC TOE

This week, I trained new teachers how to make lessons for the  Promethean IWBs we have at school.
There are several features you can use and one of them is hiding/showing. A friend of mine , Rita, sent me a message yesterday asking for help because she wants to prepare an activity where she hides images behind numbers.

This is a tutorial I've made to show her how to do it.
http://screencast.com/t/7z7IwU0vPoO

The same software can be used in other IWBs, all you have to do is download the free version of ACTIVINSPIRE from http://www.prometheanplanet.com/en-gb/support/

VOCABULARY practice in a flash

I love sites which can make my teaching life easier.

SPELLINGCITY helps your students learn / memorize words by focussing on spelling, pronunciation and contextualisation.
http://www.spellingcity.com/



First, you add the words you wish to memorize. Then, the site generates sentences with those words so that you can learn it. You can then, click the TEST button to hear the words and test your spelling or choose one of the GAMES available.

An example:

1. I created a list of words related to MONEY

 2.Once you click spelling test, you can hear the isolated word and then the word in a sentence for to type the correct spelling. LISTENING AND WRITING practice.

3. Games you can use to practise VOCABULARY, WRITING and SPELLING

HOW TO USE THE SITE IN CLASS

With an IWB

• In the last 15-20 minutes of class, elicit the new words learned that day from students while you insert the word in Spellincity. Sts can dictate the spelling as teacher types in the words. Then, all we have to do is click spelling test and start using the practice exercises the site generates.
  

•  You can also, assign a specific student to keep a record of the new words throughout the class and then use the list close to the end of the class to generate exercises.

• Another alternative is to use the practice exercises at the beginning of the following class for revision.

ActivInspire - E-board training videos

Now that our school is about to update our e-boards with the ActivInspire software, I´ve produced a series of simple tutorials showing how to add captions, use the camera, hide texts and images and so on. If you use the software or plan to, feel free to watch the tutorials.

All tutorials can be watched at http://screenr.com/user/anamariacult or at my youtube channel. Remember to click HD, for better quality videos.

These are just two of them

ClicknLearn - An interactive site

THanks to Russell Stannard and Larry Ferlazzo, I´ve reencountered this amazing site which offers wonderful activities for EFL learners. It looks wonderful in e-boards and many activities include sound, images, words and actions.

http://clicknlearn.net



Take some time and explore the site. It's really worthwhile!

Games for children

Found this site via Larry Ferlazzo´s tweet. YOu can use these games with children and pre-teenagers learning EFL.

The I Spy game for 6 to 9 is really good to use with the e-board. Still need to explore the other games.

http://www.kidspsych.org/index1.html

Tutorial1: Promethean e-board

This is a tutorial I´ve made using DIMDIM to help teachers start using the Promethean e-board. We´re giving a face 2 face training but I wanted to have a tutorial so that teachers could refer to later on.



TUTORIAL 1 - Using basic tools
TUTORIAL 2 - How to make flipcharts

Exploring Larry Ferlazzo´s blog (Part 1)

One more time, here I go exploring Larry´s blog. This is a collection of sites I´ve selected from Larry´s blog to teach vocabulary.

Picture Vocabulary - different topics (picture + sound)
Phrasal verbs


CLOTHES
a cute song+ video about clothes (for children)
video about BUYING clothes
clothes GAME
video: What are you wearing today?


BODY
Body Parts (match words(sound) + picture)
Lots of body parts with picture + pronunciation
The human body (page explaining more parts of the body)



SPORTS
Sports Game (for 1 or 2 players, use keyboard for 1 player)
Match word+sound to the picture




FOOD
Presenting food (picture + sound)
food lesson on powerpoint video
Listening exercise for food
Tableware- picture + sound
food maize (listening activity)