Started working with Moodle. Problems. Solutions.

​I strongly believe that modern education must have the on-line component. I am lucky to work for a school which is trying to implement Moodle in the curriculum. I am describing my experience, problems and suggested solutions here.

1. Problem: the students do not do the activities

​Some of them do not even enter the system. They explain that by the lack of time.

Suggested solution:​

a. to set the students' mind before the course - explain that there is some extra workload in the course which is done on-line. It's like a hometask - should be done to benefit most of the course. Exact time may be notified - 'you will spend 1-3 hours a week on homework, partly on-line'

b. to motivate the ss by issuing an extra certificate about completing the on-line part of the course

2. Problem: the students can't record their voice

Teaching a language we assume doing a lot of speaking activities and Moodle has that feature - to record student's voice with Poodll plugin. Unfortunately the only two of my students who tackled the activity failed to do that.

Possible reason: they didn't allow their browser to use the microphone

Suggested solution: 

to write and send a detailed tutorial how to do the activities with all possible technical problems

3. Problem: preparing tasks is really time-consuming

Teachers are used to get prepared for their lessons just before ones by copying the materials from SBs, TBs etc. The average time spent is 10-30 minutes. Now let's imagine a teacher who has 4-8 lessons a day with 15 minutes breaks between them when the teacher usually makes copies and drinks coffee - what can make her spend 2-3 extra hours (and much more at the beginning) daily to support on-line part of the teaching? I like the idea about becoming a better professional but what choice a teacher would make in real life - to take one more student for 20$ or to struggle with Moodle (or any LMS) for free especially if then her students don't even enter the system?

Suggested solutions:

a. more training for teachers to cut their time to get to know the platform

b. extra pay

c. creating the bank of reusable materials which is accessible by all the school teachers - just as we have a library and make copies in the office. Training the teachers how to use it.

​d. ​making the work rewarding by helping the students use the system - then the teachers' efforts are not useless

e. positive experience sharing from LP teachers who used the platform

How do you  or your school solve that? Please comment. 

My infographic: ELT migration from a Traditional Classroom to Fully On-line Operated one - What tool is that?

This infographic is about tendencies in English Language Teaching and changes in the time classroom management. We used to spend a lot of time on teaching Grammar in class, on controlled practice of grammar and vocabulary, on reading activities and writing skills development. Nowadays a big deal of all that may be done on-line with the help of technologies which sometimes appear to be even more effective (in giving an instant feedback on grammar practice for example) so students may spend much more time in face to face class practising speaking skills.

Nevertheless in future we could transfer the speaking practice to on-line environment as well. It will be amazing to to our students the opportunity to meet classmates from all over the world to develop their speaking skills together as that would increase the range of accents to listen to and make learning closer to real life.

Students Teach Students - the Teacher Relaxes)

A lot was said about benefits of group work and pair work which provide opportunity for students to learn from each other and about the effectiveness of that. What I did to try it was to ask my B1 students to prepare presentations about and give them in the class. 

Well, this type of lesson doesn't mean the teacher doesn't have to spend much time to prepare - I had to send out the e-mails with the resources and the details of the task a week before the lesson. 

I divided the group into two teams to study two different grammar topics and to present them to each other then. The topics were Past Continuous and Present Perfect. I also insisted on practising these new language structures after the presentations.

I must say my students really enjoyed the experience! One of them even noticed it was one of the best lessons of our course and that he understood the material very well.

To sum up:

- this experience proved the idea of beneficial co-learning

- students had the opportunity to develop their speaking skills at preparation stage as well

- the students could practice presentation skills and get the instant feedback from their peers 

- this activity created a nice co-working and team building atmosphere 

- and yes, it may be fun!

10 Best Free Mobile Apps to Use in ELT (review). Especially if...

10 free mobile applications which English teachers can use in their work.

The main idea about using any innovation is to provide more speaking opportunity for the students by saving lesson time. And technologies can help. Especially if they are mobile. Especially if they are free.

Writing

What don’t instructors like about teaching writing skills?

Checking our students’ works because it is really time-consuming. And unfortunately we must do that even if our students don’t read their corrected works otherwise they’ll lose motivation to write.

Google docs.

You and your students must have a Google account to use the tool and it is also free. It is not necessary to use gmail as e-mail, you may use your own e-mail.

Your student opens her Google account, creates a new document, writes a text and shares the document with you. You get an e-mail, open it and see the text.

Then you check the text for mistakes and use comments tool to make notes. To add a comment you may use these instructions.

For example, you get this piece of writing from your student. What errors can you see?

Ok, now you select the word or words and use the comment tool.

Then your student can see your comment and answer it. You will get an e-mail notification about that.

It’s a marvellous tool to make working at writing skills more effective. You can use it on your computer and you also may install an app on your Android or iOS device.
And it’s a real magic when you make changes in a student’s document and she can see them immediately on her device on a bus. Using comments the student may ask you a question at once which makes it all a real interactive collaboration and that may be synchronous or asynchronous.

Vocabulary

Students commonly use Google Translate App as a dictionary. But teachers may use it as an inexhaustible source of flashcards with written forms.

Especially if you are not always sure if the spelling is correct yourself))

What is important after presentation when we teach vocabulary? Practice! What can we do to practice new vocabulary? We may do it by building association fields, drilling, playing guessing games, doing matching exercises with definitions, using new words in sentences. And here we have a fantastic helper - Quizlet.com. You go to the site or install their free application on Android or iOS. Your students can do the same independently. 
You just create a set which is a list of words you want your students to learn. Once you make 1 set on Quizlet, your students can study it 6 different ways:

• Flashcards familiarize students with new material.
• Learn section practise the spelling of the new words.
• Speller speaks words in 18 languages and corrects students on their mistakes.
• Test generates a graded quiz with a custom format.
• Scatter the terms and definitions on the screen and put them back together.
• Space Race shots a term across the screen while you type the definition.

Your students can create the sets themselves and my advice is to ask them to share the sets with you. Just for the discipline)) Especially if you don't want to waste your time on dictating)

Phrasal verbs time machine

Both OSs.

In this application, you can find animated illustrations of 100 phrasal verbs set in the circus world of the  main character Phraso and his friends. Students can use the app independently - the app provides a huge number of cool exercises. Especially if they are visual learners.

Listening, reading and pronunciation

A podcast is an audio file that you download from the Internet. After you download it, you can listen to it on your computer or on an MP3/portable music player or you may listen to podcasts without downloading them streamed. You can subscribe  to a podcast so that it is delivered to you automatically each day, just like a newspaper. Especially if you commute a lot.

BBC 6 minutes Free for Android and iOS.

Each programme is six minutes long and contains examples and explanations to help your students improve their knowledge of the English language across a wide range of topics. Published every Friday. 

In Android app you can follow the speaker using transcript

ESL podcast Free for Android and iOS.

In the episodes the speakers explain the meaning of target vocabulary from the contextualising dialogues and spell the words to give the written form through audio channel.
In ESL podcast Android unofficial app you can see the list of words and transcripts.

The English we Speak 
Free for iOS made by BBC short 3 minutes episodes which give the meaning of colloquial expressions from the context of the dialogues.

British Council Elementary Podcast - Pre-Intermediate as well

30 minutes long episodes

IOS - you can download pdf file and print about 22 pages of exercises related to the episode with answers.

Android - you can see the transcript while listening and also do the exercises, your answers will be instantly checked. Super App to recommend the students!

Down to Business English

15 min long episodes, only for iTunes or web, the speakers explain the key vocabulary and you can read the scripts free on the web site.

Speaking

Soundcloud.com

Can we ask our students to do a speaking activity as a hometask?

Yes, sure - we can ask them to record their speech!
But they are mostly reluctant to do that as any human being needs a listener when she speaks. 

But they can record their voice with Soundcloud and send the recording to you or to other students for commenting. And the comments may be done at a definite point of their recording and that is visual.

What are the advantages of recorded speech? Students can practice their pronunciation (and that is what we teachers never have time at our lessons for) as long as they want and send you one final version only. How many times will they say the same phrases before that? Is it a real drilling we don’t spend our time on?

I believe using mobile apps helps learners develop their autonomy and independence which make our teaching work much more effective.

Writing and Speaking Activity for YLs, "In winter" topic, Skype

Today I want to tell you about the activity I did with my 7yo Skype student. We have learnt some "winter" vocabulary - I use the flashcards from the Teacher's Resource Book for Longman Children Picture Dictionary, we played some games and drilled the words. Then I decided to do a productive activity which would include writing and speaking.

I wrote "In winter" on a piece of paper and dividied the paper into two parts: "I put on" and "I can" - for the clothes and for the activities we had learnt.

Then I showed a flashcard and asked my student to classify: does it go with "I put on" or "I can".

So my student had to say: "In winter I put on my mittens". I wrote that down on the paper and the student could copy. Then we repeated the action.

When we had several cards done I stopped writing the words and my student just said the whole sentences which were clearly structured for him by that moment. So I could even do without the visual prompt and only showуed a flashcard to elicit "In winter I can have a snowball fight" etc.

So this activity lead the student from the vocabulary set to the controlled speaking and semi-controlled speaking which was amazing! And the copy of the activity is now on the wall above the student's bed to be revised))

Follow my blog for more ideas!

Lego Figures in ELT

Usually we use counters for board games but this time I used Lego Figures instead. It turned the third conditional practice into a real fierce battle! The students had fun and were eager to win - Olivia (from Lego Friends series) wanted to be the first to get to the finish having completed all the sentences correctly :-). The dice is from Picomino game - the worm made the character go one step back.
The board game is adapted from New English File.

Follow my blog to get more ideas!

My first English Lesson to a Young Learner by Skype.

Excited!
I've conducted a Skype lesson to a 7-year-old boy!

He has only an iPad and I am at a Windows laptop so I couldn't use any applications to share a whiteboard or a presentation or a pdf-file.
This student has some learning background - I taught him previously face to face. So the lesson was mostly a revision-type and also I had an aim to try teaching a kid on-line. We revised phonics, did some easy reading, then he read a book to me. Then we revised some vocabulary sets and classified objects. Bearing in mind young learners' short attention span I asked him to demonstrate several action verbs .  
Generally we both enjoyed, once he hid under the table to play - I just instantly turned to next activity and made it more challenging. The trick had worked and I didn't lose him anymore.
The most frustrating thing for me was the absence of possibility to manage the "class" phisycally - I knew that I couldn't point to a word in his book and I had no idea of what to do if he had just run away to another room and stayed there. Happily nothing uncontrollable happened))
Unfortunately the boy's mum is opposed to publish any video with him so I only took some snapshots.
I would like to use wider range of opportunities e-Teaching provides than only teach almost face-to-face style lesson by Skype. I am going to use view.com and other e-Teaching tools.
Follow my blog to keep up!

Blendspace Lesson - English for Logistics.

I tested blendspace which is free to provide a lesson. The outcome was that it was used not only by the student I had made it for but also by more than 70 others!

How to Organise a Student's Homework Diary

Do your English students do all the hometasks you asked? Do they use CDs and MultiROMs with extra excercises for  their coursebooks? Do they ever go to the on-line resourses sites? Pity?
Most adult English students are permanently reluctant to do their hometasks. They are short of time, have a lot of home duties etc. But as teachers we are able to help them with organizing their homework.
Set up an on-line cloud Diary with Google Drive, which is accessible from anywhere and shared between you and learners - and you will see the result! All human beings need their efforts to be seen and appreciated, all your students need their homework progress to be reviewed. It is easy and free.
I have created a short video tutorial how to do that.
You are welcome to share your own experience with homework organizing in comments!

Video tutorials to start using Vyew.com for teachers (05:05) and for students(2:41)

I like edmodo for blended teaching but I find it lacking real-time video components so I was in search of something to help me to communicate to my class on-line with video. All webinar platforms are paid or become paid but I wanted to find something free. I also use Skype but I ofte have troubles to share screens to have the same picture in front of me and my students. Google Hangouts allows up to 9 people conferencing but still it doesn't look like a classroom.
I found a web-tool vyew.com which seems really nice to use for on-line English lessons. It looks much like a webinar layout with options to download presentations, pdf files, mp3 files and with the opportunity tu use a webcam to speak to your students. What makes it fantastic for teachers is the fact that it is free and your students may come into the web "room" without you. You also may organise small groups and pairwork and you don't have to download or install anything - it is web-based! There can be up to 10 students in a class simultaneously on free basis and more if you have paid plans.
Here is my short tutorial how to start using it:

Unfortunately one of my students faced some difficulties to enter the room. So I created a short video tutorial for your students which you can share with them:

What tools do you use to organise on-line classes?