I must be doing something wrong. On second thought, perhaps my students are doing something wrong.
Do you know when your mum tells you off over and over again for not tidying your room and you just nod your head, promise it will never happen again and then, for some unknown reason, you seem unable to keep your promise? My students do it all the time. It’s called being nice. They are very nice, but being nice won’t help them pass exams.
So, you highlight the mistake, explain why it is a mistake, ask students if they have understood, they nod their head and say they do, you elicit some examples and give them exercises to consolidate and when you think you have seen the last of this mistake, here it is again, sticking its tongue out at you.
Below you’ll find a quiz with some of these very persistent mistakes students at intermediate level, and probably above, make.
This is how I suggest you do this quiz
Do the quiz. Obviously 🙂
Read the grammar and do the exercises when provided.
For spelling mistakes: try to remember the words commonly misspelt featured in the quiz and write them down with the correct spelling.
Grammar mistakes: Do you remember the mistakes? Can you remember why they were wrong? Write a sentence for each of the mistakes you can remember.
Do the quiz again and correct your own sentences and the spelling of the words now.
Were there any grammar or spelling mistakes you could not remember? Repeat numbers 3, 4 and 5.
Today I want to share with you an amazing screen recording tool Screencast-o-matic, which has a lot of potential to teach and learn English.
Hey! Wait! I know, you are not tech-savvy. You don’t need to be. Trust me. When you finish reading this post, I’m sure you will be willing to give it a go . The reasons?
It’s super easy to use! Do you know how to press a button? Then, you know how to use this tool.
You don’t even need to register.
It has a lot of potential to teach/learn English.
Let’s start:
What is Screen-o-matic?
Screencast-o-matic is a free (you don’t even need to register) easy-to-use screen recording. You can use your webcam or both. Screen-o-matic will capture everything on your screen and then, if you wish, share it.
How can I use it in the classroom?
As a teacher
1. For correcting your students’ written assignments. We all have been in this situation: a student is ill or away on a business trip, but he still needs to have some feedback on his written assignment. With this tool, it’s very easy to offer visual constructive feedback by giving audio and visual cues.
Have your students send you their essays by email. Record yourself correcting and explaining their mistakes. Then, send them the video. Thanks to Russell Stannard for this awesome idea. Here’s an example uploaded to screen-o-matic. Sorry, I don’t sound very energetic. It was very late and I was dead tired!
2. For assessing students’ speaking skill, especially when describing pictures or talking about slides. Ask them to choose one or several pictures and ask them to record themselves. Here’s an example of one of my students uploaded to youtube. Thank you Elsa! 🙂
3. For a variety of speaking activities:
To explain a recipe
To talk about your favourite group, hobby, family…etc
To describe, for example, traditional games, unusual customs…etc.
For first-day presentations
For book/film reviews
The only limit is your imagination.
4. For recorded contests:
It’s St Valentine’s day, ask them to invent a romantic story
It’s Halloween, time for a horror story!
Give them a set of pictures and ask them to create a story
Give them some words and expressions and ask them to create a story
For recorded minisagas (maximum of 50 words)
5. For asessing students’ reading fluency and pronunciation. Ask students to read a given text online and ask them to send their recording.
6. For flipping your classroom. Not every student learns in the same way so it would be a good idea to record some of the most difficult grammar points for weak students to revise at home.
7. Doing exams at home. You can even make things easier for students who, for personal reasons, cannot sit exams in the classroom. Send them the test and ask them to record themselves answering the questions either in written or oral form. It might be a good idea to give them a time limit to send back the video with the answers. You can ask them to use the webcam, too (for obvious reasons).
8. To make tutorial videos to explain a task they need to do online or how an online tool works, for example this one. The yellow pointer makes it easy for students to follow your explanations. Example here
9. Help your substitute teacher. You can even make a video to help your substitute teacher if you’re going to miss class.
As a student
10. Using your webcam, for collaborative projects.
11. As an alternative to a Power Point presentation individually or in groups.
12. To do any oral assignment with one or several slides.
13. To state your opinion on any given topic.
14. To record yourself when practising for oral tests.
Why do I like it?
You don’t have to register or give your email address unless you want to upload it to their server.
You can record up to 15 minutes
You can create different folders for your different classes. If you create an account and share the email address and password with your students they can upload their own assignments and have everything neatly organised in folders.
You can choose to record only your computer screen, you can use your webcam or both
You can resize your recording window.
You can choose the microphone you want to use and adjust the volume. For laptops you can use the built-in microphone.
The first time you use it, you’ll need to download a small program.
Click the “Start Recording” button and the recording button will be launched.
Click the red button Rec and everything inside the frame will be recorded.
You can pause or restart or click Done when you finish.
Now, a new window will open offering you the possibilities of downloading your video, or uploading it to youtube or to Screen-o-matic.com (to use this last option you will need to register). Uploading to Screen-o-matic.com is free and it has some advantages:
It gives you a unique url or an embed code to use on your website or blog
You can create different channels and upload your recordings in an organised way. This is particularly interesting if you want to create a channel for your students to upload their recordings.
There is an online version, which works pretty well with Windows but not so well with Mac, and a downloadable version which works with both PC and Mac.There is a free and a pro version, but I should say that the free version works just fine.
It’s almost too late to revise. Almost. Key word being almost.
The school year is wrapping up and it’s time to revise, prepare, practise and administer end-of-course assessments. Not that I like the last part the slightest bit.
Revision activities are a great help to students. It helps them see where they are and what areas they need to study harder.
These are two revision activities I did with my intermediate and upper-Intermediate students that could easily be adapted to any level to suit your needs.
revising grammar and vocabulary
revising topics for the oral exam
REVISING GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY
I got this idea from a lecture given by Roy Norris, although I have slightly modified it to adjust it to my students’ needs and I have also invented the rules, which can be altered in any way you choose.
Materials: a dice and a set of coloured strips of paper for each group. (an alternative to colour coding below)
Procedure:
Decide six areas you want to revise and find a different coloured paper for each one. Alternatively, you can use a standard sheet of white paper giving each area the same number, up to six. I revised I wish/if only, conditional sentences, passive, phrasal verbs, word building, and miscellaneous. The type of exercise in my revision game was mainly “rewriting exercises”, except for the “word building” area. I would suggest a minimum of 5 sentences for each area you want to revise.
Don’t panic! There are plenty of these exercises online, so you don’t really need to type the sentences, just copy/paste.
Print the six areas – as shown in the pictures- and at the back write the answer to the exercises in a way that the typed sentence and your written answer coincide. This is an important step as you are later going to cut strips of paper containing the typed sentences on one side, and on the other the answer. (see pictures).
At the beginning of the game, divide the class into groups of four. Give a dice and a set of coloured strips of paper to each group.
Once in groups of four, tell them they will be working in pairs and competing against the other pair in their group.
Ask them to place the strips of paper on a pile, sorted out by number or colour, with the typed part facing up. Give each group a dice. If you have opted for the colour-coded option, on the whiteboard assign numbers 1-6 to the different colour. (For ex: number 1-orange, number 2-pink…etc).
Rules:
Pair A throws the dice. Depending on the number they take a strip of paper from one pile or another. There is no time limit. Both pairs need to write down the answer. When one pair finishes they say so, and the other pair has 20 seconds to finish. When time’s up, Pair A is first to give the answer. They check being careful not to show the answer to the other pair. If it’s wrong, then it’s Pair B’s turn to try. They score one point for every correct answer.
This kind of activity allows the students to work on their own without much teacher supervision, which is both empowering and motivating.
If you are a student, studying on your own, you can write your own exercises and revise in the same way.
REVISING TOPICS FOR THE ORAL EXAM
This is a simple exercise I did with my students to revise the topics they needed to study for the oral exam. I normally give them a set of questions to discuss about a given topic, so this time I thought it might be a good idea if, for a change, they provided the questions.
Procedure
On the walls of the class, stick the topics to be revised. Write them big enough for the students to see from a distance.If you have a large class, ask students to work in threes and if you have a smaller class, ask them to work in pairs or even individually.
Tell them they will need to come up with a question for each of the topics displayed on the walls. Walk around the class, offering help and correcting mistakes.
Once they have their question about a topic, give them a sticky note and ask them to write their question on it and put it next to the topic the question relates to. (see picture). Allow 10-15 minutes for this step.
Ask students in pairs to stand up and choose the topic(s) they want to revise. In pairs they take it in turns asking and answering the questions. Encourage students to use a variety of structures and a wide range of vocabulary.
Oh boy. Does it bring back memories!
Dictations! To be completely honest with you, I have mixed feelings as regards dictations. I remember back in primary school when the language teacher gave us lots of dictations like a well-deserved break after a tough grammar lesson; and then, this feeling of “I don’t want to ever hear the word dictation again” that I got from my classes at university where the teacher gave us one-page-long dictations so quickly that when he finished, he was panting for breath, and we were seeing red.
Although doing dictations is somewhat regarded as an old-fashioned technique, it is undeniable that a lot of benefits can be derived from doing this exercise. In fact, it is an integrative activity requiring the use of various skills like listening, writing and reading -when you read the passage you have written, looking for grammar or spelling mistakes. You might even add speaking if the dictation is used as a prompt to encourage discussion of the passage.
In case you are not fully convinced that dictations also have their place in the twenty-first century classroom, here are some more benefits you might want to consider:
• It improves spelling.
• It improves recognition of grammatically correct sentences.
• It helps students distinguish sounds in continuous speech.
• It improves students’ awareness of punctuation.
• It gives students practice in comprehending and helps them gain fluency in writing.
If I have managed to convince you, here are some links to online dictations you might want to try or if you are a teacher, heartily recommend to your students.
This site specializes in dictations and although it is free, you can sign in to do more dictations or keep track of your score and view your score history. They are graded from elementary to advanced.
The students hear the dictation four times
The first time, the whole passage is read at normal speed to listen for gist.
The second time, each phrase is read slowly twice, with punctuation.
Then the whole passage is read again to check your work.
And finally, the written text is shown for you to see your mistakes.
I like the site. It is very user-friendly. The dictations are graded going from Elementary, with short recordings of one or two phrases, to Advanced with recordings of one or two paragraphs.
This site features two levels: elementary and intermediate. It has a very clean interface where you’ll see two recording of the same dictation. One recorded at a normal speed and the other one at a slow speed with pauses to give you time to write down what you hear. You only need to follow the instructions.
I won’t spend much time introducing this post, mainly because today is one of these days when the muse has decided to leave me.
Perhaps you’re wondering what else you can do to pass your listening test with flying colours apart from doing every single listening comprehension exercise in your student’s book and all the ones in the workbook. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel, but here are a few things you might want to try.
1.Read a few tips and put them into practice. Students often complain that despite grasping the main information content of the recorded material, they sometimes seem to be unable to provide the right answer and this leads to frustration.
Getting a high mark in a listening comprehension exercise requires practice, lots, and also knowing a few tips. The most common types of listening exercises are Blank Filling and Multiple Choice and there are a few handy hints on how best to deal with them that you might want to read. The tips below aim at teaching students to listen effectively to enable them to select the information they require from what they hear.
2.The obvious. Find a good listening site with plenty of listening exercises to choose from.
One of the sites I have been recommending my students lately to practise Listening is Ingles en Aviles, a fantastic blog aimed at B2 (upper-intermediate) and C1 (advanced students) where you’ll find lots of listening comprehension exercises to choose from.
Vaughan Radio is a live radio station broadcasting from Madrid, Spain that provides listeners the chance to improve English language skills. So while you’re at home, maybe cleaning or ironing and bored to death, you might want to give it a try. From time to time you’ll hear some Spanish words to help Spanish listeners, but most of the time the show is in English and really worth listening to.
Here’s the link to listen on the computer. Alternatively, you can download the app on your smart phone. Type Radio Vaughan in the search box to download the app. My favourite programme? “The show with no name”.
4. Watching series.
Here, I would recommend ororo.tv. What can ororo.tvdo to help you improve your English? What will you find on this website? An amazing number of TV shows and films in their original versions and with subtitles in English. Right now, I am hooked on the Big Bang Theory, an American sitcom about four young scientists, but surely you’ll find attractive alternatives here to suit every taste and mood.
A very interesting tool to help you with your pronunciation and your listening is Youglish. In the search box, type the word or expression you want to hear in context. Youglish provides you with videos, from You Tube, where the word/expression is spoken by real people and in context.
In case you’re wondering, this is not a sponsored post. It’s just a few recommendations from a humble teacher trying to help students by sharing some useful links.
