Tag Archives: students

AI App Smashing for a Farewell Message for my Students and my new Workshops on AI

General, , , ,

One of the best things in life is loving what you do, and I have been very lucky in that respect.

Can you guess? I have 33 years’ experience under my belt (OMG, am I that old?) and when I started, we could only teach with a textbook and a chalkboard. Computers in the classroom? Not found!  And guess what? I had a blast with just those! So, I am not going to tell you to ditch the book altogether, I am going to suggest blending it with a bit of tech.

Back to my story: After some years, cool educational apps started popping up.  But though I tried and used lots of websites and created tons of digital activities, using them was never enough for me, so I used them, yes, absolutely, but in such a way that allowed me to combine traditional teaching and these new fancy tools to add colour and modernize teaching. Guess what? I realized that incorporating those new apps only added to my lessons.

And now all the fun is Artificial Intelligence. And I have hopped on board, too! Let me tell you; if I can do it, you can do it too.  Let me guide you through blending tech into your lessons for maximum fun, both for you and your students. Check my new catalogue full of AI workshops. ‘Cause trust me!  AI isn’t going anywhere—it’s here to stay and you, as a teacher, cannot be left behind. It’s not just learning about AI apps and productivity, though – it’s about learning how to integrate AI seamlessly into your lessons

So, what are you waiting for? Check out my workshops and get ready to level up your teaching game with AI.

https://ccd.my.canva.site/iacabal

Oh, and don’t forget to check out the little goodbye video I made for my students using 5 or 6 very easy AI technologies. I loved creating it, and I’m pretty sure they did too, but who needs confirmation when you’ve got laughter in the air, right?

A Short Descriptive Writing Activity with a Touch of Pasta

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Hello February! What? Already almost mid-February?

It took me most of the second half of January to assess my students in the five skills required to certify their level but now I welcome February with open arms and with the aim of letting loose a bit and doing activities that are a little bit more fun than assessing students. It shouldn’t be too difficult LOL.

Also, I have to confess, and from what I gathered from their marks in exams,  I might not be doing enough writing. So, I have started February with the aim of planning some time in my classes to give my students some short writing activities.

Here we go with one of them and….. you are going to need PASTA.

  • Topic: Describing scenery
  • Level: C1
  • Skills and subskills: vocabulary and writing
  • Aim:
  • Learning vocabulary
  • Writing a short descriptive paragraph
  • Peer correction
  • Having fun ( I can feel your scepticism right through my computer screen LOL but be assured I will never lie to you)
Introducing Vocabulary

Step 1: Brainstorming

Put students in pairs and ask them to write in 1 minute all the words they can think of related to landscape and scenery.

Get feedback and give enthusiastic applause to the pair who has written the most items. At this point, it does not really matter if the words are below the advanced level. Let them have some fun but, on the board, write only the ones that are a bit more advanced ( for ex: I wouldn’t write the word “tree” but I would write the word “ridge”).

Step 2: Introducing Vocabulary

Hopefully, in the brainstorming activity above, students would have come up with some of the words in this exercise.

  1. Introducing. Do the exercise a couple of times, change templates, and give students the time to write down the words.


2. Clarifying. Some words might cause confusion; these are the ones I have clarified.

Same, Same, But Different Worksheet by cristina.cabal

3. Reinforcing. Silently assign a word to every student in the class and ask them to write a definition for the word and then have them read it aloud for the class to guess.

The Writing Activity

On the board write some verbs they might want to use: scramble down (the cliff), stray from(the path), stick to (the path),  (the road) wind along, ( a road/ridge) lead up or any other you feel they might need.

Step 1: Writing. Individual work

Ask students to choose one of the photos above and write a short descriptive paragraph on a separate piece of paper. Encourage them to use the target vocabulary ( but don’t let them know at this point that they will be rewarded for their choice of words). Allow 12-15 minutes for this task.

Step 1: Peer assessment. Using the pasta as a reward

  1. Once they have all finished writing, ask students to swap descriptions with the student sitting next to them.
  2. Place a bowl of pasta on the table. A bowl for every two students works fine. Say nothing about it. Students will surely ask you but say nothing. Not yet.
  3. Tell students to read their partner’s writing underlining the target words they have used: it could be nouns, adjectives or adverbs.
  4. Tell the students to circle words spelt incorrectly.
  5. How do you use the pasta? The pasta is used as a reward. For every new word used correctly, the student assessing the writing takes a piece of pasta  (misspelt words get no pasta).  With as much drama as possible, perform the award ceremony where students give and receive as many pieces of pasta as words they have used correctly.
  6. Ask the three students who got the most pieces to read out their descriptions.

Teaching Students the Technique to Ace a Cloze Listening Exercise

Listening, , ,

Engaging, challenging and highly effective activity to teach students how to do a  Listening Cloze Exercise! This is a must-do activity to help students learn the technique for a fill-in-the-blanks exercise.

If I have to name the activity most of my older students find highly frustrating, it is probably doing a listening comprehension activity and not being able to understand anything. At least, that’s what they tell me. I suspect they are stretching it a tiny bit and they have managed to get the gist of what is being said but, already in a black mood when the audio finishes, they just feel they will never get better. The truth is that getting the gist is not enough when you are unable to answer the questions posed, especially when tested in an exam. That, we both know.

Though I always tell them that they need to work on this and promise that if they make a habit out of listening every single day, they will eventually get it and blah, blah, blah…, the truth is that we, as teachers, also need to find the time to explain how to do this kind of listening exercises.  Because although it doesn’t work magic, there is a technique… and it can help them.

It seems to me the beginning of a course is the right time to do it and so, this past week,  I set out to explain this technique.

But, you know me. With a game. Playing.

Step 1- Choose a Cloze Listening Exercise.

Step 2: Form Groups

Give all students the exercise on paper and ask them to form groups of 3ish people.

Step 3. Explain the Task

Explain that prediction in this kind of listening exercises is key. Stress the importance of trying to predict two things:

  1. The grammatical category of the word(s) that will fit in the gap: is it a noun, a verb…etc?
  2. The challenging part: ask students in their groups to try to guess the word (s) that they think will fill the gap. Ask students to name a secretary in the group that will be in charge of writing down their guesses.

For example in Number 1, one group might write “their teachers” but another group might decide “parents”  is the best option.

Give students some individual time to read the text and start thinking about the options. Then ask them to join their groups and decide on one option for each gap.

Step 4. The Whiteboard

Divide the whiteboard in as many columns as groups- see the picture- and ask the secretaries of each group to come up to the whiteboard and write their options. Comment on any coincidences to build suspense- in the picture, have a look at question Nº 2, they all wrote “culture”-.  Remember you are teaching them the technique, but it is also a game.

Step 5: the Listening

Play the audio (2 or 3 times). At this point, ask students to focus on their exercises and forget about their guesses.

Step 6: The Winners

Correct the listening exercise. Write the correct answers on the board and give 1 point for every coincidence. You know who the winner is, don’t you?

Note: In one class, one group got as many as 4 correct answers without even listening to the audio. Amazing, isn’t it?

Do you want to try? Follow all the steps and then listen to the audio. Check. How many wild guesses did you get right? Surely, you can’t expect to wild guess the exact number for gaps 3,5 and 6 but you know that it is a number and that, is saying a lot. Answers here. 

 

 

Brainstorming, Introducing and Revising Vocabulary Related to Work for C1 Students

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Undeniable. This course is proving to be quite challenging. Having your students sitting in rows, stuck on their seats and only being able to talk to the person on their right or on their left has me racking my brains trying to find attractive alternatives to some of the successful dynamics I used in the past.

With teaching online on the rise, more than ever I have been juggling different tools to make sure the work my students do at home is relevant, effective and motivating. I think Genial.ly, the tool I have used in this lesson, is a must-have in any teachers’ toolbox.

In this lesson, you will find:

  • Activating prior knowledge:  handout
  • Introducing new vocabulary: handout
  • Speaking activity
  • Engaging game to revise Vocabulary

Step 1. Activating Students’ Prior Knowledge. Brainstorming

Before introducing new vocabulary, it is crucial to help them activate prior knowledge so that they don’t feel overwhelmed by how much they need to learn. Learning expands gradually from previous knowledge and we cannot and should not neglect this important step.

To brainstorm vocabulary, I gave them 2 minutes to write down on their notebooks, words or expressions related to “work”. On the board, I wrote Work and then wrote their suggestions, exemplifying, clarifying and drilling pronunciation.

When appropriate and relevant, I also started introducing new terms, like the minimum wage as represented in the picture below.   Some  other vocabulary they came up with is here

Step 2: Introducing New Vocabulary

PDF here

Individual Work: I gave them this photocopy and a couple of minutes to underline any new words/expressions.

Whole class: Then,  I instructed them to ask the question. Does anyone know what the meaning of…. is?  Only when no one in the class could come up with a clear explanation, did I offer it.  Until then, it is all about asking students to tap into their previous knowledge.

Step 3: Firts attempt at introducing some new vocabulary in a speaking activity

I divided the class into As and Bs and asked As to choose three new words they wanted to use in their speech. I wrote them on the board under the headings A’s words/ B’s words.

I gave As this statement to discuss: Unpaid internships should be banned and I gave B’s Retirement age: higher or lower? I let them have some thinking time and asked them to do the speaking task.

Step 4: Revising Vocabulary with a Game

This proved to be an engaging game to revise vocabulary. You will find the instructions in the second slide, but watch the video with my students doing the activity if you want a sneak peek of how much fun we had.

And here’s the game. I have made the template editable in case you want to add your own pictures. To reveal the hidden word, you’ll need to hover the mouse pointer over the picture.

More vocabulary

Guess my Age: a Fun Game to Practise Modal Verbs of Possibility and Certainty

Games, Grammar and Exercises, , , , , , , , ,

Have you ever seen the contest  “El Concurso del Año” on TV? It is on Channel 4. I had never seen it before and I don’t think I am going to see it again any time soon. I found it incredibly boring and uninteresting. But dull as it was, I realized it had great potential to teach modal verbs. Yep. That sad! I am watching TV and  I can only think of teaching. So guess what, I am about to make this contest your new favourite thing to teach modals of possibility and certainty.

  • Now, what is the goal of the game? to guess the exact age of 6 celebrities. 
  • What’s the target language?  modal verbs of certainty and possibility in both their simple and perfect forms.
  • What skills are we working with? speaking and writing.

Materials: you will need blank slips of  paper  (a good opportunity to recycle the back of some old photocopies)

These are the basic rules of the game, which I have slightly modified to meet my students’ needs but hey, the ingredients in this game are just really appealing: celebrities, music, interaction, fun, new technologies…etc and lots of learning.

  1. The class is divided into teams. The aim of the game is to find out the exact age of some famous people while using the target language. In this case, modal verbs.
  2. Teams will be offered a clue to help them guess the exact age.

There are 3 types of clues:

  • the SONG ( one song released on the year of birth of the famous person)
  • the EVENT (an important event of the year the celebrity was born)
  • the CELEBRITY ( another famous person born in the same year)

To see how to play, and to play this fun game, open the interactive presentation below.

Personal experience: students really enjoyed the game and in their excitement, they tended to say just the age or slip into Spanish. Remind them to use the target modal verbs and English.

Note: To enlarge this beautiful interactive presentation created with Genial.ly, click on 3 dots and then on the arrows.