Tag Archives: writing

Writing and Speaking Elementary : Describe a game

Pictures, Speaking, Students' Corner, Writing, , , , ,

Of all the skills a student has to become fluent at when learning a language  writing is, for me, the most boring one. I don’t think it’s the hardest by any means, this prize is awarded to Speaking but the truth is that students find it boring and we, teachers, almost always put off marking essays for as long as we can.

On the other hand, I find that it’s much easier for students to write a worthy piece of writing  if you provide a model, some guidelines to follow and also give them a topic  they are mildly interested in .

Last week’s topic for composition was Writing about a Game. I asked students to think of a game or a sport and answer the following questions

♥What’s the name of the activity? ♥How many players are there? ♥ How does a player start the game?♥What do the players do then?

I also asked some students to record their work and this is what they did (I used a tool called Fotobabble. I wrote about Fotobabble here). Thank you folks, good job!
Lucia Gonzalez Hide n Seek


Alba Feito “Marbles”

<iframe style=’border:0;’ height=450 width=400  scrolling=no  src=’http://www.fotobabble.com/api/fotobabble?apiKey=test&format=HTML&displayFormat=Player&id=cFo4UFNsVitSWjg9&height=450&width=400′></iframe>

Carolina Macas The Handkerchief

David Díaz The Liar Dice

 

Learn how to write an informal email with SlideRocket

General, Resources, Slides, Students' Corner, Writing, Writing skill,

Edit: Sliderocket is no longer free. Therefore, I have uploaded the presentation to Slideshare

SlideRocket is an online presentation tool that helps you create , manage and share your presentations. With this tool you can create better slideshows more quickly from within any browser.You can also upload your  PowerPoints or Google Docs presentations. Presentations are stored on SlideRocket’s servers and can be accessed from any device that is connected to the internet. For casual users , it’s free.

A Glogster Project : My Favourite Sport!

Create your own stuff, In the Computer Room, Students' Corner, Writing, , , ,

Every year I find a reason to use Glogster in the classroom (click here to see my first article about Glogster) I think most of my students, though camera-shy, like to see their work published. I find that Glogster is the ideal tool to use with twelve or thirteen- year- old students because it ‘s very visual and students have a lot of fun deciding which frame to use for their photograph or text , which video they want to embed ( In English, of course) . Yes, they have fun but what they probably don’t realize is that they are using English from Step 1 of the project.
In fact, after finishing our Glogster, I wrote on the board  several of the words they had been using  (frame, text, wall, image, tools, gallery, upload, cartoon…etc) and they were happy when they recognised it.

Have you never tried Glogster? Give it a go! It’s a lot of fun!

Click here to see it better!

A Word on Grammar: on the corner or in the corner?

A word on Grammar, , ,

That’s a question I’m often asked by my students and here’s the answer I offer them.

What kind of “corner” are you referring to? Is it the corner of a room or the corner of a street?

♥ If you are giving directions  to a shop, then you should say:

This shop is on the corner of High Street

♥ If you are saying that a person is sitting in a chair in a room, then:

Mary is sitting in a chair in the corner of the sitting-room.

Summarising: you use in, when the corner is inside and on, when the corner is outside.

Note: you can also say at the corner to refer to the corner of a street.

I’ll wait at the corner/ I’ll wait on the corner.