Tag: esl

Chris Mooney talks about using the iPads with students

Michael ChalkLeave a commentclassroom, technology

A while back, I asked Chris Mooney how she was experiencing the iPads in her English as a second language (ESL) classroom. She replied that so far, they have already been looking at YouTube videos and information texts, and it’s been fun. In future, Chris would like to find ways to: play interactive games on the overhead, get the group doing gap-fill (cloze) activities together, get into reading information texts as a group. You can hear the whole one-minute conversation here: What about you – what have you done with an iPad Read More …

Use what’s already there – if you can find it..

Michael Chalk1 Commentace, professional development

Betty – one of the wonderful teachers at Lalor LLC – spent a fair bit of time creating some activities in powerpoint, that let her students match images with audio. But then she found this website “English Guide” (dot org), and decided it was much better to use resources that someone else had already made. “They have everything,” she exclaimed delightedly. Every theme and topic you could want for low-level English as a second language (ESL) learners. What a good point this teacher has made! Why spend hours creating learning Read More …

Exploring online surveys

Michael Chalk4 Commentsace, professional development

We had such a great group session in February. I love it when – in spite of the session plan – people make it really clear that they’re interested in something different. From the teacher survey I’d sent around, it seemed that people were most interested in digital storytelling and recording student voices. So we started the session by looking at this teacher survey, a combination of online form and spreadsheet containing the results. And boom! People were suddenly interested in the possible classroom application of this kind of software. Read More …

ESL teacher uses "Online Banking" resource

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, adult literacy, classroom, e-learning

Inspiring adventures from Dale Pobega of Duke St community centre in Sunshine Victoria, who has recently started using blogger to engage and educate his English as a second language (ESL) students. Great to see Dale using the tremendous resource “Online Banking“. This resource came out of Olympic Adult Education about 6 years ago, and remains one of the best online resources for adult numeracy. There’s a few broken elements on the site (eg the bulletin board no longer exists, and the sim bank doesn’t work).. but much of it works Read More …

Live session between classes

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, community, innovation

Today was a roaring success, as we held a Live Session between two classes, one at Merrilands Community Centre and the other in Broadway in the heart of Reservoir. Both groups comprised English as a second language (ESL) learners. Tina and Jan and i came up with a way to use Skype to develop people’s language skills. Lately the students have been practising their descriptive skills, so we decided that each student would describe themselves over the skype phone, and the other group would guess who was speaking. Each group Read More …

Video interviews on the beach, for ESL learners

Michael ChalkLeave a commentclassroom

Great to see this guy from an English school in France interviewing people on the street, and then adding captions to the video. This one is part of a series focussing on homeless people, on the beach in Miami. Interesting to compare the two women’s opinions here. Here’s the first in the series, with interviews of Santa Claus, whose residence is South Miami Beach. From (Real English MPG.)

Student Blogging, (efl/esl)

Michael ChalkLeave a commentcommunity, e-learning, innovation

Adult learners are starting to get into Self-Publishing (aka blogging). and Barbara Dieu, a Brazilian educator, has set up an Exchange for ESL students around the world. With two colleagues, she has found a way to gather and re-publish the writings of students who have blog journals in their ESL classes. (This re-publishing is known as ‘aggregation’.) The site is called Dakita (i don’t know why), and the collection of student writings you’ll find in The Orchard (or The Exchange). Worth a look, especially if you’re thinking of using blogs Read More …