1. While beıng ın İstanbul I notıce again how important ıt ıs to be able to speak Englısh. We cannot deny that English is somehow the Lıngua franca and that is why it is even more ımportant for us to teach it as good as we can!

2. I would like to promote one of my earlier posts Do you want to know how İstanbul sounds? http://citysounds.fm/istanbul

So as my field trip will start soon, thıs wıll be my last post! I hope you enjoyed reading my blog!

Take care!

I would like to present one of those projects. Two filmmakers want to create a documentary that is called:

“Dream with me – A documentary about one year in America’s Public Schools”

(To get more information go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1800556280/dream-with-me-a-documentary-that-will-change-the?pos=23&ref=popular)

In the video they posted on kickstarter.com they are talking about why they want to do the project as well as they present a short trailer of the planned documentary. This video could be easily integrated into the English classroom when dealing with the American school system. It makes the pupils think about what goes wrong in the USA but also makes them consider problems of the German school system. Especially in upper classes this could lead to interesting discussions and thus helps pupils to broaden their vocabulary to express their opinion on specific topics. On kickstarter.com you can find many more of such videos where people call attention for different problems. It definitely pays off to take a look at the different projects, many are worth being supported and many are worth being talked about in class. So if you are looking for a topic to do a discussion on and you are bored by normal topics like abortion or smoking ban, you should browse through www.kickstarter.com, it is definitely worth it!

]]> http://frankathinksaboutnm.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/how-to-integrate-kickstarter-into-the-english-classroom/feed/ 1 frankag13 Dream with me http://frankathinksaboutnm.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/why-i-dont-twitter/ http://frankathinksaboutnm.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/why-i-dont-twitter/#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:54:11 +0000 frankag13 http://frankathinksaboutnm.wordpress.com/?p=80 ]]> Lately. I have the feeling that everybody is using twitter except for me. So I was asking myself if I am too intolerant when it comes to new media? Is it important to twitter as a future teacher in the medial world?

Here are my reasons for not using it: I think I am a normal person who does things everybody does too. MAybe sometimes something special happens to me or I come up with a brilliant idea, but in the first case I can just tell my friends or write it on Facebook and in the second one I can put it on my blog! I only see one advantage in twittering and that is that I can follow other people who really have to say something interesting or important. But in Ms Gallus case for example, I can check her blog for her latest twitters and if I want any news I just check major newspapers or news channels that are online. Please let me know if you have a really convincing argument for using twitter (especially if it has to do with being a future teacher)! Maybe this will change my mind

So what can you do? One way to improve your English is to practice it through different themes. You can choose from various topics such as sport, culture or science.  When you have decided for one you simply click on it and you will be led to another page. There you find exercises for practising various skills. You will find articles or blogs you can read, you can listen to podcasts or you can do games or listen to songs about the topic.

In addition, you can test your level as an English learner to be able to find activities that are appropriate for you. If you are interested in practicing certain skills you find activities for grammar or vocabulary as well as for writing, reading and listening . I especially recommend the podcasts. They are great. Again you can find different topics as well as different levels. What is really useful is that you can download them as well and listen to them on the bus or while you are eating, so you do not necessarily need an internet access. As future teachers we can simply download them and use them in class, which is really useful as they are always up-to-date (in contrast to listening exercises you often find in English books). Connected to the podcasts are exercises you can do online or simply print out.

Unfortunately I cannot insert mp3′s without purchasing video press, so instead I simply wanted to insert a vodpod video. But as this is not working on my computer as well, I will give you the link instead:

http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-podcasts-elementary.htm

You should also see my vodpod videos on the right, maybe it is working on your computer.

If you just want to do some English for fun or you need a game or a cartoon for your class, you get different material on this website as well. There are songs, many cartoons and games, just to name an interactive “I spy with my little eye…” as one example. The British council provides activities for adult learners as well as for children. If you are looking for information especially for teachers, you should definitely check out http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/. There you can get new ideas or simply talk to other teachers of English from all over the world. So whatever you decide for will give you inspiration for your own English lesson.

As you can see, I could go on and on talking about this website and that is because I am totally enthusiastic about it! Probably it is because I have lived in England for a while, but I think it is amazing what the British council has created. You can get so many ideas as well as material on all kinds of topics and the best thing is that you do not have to worry about the reliability of the material. Additionally, you can improve your English by listening to podcasts or doing games, you can send in your writings or exchange ideas and all this is made available for free!!

I have to repeat myself, but I strongly recommend to use this website in class. In my opinion, it is one of the best you can find on the internet (of course I do not know every website on FLE). Even if you do not want to use it, it can give you many new ideas about what is possible in the English classroom concerning new media!

LEARN AND TEACH ENGLISH WITH THE BRITISH COUNCIL!!!

So what is it about? On Citysounds.fm you can listen to different cities. Sounds strange? Actually it doesn’t. I am listening to London at the moment and I really like the sound of it. It is not about sounds that are typical for the city. You can listen to different songs that people listen to in London (for example). One negative thing is that the music is mostly electronic, I haven’t listen to many rock songs until now and I am sure that people listen to this kind of music as well…Another negative thing is that you don’t really get to know about the source of these songs. Apparently, lists for the different cities are created by using music made available by soundcloud* users from these cities. But there are people who claim that you get a more authentic result by searching for the city on soundcloud itself. Another drawback is that you cannot see all cities that are on citysounds.fm. The only pages you can choose from are “latest”, “popular” or “your city”. At least the system notices where you are at the moment. So when I click on “your city” I can listen to the music of Gießen (apparently Marburg is not on citysounds.fm yet).

Ok, so there are some negative points. But I would like to talk about the positive thing and that is the idea! How great is it to listen to music from various cities?! Although citysounds needs some improvement, you can compare different cities with one another. I think this could be really useful for the FLE classroom. Does Berlin sounds different from London or New York? By using this information, you could introduce differences of cities, cultures and countries. If I have the chance to use this website as a future teacher, I definitely will!

* Just some additional information on soundcloud:

SoundCloud: The Tour from SoundCloud on Vimeo.

I found out about an internet software called Mikestar. So what is it about? As the name might suggest, it is an online karaoke software. After creating an account, you can choose from hundreds of songs and record your song via a microphone or a webcam. You can simply upload it or do contests with other people, so it is basically like a karaoke software only that this one is free.

One way to use this software in class could be to analyse different songs in groups and as an end result record them or even create a video that stands in relation to the topic. As this requires quite a lot of time, it would be useful to do this as a project during or after school. Therefore, the extra work should pay off for the pupils. Additionally, some people are not really into karaoke, that is why pupils should be able to choose from other possibilities such as creating a poster or other creative approaches. By presenting the software to the class, the teacher should only show them one way of dealing with the topic.

Mikestar in FLE? – Definitely maybe…I think Mikestar is only a gimmick that does not necessarily have to be included into FLE. But as it is quite fashionable and up-to-date it could be a creative way of dealing with a topic. It definitely relates to the lives of the pupils and especially when pupils are in the middle of puberty it is important to find ways to make school more attractive to them. Mikestar could be such an attraction. So why not try it out?

After listening to the songs we talked about the topic they dealt with and afterwards looked at the lyrics. We had talked about the history of Ireland before, so we had some background knowledge. Nevertheless, the songs made the problem become more effective. In my opinion,especially songs have such an effect. Most of the time the interpreter brings across certain emotions that can be very useful for the English classroom as pupils can identify with these emotions or the band/artist. Furthermore, songs are closer to the life of the pupils than a text from a history book. Of course, not everybody shares this opinion. I can only speak for myself, but I really enjoyed when we used songs in our English classroom and I will certainly use it in FLE. I do not think that they are appropriate in every context, but especially if you can find a song that deals with historic or other difficult topics, it can be really useful to make the topic more interesting and palpable. Additionally, if you are dealing with topics like friendship and love, you could make your pupils choose songs they would like to analyse. This will create a positive atmosphere in the classroom as the pupils are dealing with something they decided for. In the age of YouTube you can furthermore include the music videos if they are useful for the topic.

So here is my appeal: USE SONGS IN FLE!!!

1. What can you remember thinking about your school days?

2. What kind of media did you get to know in your lessons and what did you use yourself?

3. What possibilities do you see to enhance the teacher training?

4. Do you think it is good to use blogs, wikis or podcasts in the classroom?

5. Can online software improve tutoring or even replace it?

1. As I can remember quite a lot of my school days, I will reduce my answer to media related facts. I had Computer Science from 5th grade up to 12th grade (I only had 12 years of school). We had two computer rooms, but the different computers were rather old and the internet was always very slow. Apart from Computer Science, we rarely used the rooms, only for projects in subjects like Physics, Biology, Geography and also English. Many of our teachers struggled when setting up a DVD player, not to talk about a computer. We only had beamers in our computer rooms, but you could not use them somewhere else.

2. The kind of media my teachers most often used were videos and audio tapes. We often watched films of books in German or English, but most of the time this happened before our holidays and was done as a special treat. In Biology, Chemistry and Geography we always has to answer questions when watching a film. Audio tapes were used in English and French in addition to different texts or as listening tasks. In 8th grade we had to do a video project in English. We had to do a film in English about a certain topic.This video was graded. The project lasted over several weeks and it was a lot of fun. Somewhere between 9th and 10th grade it became popular to do power point presentations. In the beginning, we got really good marks for that, because our teachers did not have a clue how to create one themselves. But after a while they found out that it was not that hard, so it became more difficult to get a good mark. I most often used media in computer science. It started in 5th grade with creating an e-mail account and using the keyboard properly, later on we learned how to use programs like Corel Draw, Excel, Word, etc. In my 11th and 12th grade we designed web pages by using HTML or Java and programmed smaller devices, additionally we had to do a project using PovRay. I think having Computer Science as a subject throughout my school years was really useful.

3. I see many possibilities to enhance out teacher training. I already have had courses in English, Geography and EGL that concerned new media and I always found them really useful as we will have to deal with new media as future teachers. I think our university is on the right track.

4. I think it is really good to use new media in general, because that is what pupils can relate to, because most of them are regularly using the computer and the internet. Writing a text becomes more appealing for them when they know that it will be published on the internet and that there will be people apart from the teacher who will actually read what they have to say.

5. I am not quite sure about the online software. When you are using an online software, you really need to be determined to improve your language skills. Otherwise, you will easily get distracted when using the internet. On the other hand, you need to have a certain will to enhance your skills when doing tutoring as well. I am tutoring a boy in English and sometimes he is annoyed with English in general and that is when he does mistakes he has never done before. So it is always necessary to reach the interest of pupils. If they are interested in using online software, probably tutoring becomes dispensable.

So these are my answers to the 5 different questions, unfortunately I cannot win a dictionary or an ipod anymore, but I hope I could nevertheless make you think about the questions yourself.

Her post reminded me of one of the top news of this week, which is the speech of Baden-Württembergs president Oettinger. He was giving a speech in English in Berlin last December. Nothing was wrong with the speech itself, but his pronounciation was totally horrible. If you just need a funny thing to include into your lesson, you should show this video to your pupils! With this you could point out typical problems Germans have when speaking English, as there are certain sounds that do not exist in the German language. But you could also make your pupils aware of the fact that speaking English nowadays is a basic qualification.

If you have more detailled or better ideas, please let me know! Maybe the video will give you a further incentive!

I know that doing an exchange project that is based on letters and postcards will be even harder to realise than an e-mail project. E-mails have the advantage that they are easy and fast, because all you have to do is type in your message and send it to your partner. You do not have to get a postcard or an envelope, you do not need stamps and you do not have to go to the post office to send it. You can also attach pictures or other data to an e-mail. So of course, for younger pupils having an e-mail pen pal will be in the same way exciting as having one that sends letters. In addition, they will not have to wait as long for their answers as they would do when writing letters. The teacher can easily check and communicate with the teacher from the corresponding school and different goals can be achieved. As you can see, there are quite a lot of factors that suggest doing an e-mail project rather than the old-fashioned way of writing letters.

But, I do not want to give up that easily. There could be an alternative that is not like an ordinary communication project, but rather a sensible free time activity. There is this webpage called “Postcrossing“. Instead of describing it myself I will simply insert what they say about themselves:

The project

The goal of this project is to allow people to receive postcards from all over the world, for free. Well, almost free! The main idea is that: if you send a postcard, you will receive at least one back from a random Postcrosser from somewhere in the world.

Why? Because, like the author, there are lots of people who like to receive real mail.
The element of surprise of receiving postcards from different places in the world (many of which you probably have never heard of) can turn your mailbox into a box of surprises – and who wouldn’t like that?

I am also part of this project and so far I have written one postcard to the US and one to the Czech Republic and I have also received one from Portugal. All of them were written in English, because nowadays English serves as the lingua franca. On the postcard you can write whatever you want, something about yourself or the city you live in, your hobbies and whatever you can think of. Some of the users are also interested to stay in contact with each other for a longer period of time. I think this could be a nice idea for older pupils who would like to talk to other people who use English either as their mother tongue or as a foreign language. I would probably not do it as a project because you have to type in your address which can definitely be a risk, but I would present the webpage and offer it as an additional source that could help to use English in an environment different from school. Most of the pupils will need English in their future lives for exactly that reason, which is to use English to communicate with people from other countries.

So here is my conclusion: I think e-mail exchange projects are a really good thing to do in your English classroom, but for those old-fashioned people like me who like to receive real mail postcrossing could be a nice alternative to combine new media with “older” ways of communication. Another positive point (which could also be a negative point) is that there is no danger of one person not responding to another person’s letter, because that is not the idea of postcrossing. Of course, if someone is interested in staying in touch that could be another positive possibility.

Maybe if you are old-fashioned like me, you will try it out yourself and see if it could be realizable at school.