Writing while listening

Writing and Listening are fundamental skills that need to be focused on in language learning.

Here is an useful tool to get these two skills polished up:

There are so many topics and issues we can choose from this tool.

After we decide on the topic, we can begin by selecting the mode for this activity; Full Mode, Quick Mode, and Blank Mode. Every mode presents you a different principle.

But, you need to choose the level of the acticity, beforehand. If you use this tool with your students, you need to decide on the level which suits your students' level of English. The red arrow show you where you can find the levels by clicking on the 'Level' tab.

After I've chose the topic, I can start by listening to the audio provided and start to dictate it by type in the words on the space provided and click on the 'enter' tab on your keyboard. It will appear on the box above it:

If we opt to listen according to the track, then we can simply click on the 'track' and select.

If you can't get what the word is, simply play the audio again or click on the 'hint' tab below the box.

This tool would be suitable for all secondary school's students depends on the level of the article. That would be our' job to determine on what level our students are.

Pair work might be a great way to do it in the classroom. We can try it once in the class and ask them to do it again as homework with different topics or issues.

One thing about teaching, we always need to think of the advantages and disadvantages of the tool we want to use.

Let me list down the advantages and the disadvantages for us to consider.

Advantages:

1) It supports autonomous learning.

2) Suitable for all levels

3) Students are able to work on vocabulary

4) Can enhance listening skill

5) More exposure to the language

6) Students can evaluate themselves

7) Focus on multiple skills (listening, writing, spelling)

8) FUN and FREE!!!

Disadvantages:

1) The news or issues in this tool may come from unreliable sources

2) May not have the facilities and internet access.

3) Facebook advertisement on the right side can distract students' focus.

Now we know one more interesting tool to teaching. Why don't we make use of it creatively and wisely!

Sing and Write

Do you think activities that involve singing are enjoyable?

I do!

One reason why I found them fun is because I love singing. Especially when I'm all alone.

I don't even care if I discovered that my singing pitch is consistently more off pitch on particular part in a song. Most importantly I can remember the lyrics. Sometimes you will find remembering the whole lyrics is useful and blissful especially when you are in shower listening to the mp3. Then, the catchy and favourite song of yours is played, you can sing the entire song without a word missed, until the whole world hears! That's a bliss~

However, memorizing the lyrics of a song isn't an easy task for most people. But with a little time and effort, you will come to know every word of the song. Whether you will be able to sing it is another story.

Memorising song can be very hard but all you need is practice, practice, practice and soon you will know every word to a song backward and forth. Therefore, I found Lyrics Training is very practical for me. It's kind a good practice not only to memorise a song but also in developing the language skills especially listening, writing and spelling.

There are so many songs we can choose from the list. As shown below, I randomly pick 'just the way you are' by Bruno Mars:

If we look at the Game Mode in the picture above (in the black circle), we can see that there are three levels of this activity that we can choose depends on our ability. There are Beginner, Intermediate and Expert.

For Beginner mode, 10% of the song is deleted and we need to complete it by listening and write in the space provided (as shown by the red error). The higher the level, the harder it get.

As for Expert mode, 100% of the lyric is deleted. In other words, we need to complete the whole song!

If you cannot catch up the lyrics or any particular word you can simply tab the backspace button on your keypad and it will play the line again.

It is quite interesting isn't it? You've the chance to have fun and also polish your language skills.

I might suggest this activity to my students in future. They will be very excited with this tool because it is very engaging for them. I've tried it so many times and believe me, it works! Once I start doing it, it will be hard to stop. Very engaging!

Most importantly, I learned a lot of new vocabulary only by listening to songs and my spelling is improve too. Thus, I am quite sure it will be an appropriate tool to be introduced to all level of secondary school's students.

This will be an alternative way to make your spelling session in the classroom variety. I might say it enlighten the mood!

This tool can be a very good practice for students as a homework. You may show them once in a classroom and practise it as a whole class. Then, they will start to sing together and complete the song. You may ask for a volunteer to type in the missing word in the screen. I can imagine it will be like a choir.

Nonetheless, there are pros and cons for every thing. There might be some downside of making this tool as an activity for students. Maybe I should try it first and see how it will turn out.

It is good to try. So, TRY IT OUT!

Make lessons fun with Dvolver

My lecturer, Russel introduced us to a website that can be very helpful for teaching and learning; Dvolver Digital Movie. Check it out!!!

http://www.dvolver.com/moviemaker/index.html

This will be my fundamental teaching tool one day. It allows me to create an interesting environment for English lesson. Perhaps it is suitable for all level of secondary school students because this tool is flexible and compromising, depends on how we use it in our classroom.

No worries. Everything is on us! We choose the tool and we decide on what we want to do with it....=)

Let me illustrate briefly about this tool;

Firsly, we need to choose the setting for our movie:

Then, we need to select the characters, there are two characters they need to decide; Character 1 and Character 2:

After that, we need to decide the plot for the movie:

This is the most crucial part in this type of activity where we need to type in the characters' lines. This is where the language is being tested:

After we done with the conversation between the two characters, we can select the background music for the movie, this is quite enjoyable:

The final step, of course we need to decide on the title and the title design for the movie we made:

Then we can click on the 'preview and send button' to finish up the process and email it to our friends or teacher:

This activity would be great if we can do it as a pair work so that they can discuss and gather some interesting ideas together.

The good things about this website are:

1) It creates a context for a language to be used.

2) Most importantly, this tool will make your lesson FUN!

3) It is very engaging for students.

4) It allows them to use their creativity! You will be surprised on how creative your students are.

5) In fact, this types of activity is very authentic in both language and productivity.

6) Dvolver maybe can help you make variety for your lesson. As a teacher, we always want our lesson to be motivating for students and not dull...

However, there are some limitations that we need to consider:

1) It may be inappropriate for young learners for example for primary school students. It may be way too hard for them to handle on their own.

2) May not be really helpful for more capable students who have higher proficiency in the language because the sentence they can create is limited.

3) ICT facilities? Is your school has assess to computer and internet? Rural area schools in Malaysia may likely face this kind of problem.

4) The use of inappropriate words or language by students. Be aware of that!

That's all for my first post for this blog. I'll write more next time.

Happy teaching!