Podcasting for language learning

The video Podcasting in Plain English mentioned that anyone can do podcating, subscribe other's podcast and download it onto a computer or portable devices. Students could listen to the podcast to learn a language when they are walking, waiting, eating or doing other things as many times as they want. There are so many educational podcasts in all kinds of websites. But personally I prefer iTunes. Nowadays Apple's products are so popular that many have downloaded iTunes. You can search for podcasts and probably you will find your desire ones.

 

I found lots of great episodes on iTunes. I listened to one called "ESL-Gerunds as Subjects" The learning objectives for advanced students, according to Maryland Content Standards for Adult ESL/ESOL, would be able to write a detailed paragraph with topic sentence, and know how to use gerunds. The episode is short and sweet. It gives some examples of writing topic sentences with gerunds as the subject. It explains clearly what gerund is and how to use it in a sentence. It also claims that there are other ways to express the same meaning, but using the simple form of the verb should be avoided. I could use the examples in the video to teach how to write a topic sentence. A topic sentence should be not too broad or too specific. And then I would let students to brainstorm some evidence to support the topic sentence. Besides of using a gerund as the subject, I would also teach using a gerund as the complement, or the object of a sentence. I would ask the students to use gerunds to write about their hobbies.

Comic strips

I created a story "Let's go to New York" on Storybird. The website's pictures are beautiful, but I found it hard to save the pictures I wanted and used them for the story. I can use the pictures around the selected one. Students can use Storybird to create their own story. Based on students' level, it can be one sentence or a paragraph on each page. With the lovely pictures, students would be motivated to write compositions and more willing to read others' stories.

Performance Indicator
High Intermediate Language Skills Writing Indicators: Draft, organize, write and edit a short paragraph using a topic sentence, supporting details and transitions.

Assessment
Two students read each other's story and write down the structure of the paragraph and the transitions. Peer helps to revise the paragraph, including correct grammar errors and make the expression more effective. They then exchange their composition and write another paragraph to continue the story.

Photo show video

Let the students use their own photos to create a photo show video is a great way to learn the target language. It can be used to keep a journal, create a story, talk about hobbies and interests, and also learn new words with related pictures. Due to the formal limit of the captions, students need to summarize their ideas in a short sentence, or they would need to add text in another scene. Animoto is a user-friendly tool for this purpose. It has many styles to choose and has further functionality in the pro version.

I created my video to show some photos of my spring break. I used the simple past tense to narrate the story. The teacher can ask the students to write a journal or talk about their interests and give rubric to train certain grammar points such as simple past tense and conjunctions.

Performance Indicator
ESL.I.5-8.1.1.12: Students convey information and ideas through spoken and written language, using conventions and features of American English appropriate to audience and purpose.

ESL.I.5-8.4.1.2:  Students describe, read about, participate in, or recommend a favourite activity, book, song, or other interest to various audience.

Assessment
The teacher gives a rubric before the assignment. In class activities: 1. Randomly form groups with two students. 2. Let them watch each other's video. 3. The creator illustrates the video while playing. 4. The listener gives feedback and helps the creator revise the video based on the rubric. 5. Ask a few students to narrate their partners' video. After class activities: Let the students write a self-evaluation of the task. Including the creating process, difficulties they met, their partner's opinions, what they learned from others' video, etc.

Diigo & Pinterest

How to manage tons of information? What's the efficient way for sharing them? Two tools named Diigo and Pinterest can help.

From the table we can see the differences between Diigo and Pinterest. In my point of view, Diigo is more academic. We can highlight text and make notes in sites. On the other hand, Pinterest is more visual. But that also means if a site do not have a good picture, we’ll overlook it. I like Pinterest better because it’s easy to use and it’s enjoyable to look through the colorful pin broad.

I would continue to use both tools for different purposes. When I am working on projects or writing essays, Diigo is definitely useful for managing the websites I need. However, when I want to look for ideas of the subjects that interest me, I would search in Pinterest. For example, I want to add a tattoo so I can search “tattoo” and the beautiful tattoo pictures would come out.