European Day of Languages

Today we are celebrating the European Day of Languages!

Learn Moodle

These days we are doing an online course where we are learning how to use the Moodle platform. The course name is Learn Moodle and it is developed in English language, but there are forums in Spanish language and also the possibility of reading subtitles in Spanish in the explanatory videos on YouTube. This is a very interesting activity that allows us to create our own online course on any matter . Once chosen the subject , we can arrange multiple ways to organize the material because the platform offers the ability to use lots of activities . Of course , you can upload text in PDF , establish links to other pages , use videos ... all types of resources. You can create your own activities on the same platform , some of them very similar to what can be done with HotPotatoes but are easier to use ( they are also more simples) .

Students can participate in forums, create wikis, glossaries and resolve common issues in groups. They can submit their own work from Moodle, can upload files or write messages to deliver to the teacher. The work of correction may be easier because it has a section in which are recorded all people accessing the course, the moment that pupils enter in it, the activities in which they participate, and so on.

The configuration of the course is quite simple and intuitive, but if we want to offer a course that is interesting and productive for students, we have to develop quality activities. As in most of these platforms, the main thing is to have enough material and interesting things to upload to network. Moodle provides the means but the activities we have to carry us. The truth is that if we have a good bank of resources already developed and we are able to meet all the virtues of Moodle, a course can be truly comprehensive and useful . Otherwise, we will have to devote some time to elaborate but we believe it is worth because there are spectacular results .

We opted to start creating a Basic Galician Course. It has very little activity and we are doing only the essential that we ask the teachers because we do not have much time these days. Every Sunday , we are invited to a meeting at the computer to see the tutorial where they  explain what we  will do throughout the week. This Sunday, we have a very great surprise to see that our course appeared in the live tutorial and the teachers spoke of him in front of other colleagues. We assume that between a lot of courses in English,  our Galician Course  has called their attention. We left here the video tutorial which shows the comments of teachers. About minute 31:57 you can hear your views. 

Comenius 2013: the end

What a pitty! We are in Ourense, but we are thinking of Cambridge: the 20 degree temperature (here 30 °), in dinner at 18:00 pm, classes with sweet and wonderful Anna Young, in my inseparable companions Isabel, María and Virginie (our Spanish girl), in the rain, the walks around the city, in conversations with Sabina, Irina, Atsuko ... so many wonderful people that we had the opportunity to meet in this two weeks of the Bell Teacher Campus.
Now I have to put order in the pictures, in the memories and also in the tasks. Our idea was to write everyday a post in the blog to tell what we were doing in class, but it was totally impossible due to the intense activity that we had throughout the day. Morning classes, workshops, conferences, tourism, and cultural excursions in the afternoons and in the weekends ... so many things to tell you do not know where to start. We will be rearranging all the material that Anna Young provided us and the different ideas she shared with the class. In each of the former entrances write a summary of what we did that day. Could we make a new post with the current date, but we respect the principal idea and complete then the information pending.

I feel very lucky because had it not been for this assistance I received the Comenius program probably would never have the chance to take a course as complete as offering Bell Cambridge. Classes perfectly designed, the height speakers Martin Parrott and Jeremy Harmer and wonderful people from all over the world. Rarely have the opportunity to share conversation with colleagues from Japan, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Peru ... and know how to work our colleagues in other countries. A totally enriching experience that allowed us to open our minds to other forms of teaching, more active, dynamic and participatory, away from the comfortable textbook.

Never forget all that live, learn and share in these two weeks. Never.

Days 11 and 12: Cuisenaire Rods

                                                      About 100 new words in two weeks!

Thursday, August 8

The first activity of the morning you know it has to do with vocabulary. The sun and the clouds, which were empty on the first day, now are full of interesting words that have been drawing attention to each of us: evensong, Toff, brolly or hubby are some of the terms that we will not longer forget .

Thursday, we make first a small debate in class: which do you prefer, dogs or cats? We make two groups, one supporter of  puppies and another prefer cats. From here, each of us has to discuss with the partner about this: which of these animals is better or which  company gives less problems. In pairs, we have to argue and give our reasons to try to convince the other person that our choice is correct.

Then, we have to do three groups: one with people who have dogs, other group with peopel who have cats  and one for people who do not have pets. In these groups, we initiate a debate about the corrections that the teacher should do: when to do it, the reason for correcting and who should make them. Amid the debate, the teacher  says the word carota, a term that brings  all what we should review in the  activities carried out by students .

C-content/argument

A-accuracy/use of grammar and vocabulary

R -range of language

O-organisation/paragraphs ( intro , main body and conclusion )

T- task Achievement

A- appropiacy ( register / style )

In the second session of the morning, we discovered a fascinating activity: Cuisenaire Rods. The Cuisenaire rods are normally used in the world of mathematics, but, lately, also used in language teaching, especially the so-called Silent way method that uses silence as a teaching technique. The teacher conducts the necessary silences in his speech and thus invites the student to speak once that he or she feels safe in the development of the task . The Cuisenaire rods can be used to create stories, to learn vocabulary, intonation, spelling ... On our YouTube channel about Bell Teacher Campus, we have several videos with the activities that made ​​Anna Young session with Cuisenaire rods.

             
                                                 Activities with Cuisenaire Rods

Here we leave some of the links we recommended our profe.

Speaking Activities

Speaking extra

Reading extra

Spelling City

Afternoon : workshop with Anna Young ( Splng , Spelng , Spiling ... A creative approach to spelling ) . Activities with letters to build words .

 Friday, August 9: Last day  : (

Today we work with all of the words you select in our mural vocabulary. We put them on the table, beside a picture of a traffic light. If you know the meaning of the word, place it near the green traffic signal. If you do not know, red in color. At orange, we put those terms with which we have doubts. Among the groups, try to remember the meanings of all the words.                                                                                                        

                                                                       The light


More activities to develop vocabulary:

-A person has to give the definition of the word that touches and others have to guess what it is.

-We place all the words on the table. One fellow thinks and defines a word. The others have to quickly grab the card with the word corresponding to its definition.

Game-points: draw on paper 25 points. We need two contestants and a referee. The referee reads definitions and the contestants have to guess the word. Person who can draw first a line between two points. Win  who ends up making a square.

                                                                              Dot Game


Poems-named: create poems with the names of classmates. Here I leave you the poem made ​​about me ...

We ended the class with delivery of certificates and giving to our wonderful teacher, Anna Young, a tiny detail (full of affection). Next, we place the farewell ceremony at the Auditorium.


 
In the afternoon, last excusión the beautiful town of Bury St Edmunds

And finally, awesome farewell party!

Day 10: journalist

After doing the usual review of vocabulary, we continue with the binomials. One person reads the beginning of the binomial and other has to say the second part to complete the expression:

                                                               Back and - Forth

We continue to work on vocabulary: one person says a word and the other must give the definition of that term.

The dice story: a paper, write six locations, six famous people, six ways to travel, six activities to do on vacation, six things that can go wrong on holiday and six ways to end the holiday. We took the dice and up to six times the number that comes out at a time, will mark the parts of the story that we create. To us, we have the following items:

                      Paris - Beckham - by car - trecking - loose your wallet - Buying souvenirs.

Journalist: we have a peculiar picture one for each group. We are journalists and we have to look for information about the news (6W). We make questions, then we  write them  beside the photo and change them with another group to write the answers.

                                                                    Our story...

In the afternoon, Plenary Talk: Jeremy Harmer and Yes, But Why Do we need teachers at all? Interesting information on these links:

Hole in the wall

SOLE

And then ... Punting on the River Cam!

Day 9: to talk more

Recall vocabulary.

We have colored paper, dice and chips. In three papers of different colors, each of us writes an important date in our life, a touristic place in our country and our favorite word in our language. In my case: 1977, Santiago de Compostela and "bolboreta". Then put those words on the table and built a board with them. We took the dice and the person who touches, speaks for 30 seconds about one of the words ( the other person tries to guess the meaning of these three elections).

The most important part of the class is when we take the issue of contemporary English. The creation of new words is something fascinating in this language. From Brangelina to brolly, veggie, Wags, Bridezilla, de-friend ... and not forgetting the binomials: hustle and bustle, odds and ends, wine and dine... We have new words from blending, clipping, loanwords / borrowing or acronyms.


In the afternoon workshop: Poetry with Jim Carmichael. Escape to The Orchard Tea Garden and visit to Cambridge University Bookshop.

Day 8: Multiple Intelligences

Days 6 and 7: weekend trip to London (London Eye, Stamford Bridge) and Oxford.

New week and eighth day in Cambridge. We keep collecting vocabulary for our mural.

Debate in circle. Put the chairs in two circles and talk with the person you have in front of you. What are the five senses? What are the nine intelligences?

Senses V-visual (sight) A-auditory (listening) K-kinaesthetic (touch) O-olfactory (smell) G-gustatory (taste)

 To use the senses in class: Neuro Linguistic Programming.

Teoría das Intelixencias Múltiples, Howard Gardner.   

  Affective Filter.

Teaching for Success, Mark Fletcher

Fun Class Activities, Peter Watcyn-Jones

10 Commandments for Motivating Language Learners

 Who are you in the picture? You have to invent the lives of people you see in this picture and try to guess which of this characters  wants to choose your partner. In that part of the picture you would like to be?

                                                         Nighthawks by Edward Hopper

 Describe the same picture but with different points of view. One likes the city, the other field ...

                                                                         New York

Image of famous person in two parts. We have to find other means of descriptions, without saying the name. Once we have, we do a short interview (90 seconds) to try to get information about that famous.

Ranking: list of dangerous sports, to magical places, with tips for unemployed people ...

Preview: think about how you can be someone (Charles, the chocolate maker).

In the afternoon, Cultural Talks: Toff, keys and middle-classes: the British class system, with Lindsay Warwick.