BILL & TED HELP to LAUNCH STUDENTS into READING

A typical teenager in class, and staring out the window: 

"The sun is out. I DO NOT want to be at school, and now my teacher is telling me we are about to begin the next ESL-reader,'The Time Capsule'. Booorrrrrrrrriinnnnggggg!!

The above example could well be what goes through your teenage students' minds when they learn it is "read-a-book" time.  I know it is in my students' heads because they have told me so. In fact, in my class of 17 students, only TWO students admitted that they liked to read.  So, what to do?  It is certainly a world issue, not just a Turkish one, since it is everywhere on Twitter and educational tv debates that reading is becoming evermore difficult to convince the youth of today that it has huge benefits for them. However, I am not going to spout forth spuriously that I have the answer to this endemic issue.  I am, though, going to share an activity with you, which we did today, that seemed to get the majority of the class engaged in the reading process for 100 minutes.

TASTY WARMER & SPRINGBOARD

By using Bill & Ted (a classic teenage movie from the 80s), and by having the short clip subtitled, allows L2-Students to get more of the dialogue than would be possible without them.  The kids loved the chosen clip, and it made them laugh; so they were more curious about the subject matter ahead.  This is the support short subtitled video clips can give you for engaging students in the reading process.

STAGE ONE

The first step for us in the hope of engaging students with a 'smart-powerpoint':

The reason I refer to this ppp (actually just the slide-images of course :-) as 'smart' is that you are beginning to engage the students with funny, exciting and interesting short clips. Then after each one, you start to have discussions about their feelings on Time-Travel.  The environment became very animated during this 30 minutes slot, as all teens are curious about the future. One boy wanted to go forward only four years, so that he could start to drive!  However, thankfully,  some wanted to go back in time to fix mistakes they had made, or to meet their iconic world figure, pop star or musician.

So with the mix of EQs, and interest-evoking conversation-teasers a healthy debate did ensue.  It was then off to the library for SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) and note-taking. 

NOTE: We have found that if we don't get them to properly note-take, and then check, they simply don't read. They muck about and waste everyone's time.

STAGE TWO

Here, the student has deemed it necessary to mark details that she believes could be asked later.  A question like, 

             "Explain, by using evidence and clues from the text,                                
              how you know that Jan is not in her own bedroom." 

could be answered by having highlighted this segment.  It shows that this L2-reader is beginning to grasp contextual clues through text, and that she is engaged in the story.   

We have also found that if we structure and put an exact amount of pages the students actually read (I know that many of the purists out there will frown at this), we get much more from shorter exposure to the text. I guess we could synonymize this with SCAFFOLDING (?), since the students are in a preparatory class for high school, it seems appropriate.  The final part of the actual reading process is the quality of environment.  We always take the students to the library to read alone, and we NEVER read to them in class.  It also gets them out of the usual surroundings of the classroom, which can be quite suffocating after a length of time. We do 25 hours a week with a class for English.

An iphone panoramic view of our students happily reading in a spacious, silent light environment; not to mention the comfort of big soft chairs.  These factors lead to more students reading, and trying to engage with books.

STAGE THREE 

After each child has read the section (for today's read it was 22 pages), they go back to class for the next activity: a worksheet done in pairs.  Of course, not all the students finish at the same time, so we ask those who do to go back over their highlights and add annotations, and to think of questions that could come up on the worksheet.

On return to the classroom, we organize the students into pairs.  We prefer to have a strong student working with a less-able-to-read-in-L2 type of person.  This helps on many levels, not least of all the slower readers and at a lower level don't feel so left out and awkward, plus the quicker, more able ones can feel great that they can help their classmate.  What we saw today was total immersion and engagement during this time.  We even had pairs openly sharing definitions, answers and debating parts of the book for an even greater understanding.

The final part of this activity is us all having a debate/discussion tomorrow about the book's content (S.C.A.S.I.), and hearing the students opinions on why it starts the way it does.  We are always careful to add questions about the characters that can also be personalized relatively easy to suit the students age and age-appropriate development. In fact one of the videos, "Hot Tub Time Machine" is not appropriate for this age-group, if they were to be watching it all. But we chose the trailer, which is family-appropriate, so there can be no problems for either the students or ourselves.

I have to say this was a very enjoyable 100 minutes with the students today. EVEN WITH reading, you can get teenagers to work, provided you set them up to succeed.  If you do it in such a way that they don't even realize they are reading, writing, analyzing, discussing, watching, listening through the power of text, then there appears to be few cracks in the method.  

Please try it out, and if you have any other methods for a mash-up that have worked for you, please write and let us know.

GENUINE STUDENT TRANSFER of the FIVE STAGES of LEARNING

A couple of years ago I came up with a theory that involves teachers and students using the 5-STAGES of GRIEF as a model for their own learning. It sounds a bit grim, but if you click on the original post, since published in ETAS, you can see where, and how I took it for use as a type of an autonomous-student formative assessment in my workplace.  The reason for today's post is that we witnessed a student using the model to complete a presentation he did over the bayram holiday.  We had not asked for the Five-Stages analysis, but he chose to include it, himself, which real autonomy, dedication and awareness of his own understanding.

Holiday Assignment...

The homework project involved the students watching a film that we had given them to view over the holiday.  We made sure that there was a purpose to the activity, otherwise we knew we would get the students either not watching it, or just the beginning, then watch a trailer on youtube.  The objective, therefore, was for them to watch the movie using English subtitles, then they had to take a snapshot of 6 important scenes, and describe in reasonable detail what has happened up to and including that point.  They then had to make a ppp showing the scenes, a description of events, and the reason why they liked that scene.  The bullet pointed objectives below outline what the benefits of doing such an activity are:

• Listening practice
• Reading practice with the English subtitles
• Identifying the themes set out in the screenplay
• Empaythizing with the protagonist   (& antogonist in this case)
• Using technology skills to display the findings
• Present in English to the class on their return

The student who blew our minds this morning was a kid called Emre.  It was so good what he had done, I asked if I could use his example on the blog.  He dutifully agreed and here is what he produced:

THE FIVE STAGES OF PAKU

STAGE ONE: DENIAL

He denies the baby girl's arrival when her father, Poro, gives her the name, Paikea.

STAGE TWO: ANGER

He gets very angry when Poro leaves his daughter, now called Paikea, with his father (the tribal leader), so he can go to the city to become an artist. 

STAGE THREE: BARGAINING

He tries to change the girl's name, by getting agreements from his villagers.  He prays every day for a boy to save the village and tribe.

STAGE FOUR: DEPRESSION

He stops talking to everyone and cries to the spirits and his ancestors. He moves to a secluded area of the village. He continues to prey for help.

STAGE FIVE: ACCEPTANCE

When he sees that his grand-daughter does indeed have a special connection to whales, especially after his wife gives him the whale bone only Paikea could get from the sea bed. She is then celebrated as the village and tribal leader by Paku. 

(note: I tidied up some of the syntax for your reading pleasure. However, all of the ideas are his.)

This image shows the final scenes where Paikea makes a spiritual connection to the whales.

Much more than just a successful project, but we witnessed true investigative student-enquiry (over a holiday) that highlighted how this kid has really understood the conceptual theory of the 5-Stages of Learning. I have to be honest when I say I was totally proud this morning, to be a teacher of Emre.

A Holiday Voice Recording Activity

My colleague and I absolutely love our IPhones.  We constantly use them in and out of the classroom to stay connected with each other, as well as with the students. (Check out David's recent post on making a What'sApp group for your students) We also take photos or shoot videos of our students in action several times a week.  Yet, when it comes to students using their mobile phones in class, we can still be a bit conservative.

The primary reason for this is that we are extremely lucky this year in terms of technology in the classroom.  All of our students either have a Macbook Pro or MacBook Air.  Therefore, most of the technology time in our curriculum is based on getting the students more skilled at using them.  Secondly, though, is the fact many students get so easily distracted when it comes to having their mobile phones in class.  Since they are continuously getting instant messages from their friends and families, students can quickly lose focus when doing a M-learning activity.

Nonetheless, we are not totally against using smartphones for a classroom activity from time to time. We know how much our students enjoy using them.  Plus, there is an abundance of apps that are available for smartphones, yet not available for the Macbooks.  One such app that we occasionally use is called Voice Record Pro, and we used it just last week for a speaking and listening activity about the upcoming holiday here in Turkey.

What Are You Doing During the Holiday?

  

This activity starts off with this simple question, and the students write down a short paragraph in their notebooks as the first step.  It doesn't need to be very long in length, just somewhere around four to five sentences.

When they have finished, we tell the students to get their mobile phones and open Voice Record Pro. We then have them go off to find a quiet place outside of the classroom to record the paragraphs that they have just written about their upcoming holiday.  If they have written four or five sentences, their recordings should be around 30 seconds long.  With that in mind, we tell them that they have a maximum of five minutes to get their paragraphs recorded and come back to the classroom.  Even though that is more than enough time, many students can be shy or embarrassed about recording their voices, and thus, often make three or four recordings to get something they are happy with.

While the students are away making their recordings, I organize the students into pairs.  You can do this manually, or by using the brilliant teacher resource, Triptico.  Once the students come back, you display their pairs on the board.  Their task now is to send their voice recording to their partner (and vice versa), then make notes in their notebooks of what his / her partner is doing during the holiday while listening to it.  Finally, once everyone is finished, we then have each person share his / her findings as a whole class.

It is a simple and fun activity to do, yet there is definitely an academic objective to it.  There are various English skills practiced while doing it, as listed below...

GRAMMAR: The students practice using the present continuous tense to talk about the future.

WRITING: The students practice writing the present continuous in paragraph form.

SPEAKING: They have to speak calmly and clearly while recording so that their partners can understand it.

LISTENING and NOTETAKING: They have to listen carefully to the recordings, and take notes of what was said.

Give a try next time you are close to having a holiday, and let us know how it goes, or if you have your own variation of the activity.  We would love to hear it!

TIN TIN Helps & Encourages Students to Talk

As a young lad growing up in Scotland we were never spoiled by quality children's tv on the weekends.  That means we were encouraged to explore our own locus and do what young boys do best: football, play mischief and explore the WW2 abandoned gun turrets at the local beach.  However, every summer, BBC Scotland would play re-runs of Hershey's Adventures of Tin Tin, and that magnificent French animated series showing a young lad living in a world of intrigue and mystery helped formulate my love of visual imagery that plays a pivotel role in my teaching forty years on.

The activity that I have used with TIN TIN is a very simply set-up class activity where the students watch a 2 minute clip from the Hollywood movie, and dub over the extract with their interpretation of what happens in that scene.  However, in order to use this media for enduring understanding in an academic context, not just as speaking-practice, is to have the students analyze the clip by considering the classic academic organizational model, S.P.R.E. (Situation, Problem, Response, Evaluation) to use as the basis for their dialogues.

So, the students have to decide on the organization of the clip, yet without interfering with their creativity.  Of course, they have to consider how the director takes the scene, but we give them freedom to make Tin Tin whoever they want (as none of our Turkish students knew who he was). The scene I chose also has Captain Haddock and his trusty jack russell, Snowy.

DUBBING

Our students are now 95% iphone owners, with the rest Samsung. Therefore, there is a great opportunity to use Mobile Technology in the class for a affective activity. The students love to use their phones in their learning, so it is already a winner.

The recording app we have been using, and one that we recommended that the students download for free is, VOICE RECORDER HD (although there are hundreds to choose from).

It is important to remind the students that before they start to record their dialogues that they have made sure there is not only coherence for their voiceovers, but a strong SPRE cohesive sense for logic and accountability.  This is a challenging aspect of the activity, and students need to not only get over their embarrassment of being recorded, but also that their finished video makes sense for the viewer. 

Once the students have made their recordings it is then a simple case of adding the audio to Windows Movie Maker or IMovie timeline and merging the new clips for a whole class viewing experience.

PenzuClassroom Offers Up Quality Writing-Feedback Opportunities

Several years ago I started doing some serious data collection for my MSc TESOL dissertation.  The topic was Video Feedback in the Writing process.  It meant I used the data from my grade nine class, and I found the best way for collected student work was by using an online journal. I came across Penzu, and I used it then and up until 18 ago. The reason I say 18 months is down to the Penzu team creating something even better for teachers and students around that time. It means I don't have to rely on antiquated emails, word files and a messy desktop with scores of files ready to get sent to each individual student. You know what happens, things get mixed up, confusing and extremely irritating in your gmail inbox. It all adds to the already far-too-long process of weekend feedback and marking. Therefore, I give you the awesome:

The Penzuclassroom is all in the cloud, therefore you never need to save as it is done automatically like in Googledrive.  That is such a revelation for the forgetful and stressed out teacher.  Anyhow, the next amazing function of Penzuclassroom is that once you set up your classroom and share the code with your students (you can have as many as you want for the 50$ sign up, so it is cheap per student), the student then simpğly writes on Penzu, like they have always done, and submit it to the class.  It then arrives in the teachers administrator classroom window. It has time of submission, the students who sent and its size.

So, once the students submit, you simply open it up and give your feedback.  Now, this is where the title of this post comes from: Feedback opportunities.  I came up with this last week, and shared it with the Penzuteam. They liked it and are working on making it a feature for teachers. It involves Color-Coded Highlighting for Feedback on Errors.  You can note at the top of this last image there is a line of macro-icons.  This is where you can find the highlighter for marking on the students journals before you return them.  The colors available on the site struck as something that could cross-over into our teacher-toolkit.

So, I thought about all the acronym-symbols we have been shown over years. But I believe the color-coding works better, as do my students, who took to it immediately.  It encourages them to think about their errors, and not just accept what the teacher has changed for them. THEY NEVER LEARN proper writing that way. Teachers seem to think it can help, but it really doesn't! The students must have autnomy in their writing, if they are to rise to levels needed for Academic expectations throughout high school and university. 

So it is as simple as it looks:

ORGANIZATION is Orange, LOGICAL IDEAS are Lemon, GRAMMAR is Green, BAD VOCABULARY & SPELLING are Blue, with PUNCTUATION bringing up the rear in Pink.

Click this video tutorial which shows the platform and how the highligter looks

I really hope you take the opportunity to sign up for PenzuClassroom. I guarantee your efforts will be rewarded with quality engagement from your students, and your boring-marking times will be enhanced with this addition to your ICT-in-ELT toolkit.

There is (an) WHAT'S APP for that...

Now that we are all aware (and in acceptance) of the huge numbers of mobile apps available to us all as consumers, it surely makes sense, as teachers and students, to Adopt and Adapt educational apps that can help to facilitate learning?  One such app that has become ubiquitous in a reasonably short time for free messaging on mobile phones is WHAT'S APP.  That is why we have started to use it with our new intake of preparatory students this year to communicate, share and practise English out of class time.

In fact, it was one of our students, Sinan, who initiated the class forum. Once he had each class member on board, he asked if my colleague and I would be interested in participating.  We accepted his request, but with some guidelines for an effective platform:

All communication has to be in English

Every student is encouraged and reminded to join in

No posts that could fuel iritation (football or negative teasing)

Polite and informative chat is the primary consideration

Here are some snippets that show how responsive our students have been to the forum:

Students greet each other in English

A Student enquires of others where their class peer is

A student uses it to arrange a Saturday hook-up

It's always important to remind them it's English-only

Students Request & Receive 24/7 Homework-Support (from Trs & Sts)

Another interesting find, and use for this service, is how the students use it to find out about other subjects such as Science and Turkish. Remember, these are native Turkish fourteen year olds with limited English.

The final exciting use of WhatsApp is how the students can also post audio files of a message they want to share. This will improve speaking and listening, plus build a lot of self-confidence.

Now after three weeks, we have seen over 1000 posts of English communication.  It is an authentic place for practice, development and communication.  It also leads to great self-confidence, which students starting off in a foreign language so desperately need.

I will say that anyone who reads this and thinks it could only be an irritation for you to be receiving notifications on your mobile phone as a teacher.  That is a simple fix.  DON'T OPEN the APP if you want to stay off at any time.  It is a small price to pay for getting further in contact with your students for educational purposes. Switch it to silent for notifications and away you go.  We have had over 1000 English posts, from less than twenty students.  I reckon the numbers speak for themselves, and I urge you all to try it.  

Critical Thinking Music Videos

Music and English learning go seemingly hand-in-hand. All around the world, songs are used to teach language, especially in primary schools.  It is fantastic way to keep young children engaged. The problem, however, is that as the children get older, music becomes less and less used in any of the school subjects syllabi, despite the fact that teenagers are listening to music all the time on their smartphones. For those who teach high school students, the reasons for not including music in a curriculum are quite clear. Very few teenagers would ever sing in class in front of their peers. They are too cool for that now.

My colleague and I had this very discussion a few months ago, but we were still determined to find a way to get some music in our program. There are simply too many brilliant songs that we could use to engage our students, most of whom have no idea that songs could be about something other than just love, dancing or partying. A perfect example of this was when our students had to make a presentation about their favorite English songs. One young man chose to present Maroon 5's international hit, 'Moves like Jagger', but when I asked him who the song was about, he had no idea!  

After several more occurrences such as this (several students who had never heard of U2), we decided to give it a go. However, seeing that there too many genres of music to choose from, we knew that we would have to narrow our focus down to songs that we could use in an academic context. Therefore, we finally decided upon finding songs that would make our students think. In other words, we would use songs that have various underlying themes, such as the environment, bullying or war, just to name a few, to lead us into a whole class discussion on that particular topic. We would also add several thematic consideration questions to help students better understand the lyrics, as well as help move the class conversation along. Then, for homework, the students would write their ideas and opinions of the song and discussion of it on our class PLN, Edmodo. 

Finally, to take it even a step further, we would try to match up songs that share the same theme(s) as the readers and novels in our syllabus. After serious brainstorming sessions, and many hours spent on putting the videos and discussion questions together on Blendspace, we have come up with a list of more than 50 songs that we believe will get the students thinking and talking, and we call these Critically Thinking Music Videos.

To give you a better idea of how these mini-lessons work, here is an example of one of the first music videos that we discussed with our students, 'Another Day in Paradise', by Phil Collins. At the time, our students were reading the ESL version of A Christmas Carol. While working on the reader, we focused a lot on the underlying themes of poverty and homelessness, and introduced the subject of Dickensian era workhouses to the students. For this reason, we felt the addition of Collins' song would really get our students to empathize more with those who live in these dreadful situations.  If you are not familiar with the song, watch the music video just below.

We left a 15-minute space in the last period to do the activity, which was a nice way to end a busy day. After introducing Phil Collins and basic information behind the song, we showed the music video to the students. Then, we asked them how they felt about the song, followed by the thematic questions we prepared on the Blendspace, pictured below. I was genuinely surprised when, during our class discussion, the majority of our students were engaged by the song. They simply couldn't believe that there could be a hit song about poverty and homelessness. It was not something they had ever heard before. These feelings were further reinforced that night when they wrote short responses to the song on Edmodo for homework. Our critical thinking music videos were a hit, or so it seemed.

Unfortunately, not every music video we have shown since then has been as successful. We teach a fickled group of 14 to 15 year-olds who typically enjoy doing something new the first time, as with Phil Collins, but when the second time comes round, they get bored very easily. Moreover, if the sound or rhythm of a song does not appeal to them, they automatically switch off. This happened when we showed U2's famous ballad, 'Where the Streets Have No Name'. Just two minutes into the song, they all stopped listening. We learned that it all depends on the student group you have. After the U2 debacle, for instance, we started choosing more upbeat music videos that would appeal more to them. 'War' by Edwin Starr was another winner. 

In the end, these music videos have overall been a positive addition to our curriculum. They are a brilliant way to break up the day, and introduce the students to songs they would have otherwise never listened to. The activity leads to a engaging discussion where all students are involved. As with all new additions, though, it takes some time to find out which of the songs work best. The links to our videos can be reached below, or alternatively, they are always available on the right side of the blog. Try some out, and let us know if your students enjoy them or not.

CRITICAL THINKING MUSIC VIDEOS ON BLENDSPACE