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Showing posts with label speaking skills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label speaking skills. Show all posts

Create Video Questionnaires

Intervue.me is a new website I have been using recently. It's another website that is based around the use of webcams. The site enables users to create questionnaires and then get the recipients of the questionnaire to leave video recorded answers. The site is very easy to use.

Register the go to 'My Dashboard' and click on 'Create New' to start your first questionnaire.


First you decide on the levels of privacy you want for the questionnaire and whether you want people to be able to leave anonymous answers or add comments to the answers.


Next you click on 'Start adding questions'.
You can type in your question and give more explanation below the question if you think that makes it clearer. You can add as many questions as you want. You'll also need to click on 'Edit title' so that you can give your questionnaire a name.


Once you have added all your questions you can just click on 'Share' or 'Invite' to either get a URL for your questionnaire or to email it to specific people.

Then once people receive the questionnaire they just click on the questions and record their answers using the webcam in their laptop.

To see all the videos you can just go to 'My Dashboard' and click on the 'Videos' tab.

Here are some example questionnaires I have created. Feel free to leave an answer to any of the questions.

How to use Intervue.me with students
  • Create comprehension check questions to go with reading homework so that students also do some speaking for homework.
  • Create opinion polls for students to answer.
  • Make action research questionnaires
  • Play the alibi game and get students to explain where they were and what they were doing at particular points in time.
  • Ask students about childhood memories.
What I like about Intervue.me
  • It's very quick and easy to create questionnaires
  • It's a great way to provide speaking practice for students.
  • You can add more detail and explanation to the questions.
  • Students get to practice their digital communication skills.
  • Students will be able to watch and listen to their replies and rerecord them so this will focus them on accuracy.
  • It can be more communicative and engaging than writing down answers as students can also see the other answers that have been recorded.
  • You can create long questionnaires or very simple single question ones.
What I'm not so sure about.
  • It could take time to get students feeling comfortable in front of the camera, so you might need to help them a little and get them to think about lighting and getting the correct distance from the camera.
  • Be careful about enabling anonymous replies or comments as this could be abused.
  • Students need a laptop with a reasonable quality microphone.
I hope you find Intervue.me useful and that your students get plenty of speaking practice.

Related links:
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Nik Peachey
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Get your Students Listening and Interacting with Native Speakers

Listening in the EFL / ESL classroom can be a pretty dull business. Usually it consists of students all listening to the same thing at the same time and doing the same tasks. There's nothing wrong with that, but if you feel the urge to get away from the course book and get your students listening to and interacting with some real native speakers from the safety of their computer then why not check out some of the people on Vyou.com ?

I've already written about how you can set up your own Vyou Q&A video booth, but it's also well worth looking round some of the people who are already there and seeing if there are any your students would be interested in, as a lot of the people there a quite young and some are quite interesting and quirky and Vyou offers your students the opportunity not only to listen to them and hear a range of accents, but also to ask them questions, though the answers might take a while to come.

It's very simple to use. You just go to : and there you can either search through some of the featured people or you can click on channels at the top and look through the more topic related people.

Each person has their own video channel and you can either type in questions below the video or you can click on the questions on the right of the video to listen to the answers to questions that have already been asked.

Here are a few people your students might find interesting.

This one is a British guy called Jonny and he claims he will write a song about any subject that readers suggest. There a quite a few there already: http://vyou.com/Spontaneoussongs
This one is Loren Rochelle for North America. She works in 'Social Video seeding' (Yes that seems to a job these days). She answers questions about a wide range of things from the personal to the trivial: http://vyou.com/lorenrochelle

It's also worth checking out the channels.

If you and your students are more interested in literature then there is an ask the author channel where writers answer questions about literature and their books: http://vyou.com/channels/simonandschuster
If your students are more interested in music, EMI also has a channel where you can submit questions to some of their recording artists: http://vyou.com/channels/emi

So how can you exploit this with EFL / ESL students?

  • Show students some of the people and get them to think of questions they would like to ask. Then get them to submit the questions (try to get them to submit questions to a few different people) then in the next lesson they can see if they have any answers and share the information they got from the answers (Also good for lessons on reported speech).
  • Ask students to choose one person each and give them 5 - 10 minutes to discover as much information as possible about that person. They can then discuss and share the information in class.
  • Collect some of the questions that have been asked and get students to think of possible answers, then watch and compare to their own answers and see how much they have in common with each person. Then get students to find the person they are most like.
  • Get students to watch two different people and then compare and contrast their character and interests.
  • Get students to think of one or two good questions and submit them to a range of people. Then in the next lesson students can check the answers and decide who they think gave the best answer.
What I like about this Vyou
  • These are real people that students can interact with.
  • The use of the looped introduction videos gives a real sense of presence and this can be much more motivating and engaging for students.
  • There's a real wealth of listening materials with various accents on a range of topics.
  • The answers are quite short so they aren't too demanding on students concentration despite being 'ungraded' and authentic.
  • Students can listen multiple times.
  • I've looked at quite a few channels and there doesn't seem to be anything inappropriate or offensive.
What I'm not so sure about
  • Some of the channels allow for anonymous submission of questions, so students might be tempted to ask something inappropriate (though they are unlikely to get an answer.)
  • It is possible that your students might stumble across something they might find offensive or some bad language, but I haven't found anything like this yet.

Well I hope you try Vyou.com and that your students find it engaging, entertaining and useful.

Related links:
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Nik Peachey
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So Ask Me a Question

I recently spotted this very interesting site called Vyou.com which exploits video to create asynchronous conversations. I find it interesting because of the simple way it creates presence. As you can see below, it looks like the person (me in this case) is waiting ready for your question.

All visitors need to do is type a question into the text line below the video and the creator will get a message with the question and post a reply. You can try it if you wish by posting a question to me. I'm not sure yet how long it will take for me to answer though.



This is very quick and easy to set up. You just go to the site and register for free, then once your registration is validated you record two short video clips. One is the one you can see above and another for unanswered questions. As questions are answered they appear below the 'waiting' video.

It's also a bit like Twitter in that you can 'follow' people and build up a group of followers. These people all receive notification of any video responses posted.

I'm trying this out because I think it's a great way of getting students to speak to each other and ask you or each other questions. All you need is a webcam and a microphone.

How to use this with students
  • You could set up your own grammar or vocabulary answers site and students could send you questions.
  • You could get students to ask each other questions about a story.
  • You could play animal, mineral or vegetable and each students has to ask question to see what you are thinking about.
  • You could just get students asking and answering questions about their likes and dislikes etc.
  • I think this would work particularly well for class exchanges with students from other classes or countries.

What I like about it
  • It's free and very quick and simple to set up.
  • There's a real feeling of presence and that someone is there waiting for your question.
  • I can generate some real spoken interaction.
  • It's a very simple idea made very effective.
  • You can embed the video chat into your blog or site.

What I'm not so sure about
  • Of course something like this is very much open to abuse, especially as it allows anonymous questions to be posted.
  • The widget which I've embedded into my post is a bit big and it would be nice to have smaller sizes.
  • A lot of the example conversations that have been created on the site are a bit adult in nature and certainly inappropriate for younger learners, so if you use it, be sure to use it with adults and embed it into a blog or site so that your students don't wander round the site.
  • WebCams aren't generally very flattering, especially in a bad light, but you can always wear a big hat or dark glasses.
If you do give this a try, please do follow me and I'll reciprocate, as I'd like to find out a bit more about how this will work in practice. You can visit my profile on the site at: http://vyou.com/nikpeachey . There you will be able to see a better view of the full size widget.

I hope you find this interesting.

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Nik Peachey
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Using Wise Quotes with EFL ESL Students

I've always found wise (and sometimes not so wise) quotes really useful, both within the classroom with students and as a way of introducing a topic when writing materials. I've used lots of different websites to find quotes over the years, but iWise is certainly about to become my new favourite as it seems to have taken wise quotes to a new level.

You can search for quotes by keyword, look at quotes of the day, browse quotes by topic or just click for a random quote.


That isn't all, iWise is compatible with Twitter and allows you to re-tweet quotes or subscribe to and follow tweet feeds from your favourite sources of wisdom.


If you decide to search by topic etc, it even pulls in tweets from Twitter too.


So how about some quote activities with our EFL ESL students?

Here are some suggestions:
  • Get students to find a random quote and translate it into their own language or find a parallel quote in their own L1.
  • Collect 8 - 10 quotes on a similar topic and get students to discus them and see which ones they prefer / most agree with.
  • Get 8 - 10 quotes and cut them in half to create a matching activity. Get your students to match the two halves of each quote.
  • Get you students to match the quotes to the writer of the quote.
  • Give your students a list of 6 - 8 topics and ask them to find their favourite quote on each topic, then compare them in class and discus / have a class vote on which is the best (students should try to convince others in the class that theirs is the best quote)
  • Get two+ quotes on the same topic. Print them up and put them around the class get the students to stand by the one they most like / agree with and discus why.
  • Choose 2 -3 people and get your students to find their best quotes, then compare that quotes and try to decide which of the people is the wisest.
  • Give the first part of some quotes to your students and see if your students can write an ending to it.
  • Find some quotes about someone and see if the students can guess who they are about.
  • Use a single quote at the start of each lesson to lead in to the theme of the lesson.
  • Use a single quote at the start of each lesson as a warmer and ask students if they agree / disagree with the quote. They could give it marks out of ten too. Keep a league of favourite quotes.
Why do I like it?
  • It's free and really simple (but also quite complex)
  • Some amazing features that really take advantage some Web 2.0 technology
  • Lots of fast and varied ways to access the quotes
  • There are loads of quotes from a real range of sources
  • There is an iPhone ap which can enable you to get all this information via your iPhone or iPod Touch so great for mobile learners

What I'm not so sure about
  • The site is so dynamic that you can see then loose quotes pretty quickly if you are just browsing.
  • Some quotes can be a little abstract!
  • The site is free, but the ap isn't, but it is very cheap (59p in UK). Here's a video showing how you can use it.



NB: I have bought the ap, but haven't tried it yet so this is NOT and endorsement of the ap.

I hope you enjoy iWise and the ideas here. Please leave a comment if you have any other favourite quote sites or suggestions for how you have used quotes with students.

Here you can find more online reading activities for EFL ESL students

Related links:

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Nik Peachey
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Using Word Clouds in EFL ESL

I've just discovered Wordle, which is a really useful site for creating word clouds. The word clouds are created by entering either a text, URL or del.icio.us user name into a field. The site then generates a word cloud based on the frequency of key words in the text or webpage.

Here's what a word cloud based on the URL of this blog looks like.

The word clouds are really easy to create and can be printed up for classroom use or saved to a gallery on line. To see how this is done watch the tutorial movie below.
How to use this with EFL ESL students
This is a wonderful flexible tool to use with students.
  • Revision of texts - You can paste in short texts that your students have studied recently. Show them the word cloud and see if they can remember what the text was about and how the words were used within the text. You can build up a bank of word clouds over a semester and pull them out at random to get students to recall the texts they have studied and the key vocabulary in them. You could also see if they could rewrite or reconstruct the text based on the word cloud.
  • Prediction - You can create word clouds of texts before the students read or listen and ask them to make predictions about the content of the text based on the word cloud. They could also check any new words from the word cloud that they are unsure of before they read or listen.
  • Dialogue reconstruction - You can create a word cloud of a dialogue students are studying and use it as a prompt to remember or reconstruct the dialogue.
  • Short poems / Haiku - You can generate a word cloud from a short poem or Haiku, then ask students to create their own work based on the word cloud. They could then see how close they came to the original.

  • Text comparison - You can create word clouds from a number text genres (news article, poem, story, advertisement, dialogue etc.) and then see if the students can decide which genre each is from and why. You could also do this with a small collection of poems short stories or articles. Then students could read the complete texts and match them to the word clouds. Here are two poems. One is from Shakespeare and the other is from Robert Frost. Try to decide which one is from Shakespeare. How did you know?


  • Personal information - You could get your students to each create a text about themselves and then turn it into a word cloud. You could them put the clouds up around the class and see if the students could identify each other from the cloud. They could exchange clouds and use them to introduce each other.
  • Topic research tasks - You can create a word cloud based around a topic you want students to research. You could use a page from Wikipedia to do this, then use it to find out what students already know about the topic by asking what they think the relevance of each of the word is to the overall topic. They could then go to Wikipedia and find out more. Then report back on their findings using the key words as prompts. Here's an example I created by cutting and pasting the intro text on Cairo

  • Learner training - This is a good tool for students to use regularly to help themselves. They can regularly make copies of the texts they study and pin them up to revise them or keep them in their gallery on the site. They could even create word clouds of their study notes to help them revise.

What I like about it
  • It's free, quick and very easy.
  • You don't need to register or part with an email address so it's a low risk site to get students using.
  • The word clouds are very attractive and will stimulate more visual learners.
  • Having key word prompts is a great way to support more fluent language production, but avoids having students just reading texts.
  • It's nice that the students or you can customise the design and choose colours and fonts that they like.
What I'm not so sure about
  • Would be nice to have a more effective embed code for blogs (There is one, but it's not very effective) I've used a work around to embed these ones.
  • Saving the word clouds as PDF is possible, but again a bit tricky unless you have a MAC (That's another good reason for getting one)
I've really enjoyed trying out this site and creating word clouds. Hope you do to. I'm sure the list of suggestions above is by no means exhaustive, so if you have any ideas for how to use this with your EFL ESL or other students, by all means post a comment and share your ideas.

Related links:
Activities for students:
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Nik Peachey
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Sending Bubble Joy to your EFL / ESL Students

It's amazing how you can spend ages looking for something you want and then when you find it a whole bunch of other things come along with it. That seems to be the way things have happened for me with video conferencing. I found and posted about tokbox last week and then came Bubble Comment this week which I wrote about on my Quick Shout blog, and now Bubble Joy!

Bubble Joy is a way of sending short (60 seconds) fun video messages to people.


Click here to see the live video message (only good for the first 50 visitors)

They have a selection of message cards and you just record your video message to go in the middle using a webcam and microphone. The whole thing is very quick and easy to do.

So why use this with EFL / ESL students?

  • It's good listening and speaking practice
  • It's good fun and easy to do
  • It's communicative
  • It's creative
  • It's free, easy to use, doesn't require registration
  • Nice selection of cards

So how do we use this with our ESL / EFL students?

  • Well a lot of the suggestions that I mentioned in my posting Video conferencing for EFL will also work with Bubble Joy, but be sure to remember that with Bubble Joy you only have 60 seconds, and the video card expires after it has been viewed 50 times.
  • You could also try using it for specific occasions (there are cards specifically for Christmas, Easter, Valentines etc.)
  • You could also get students to create messages that match the other themes (What would you say from inside a lion's mouth, inside a shark, on safari) and then build a story to go with the cards explaining why this happened.
  • Students could also plan an imaginary holiday and then send a card to tell other as about it (on safari, riding in a hot air balloon etc.)
  • Students could use one of the TV or stage designs to give a brief news report. They could each report on their day in class or what they did on holiday, at the weekend or on a class visit.
  • They could use the stage or TV designs to record a joke each and then send them round and vote on the best one.
  • The cocktail glass card could be used to create warnings against the dangers of alcohol.
See the full range of Bubble Joy designs here:

What I'm not so sure about
  • Students need to email the cards, so to avoid them having to share their email addresses it might be better to have the students send the cards to you and then you grab the links and share them in class or on a web page etc.
  • It would be nice to be able to upload your own frame to put the video in.
  • 60 seconds can be a bit limiting
  • Shame the cards expire after they have been viewed 50 times
Well I hope you enjoy Bubble Joy and that it helps you to spread some joy among your students.

Here are some related links:
Great Video Commenting Tool
Video conferencing for EFL
Send Free Video Messages

Best

Nik Peachey
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Video conferencing for EFL

It's not often that you look at a product and think 'Ah! That's exactly what I've been looking for! And it's free!' But tokbox does seem to be that kind of product for me.

For some time now I've been looking round for a suitable video conferencing type application and while there have been a few that look okay, like SnapYap which I reviewed a week or two back, when I saw tokbox this morning I realised that here was a video conferencing tool that had exactly what I wanted and a bit more.

Here's a quick video demo of what it can do.




So what do I like about it?

  • It's free and doesn't require any downloads.
  • I was registered and signed in without disclosing any personal information (apart from email address) within less than 3 mins of finding the site!
  • It has a range of ways to communicate including group video conferencing, person to person live video calls, video email messages, and a video feed.
  • You can embed videos or your call messages into blogs websites and a whole range of social media sites including Facebook and Blogger.
  • You can report inappropriate use and users who are doing 'unsuitable' things with their accounts get deleted.
  • Students can use it privately, with groups of friends or publicly.
  • I like the inbox idea so you can check your video mail and get alerts sent to your own email inbox when someone wants to call you or has left you a message.
  • It has a really nice clean easy intuitive interface.
Here's a quick message that I created to show you the kind of quality you can get.

So how could we use this with ELT or EFL students?

  • Chinese - video - whispers - Use the video email feature to record a short text. Send it to the first of your students. Ask your student to write down the message and then record it themselves and send it to the next student. Each student should rerecord and send the message on to another, until the last student sends it back to you. You will then see how accurately the message matches to your original text.
  • Interactive video learning diary - You could get students to create an interactive learning diary, they could email you their video summary of what they feel they have learnt that day and you could then respond. Your videos would form a good learning record and students would be able to look back at them later and see how they had improved -quite literally - and also hear the improvements in their speaking ability. This is also a great way to give your students one-to-one-time which can often be a problem in class.
  • Class survey - You could send a video message to your students with a class survey question that they could respond to. This would be a good way to carry out classroom research, decide on learning goals and make sure that all students had a means to feedback to you in private and on an individual basis.
  • Different perspectives - Show some of your students a video clip or picture, that includes a number of people (scenes from films with bank robberies, where a number of people are involved are quite useful for this). Then ask the students to imagine that they are one of the people in the film or picture and they need to describe what happened. Ask them to a video giving their account of what happened. You can then ask the other students to imagine they are detectives and watch the clips your students have created and make notes to piece together what happened. The 'detective' students should then try to recreate the scene using the student videos to guide them. Afterwards they can watch the original film clip or picture together and see how well they did and what they missed.
  • Favourite poems or haiku - Students could record themselves reading their favourite poem or haiku, you could then embed the videos into a webpage or blog as a class poetry collection.
  • Live tutoring support - This looks like an ideal tool for supporting distance learners and doing 'face to face' tutorials.
  • Video interviews - You could get in touch with someone for your class to interview. Just have one computer plus camera set up in class, and a visiting expert, friend or colleague on the other end for your students to interview. They could also interview an expert in groups from home with a conference call.
  • Video lesson with conferencing - You could use the conference call to video cast your lessons to a group of distance learners.
  • Video twitter - using the feed feature you could create a kind of video Twitter, with your students video micro-blogging about learning English, their day at school, or any topic they find interesting.
  • Text and video message - Using the video email feature, you could record a video of yourself reading a text, then add the text within the email message. You could include some errors in the text and get them to watch the video and correct the errors.
  • Create a collaborative story - Email students a video with the first line of a story and ask them to record your line of the story and add their own, then pass it back, or pass it on to another student. This way you could build up a story between the group over a period of time.
  • Tip of the day, word of the day - Send you students a tip or word of the day by video email. These could be exam tips, study tips, recommended websites, or words and definitions.
  • Video dictation - Send a video email of yourself dictating a text and ask your students to watch and write the text in the email and send it back to you for correction.
So why use video conferencing with your EFL / ELT students?
  • It' a great real life IT skill as these kinds of tools are going to become a normal part of our day to day work and pleasure daily routine.
  • IT adds an element of personalisation to your lessons and materials and can make it easier to build up rapport, especially with distance students.
  • It can help you get some one-to-one time with your students.
  • You can use it to create some really nice personalised materials.
  • Students can use it (with caution) to find people with similar interests to talk to or to do learning / language exchanges.

Possible problems

  • As ever be sure your students are aware of how to protect their privacy and that they don't share any personal information or contact details with people they don't know.
  • Try to keep any video messages you make quite short or they will become slow / bandwidth heavy to watch. This is almost certainly a tool that will be more useful to broadband users.
  • Students are going to need a webcam and a microphone of course.
  • Even though inappropriate use can be reported, someone has to see it to report it, so if that is going to be one of your students, make sure they know how to report anything that disturbs them.
  • You have to be careful with any tool that enables mass communication, even if it's only email, but despite that I think that tokbox is a fantastic product and one which can really enhance your teaching and your students learning. I think they have come up with a fantastic product that could become a market leader in the field of web based video communications.
  • Appearance is important, so watch out for bad hair days, hangovers ad make sure you wear something nice and try to find a room with some good natural light.

Fantastic! Hope you and your students enjoy it. Happy EFL video conferencing

Nik Peachey

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Teaching Speaking in Second Life

For me, one of the main blocks to really developing online language learning courses has been the inability to supply real communicative speaking practice. VOIP software like Skype has certainly pushed the bounds of what is possible, as has the development of more effective web based video conferencing platforms, but in my opinion the biggest step towards making this possible has been the developments made in virtual worlds like There.com and Second Life which not only enable the use of voice, but can also help students to develop an understanding gesture and spatial relationships while speaking.

For anyone interested in giving it a try, here are four basic tutorial videos to help you get started with how voice works in Second Life and how you can use it for pair and group work.

Setting up voice
This video shows you how to activate the voice client and make sure that the quality of your sound is good. It also shows you how to select the correct input and output devices for sound in case you are having any problems.



Using the active speaker window
This video shows you how to find and use the active speaker window. This enables you to find out who is within 'voice range' of you, as well as enabling you to balance out the volume of the voices around you and even to mute other speakers if you just want to listen in to one person.



Using 'IM Call' for pair and group work
If you have large groups of students all in close proximity to each other, running activities like pair or group work can be chaotic as everyone hears what everyone else is saying. This video shows you how to use the 'IM Call' feature to put the students into pairs or groups, so that they only hear the people they are working with. Then you as the teacher can move between the groups monitoring, without having to hear the whole class all at once.



Balancing out relative volumes
Second Life has a lot of different sound sources, such as the ambient sound of trees and water around you, the sounds of gestures, background music, media players and th voices of people speaking. This video shows you how to balance out the sounds and turn off the ones you don't want to hear.



I would be really interested to hear comments from anyone who has used Video conferencing and or Second Life. Which do you prefer?

If you are new to or haven't tried Second Life yet, then I hope you find these videos useful and they encourage you to try it out. The videos were originally commissioned by The Consultants-E and are part of an introductory course for teachers they deliver on Edunation Island II and are used with their kind consent.

Best
Nik Peachey

My other postings on Second Life and virtual worlds
Visit my YouTube Channel to watch more of my videos
http://youtube.com/NikPeachey
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Pronunciation goes 2.0

I've been looking this week at Forvo, which is a kind of web 2.0 pronunciation site. The site allows users to request, and add audio clips of the pronunciation of different words from a huge range of languages, so if you want to know how a word is pronounced you can either do a quick easy search for the word and then listen to it, or if the word isn't already within the database, you can add it and request a pronunciation.

The site also categorises words into lexical areas such as brands, acronyms, sports etc which is very handy

You can also be helpful and add the pronunciation to words which have been requested in your language.

The site offer free registration, but you can find words, request words and pronounce words without registering. The benefit of registration is that you'll be notified when someone pronounces your word for you.

What I like about it
  • It's a great idea and it's free
  • Very easy to use interface
  • Lots of different languages
  • Sound clips load quickly and a reasonably good quality
  • Registration isn't required
  • Potentially a huge and growing resource

What I'm not so sure about
  • Like most things on the web, especially Web 2.0, you can't be sure of the quality or authenticity of what you are getting, so if you are using this with students check out the words they are after and make sure the quality of the pronunciation is good (My litmus test was 'aluminium' and it feel somewhere between the UK and US versions)
  • Watch out for students who want to pronounce the (four letter) words that they shouldn't be using (though probably better for them to pronounce them well than badly)
  • It would be really nice to have regional variations of the pronunciation, but I guess that's broadening out the amount of work a bit far.

How to use this with students
  • This is a nice self access resource for students to check their pronunciation
  • You could give students a list of words and get them to find out how they are pronounced
  • Get students to add some words that they want to be able to pronounce
  • Use the site to dictate words while students listen, then get them to go to the site and check that they have got the right words
This is a really nice application of the Web 2.0 concept to pronunciation and it will be really interesting to see how this site grows and develops.

Hope you enjoy it and can get your students involved.

Best

Nik
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Iconic teen video

Using video clips with teenagers can be enormously motivating for them, IF you get the right content. Getting the content right involves taking a look into the lives of our students and finding out what kind of things they are watching.

One of the most high profile examples of this is LonelyGirl15.
LonelyGirl15, which became a Youtube phenomenon, depicted a young teenage girl talking to her camera and discussing some of the intimate, bizarre and often incredibly trivial issues of her life. The ‘show’, a series of 2 -4 minute clips, was soon attracting audiences of millions and it soon emerged that it was a ‘fake’ and that the LonelyGirl15 was an actress working with a small film crew and script writer.
Since then the show has transformed into a sort of on going thriller. there is now both a UK version, KateModern as well as the original LonelyGirl15 series.
For more information on the plot and background see: LG Pedia

These two shows provide a huge potential source authentic language as teenagers in the UK and North America speak it. It’s also wrapped up in a context and genre which teenagers / 20-somethings can identify to. Though using this material isn’t without its pitfalls and drawbacks.

What I like about it
  • The clips are short, but self contained and will download quite quickly.
  • They really show the way that English is being used by young adults.
  • The clips are quite enigmatic and the story is inferred and implied rather than depicted, so the material can be useful for developing students thinking and deductive skills.
  • Many of them deal with young people’s issues and attitudes
  • The characters seem like very ordinary people
  • The clips can be very engaging

Here’s a just a couple of examples, from a collection of hundreds of clips which I think could well be usable.

From LonelyGirl15: Boy problems



From LonelyGirl15: Parent problems



From KateModern: A proposal



From KateModern: The order




Some ideas for using this material with students
  • Students to watch a single clip and make deductions about the story, what’s been happening to the character, what the relationships are to other people mentioned etc.
  • Students to watch different clips then build up and exchange character information and try to decide what the relationships are between various characters
  • Students view the clip without sound and make deductions about the topic and mood of the person
  • Create gist or specific information questions
  • Get your students to watch and then write questions that they would like to ask the character
  • Get your students to create and video their own response to one of the characters in the videos
  • Get your students to watch for cultural information and look for things that would be different with their own culture (clothes, household objects, way people interact, gestures etc.)
  • Get students to watch and compare a clip from the UK and the North American series and identify differences in the use of language.
  • Get students to watch and compare a clip from each series without sound and look for cultural and environmental differences between UK and North American culture
  • Create discussion classes around some of the issues touched on in the clips
  • Students create their own localised version of the series.
What I'm not so sure about
  • Some of the clips contain violence and bad language and show young people drinking. This is something you might actually ant to deal with in class, or avoid altogether, so be careful which clips you choose.
  • You might have to be prepared to defend your use of this kind of material if your students go home and start watching it in front of their parents
  • Much as I find this view into the world of 'young people today' (Did I really write that?) quite intriguing I also find it slightly disturbing
Anyway, whether we like this kind of content or not, it does seem to be the kind of thing that is becoming increasingly popular as internet entertainment, and if we really want to engage with our students and engage them in our classes, I don't think we can afford to ignore it.

I would also love to hear from anyone who has been using LonelyGirl15 or KateModern with your classes, so please post a comment and share your experience.

Best

Nik
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Tackling political issues

Big Think is running some really nice clips from two speakers on a range of political issues at the moment. Here's a nice taster to view with an opinion on "Is it fair to ask developing countries to go green?"



The speakers are:
The videos are all quite short snippets even though the language level is quite high, and if you get your students to register and log in, they can then vote on whether they agree with the speaker or not.

These videos could provide a good route into what can be a difficult and controversial topic to deal with in the classroom.

I think we should be dealing with these kinds of topics, but personally I feel as a teacher it's our role to help students articulate and understand each others' opinions. I generally try to avoid adding my own.

You could also have a look at my previous posting for more ideas on how to use Big Think
Hope these are useful

Best

Nik
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Personalised flashcards

Flashcards have always been one of my favourite teaching tools and with the FaceinHole website I've found a place where I can quickly create my own personalised ones.

The site is easy to use. You just need either an image of yourself that you can upload or a webcam that you can take a picture with. Then you choose the picture you want to put yourself into and upload your image. With a bit of resizing and colour adjustment you can have a set of your own personal flashcards in just minutes.

Then you can either embed them in a webpage like these ones, have a link to them on the site or print them up to use them in class as flashcards.

How to use these with students
These kinds of flashcards can be used for a multitude of purposes.
  • They are great for generating stories / personal anecdotes ( The time I met Paris Hilton etc).
  • You can use them to practice a range of grammar structures. The ones below could all be used for 'used to' and students could either ask about the experience or you could make up anecdotes to tell them.
  • You could get your students to create their own flashcards using their own images and then come to class and tell the class about their imaginary experiences.
  • Often when students have to talk about their own experiences, they can't think of much to say. Hopefully these flashcards will stimulate their imagination and they can have fun making up stories and anecdotes.
  • You could even try to convince your students that some of these are true! (I actually used to have long hair and go dancing with Paris Hilton!)
Here are my 'used to' experiences.
  • I used to play football for Manchester united
  • I used to go dancing with Paris Hilton.
  • I used to be a stunt man.


    • I used to have long hair.



    • I used to be a bit of an ogre.



    • I used to play in a band.



    What I liked about it
    • Lots of different pictures to choose from
    • Quick and easy to create the flashcards
    • Lots of fun for free and registration necessary
    What I wasn't so sure about
    • Would be nice to have some more ordinary images and perhaps different places around the world.
    • It only worked with jpg images, not with gif
    • Watch out. Some of them are less suitable for younger learners
    There's so much you can do with good images and personalised ones can be even more stimulating. I hope you find this useful and you get your students creating and talking about some great images.

    http://www.faceinhole.com

    Best

    Nik
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Video debating website

I’ve been having a look at a new website (still in beta) which I think has some great educational / language learning potential. It's called BigThink.com

The site is designed to create debate and get people thinking about some of the big issues in life. It contains video clips from a very large and broad range of experts giving their opinions on various issues. users then have the opportunity to vote on whether they agree, respond to the questions raised or rate the speaker.

The site also provides people with there opportunity to upload their own questions or statements via video, audio, slideshows or text.
These are some really good examples
I set up a free profile and even added my own question, only to find (rather embarrassingly that I couldn’t delete it, so here it is, direct from my office in Second Life.
Here’s a tutorial created by the site owners that I have embed into this page. It tells you a little about how to use the site.
How to use big think: http://www.bigthink.com/features/101



At the time I started to write this there were 2897 ‘ideas’ added to the site so there’s plenty there for students to look at.

If you decide to post your own idea, you can do this in either the form of a statement or a question (statements give users a chance to vote - agree - disagree and add a comment, questions allow users to respond)

How to use this with students:
Here are some suggestion for how you could use this site with your students. Be aware though that this is authentic material and the language level in some of the expert videos is quite high.
  • Discuss some of the questions or statement in class then check with the expert on the site
  • Get the experts opinion then discuss in class and see whether your students agree
  • Get your students to prepare their own opinions and video them for their own class Big Think (could add it to the site or just use Big Think as a model for a classroom activity)
  • Get students to watch some of the videos and rate for how interesting they are
  • Ask students to find the expert they most agree with
  • Ask students to find one that they disagree with and prepare a response (then respond on the site or in class)
  • Ask students to summarise an opinion they have viewed
  • Ask students to view an opinion and then defend that opinion in a class debate (even if they don’t agree with it)
  • As the teacher you could set up some questions that you would like your students to respond to, or you could get your students to set up questions that they would like you or their fellow student to respond to
  • Get students to create a big think question to add to the site. (Review later and see if there are any answers to your question)

What I liked about it
There's certainly plenty to like about this site even though it's still in beta at time of writing
  • It’s free
  • These are real experts many of them well known which should be pretty motivating for students
  • The site is well designed and has a pretty clear and easy to use interface. Creating and adding your own question or statement is pretty quick and easy once you’ve created your profile (just three steps)
  • You can choose your form of media, so even if your students don’t have any kind of digital recording equipment, they can still contribute to the site using text.
  • If you click on the small email envelope icon on the video player you can send a link, get code to embed in a webpage (look at this earlier tutorial to see how this is done), or add it to your Delicious, Facebook or Digg accounts.
What I wasn’t so keen on
  • It takes a while to get registered. The process itself is quite quick, but you need to click a confirmation link which is sent to your email address and this took a good hour to arrive, so it’s best to get yourself and / or your students registered well in advance.
  • I’m not sure whether there is any editing or censorship before comments and opinions go live. The potential for abuse and misuse is huge. The site is very serious and if user don’t take the site seriously it could easily be swamped by rather uninteresting and poorly thought out opinions. With most Web 2.0 sites the vast majority of what is on them is rubbish, but the remaining 5% is pure gold.
  • I also noticed with my own question, that once you add one you can’t get rid of it or edit it (which I would now like to be able to do). Adding this feature might help to ensure higher quality through self censorship.
Despite these slight drawbacks I think this is definitely a useful site and it has loads of potential. Do drop me a line if you use it with your class.

best

Nik
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Social networking for language learning

I've just seen this site which is aimed at helping people to set up language exchanges. It's a kind of social networking tool. It's called Friendsabroad.com. You simply put in your language and then the language you want to learn and then you can also choose the country where you would like to find the person. Click on search and you get a list of people who fit your criteria.


You have to register, but it is free, then you can get in contact and start chatting, emailing through the platform (no email addresses are disclosed) and can even leave voice messages.

No 'teachers' as such are involved, there are however a coupe of useful tools on the interface to help you.

There is;
  • a text to speech converter, so that you can type in a phrase and see how it is pronounced
  • a multilingual dictionary so that you can get help with translating
  • a phrase translator. Type in any phrase you want and get a translation of it
On the whole I think this is a great idea. It looks like there are quite few people registered already, though many of the ones I came up with on my search hadn't been active for a while.

Still a great idea and if enough people get registered this could be a real winner.
I'd love to hear from you if you've tried it.

Best

Nik
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