I loved the link to the activity of filling in the song lyrics (http://www.listen-and-write.com/youtube/show3/4448) from this week's material. A great advantage of this is the element of competition. Being that it does not go the the next phrase of the song until the current one is filled in, it creates a race to see who can finish first. This requirement for the combination of accuracy and speed is so important to real communication.When speaking to someone (or hearing a speech) there usually is not an option to hear the words several times, so being able to quickly understand the spoken word is essential.
I want to take a diversion and let you know about a very helpful EFL site http://www.bu.edu/av/celop2/
(full disclosure: my uncle, David Maisel, is the one who developed the site).
Tech wise, it is very bare bones, but there are a wealth of invaluable resources there. For example, there are over 1000 recorded audio dialogues of every possible vocabulary or grammar topic (under "audio of speech") and incredibly detailed vocabulary lists (for example: "KnowThinkBelieveAssume,etc.doc 68
verbs for believing that something is true, each with a different degree or
source of certainty" and "communicative
functions.doc 135 purposes of communicating: agreeing,
announcing, apologizing, asking, attracting attention,blaming, blessing,
boasting, etc."). Obviously, not everything there is helpful for all teachers. Some of the lists in particular are way beyond what the students would be able to handle, but we, as teachers, can certainly enjoy them!
The Innovative Educator has a cute cartoon http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.co.il/2013/04/education-reformers.html. The essential point is: how much do those setting educational policy know about the real life challenges that teachers face? Do they spend time as teachers or are they working from theories without being grounded in reality? I am sure that those of you who are already teaching all have horror stories about unreasonable demands by the establishment (Have they met these kids I need to teach?!). But, on the other hand (for life is not black and white, just countless shades of gray) perhaps those too involved in the nitty gritty are stuck among the trees and can't see the forest. (For those who took the Differentiated Instruction course in September, this will sound familiar). No answers here, just awareness of the questions.
thanks Yehoshua for the site with the audio dialogues, i must take a look at it. what caught my eye is that it is EfL, which means that attention has been paid to the level of vocabulary used.
ReplyDeleteTechnically speaking, it is actually for ESL. He taught in a college in Boston with many students from Asia. I listened to a bunch of them; they are good for high school students but probably too high a level for elementary.
ReplyDeleteThanks for clarifying the level of the audio dialogues. I'm also going to check out the website, it sounds interesting. I am still looking for good middle school level EFL dialogues. THe ones that I checked out from this course all seemed for older kids/ adults and/or were a little fuzzy: even I had trouble discerning the words. THere's great audio out there for English speakers (anything from NPR is great, and the US Holocaust museum, for example, has good audio files for Yom haSHoah), but I have been frustrated with finding levels appropriate for less advanced speakers.
ReplyDeleteRegarding your discussion of educational policy, I think that you made some excellent points. Particularly regarding teaching English in the classroom in Israel and the Bagrut, I think that we need to policy makers to open a dialogue about our goals and expectations.
I know that nobody is looking for extra work, but it is really not hard to create a quick dialogue and record it yourself (or, to make it a bit cuter, have your kids do it). I was doing a PowerPoint on the present progressive, and, after spending ten minutes looking for the appropriate photos on google, I realized that it would be much quicker to just take them myself. It had the added benefit of being more interesting to the students, as they got to "meet" my kids doing various activities.
DeleteAs we explore more technology for use in the classroom it is essential that the kids will think its cool. The link you provided about the song and lyrics seems to be right on. I look forward to exploring it more. It is these types of exercises that make school- cool, we just need to familiarize ourselves and share success stories. Yashar Ko'ach!
ReplyDeleteI also though the filling in the lyrics activity was interesting...but actually found it hard to do (at least with the sample song we had). The singer did such a poor job of articulating his words that I couldn't understand what he was saying! I guess this is a reminder that as teachers one of our jobs is to preview the material to make sure it will work for our students (and use a song that is more articulated!)
ReplyDeleteIf there is one thing that pops up again and again, it is the need to preview and pre-use all tech before intriducing it to the students. Things may not work at all, they may not be appropriate for religous reasons, and they may be on a higher level than we predict. If it is a game, play the whole game. If it is a song, listen to the whole song. If it is a video, watch the whole video!
DeleteThanks for the link. Maybe add it to the "other interesting websites" forum?
ReplyDeleteWill do.
DeletePlease tell your uncle that he urgently needs to add an index file to http://www.bu.edu/av/celop2/ and to http://www.bu.edu/av without an index file, evryone can open up all folders and look at everything he has stored there....
ReplyDeletePersonally, I tend to like competitions. I dislike it when it causes sorrow or disappointment to others, especially children. That website, where you need to listen in order to fill in the words, is nice and fun but not easy to do. When you, as a teacher, plan such a competition, you need to set fair conditions to winning. If don't, skip it. I think that here it's better to be skipped.
ReplyDelete