субота, 20 травня 2017 р.
неділя, 14 травня 2017 р.
ТОП-5 ресурсів для аудіювання
Вважаєте, що неможливо вивчити іноземну мову без занурення в мовне середовище? Поринути у світ англомовного спілкування можна не тільки, переїхавши за кордон, а й завдяки хорошим ресурсів для аудіювання. Вчіться сприймати англійську мову на слух, вдосконалюйте вимова і збільшуйте словниковий запас завдяки ТОП-5 ресурсам для аудіювання.
Вважаєте, що неможливо вивчити іноземну мову без занурення в мовне середовище? Поринути у світ англомовного спілкування можна не тільки, переїхавши за кордон, а й завдяки хорошим ресурсам для аудіювання. Сприймайте англійську мову на слух, вдосконалюйте вимову і збільшуйте словниковий запас завдяки ТОП-5 ресурсам для аудіювання.
Кілька слів про аудіювання
Сприймати та розуміти почуте ми можемо завдяки виконанню різних логічних операцій: порівняння, конкретизації, абстракції, аналізу, синтезу, дедукції, індукції тощо. Саме тому ця здатність украй важлива для формування мовної компетенції. Не дивно, що більшість міжнародних мовних іспитів включають аудіювання як обов'язкову частину тесту.
Навичку сприйняття англомовної інформації на слух можна тренувати. Прослуховуючи аудіокниги англійською, переглядаючи фільми і серіали мовою оригіналу, слухаючи англомовне радіо, ви розвиваєте здатність сприймати іноземну мову на слух. Завдяки цьому навику ви не тільки стаєте повноцінним учасником спілкування іноземною мовою, але й можете формувати інші комунікативні навички: читання, письмо, говоріння. Для розвитку цієї навички рекомендуємо якісні ресурси.
elllo.org
Ресурс, завдяки якому ви можете прослухати інтерв'ю різних людей з різних країн світу. Саме завдяки цьому ресурсу ви можете навчитися сприймати мову і розуміти людей з різними акцентами. Elllo – це багатюща аудіотека зі всілякими матеріалами англійською мовою для прослуховування і тренування навички сприйняття англомовної інформації на слух.
Усне мовлення людей, у яких беруть інтерв'ю, є більш живим і природним, ніж ті аудіоматеріали, які пропонують курси або всілякі підручники. Також ресурс подає добірку відеоматеріалів з субтитрами.
На порталі представлена колекція всіляких ігор, які також допоможуть вам поліпшити навичку сприйняття мови на слух. Крім того, Elllo допоможе вам запам'ятати вимову окремих слів, особливо тих, які мають багато різних значень і найбільш часто вживаються в мові.
eslgold.com
Якщо ви тільки починаєте вивчати англійську мову, цей ресурс буде корисний для вас: тут ви можете прослухати найбільш часто вживані розмовні фрази, починаючи з найпростіших. Фрази, які говорять при знайомстві, корисні фрази для подорожей, прості запитання, фрази для заходів, презентацій, ситуативні фрази, фрази для висловлення подяки та багато інших. Прослуховуючи щодня матеріали цього порталу та вивчивши напам'ять стандартні фрази, ви зможете орієнтуватися у звичних ситуаціях, брати участь у розмові англійською мовою на знайомі теми.edition.englishclub.com
eslfast.com
Ресурс представляє колекцію коротких історій для рівня Іntermediate. Ви можете регулярно прослуховувати історії, а також виконувати всілякі завдання. В основному на порталі, крім матеріалів для прослуховування, представлені диктанти та кросворди. Завдяки таким вправам ви можете перевірити, наскільки добре зрозуміли прослуханий текст.puzzle-english.com
Хороший портал для перегляду англомовних фільмів і серіалів з підбіркою додаткових матеріалів для розвитку мовних навичок до кожної серії. Детально про цей ресурс ми вже розповідали раніше.
Тренуйте навичку сприйняття англомовної інформації на слух, вдосконалюйте англійську разом з Enguide!
понеділок, 8 травня 2017 р.
http://testyourvocab.com/
Test
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Works for everyone, from small children (with parental help) to college professors!
Did you know?
English has the most words of any language on Earth.
English has the most words of any language on Earth.
четвер, 4 травня 2017 р.
Motivating speaking activities for lower levels
Motivating speaking activities for lower levels
Planning time has been shown to increase production in speaking tasks. Lower level learners often find it especially difficult to speak spontaneously, so these activities incorporate ‘thinking time’ during which learners can prepare for speaking by planning what they are going to say, and asking the teacher or using a dictionary to look up missing vocabulary. The following activities are relatively short, with minimal materials preparation time for the teacher. They are designed for use as a warmer or a filler in the middle or at the end of a class.
Definitions lists
This activity is good for activating existing vocabulary or revising vocabulary studied in previous lessons.
Procedure:
- Choose a vocabulary topic (this can be vocabulary you have recently studied or a topic you want to introduce). Tell students to write a list of 10 words they associate with this topic. To make the activity shorter, reduce the number of words.
- Pre-teach / revise structures for definitions e.g. It’s a thing which / that.... You use it for... You find this in.... It’s an animal / object / place... It’s the opposite of... etc.
- Tell students to look at their lists and give them time to think of how they can define these words (3 -5 mins).
- Now students work in pairs (or groups of 3) to define their words. Their partner must guess the word they are defining.
A faster moving, fun alternative to this activity is a team game.
- Change the vocabulary to lists of famous people / books / films / objects.
- Each team writes a list for another team (students can also 3 or 4 words each on strips of paper to draw out of a hat)
- Pre-teach / revise structures for definitions e.g. It’s a thing which / that.... You use it for... It’s a film / book / object.... He/ She’s an actor / a politician.... He’s British / American / Spanish...
- Each team nominates one person to define the words to their team.
- Each team has 1 minute to define as many words as possible.
What were you doing...? (What are you going to do....?)
This activity can be adapted to revise a range of tenses (present simple, past simple, continuous, future tenses) by changing the time prompts.
Procedure:
- Write a selection of time prompts on the board e.g. yesterday at 6 o´clock, this time last year, on September 11th 2001 etc
- Tell students to choose some of the prompts and think of what they were doing at these times. Tell students that they are going to tell a partner / small group.
- Give students time 5 minutes to plan what they are going to say and ask for any vocabulary they need.
- Students tell their partner / small group. Encourage students to ask for more information. E.g. –I was watching TV yesterday at 6. -What were you watching?
- After speaking, students feedback and tell the class what they learnt. E.g. Marie was watching TV at 6 o´clock yesterday. She loves chat shows!
Adjectives
This is a variation on the above activity and is great for practising adjectives. Students personalise the discussion by talking about experiences and feelings.
Procedure:
- Write a selection of adjectives relating to feelings on the board.
- Tell students to choose several adjectives (increase or decrease the number depending on how long you want the activity to take). Tell them to think of a time when they felt this way, and that they are going to tell their partner / small group about their experience.
- Give students time to plan what they are going to say. They can make notes and ask for vocabulary if they want to.
- Students tell their stories.
- Feedback to the class.
Cartoons, cartoon stories and unusual pictures
There are many copyright-free comic strips, cartoons and unusual images available online; you can also find cartoon stories in many EFL resource books. These can be used in class in a number of ways.
Information gap activity: Order the story
Information gap and jigsaw tasks have been shown to be beneficial task types in terms of promoting obligatory, as opposed to optional information exchange and as a way of promoting collaborative dialogue in the classroom. In this activity, students work in pairs and the information, i.e. the pictures are divided equally between them. Students must work collaboratively to put the story together in the right order. Suitable for strong Pre-intermediate students and above.
Procedure:
- Before the class, find a cartoon with at least 4 vignettes. The cartoon can be with or without dialogue. The more vignettes and more elements in the story, the more difficult the task.
- Print the cartoon and cut up the vignettes. Divide the vignettes equally between student A and student B.
- Give students time to think about how to describe their pictures and ask for any vocabulary they need.
- Pre-teach any difficult vocabulary that has not come up as well as phrases for talking about pictures and sequencing: e.g. In my picture there is... I can see... I think this is the first / second / last picture... Then.... After that....
- Tell students to work together to put the story in the correct order.
- Optional extension: Tell students to write the story.
Write the dialogue
Procedure:
- Take a comic strip, a cartoon, or unusual image in which there are several people or characters. If there is dialogue or captions, blank it out.
- Display the comic / cartoon / image and elicit ideas from students about what is happening in it. Who are the people / characters? What are they doing? What happens next? What are they saying to each other?
- Put students in pair or small groups. Tell them to work together and write the dialogue and /or captions for the comic, cartoon or image.
- Students practice their dialogues and read their version out to the class.
What’s the question?
This activity is good for practising questions and for fluency practice on a range of topics.
Procedure:
- Write a list of questions (one per student in your class) relating to your chosen topic. For example, if your topic is music, you could think of questions like: Who is your favourite singer? What is your favourite music to dance to? What’s the best concert you have ever been to? Who is a singer / group you hate? etc. Adapt the questions to the level of your class.
- Give each student a question. Tell students to write the answer to their question (not the question itself) on a piece of paper or a sticky label. Tell them not to show anyone their answer yet.
- Tell the class the topic (e.g. music). Give students 5 minutes with a partner to brainstorm possible questions related to this topic.
- Now tell students to stand up and stick their label on their chest or hold their paper with their answer in front of them. Students move around the room and ask each other questions to try to discover the questions that the other students were originally asked.
- Encourage students to ask follow up questions and try to have a conversation. -What’s the best concert you’ve ever been to? -Michael Jackson -When was the concert? -Why was it good?
- Feedback and ask students what they found out.
Creative writing in the classroom: five top tips for teachers
корисні поради
https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/sep/26/five-tips-creative-writing
Creative writing in the classroom: five top tips for teachers
1. The rules of writing
I always tell students that there are no set rules for writing and they can write whatever they like. I don't subscribe to the notion that all good stories must have, for example, an attention-grabbing opening, a turning point, a twist at the end and an extended metaphor. Incorporating these into writing doesn't automatically mean a story works, and you will read wonderful writing follows none of these rules. Pupils should be aware of what they are, of course, and why and where they might choose to use them, but it shouldn't be prescriptive.
That said, there are two rules of writing that I encourage them to follow. These rules are: "show, don't tell" and "all adverbs must die". Not the most original rules, perhaps, but if kids can master them their writing becomes much more powerful.
For "show, don't tell", I display a selection of sentences that tell the reader something and ask the pupils to rewrite them in a way that shows the same information. For example, "the man was angry" could become, "the man clenched his fists and hissed beneath his breath". It's about unpacking the emotions and finding ways to let the reader see the story for themselves.
When teaching "all adverbs must die", I concentrate on the importance of giving the power to the verb. "I ran quickly" becomes "I sprinted". "I shouted loudly" becomes "I screamed". Once pupils realise the potential in this, they quickly kill adverbs and load the power of the action onto the verb.
2. Characterisation
Not the most original method I'll wager, but this is tried and tested. Pupils divide a page in their jotter and give each quarter the headings likes, dislikes, motivations and flaws. These need to be explained and discussed; I use Homer Simpson and Edward Cullen as models. What makes these complex and rich characters? What makes them get out of bed every morning? What stops them from achieving their ultimate goals in life? How would they react in various situations?
Once pupils have thought about these characters, I ask them to complete the page in their jotter with as many pieces of detail as they can for their own character. They swap with a partner and, using another person's character notes, write a monologue beginning with the line, "I lay away, unable to sleep, and all because…" What is this new character excited about, or scared of? What have they done or what will they have to do? This exercise is always busy, exciting and produces promising and complex pieces of writing.
3. Video clips
There's something a bit weird about the idea of being a writer; it's a vague, wishy-washy concept for students. They don't yet understand the hours of admin, self-promotion, editing, graft, grief and rejection that writers go through. Many pupls seem to think writers have great lives, are fabulously wealthy and sit around all day making up stories, all of which go on to be published without much bother at all. So I always like to find video clips of writers talking about writing, sharing the pain they've gone through, their thought processes and daily routines. If you can find video clips of a writer whose work you're using as a model or studying in class, then this can really help pupils to engage with their work.
YouTube is full of interviews with writers, recordings of book festival appearances and spoken-word performances. Being a Scottish teacher working in Scotland, I use of a suite of videos filmed and hosted by Education Scotland, which features a number of writers discussing their inspirations and motivations, how to create characters, how to write in genre and how to redraft. The videos are all around five minutes long which makes them excellent starter activities; you can find them here.
4. Narrative distance
This can be modelled in class by the teacher projecting their work onto the whiteboard. Most pupils assume that once they've chosen a narrative perspective and tense, their narrative voice will take care of itself. But with a little coaching and training, maybe we can hone their skills and abilities that much more.
Narrative distance is the proximity of a reader's experience to the character's thoughts. How close will we get? A close-up narrative would allow us to share the character's complete thought process, hear their heartbeat, feel their discomfort. A mid-distance narrative would give us key insights into pertinent thoughts the character has, but not bother us with every detail; we would see the character going into a coffee shop and have to surmise their mood and personality by observing how they react and interact. This is more of a film director's vantage point. And for a long-distance narrative, we only see the character from a distance – in the midst of other people, operating in a vast and complex society. We would come to understand them from the way they move through the world and the opinions that other characters have of them. It's a bird's eye view.
There is a lot in here, and mastering these narrative distances would take considerable effort and time. But if pupils could get to grips with them and become comfortable in zooming in and out on a story, then they will have developed some intricate and powerful writing abilities.
5. Story prompts
The oldest trick in the book, perhaps, but still a good one. Writing Prompts is an excellent website full of creative writing resources to use in class. I get pupils to choose one at random, and as they write, I write. It's important to set attainable goals for this – agree that by the end of five minutes everyone will have written 50 words, say, including the teacher.
Plug away at this and I always check the class for any strugglers at the end of regular intervals; if someone is stumped, I'll ask them what the problem is, what they tried to start writing at the beginning, what their last sentence is, and give them a couple of options for where to go next. By writing together it's possible to get a whole class writing happily, and at some stage they'll be content and confident enough with their stories to want to be let free to write without being asked for regular progress reports.
Alan Gillespie teaches English at an independent school in Glasgow. He writes stories and tweets at @afjgillespie
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