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Final activity

  The activity I liked the most is the TimeToast approach by María Pino Rodriguez (ENGLISH4FUN WITH TEACHER MARÍA). It’s a very different approach from the one I carried out, she worked with the whole class whereas I let students work on their own, autonomously. I could do it because of the characteristics of my group (ESO 3, English workshop, 19 high level students), but with 1ESO, 30 low level students group María’s approach is better, I think. I have 2 classes with my group next week and will try to do an activity to celebrate Christmas by talking about the life of Jesus from a historical point of view. Steps I will follow: I will divide the activity in two sessions: Session 1: I will present the activity (why we cellebrate Christmas, origin of the name Christmas and the figure of Jesus), the aim and, finally, what I want them to do at home (make a little internet research about Jesus’ life facts Session 2: Divided in several steps: 1. Brainstor...
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Genially

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  Last week I divided the class into couples and I showed them Genially. They loved it, they are in 1ESO and it was their first contact with it. I showed them several possibilities and all of them chose Gamification so I let them choose one of the games templates and we were working on questions/answers for a couple of classes. I have been helping them, of course, to find and formulate questions and finding the answers, making sure that the rest of the groups didn’t see them. Finally they had the weekend to create the Genially, one of the students of each couple was responsible for the language (translation, vocabulary and grammar) and the other was responsible to pass all the information to their template. Well, today was the great day for them and they had to present their projects to the class; as they were all games and quizzes there was not much to worry about, basically they just had to ask their classmates (by heart) or reading the questions from the whiteboard and t...
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Pixton

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Well, it seems that Pixton has changed its policy and now students can't share or download their projects, so here I insert some pictures of a 1ESO group: For the 1st session I divided the class in 4 students groups and asked them to prepare a "script" or a simple plot for the comic strip and asked them to bring one mobile phone per group to school for session 2. In class, they registered using their corporate Google accounts, and during session 2 they got familiar with the website. Finally in session 3 they finished their projects, it's a shame they were no able to download or share it. They were free to do what they liked, under my surveillance and help for grammar, vocabulary or even the plot itself. They didn't have much fun with the dialogues and texts in general but they loved the final result for sure. Next time I use Pixton, instead of letting them do a comic about anything they like, I will make a "monographic" comic contest, I mean, one day it ...
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Edpuzzle

My idea is to make a little of flipped classroom with music, something they usually like, even though this time it's me who chooses the band... I will ask them to watch this video at home and pay attention to the final speech of the organiser of the concert: https://youtu.be/JozAmXo2bDE Next day in class we will watch the full video again and finally we with work with Edpuzzle. I have edited the video and selected only the final part, the part where the organiser of the concert explains the reason for that concert, that's what I'm most interested that students pay attention to.  I have previously created a class and students have received an invitation, so today they will be allowed to use their mobile phones in class to do the Edpuzzle task, namely, answer the questions I have inserted in the video: https://edpuzzle.com/assignments/5fcfc60084ec2540b39182c6/watch This is my first experience with Edpuzzle and I have chosen a short video imported from Youtube. My intention is...
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TimeToast

TimeToast has been quite a discovery, both for me and for my students, they simply love the final aspect of their timelines. I'm trying to use it to help them organize their ideas in a chronological sequence, which at the age of 12 is not as easy as we might think. Since my students are just 12 years old, instead of making them summarize a literary text, I have asked them to make a timeline of someone they admire, a football player, a singer, a youtuber,an influencer...  I taught them how to do it by creating one myself in class, right in front of them: https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/2437107 I helped them create their own accounts (one for each 5 students group) and guiding them through the firsts steps. My idea is that once they are familiarized with this tool, start using it with texts. The problems they are facing are mainly technical, most of my students don't have a computer at home or have to share it with brothers or parents.
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Reflections of Reading habits

Most of the people in the pictures, with the possible exception of picture #4, are reading for pleasure, what’s defined as extensive reading; they are reading what they want, when they want and where they want, reading for the sake of reading. I would say all of them, with the possible exception of the picture of students in class, the dominant feeling at the moment could be peace of mind, a travel inside, a step into a different level of consciousness a new world, the world depicted in that narrative.  At least, those are my feelings when I read, mainly when reading in my mother tongue, Spanish. If I had to choose among different literary genres, I would probably choose either history books or crime novels, no matter the language they are written, Spanish or English. However, depending on my mood, sometimes I read other genres like science fiction, paperbacks or even poetry, and in this last case, I definitely choose Spanish, even though I consider myself close to bilinguism, the ...
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Let me introduce myself

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Welcome to my new blog, let me introduce myself. I'm an old teacher eager to show you all new and easy ways to learn English.     So here you are, some links of interest for those of you who are learning English: Here you have a good reference in grammar charts If you want to know how to pronounce a word click here And if you need to practise your grammar, here you will find lots of exercises 
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