The idea that English faculties in any institution can successfully
blend and work easily with others is every good school principal's dream.
Unfortunately, the reality is most teachers on both sides are rather swathe to
commit for a whole host of reasons.Therefore, it is left to certain teachers to try and make it happen for their students without stepping on any of their colleagues toes. The following project outlines an activity that includes material from possibly four different departments, and shows how it is possible to do it under one "ELT" roof without bruising or putting a blemish anywhere near sensitive people's tootsies.
QR Codes have been around for several years, and they have been
getting a lot of publicity lately. This post aims to further promote this
technology, which we have found to be exciting, quirky and student-engaging.
This image of QR codes is from the assignment we did with our
students in Istanbul down in Tunel, Istiklal and Galata. If you point
your QR reader (available on smart phones and ipad type devices, you can see
their own flip books of the assignment.
The decision to give our students the opportunity to explore other
subject areas in ELT came from the reader we are doing at the moment,
TIMECAPSULE, by Robert Campbell. It tells the story of a fourteen year old girl
who makes a time-capsule for a school history project. She is then magically
transported back in time. This part of the narrative was when my colleague and
I started to think we had a great opportunity to grasp by getting the students to
do something history related in English.
We organized the students to go down town to three very historic areas
of Istanbul: TUNEL, GALATA and BEYOGLU. We went with them to make sure the trip
went smoothly, but realistically the students were left to complete the task
themselves.
FIRST: They had to take pictures of buildings and landmarks, views
and the people so that they would have their own research materials for the
project assignment.
SECOND: During the holiday break, the students had to interview an elderly
member of their family and ask ten questions of their own choosing related to
the three areas visited on the walkabout, and the 1970s era to link with the
reader and associated context.
THIRD: Using the new pictures, and having found old family photographs, the
students had to make a ten slide powerpoint. The questions would be stated on
each slide, then the comparable pictures displayed.
FOURTH: Once completed, instead of saving the ppp as a presentation, the
students had to save their slides as a PDF. This is so they could turn the
slideshow into a FLIPBOOK.
FIFTH: The students then upload the pdf to www.flipsnack.com and turn it into a flipbook. Check out this video tutorial
of the process.
SIXTH: On returning from the holiday, the students made their presentations to
us. We were blown away, to say the least, hence I felt inspired to share the
outcomes, and maybe you can do the same with the ICT opportunity and your
students. The flipbooks are behind those
QR codes at the top, so if you take a look, you can see a few of the codes and
feel inspired to do something similar with your students.
To put closure on the assignment, we introduced COMIC LIFE to the
students. This program offers many templates we all associate with comics and
comic books. The students then slide their own pictures and speech bubbles onto
the template, save and print. We had the students use their pictures from that
awesome day down in Tunel, Galata and Beyoglu. Here is an example of what our
students produced.
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