Digraphs Oral Practice

Here are some more fun ways to practice reading digraphs. I found hundreds of videos, so you can use these or find your own online. 

This one is from TurtleDiary.

Grammar Comic Strip

Technology today offers us teachers a large variety of mediums through which to present grammar structures. Last week I discovered a great comic strip maker called toonlet and tried my hand at making a few strips. I can't wait to show my 5th grade.  

These strips feature my favourite grammar robot Serious Grammaticus, who has started to become popular among my students. Maybe I should start writing his adventures down!

Creating Flash Educational Games For Your Class Using PowerPoint

Children learn better by using the language they are taught, this cannot be stated enough times. How do we make that happen though? In a classroom there are limited chances of creating ideal conditions during which this can be achieved. As ESL teachers in my country, we face limitations of time, space, budget and occasionally student reluctance. Our students are overwhelmed, stressed and even hesitant to take up an activity that is new to them. During my lessons I realised that though young children are showing surprising resistance to new types of tasks within a typical lesson, they took really well to interactive ESL Games we play online. I would give them an exercise in Simple Present and Present Continuous and they would moan and groan while doing it, but if it came to playing Grammar Ninja they would be bouncing off the walls. This is how this idea was born. Why not use my Powerpoint skills to make them an tailored interactive game ? After a relatively long Internet research, I realised that there were many teachers doing the same thing; creating their own interactive games using their own materials. So I started slowly and reluctantly building my first game. I started with a plain PowerPoint Internet template, which I customised to my taste. I created a main menu slide and then linked the question and answer slides between them, to create feedback. 

When I finished my game I saved it as a PowerPoint Show file and used it only for my classrooms, carrying it in my USB. That was way before I created my blog, and it was fine for me to use the games in class as a consolidation exercise. However, I started thinking that it would be great if my students could spend a few minutes working on this material on their own free time from home. How could I make this material available to them anytime, anyplace? So I decided to make a game that I would post online for them to play at any time. This is how the Alphabet Matching Game was born and I have to admit it took my a few months before I was able to successfully post it online. I used a PowerPoint Plug In called iSpring Free to turn it into a SWF file and then spent numerous hours online until I came up with a tutorial on how to post SWF files on Blogger. I finally managed to post it by uploading it to Google sites and using the link provided. If any of you needs a detailed tutorial just drop me a line and I will post one. 

This is my second "game" working on letter recognition and Lower and Upper Case association.

I really hope you like it because I spent countless hours on it!! 

Free Online Alphabet Matching Game

Alphabet Matching Game

Free Online interactive game made using PowerPoint

It took me a while but I finally made it! I originally used PowerPoint to make the Presentation, then I saved it as an SWF file. I hope you like it! 

Click on the Start button to enter the game. Once you are in the letter sellection slide, choose a letter to complete the task. To go back to the letter sellection slide, click either on the house image on the bottom right hand corner of the slide, or on the instructions box. 

Tagxedo Word Clouds, how to use in class.

When I first run into Tagxedo I was really amazed by the beauty of the images that I could produce, however I had little insight of how to use it in class. I have to admit I gave it a LOT of thought, because my time in class is very limited and tight and I didn't want to use this website just for show - off. I wanted it to be worthwhile. Giving the children something to do with the language they learn is the best way for them to learn, there is no doubt about that. Moreover their ability to use technology is undeniable, it gives them satisfaction and the false idea that they are actually playing, not doing homework. So I came up with a bunch of activities that we can do in class using Tagxedo and I am thinking of gradually introducing them to our lessons, depending on the aim, time availability and of course the children's age. 

Here are some of the ways you can use Tagxedo to teach vocabulary: 

Vocabulary Introduction:

1. While eliciting new vocabulary, ask on of the students to act like your helper. As you elicit, ask the helper to type the new words in Tagxedo, then the whole class decides on the colours, shape, font and theme of your new word cloud. You can even divide your new vocabulary into categories: Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs and so on. 

Ways to use the clouds: 

• You can use these clouds for sentence construction activities, in which a child picks a word they know and the rest of them have to produce a correct sentence using that word. 
• You can play Red Word Green Word. Divide the class in two groups. Ask one student to act as the game host. The host randomly picks words from the white board, then the teams take turns either producing a correct sentence, or giving the definition of the chosen word. Each team notes down the words they have used correctly. When they make a mistake, they loose five words. The game finishes when all the words are used. 

2. You can also make the word clouds before the class is introduced to the new vocabulary. In your cloud, include the word definitions in the mother tongue. Ask the children to identify and connect the definitions to the words. 

Vocabulary homework

1. You can also use these clouds for vocabulary practice, if you have a website or blog that you can upload your clouds. Give each child some word definitions in their native language. Ask them to go to your page, find the equivalent English word in the cloud and produce a short text or sentences using the words they found. 

2. Ask the children to make their own clouds at home as copying practice. Typing the words in can be very helpful for them in order to remember the spelling. It would be a good idea to ask them to type the list in Word first, spell check and then copy paste the words in Tagxedo. 

Depending on the age, you can even ask them to download their clouds and send them to you via e-mail. 

Here are some word cloud examples I have made for my FCE students using Tagxedo. The words are used can also be found in my Spelling City page, so have a look and tell me what you think! 

Vocabulary That Sticks For Advanced Learners

One of the most demanding tasks our students undertake is to learn new words. With younger learners we mostly focus on picture-word association, but when it comes to advanced learners, this may not be applicable.What is more, we often ask our students to memorise words with abstract meaning, that is not often found in simple contexts. My university  professors used to claim that people cannot easily memorise new vocabulary, unless they find it in context, however this is not always easy to provide. I have encountered this problem as a teacher numerous times, especially while preparing students for Cambridge exams like FCE and CPE, as well as with my 6th grade students. I think I have found the answer in a combination of traditional as well contemporary approach to teaching vocabulary. Literature and technology are a killer combination.

Literature

I have always been a fun of reading, not only because I find it a great way to spend one's time, but I have also come to appreciate its educational value. Once more I try to bring my love for books in my teaching, and I have come to realise it actually works. It provides the necessary context for the vocabulary to be understood and retained. It also provides a lot of variety of new words, that are introduced in a pleasurable way.

This year I am hooked on mystery chapter books. They remind me of endless nights staying up reading my books to the last page to find out who the culprit was. I am also somewhat of a retro fan, so I have started re reading my Enid Blyton collection. After that I am going to bury my teeth into Nancy Drew novels and probably the Boxcar Children. I am also planning to recommend them to my students. They are teenage novels, relatively easy to read while providing a challenge, and they have a mystery to solve. I have started making the materials I am going to use along with the books. 

I am using a sample paragraph from Enid Blyton's The Secret Island to show you how I do this. 

sample paragraph


The three children listened, their eyes wide with astonishment. An island on the big lake! Oh, if only they could really go there and hide - and live by themselves - with no unkind aunt and uncle to slap them and scold them and make them work hard all day long!
“Are you too tired to walk down the lakeside to a place where you can see the island?” asked Jack. “I only found it quite by chance one day. The woods come right down to the lakeside opposite the island, and they are so thick that I don’t think anyone has ever been through them, and so no one can have seen my island!”
“Jack! Jack! Take us to see your secret island!” begged Nora. “Oh, we must go. We’re all tired - but we must, must see the secret island.”
“Come on, then,” said Jack, pleased to see how excited the others were. “Follow me. It’s a good way.”

After the students read a chapter, they have to fill in a new words form. I provide them with a dictionary that they can use to do that. Looking things up in a dictionary, printed or online, is a basic study skill.

See-Cover_Copy_Word_List

 In order to make it more appealing for them, I try to involve them in as much sleuthing as I can. This is why I have made a Mystery Case File,that the children have to fill in as real detectives. This includes main list of characters, suspects, evidence and clues. 

Mystery Case File Cover
Χρηστίνα Τσιαγκλή

Technology

I know that students prefer spending time online rather than reading a book. In order to accommodate that I have opened a Spelling City account. In this account my students can find word lists from our lessons, and practice on them. I use this account for my FCE and CPE candidates as well as my other students. Unfortunately I haven't got a premium account, but maybe one day I will. 

Have a look at the current lists I have added:

FCE Wordlist 1

FCE Wordlist 2

FCE Wordlist 3

Student Poetry Projects Using Powerpoint - Εργασίες Μαθητών της Έκτης Δημοτικού της Σχολής Χιλλ.

Don't you just love it when your students take initiative and transform what you have given them into something of their own? 

 I was trying to go through my last year's materials, in order to tidy up my messy computer, when I came up with projects made by my 6th Grade students. It all started when I made PowerPoint presentations of their grammar poems, which the students loved. Some of them were acquainted with the use of technology and offered to make presentations of their own. I have included three of the presentations that they made, and I must admit I am really proud of the work they have done. I have more Student Projects in one of the computers at school, which I am going to include in a later post. I hope you like them as much as I do. This is what happens when children try something off the beaten track. 

• The first presentation is contributed by Irene M. (12 years old.) It was presented during our Earth Day celebration. 

• One more presentation by Irene M. 

The last presentation of the day belongs to Kostis G. (12 years old) 

I am looking forward to this new school years projects. I am sure my new students will amaze me as always. 

Grammar Ninja: A Game For Students by a Student

A brilliant game made by a high school student for students. Grammar Ninja is one of the games my students love the most. I love the fact that I can personalise it to each class and grammar feature that I teach. How good is your grammar? Have a go!

For more information visit the creator's site!

Saying Goodbye: End Of Year Activities: 6th Grade Yearbook - Αποχαιρετιστήριο Λεύκωμα από τους μαθητές της Σχολής Χιλλ!

• Time flies when you have a lot of things to do and no time to do them. May is coming to an end, leaving us only two weeks before school year is over, and I haven't finished any of my goodbye gifts for my students. The PowerPoints are coming along and so are the year books, but there is a huge amount of paper to be scanned and filled. I am starting to get stressed.

• The idea of a graduation yearbook came to me a couple of years ago, when I found one of my own primary school yearbooks in one of my boxes, in my parents' flat. It was a simple, cheap, blue notebook, filled with photos, letters, stickers, drawings and all of my friends' colourful handwriting. I simply knew I had to do something similar for my students. Of course things change and so I had to make the yearbook a little bit more appealing to my students. So I came up with the idea of a digital version of a yearbook. What follows is a description of how I organised the yearbook and how we came to complete it in our classrooms.

Step One

• To begin with I made the pages' templates, a simple PDF document containing the cover, question and dedication page and the inventory. The children simply signed the page to make the cover. 

Part One: Questions

• There are fourteen simple and straightforward questions, just like in my school Yearbooks. The questions were written by the children on copies of the following page. This year I included the following questions:

1. Who is your favourite singer?

2. Draw a picture of yourself.

3. Which is your favourite book?

4. Who is your favourite actor?

5. Which is your favourite band?

6. How do you feel about leaving our school?

7. Which is your favourite film?

8. Describe your happiest moment in our school.

9. Which is your favourite colour?

10. Which is your favourite animal?

11. Which is your favourite song?

12. Name your favourite place. 

13. Love is...

14. Friendship is...

Question Page Template

Part Two: Dedication Pages

• The questions comprise the first part of the Yearbook. The second part is more fun. It contains 44 pages, two for each child. The children wrote their names on the top of the page and decorated their personal pages as they wished. Some children needed more than two personal pages, which sky- rocketed the amount of pages in our Yearbook. 

Decorating Our Pages 

Sample Personal Page

Part Three: Inventory

• The last section of the Yearbook is the inventory, through which children can keep in touch. 

Inventory Template

Step Two

• The second step was more tricky. All children had to answer all the questions, not using their own name but a pseudonym. When we finished the questions, we moved on to the more fun part, signing our classmates' personal pages. It was so sweet to read some of the dedications they wrote to their friends. One has to bare in mind that the children in question, have been classmates for more than 6 years, which for them is practically all their lives.It is also important to mention that I told my students I would not correct any mistakes they might make. It is their Yearbook, not a test.  

• I kept track of who had answered which question, using a grid. 

Step Three

• The third step is the most tedious one: I have to scan all 150 pages of our Year book. Then I have to use a Flipbook maker, in order to make it into a flipbook. After the file is created, I have to burn 24 CDs one for each child. I will let you know when that happens...

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Click Here:
End Of Year 
Activities,  
Memory Boxes

Click here: 
End Of Year PowerPoints

                                      

Poetry Club: New Poetry Video - Νέο ποίημα από το English Poetry Club της Σχολής Χιλλ!

It has been a very busy and prolific year for our 6th Grade Poetry Club. This is the last video of the year, now my students have one each. These videos are also part of my goodbye gift to them, a PowerPoint Show including pictures, their videos, projects, and of course their Year Book. Stay tuned for more. 

Saying Goodbye: End of Year Powerpoints

I have found a valuable teacher helper in PowerPoint, especially since we got interactive whiteboards in our school. I have used it  for presentations,obviously, but also to make interactive board games, even to make the poetry videos for our Poetry Club. The ways that one can use PowerPoint are endless, one may even say that it has become obsolete by now, however I find the possibilities it offers intriguing. This year I have used PowerPoint to make interactive goodbye gifts for my classes. In this post I will try to explain how. 

To begin with, you need a version of PowerPoint, it doesn't have to be the latest one. You will also need a template that you can find online. I used one from fppt.com. Then I used text boxes to create my first slide menu. Here is what it looks like:

First slide: Our Class

OUR PHOTOS SECTION

Then, I made a second slide containing all the students' names. Using a hyperlink I connected it to the first slide. Then I went back to the First Slide and using again a hyperlink I connected the "Our Photos" text box to the Second Slide. I have changed the student names in the photo that follows. 

Second Slide: Our Class Photos
(linked to 1st Slide)

Afterwards, I made twelve slides, one for each child, to contain a collage of their photographs. Each  page was then linked to the second slide. Each text box with the child's name was linked to the child's page. So when you click on M******'s box, it takes you to his personal photo page, and back to the main Our Class Photos page. For the photo collages I used a free photo collage maker that I found online.  Here is what their photo collages look like:

And here is what a child's personal page looks like:

Sample Personal Page. Each child
has its own photo page,
which is linked to the
second slide: Our Photos.

Clicking on the name takes you back to the second slide: Our Class Photos. Clicking on the tiny house picture on the bottom right-hand corner takes you back to the main menu, the first slide. 

ALL ABOUT US SECTION 

For this section I used a freebie from Teachers Pay Teachers, which the children filled in. I found it through the following blog:

http://theartofteachingut.blogspot.com/2011/06/dr-seuss-all-about-me-book.html

Once the children filled the handout in, I scanned it and using a flipbook maker, I turned it into a flipbook, which I embedded in the PowerPoint presentation. 

OUR POEMS SECTION

When you click on the Our Poems tab on the first slide, you are taken to the page below.Each box contains the name of one of my students. Each box is also a link to the child's poem page. 

This slide is linked to
the first one.
It contains links to the
children's poem pages. 

There are twelve Poem pages all linked back to the above slide. This is what they look like:

Personal Poem page.
Linked to the
 "Our Poems" Page. 

The headline is a link to the "Our Poems" page. 

OUR BOOKS SECTION

In this section I have included projects that the children have done based on the books we read together this year. Clicking on the "Our Books" tab on the first slide takes you to the following page:

Each photo is a link to a Flash Flipbook containing the children's work.

GALLERY SECTION 

Clicking on the Gallery cloud on the first slide takes you to this page. Here I have included a Flash photo flipbook, containing photos, projects, games in an exe file. It also contains video presentations of the children's work. 

The final product resembles a DVD menu. 

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Saying Goodbye: End of Year Activities. 

Poetry Club: New Poem Videos

Summer is upon us and that means that we have  two things coming up: holidays and above all graduation. I have been rather busy preparing my 6th graders' goodbye activities and gifts, but I don't want to spoil the surprise, so I haven't posted anything. As things are coming to an end I will start posting the Power Points and Flipbooks I have prepared for them. For now I am sharing the two latest Power Points I made for two of my students. They are based on Kipling's poem If. I hope you like them. 

Vocabulary that Sticks.

• As a child I used to have great difficulty in remembering the meaning of new words in English and most of all their spelling. Back  then our teachers made us copy endless lists of vocabulary over and over again, which was boring and many times ineffective. I don't underestimate the use of word lists, which I think are important for organising new knowledge and making it easy for children to look new words up. However nowadays teachers and parents have many tools to help children internalise vocabulary in a fun way.

• First of all we have to understand how people learn new words. We seem to understand and remember new words, when we encounter them in context. If there is one thing that linguists agree upon, is that words appearing in isolation are difficult to comprehend and remember. Another thing linguists consider important, is input and its quality and quantity. In other words we have to expose our learners to plentiful and meaningful input. Krashen for instance in his Input Hypothesis argues that we learn through interpreting messages, we acquire vocabulary unconsciously, while we are trying to understand. This is why I strongly believe that direct translation of new words doesn't help children remember them better.

• Another thing that we have to bear in mind is that there are stages in our vocabulary learning. Just because we saw a word, even in context and someone told us what it means and asked us to copy it a few times,  doesn't mean that we are going to remember it and be able to use it. We have to be exposed several times to a word in order to begin to recognise it at first without remembering the meaning. Gradually, we then begin to recognise it and understand its usage within contexts, without being able to properly reproduce it. Using new words properly is the final stage of our learning process. Just because we might know a word that doesn't mean we can also use it. (See Chomsky's theory on linguistic competence and performance.) We teachers are sometimes so eager to verify that what we taught was learnt, that we sometimes forget to allow our students the necessary time to process new words. As Barcroft (2004)  maintains there are five major principles in vocabulary acquisition: Firstly, we have to expose our learners to new words frequently and repeatedly. Secondly, we have to present new words in a meaningful way. The third principle he outlines is the most neglected. He argues that there shouldn't be any forced output in the beginning stages of learning new words. Fourthly, we have to limit forced semantic elaboration of the new input and finally there should be a progress from less difficult to more difficult vocabulary.

• So the difficult question is how do we incorporate all this in our teaching of new words?

• PATIENCE

To begin with, we have to be patient with our students, and give them the time they need to process new information.

• LITERATURE

 Expose your students to as much authentic language as you can. Sometimes parents ask me how this is made possible in everyday life and my answer is always the same: Give your children books to read. Reading is the best source of new language, given in an authentic way that means something to our students. Use books in your lessons, make a class library for your students, provide audio books that they can listen to while reading the book, make lap books for their favourite books, ask them to present books in class, or organise a reading marathon. The possibilities are endless.

• MUSIC

Music is a great teacher. Use songs in your classroom, either as background or to introduce and practise new language. In my first year as a teacher I came across a jazz compilation CD in a newspaper that I have been using in class ever since. We call it the Thought CD. The moment the music is on the children know that it is practice time. They know they have to use their quiet voices and they get down to work. I was amazed this year when I saw some of my fourth graders working away while whispering Nina Simone's Feeling Good. Another fun way to use music is through Music Journals.

• TECHNOLOGY

Nowadays there are hundreds of websites and applications that we can use to teach vocabulary. Some of them require time and money that we might not have in class, but our students can use them at home with parental consent. In class we can use them to present new vocabulary, revise or just have fun. 

a. Tagxedo 

A word cloud generator. I simply love it. Use it in class to present new words or ask your students in groups to each make a word cloud. We have to teach vocabulary in thematic units so this is perfect for grouping vocabulary. Ask the students to brainstorm all the words they know in a thematic unit, then to make a word cloud using the words they came up with. Excellent way to decorate your class, too. 

JOBS
word cloud

b. Spelling City

Amazing vocabulary site. As a teacher you can create word lists for your students, each student is given a password through which they can access the lists. Children hear and write the new words. As a parent you can use this for re- enforcement. 

c. Literactive

The road to reading. Literactive is a FREE interactive online programme for beginner readers that I advise my students to use at home. It is easy to use, you just have to register, and the children love it. It offers letter recognition games and activities, as well as nursery rhymes in 5 difficulty levels, poems and spelling games. I have found Literactive useful and effective.  

ORGANISATION

Organising new knowledge is one of the most challenging and difficult tasks for students. We ,both parents and teachers, have to help our children develop an autonomous way of organising, mapping and storing new words. Once again Study Skills are in the centre of this process. 

a. Provide students with a simple, comprehensible way to store their new words. With younger students this can be a word- picture dictionary, or Word Class Books. Make sure you are consistent. Choose one chore method of storing new words and studying them, so the students start developing confidence, method in their work and autonomy form an early age. I find it very important to aim at picture-word association and NOT direct translation of the word. At this stage we should focus on visual and auditory recognition of words and NOT correct production. 

Word-picture dictionary

Class Book: What is Blue?

b.Apart from the chore method you can play around with activities for reinforcement. For example you can use Mind Maps:

•  I found a very simple and comprehensive mind map in the blog that follows: http://maykhoocuhk.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/vocabulary-mind-maps-and-games/

c. Word Walls are also a great way to revise new words. You just need visiting cards that are cheap and easy to find. Ask the children to write the English word on one side and put the words up somewhere they can see them at all times. When revision time comes take them down and play games with them. You can play Memory, Green word - Red word or Pantomime. 

d. Vocabulary Journals can be time consuming but worth the while. I have been keeping a vocabulary journal for the books I read since I was in primary school. It helps children memorise and retain information and gives them a sense of progress and accomplishment. 

These are only a sample of what we can do to help our children and students retain information. All we need is imagination and will to help them in their difficult task. The sites and applications that I presented above are a few from a long list on the Internet. I find them useful, but one may find others very similar  online. The above mentions to specific sites are not advertisements, only examples. 

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From Word To Sentence Level