Getting to University! Speaking activity

Hello, I am Elena Gordienko and I would like to present an activity to enhance speaking skills of the students. The activity is for the 2^nd of Batxillerat students and the election of the topic is very relevant for this age. I have created a Webquest Getting to University in UK where students should explore the system of the higher education in UK, discuss pros and cons, compare Universities, prepare a digital poster and finally make an oral presentation.

Learning goals:

-To improve speaking skills
-To work on the vocabulary
-To be able to express preferences and opinion
-To develop critical thinking
-To work collaboratively
-To search, analyze and choose information from the web
-To be able to reflect on the process of learning

Key Competences:

-Communicative competence:

Ability to communicate with other people, to express opinion, to get and share information  using different types of support for language receiving and production.

- Digital competence:

Ability to use ICT tools for the learning process and to imply digital media for research work and the presentation of the final project by means of an ICT tool

 -Personal and interpersonal competence:

Ability to task-solving, to work in group in a collaborative way, to value the opinions of other people and ability to think with a critical eye.

Description of the activity

Students work with the Webquest in groups of 3 in a collaborative way. They are supposed to prepare a digital poster – glog based on the topic Getting to University in UK. The final glogs are uploaded to the teachers’ blog.  In the part Process the students are supplied with the resources from the web, they should make a research, analyze the information, compare pros and cons, discuss what points will be included on the poster. The speaking skills are developed through task-solving:  discussion in the groups, asking question, expressing opinions.  During the presentation all of them should present some part, in this way the teacher makes sure that all of them speak. The activity should be done either in the computer room, or with laptops.  In the last part of the Webquest there is a survey – feedback about the activity they have just realized and personal evaluation of the work made by each of them

Technological tools

I have created webquest provided by  PHPWebquest.  Webquests are very useful to foster collaboration between students, to develop cognitive skills as students should research on the web, analyze, discuss with their mates the content,  produce  mutually constructed output in the final presentations and during the process of task-solving. For the survey part I have used Google Docs as it is free, and very practical.

Please click here to go to the WEBQUEST

Getting to university! - Speaking activity

INTRODUCTION

Hello! I am Laura Burgos Espona and I am going to develop an activity to help 2^nd of Batxillerat students develop their speaking skills. To do so, I will ask them to create an MP3 audio file with Audacity which should be uploaded and shared in a group that I have created in Edmodo.

LEARNING GOALS

• To produce a simple, coherent and effective speech in a foreign language
• To describe, explain and justify facts, experiences and ambitions in a foreign language in a short and comprehensible way
• To improve students’ fluency, accuracy and pronunciation
• To help students develop self-correction and reformulation strategies  

    
 BATXILLERAT COMPETENCES

Communicative competence

• Do a written and an oral description about oneself with a communicative purpose
• Know how language works

Digital competence

• Use ICT as an information source, a communication source, a production source and a knowledge source.

Personal and interpersonal competence

• Use of capacities and abilities which allow knowing others and oneself
• Work in a collaborative environment

World knowledge and interaction competence

• Understand and interact with the society and the world

DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTIVITY

As I have mentioned before, I have thought of a homework activity whose aim is to foster students’ speaking skills by creating an MP3 audio file with Audacity which should be no longer than 2 minutes and then be uploaded to a group that I have created in Edmodo.

When students record the MP3 audio file, they have (at least) to introduce themselves, talk about the degree they want to study and justify the university that has been chosen. 

As a follow-up, the teacher can listen to students’ MP3 audio files and send them feedback via Edmodo through an MP3 audio file about the pronunciation features that need to be improved. 

DESCRIPTION OF THE TOOLS USED:

Audacity:

Audacity is an interesting and easy to use tool which: 1) offers the possibility to create, listen to, record and mix audio files; 2) allows teacher to work on L2 pronunciation, listening comprehension and oral production; 3) gives students the chance to work individually and at their own pace while the competences established in the curriculum of Batxillerat are developed, especially the communicative and the digital ones.

Edmodo:

Edmodo is a free, secure and easy to use social learning network for teachers and students. Its user interface is very similar to facebook. This is why students soon feel comfortable (and excited) to use Edmodo as an online learning environment.

HOW TO ACCESS TO MY ACTIVITY:

Please have a look at your inbox to see the e-mail I have sent you with the code that will allow you to become a member of my group in Edmodo. Then click here

REFERENCES LIST:

• [pdf] Using Audacityfor language teaching
• Karim, A. (2011, December 27) Edmodo - Integrating content, technology and pedagogy. [Video file] Video posted to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQTf6rcOdfM

Getting to University - Listening comprehension activity

Hi! I’m Gema Macías Jiménez. I have created a podcast about my university years and my experience as an Erasmus student. This activity is addressed to second of Batxillerat students.


LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• To develop students’ listening comprehension skills
• To extend students’ vocabulary
• To learn or revise how to pronounce the past tense and past participle of regular verbs
• To raise awareness of the target culture

BATXILLERAT COMPETENCES

Communicative competence
Comprehension of an oral narration related to a personal experience.
Pronunciation practice of the –ed ending of the past tense and past participle of regular verbs.

Personal and interpersonal competence
Completion of a quiz to check and reflect upon one’s comprehension of the listening activity.
Completion of a survey to reflect on and be critical about the activity.

Digital competence
Ability to access and use a Blog to listen to a podcast, take a quiz and do a survey.

Competence in knowledge and interaction with the world
Knowledge about the Black Country dialect and awareness of the target culture.

DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTIVITY

Students listen to their teacher’s podcast anywhere and at any time, with their personal computer, tablet or cell phone.

The podcast has three parts: first, the teacher talks about her university years and her Erasmus experience. Secondly, she explains some vocabulary and expressions she has used. Finally, she explains how to pronounce the –ed ending of the past participle and past tense of regular verbs, and asks students to do some practise by asking them to guess the pronunciation of the past tense of some regular verbs.

As follow-up activities, students have to take a quiz and do survey.


TECHNOLOGICAL TOOLS

The technological tools I have used are: Audacity, to record the listening comprehension. Podomatic to upload the podcast and iTunes to publish it (http://gema-maciasj.podomatic.com/rss2.xml).  For the quiz, I have used Hot Potatoes, and for the survey, Google Forms.

To start the activity click on the play button:

After listening to the podcast, click here to check your comprehension

Finally, click here to give me feedback

Getting to university! - Reading activity

Hello, 

I am Georgina Lliró and I am happy to present an activity based on the topic “Getting to University!” for students in 2nd Batxillerat. I am presenting a reading activity and two exercises that will check on reading comprehension and vocabulary.

Teacher email: georginalliro@gmail.com

Learning objectives:

1. Enable students to read authentic materials about topics that personally affect the student’s lives.
2. Enable students to use ICT tools to learn English. 
3. Enable students to reflect on a topic that affects them personally
4. Enable students to share ideas.

Basic Competences: 

• Communicative competence: Ability to understand written messages
• Digital competence: Using ICT tools as an information source and as a vehicle to express knowledge.
• Autonomy and personal initiative: making decisions
• Social and civic competence: Comprehending the social reality

Description of the activity: This activity will be done in the computer room with a group of students, but each student will have to work individually. Firstly, the students will have to answer a matching vocabulary exercise, so that it is useful for them to learn the meaning of some critical words of the text. After that, they will be ready to face the whole text, so they will have to read the article “How (Not) to Choose a University”. Once this reading is done, the students will have to answer a quiz to check if they were able to understand the reading. In order to provide further discussion and thinking, the teacher will create a Padlet entitled “Criteria to choose a university”, in which all the students will have to post an idea of what they think is important to take into account when choosing a university. This wall, could be used for the following class in order to provide material for a speaking or writing activity.
Click here to do the vocabulary pre-reading activity. Click here to do the reading comprehension activity. Each exercise gives instant feedback about the students' performance. So assessment will be done through the application.

Description of the tool: The tool used for the activities related to the reading (the vocabulary matching exercise) and the quiz will be presented through the tool Hot Potatoes, since it gives automatic feedback to the students and it can be seen as a game, which makes these activities more engaging and challenging. Padlet will be used to create a collaborative brainstorming with tips about how to choose a university, which will allow having all the ideas in a wall and visible for all the students in the screen, which will be useful for their next activity.

Getting to University! Writing activity

Hi everyone,

I am Marc Font and I am going to develop an activity to foster students’ writing skills. The activity is addressed to 2nd of Batxillerat students and the topic of the unit is Getting to University! 

Teacher email: marc.font@hotmail.com 

LEARNING GOALS

1. Enable students to work autonomously.
2. Enable students to share information and work in a collaborative way.
3. Enable students to reflect on specific matters that concern their own professional future.
4. Enable students to produce written texts with comprehensible messages.
5. Enable students to use ICT resources to develop English knowledge.
6. Enable students to select specific information so as to build up argumentative essays.
7. Enable students to reflect on their own work and self-assess it.

BASIC COMPETENCES
1. Communicative competence 
 1.1 Foster communicative skills so as to be able to communicate with people and be able to ask questions, opinions and build one’s ideas.

 2. Autonomy and personal initiative competence 
 2.1 Provide students the necessary tools and encourage them to work individually and come up with original pieces of work.
 2.2 Lead students to make decisions for themselves

 3. Competence in processing information and use of ICT 
 3.1 Use ICT so as to contribute to a more conscious, effective and real learning process.

DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTIVITY 

This activity is designed to be carried out in the computers room and students will finish it at home if they need extra time to fulfill all the tasks presented. Students will work on a wiki space so as to foster writing skills and be able to work in a cooperative way. Students will work individually regarding the search of information of their own interests but information will be shared and commented by other students on the first step of the writing activity. Thus, the first step aims at, on the one hand, presenting the particular case of each student and, on the other, have an online discussion to solve doubts, give advice and exchange materials, resources and opinions to help out students struggling to make a choice. The second step aims at building up a text, according to the previous research step, so as to reflect on why they have made that choice. Also, students will have to check what information is expected to appear in an admission letter, as well as how it should be structured, what language style they have to use, etc. Finally, students will have to fill in a survey to check how useful the activity was and how clear the instructions of the tasks were. 

DESCRIPTION OF THE TOOL 

The writing activity I propose will be based on a Wiki space. On the one hand, wiki spaces are great tools so as to encourage students to write and work collaboratively with the rest of their classmates. On the other hand, Wiki spaces let students read their classmates’ pieces of work, which enable them to receive a greater amount of input and reflect, not only on their own tasks, but on other students work.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

TO GET STARTED... Check your emailbox and find the invitation I have just sent you. Accept it and you will be nicely welcome! Once accepted, please, click here to start off! 

ONCE YOU HAVE FINISHED... Please, as soon as you finish the activity, would you be so kind to do this self-assessment survey? Click on here. Thank you very much!