Session 6 (Oct 21): Promoting self-expression through audio activities and digital storytelling. Audacity Project: short poem, Stranger. (with voice and music)

     We learnt how to use ‘Audacity’ tonight. It is very useful for listening and speaking. Student can make fun with it and listen back for what they have said. No better ways to improve their speaking skills by listening back their own recordings. And it is a funny way to do so! As students love music more than plain reading, ‘Audacity’ allows them to put background music which arouse their interests to make the recordings.

     Paul introduced some videos about ‘digital storytelling for personal expression’ for us. They were amazing! With beautiful pictures and touching voice-over, digital story telling is powerful to tell experience and ideas. Only emotions can boost up one’s learning power, as students’ minds being enlightened, nothing is impossible.

     Sounds are the main power and source for English learning, make good use of sounds recording tools would be essential for students. 


https://www.dropbox.com/s/ifzskd412nub50s/stranger%20by%20Kelvin%20Wong.mp3?dl=0

Here is the link for Audacity project tonight. 'Stranger'

Session 5 reflection

  Nowadays, everybody is watching videos online. Even a small little kid would rather watching videos than reading books. It is inevitable to use videos for English learning now. In this lesson, we have visited a lot of websites about English learning. There were so many useful and meaningful English learning videos there. We always talk about flipping classroom these days, student need to be proactive in learning nowadays. With these websites, students are motivated to learn beforehand would not be a dream.      

 'Flocabulary' is so funny that we can learn something decent with 'hip hop' music. That is so cool! It is no doubt that students would not complaint learning is boring. In the old days, we manipulate videos a lot in teaching. But we can only pause the video and ask students verbally what we can learn from the video. Can students do it by themselves at home? With the help of Ted-Ed, we can assign students to watch videos at home and simultaneously do the questions. Moreover, we can produce a 'home-made' video with some students and add questions to the tailor-made video with 'edpuzzle'! That would be absolutely amazing for them and they would be greatly engaged in the learning process. As they can be part of the learning now! Amazing and engaging is how we describe the fantastic use of 'edpuzzle'. With that, we would fall in love with English learning.

EDpuzzle for 'personal pronouns and possessives'

Let's try this funny and wonderful video-questions English learning platform: TedEd. We learn prepositions together! ^_^

https://ed.ted.com/on/LFYj8vRA

 It is the Teded for prepositions learning.

Session 4 reflection-----Amazing Quizlet

I am amazed by the wonderful interactive games tonight! They are wonderful with funny and playful functions!

'Bubble us' is a really interesting software that children can actually do it by themselves. As they can do the mind mapping by creating different blocks like playing online games, I think they would have great interest in learning the concepts of making mind maps. In my general studies lessons, students just refused to learn how to draw mind maps because they hate to write. But building blocks like this, they would absolutely like it!

Moreover, the most incredible app I encountered tonight would be Quizlet! With the amazing playing functions with this app, I have no doubt that students are learning English with tones of fun! They love games, they love timing the game they are playing. That is the thing that can combine the 2 fascinating purposes! That is the fusion of several great things in nowadays English learning: fun, interactive, real learning, attractive and playful! 

Thanks Paul, with your great introduction, I am confident in getting my students' attention without any harsh work beforehand!  

Bubble us (different kinds of food!)

bubble us about food

food using Quizlet

Session 2 reflection

 In this session, we have learnt lots of self-learning tools form internet. They are wonderful for students to learn things by themselves.

 We know that students nowadays are passive and have low motivation to learn. But they have great interest in using electronic devices for learning. It is amazing to combine the two things together: using E-resources and learn English on their own!

 Especially for using 'thesaurus', students would know that 'word choices' can beautify what they have written.  If a teacher asks them to use another word to replace repeating words, they won't listen to it. But finding out different choices for the same meaning by themselves, they would love to do so as that's done by them. Students love to use things made by themselves rather than asked by others. Thus, using 'thesaurus' is a smart choice for enhancing their self-learning.

 To learn proactively by students is the big trend in English teaching. And this lesson had introduced a lot of wonderful websites to do so. That is a fruitful treasure to boost up my teaching in the coming year. However, I need time to digest such a big treasure from the internet! :) 

USING A THESAURUS TO HELP STUDENTS IMPROVE THEIR CHOICE OF WORDS

Original Draft

On the first day, we met our class teacher Mr Wong, we thought he would be very strict to us. After one week, we found Mr Wong was very nice! We like this secondary school and we like to be in 1A. This is a good school and 1A is very good. The teachers in this school are very kind and nice and our classmates are also kind, friendly and nice. We like each other very much.

Edited Version

On the first day, we met our class teacher Mr Wong, we thought he would be very strict to us. After one week, we found Mr Wong was very pleasant! We adore this secondary school and we are proud to be in 1A. This is a brilliant school and 1A is a fantastic class. The teachers in this school are very kind and helpful and our classmates are also kind, friendly and considerate. We cherish each other very much.

Session 3 quiz and tests

 This session is all about making some interactive and funny games with different apps.

 Classdojo will be welcomed by children for sure! They would love the monsters representing them and getting marks during the lessons. Their marks could be recorded and continue to show up in the next lessons. They would be excited about this.

 Google form is so convenient to use as a test or revision for students. They can instantly know what they can master after a lesson. It is so interactive with their learning and they can adjust the incorrect concepts they have misunderstood.

 Hotpotatoes are some interactive and interesting games that student would love to participate. They could make improvements step by step. That's a great learning tool for children. It won't be some plain and boring exercises anymore.