 | An English lesson |
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Hello everyone, 1.I haven't written for a long time, and I guess everybdoy is busy just like me. But a few months ago, our inspector came to visit my class; I worked with a class of beginners on 'How old are you?'. We first played a bingo game to practise numbers and then I introduced the structure with Gattegno's word charts. We practised pronunciation, intonation, liaisons etc... for about 10 min.The lady was very happy with this part of the lesson but strangely enough she didn't ask me where I got the charts from; I had to explain what Silent Way was but she said she was interested in results not so much in approaches or methods, if things worked out well she was happy with it(why not!!!!). Then, I used a video from Real English, the children were able to talk quite spontaneously about the video and the lady was again surprised at their 'good pronunciation' as she said. That's it. 2.I've just read one or two pedagogical discussions we've had before; I realized how interesting it is to reread them after some time: some things seem much more clear with time. By the way Glenys, the book called 'Using Engl Gram, by Mc Leod' is not published any more. I'm coming to Besançon in 2 weeks' time, and I'd like to have a look at it, is it possible? I attended the workshop with Tesol about 'Creating exs with Hot Potatoes', but I think your explanations have been more useful; in fact it was for real beginners and I didn't learn much, but at least I realized I had improved in my practise and I was able to help other people there. Unfortunately our school has decided to use a new platform called 'wims' and 'Quicktool' which is a bit similar to Moodle and Hot Pot; but creating exos is much more complicated; I'll show you if we can meet in Besançon. Cheers to everybody Joelle |
 | Re: An English lesson |
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Hello Joelle and everybody, Yes, I have been and still am very busy. One thing I've been busy with is preparing an online course "Apprendre Moodle" (sorry for the moment, only in French) for teachers like you on this UEPD platform. What a pity your school has chosen a different platform. But you should be able to make Hot Potatoes exercises, save them in Scorm format and upload them to your platform. Scorm is a format for moving interactive exercises (and no doubt other things) form one application to another. Ah, so you're now able to teach others Hot Pot - you're at the top of the Learning Pyramid according to Edgar Dale's research.  You can find second hand copies of "Using English Grammar" Woods & McLeod on the Internet, for example at amazon.fr, but you're welcome to borrow my copy. What a great reaction from your inspector! Things must be changing in the Education Nationale. Means, too, that you're doing your job pretty well, of course. But your inspector isn't the only one, there's another one coming to the maths seminar who's really keen on changing things. All the best, Glenys |
| Re: An English lesson |
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Hi again Glenys, A new online course! What a good idea! Even if we don't use Moodle in our school, I'll be interested in following that course.I did a few Hot Pot exercices even for my daughters in French and Geography, and I'm going to check about that Scorm format. I might see you then at the Maths seminar. The learning Pyramid: funny; I think that even at the top: teach others, there must be many, many more stages. Bye Joelle |
