iPad: vocabulary/dictionary activities and games

Use iPads plus online dictionaries and tools to create old-time favourite class games such as
– Taboo
– Call my bluff
– Or to create board races around collocations, word chunks etc

You can prepare these yourself. However you will get better value out of the exercise by getting your students to do the hard work and then to challenge their classmates.

So, for example, get one team to use Just the word to make a list of the 10 most frequently used collocations with "make" and another with "do". They show these to each other and as a whole class you make use of the opportunity to talk together and come up with examples of how the collocations are used in context.

Each group then makes cards for each of their examples. These include the verb plus the first letter of the word(s) that collocate with it and blanks for the letters that make it up e.g. 

make n _ _ _ _   = make noise.....

Now you can use the cards the students have made for a board race. Divide the class into teams. Stick the cards on the board one by one. The team to come up with the correct collocation wins the card and the team with the most cards wins the game.

Useful online tools:
for Taboo /Call my bluff
– MacMillan online dictionary

for board races on collocations or word chunks
– Just the word
– Oxford collocation dictionary
– Fraze.it

for brainstorming vocabulary
– AnswerGarden

You can also get students to create their own vocabulary quizzes:
– They can use Kahoot to create impressive class iPad challenges. IKahoot is pretty simply to use but if you want one, here's a Kahoot tutorial to help you out.
 Edmodo also has a tool for making quizzes. Check out this detailed tutorial from Russell Stannard
– Quizlet is another possibility and here's a tutorial showing what to do.

You might also be interested in these ready-made lesson plans for developing dictionary skills and building vocabulary:
– Dictionary skills for primary students
– Snack facts: recording vocabulary

Finally, the real bonus of using these online vocabulary tools with students is that you introduce them to ways that they can improve their language skills by themselves outside of the classroom which is half the battle towards making them more autonomous learners.

iPad activities using photos, videos and infographics

Find a photo…
… based on the topic in the book
In pairs, knees to knees. One student describes the photo, the other tries to draw it. They then compare original to drawing and note down "need-to-know" language.
Also works as whole class activity.

… that best describes the topic of the book
or how you feel about the topic of the book.
Students use the photo as a visual prompt to present their ideas to the rest of the class

... of a picture that tells a story
Students select one of the photos and use a range of tenses to say what's happening, happened, going to happen etc in the picture

… use Fotobabble (iPad app)
Students choose an image and record themselves talking about it then email it to themselves, to you, to their parents, paste the URL into Edmodo or on a Google doc etc

More ideas for using photos with students:
Check out Take a picture and... ELTPics blog

Find a video
… based on the topic in the book
In pairs, knees to knees. One student describes what's happening in the video.
They then both look at video and note down "need-to-know" language.
Also works as whole class activity.

Find an infographic –an example
… that is related to or best summarises the topic of the book
Students use the infographic as a visual prompt to present their ideas to the rest of the class or to start a class debate.

Create an infographic
… that is related to or summarises the topic of the book
... that explains a language point and shows how it can be used
… that tells you how to do something
… that gives the pros and cons about something

Students work in pairs or small groups using the online tool Piktochart to create their own infographics.

See also:
Adam Simpson:
- 9 great reasons for using infographics in class
- Lesson framework for getting learners to prepare and present infographics
- Carissa Peck: Infographic Project - Charity Based Research

A bit late but are you still looking for a lesson plan for Valentine's day?

Here´s a complete lesson plan from Chrysa Papalazarou for intermediate+, teens+ students on the theme of friendship. What I like about it is that it's designed to get students thinking critically. Chrysa achieves this by including art forms in her class content and applying the VisibleThinking approach to them.

You could use Kath Bilsborough's lesson plan at any time of year with its aim of loosening students up for writing creatively but getting them composing corny love poems. It's for teens+, A2+ students. That's also true of  Cristina Cabal's fun lesson plan which uses a speed dating technique to get students talking.

Finally, here's a short and sweet activity from Eva Büyüksimkeşyan for primary +, A1 students which gets them making heart-shaped cut outs for Valentine's day.

Tips and activities from here and there designed to improve students' writing skills

The first set of tips I want to mention come from Evan Simpson's blog post: Learning to write like a reader: teaching students how to edit and do peer-review, and are all about getting students to think more carefully and logically about what they write. They will be particularly useful if you are teaching higher-level, advanced+ students, although they could also be adapted for lower-level students.

I like particularly Evan's suggestion to get students to do systematic peer reviews by creating a checklist for them to work through, something I'll definitely try out with my students.


In Micro Writing: Writing to learn in ESL Cheryl Malanek takes a fresh look at the role that writing can play in the classroom.

She argues convincingly about the value of setting students short, informal writing tasks: "A few sentences, a definition, a facebook status update... Short but formulated and thought-out sentences that help students think more deeply about language or ideas presented in class."

Here's a link to the webinar with Ceri Jones that she refers to in her blog, if you'd like to delve more deeply into the topic.


Rachael Roberts' post, Motivating students to write includes a useful reminder of the basic questions we should ask ourselves when we design a writing task:

• Is the activity intrinsically engaging?
• Does the activity have a clear outcome?
• Is the activity related in some way to real-life language use?
• Does the activity encourage students to interact with each other?

And very much in line with Rachael's advice, is this useful and complete Film review lesson plan from Kath Bilsborough aimed at teenage/young adult students at A2 - B2 level.

You might like to follow up Kath's lesson plan by taking a look at the LearnEnglish Teens Film UK section which is full of great short films made by young people in the UK. The films are produced by Into Film, who have lots of great learning resources for primary and secondary students. You can find out more here:

Into Film Resources 
Behind the Scenes with Shaun the Sheep

thinglink.com

hover over picture to see icons, click thereon




http://www.thinglink.com/

halloween vid: the facts in the case of mister hollow

a picture, 1000 words ... etc
short of the week, vimeo

Teaching without a book

You can read some thoughts I've gathered over the year about book-less teaching here.