Interaction

 

The activity that I like is Timetoast on the blog  Englishaholic that gives us a timeline about British music: https://englishaholicworldetc.blogspot.com/2025/03/twentieth-century-british-music.html

https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/british-music

Pixton

 Using the celebration of St Patrick's Day, I have worked on Irish legends. One is about the Giant Causeway.

For this activity I created an example of an Irish legend, using pixton as an example. The free trial has only allowed me to use three boxes, and I am not allowed to use the sharing codes either. So I have simple copied the result here. What my students should do is following my example, they should read the Irish legends found on this website: https://www.irelandsmythsandlegends.com/   They would create comic strips in groups about different legends. The second part of this project is to assign one of the comic strips to a different group, and in colaboration they should write a short story using the comic strip, following the format of narratives.

Reflection:

I have not been able to do the activity yet, but this is my reflection.

 How did you organise the groups? I should organise the groups, mixing students of different abilities and levels of proficiency in writing.

●    What was the sequence of tasks that you followed to get to the final product?

1. We first read the comic strip of the giant causeway.

2. The class is divided into groups and the teacher hands out the different legends the students will worked on. The teacher also presents the digital tool Pixton.

3. The students organise the information and work on creating the comic strip. Since in our school we do not have access to computers for students and the internet connection in some classrooms is quite weak, part of the activity will be done at home.

4. After creating the strips, the students present them in class.

5. The comic strips are assigned to different groups that will have to write a narrative about the legend, using the structure and features of the narrative, which the teacher will have explained previously.

6. The students write a draft in class, and the teacher makes comments about mistakes or things to improve.

7. Every student writes their own narrative at home, and they hand out their final version to the teacher for marking.

●     What were the specific learning objectives for this activity? How did the use of the tool help the learners achieve these objectives? Please be specific and give concrete examples.

- Transferring information from a given source and summarising and/or paraphrasing that information.

- Use of visuals to understand the information better

- Amplifying information and using the narrative format to tell a more detailed story. 

●     In what ways (be specific) was creativity and the use of imagination encouraged in your students?

The tool could be good for students who are creative and are good at certain microskills like summarising and paraphrasing. This is another way to develop writing and also mediation.

●      What did your students enjoy most / least about this activity?

The novelty of using comic strips is something attractive that takes them out of their usual routine, so the attraction of using this tool is a motivation in itself.

●     What would you change next time?

The story could be time-consuming, so part of the preparation that the student has to do will be done at home. 

●      How were the finished projects shared with the rest of the class?

The comic strips are presented in class. The students divided into groups would retell the story to their partners orally, and later the students will have to work on another legend in writing. 

• ·         What opportunities were there for students to co-evaluate and discuss the learning experience with each other?

The students could assess how well the information is extracted and summarised in the comic strip as there is a previous presentation, and a follow-up written activity. So they can evaluate how well the story is presented as they will have to use that information for the writing activity. 

Listening: Edpuzzle

 

This is the video that students will have to work on:

As the lesson we are doing next is about cities and urbanization, I think this video provides information about the origin and future of cities. It offers vocabulary about urbanization that the students will need to recognize and use.

The learning objectives are the following:

Understanding the main points of the text about the origin and future of cities

Being able to understand more complex vocabulary about urbanization

Understanding specific information about the video about the cities

The way we are going to work the video will be the following:

1.       The teacher presents the activity in class and pre-teaches some complex vocabulary that will help students to understand the video. The video will be the unedited version without the questions added on Edpuzzle: https://edpuzzle.com/media/67cd7fa3e70ee4e857ffe7ff

2.       At home the students will watch the video (flipped classroom) and will write down the vocabulary used on the video about cities

3.       In class the video will be watched and the students will work in pairs to extract the main ideas.

4.       The second time the teacher plays the video, the students will try to complete the sentences that have been inserted on the video.

5.       After the activity, the students will focus on the last part of the video about the future of cities and will take part in a debate about what the cities of the future will be like.

In general, I would like to highlight that when the students watch the video at home without having to focus on an activity, it helps them to relax and they even get a better understanding of the content. The main difficulty is the completion of the activity, which involves understanding more specific information which has been paraphrased from the video. As a way to improve if the students are unable to complete the activity, we could play the video one more time and even with subtitles.

Time Line - Selected Authors and literary Works

 https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/3155892

In my B2.2 group we have been working on different texts and works by selected English-speaking authors. The students had to present the works and their authors, explaining the importance of the work, something about the author, and their opinions. As part of the presentation, the students present the author and the books/texts in their context, which means highlighting historic events happening the year the book was published. Using the information provided by the students I have created a timeline with TimeToast, containing the books, authors, year of publication and one historic event.

I did not know this tool before, but I think that it is quite easy and useful to gather information together. The main difficulty for my students to use this tool is that they would have to work in their homes as we do not have computers for everybody in the school, and the only thing that the students have with them is their mobiles. Besides, the building where the school is located does not allow to have good connectivity, so it is not possible to have access to the Internet.

To do the task, the students have chosen different authors. As a teacher, I have selected some excerpts that all the students need to read, and before the presentation all the students in the class talk about their opinions about the excerpt and after that, one student does a brief presentation. Then I have transfer the information to the timeline.

If I had more time to complete this activity, the students would have worked in their homes, presenting some of the information from their presentation on TimeToast. That would have been very graphic and useful.

Reflection on Reading Habits

 

The pictures give us a good compilation of reading habits. The texts that we find in each picture are different. Among these texts we have a textbook, paper books (fiction or non fiction), a newspaper and text   in digital format. There are books that I imagine the readers have chosen like those reading in the library, the man reading the newspaper, and the page in digital format. The reason to choose a specific text may be for pleasure or for necessity. And the books for school children have been selected for them by someone else. 

I imagine that those reading in the library must feel calm, relaxed and enjoying the books they have chosen. In the two pictures with children they may have a variety of feelings depending on the interest they have in the text they are reading or learning. These feelings range from boredom to fascination. The person reading the page on the tablet seems immersed in the reading of the text. And the person reading the newspaper is clearly engrossed in the article. 

As for my own experience I have to say that I can relate to the picture of the library and the person reading the tablet. I have to say that I am an avid reader, and reading is one of my favourite activities. I tend to read most of the things I read on an e-reader even though I love paper books. The main reason why I changed to a digital format is that I don’t have room to keep storing paper books, and an e-reader is also easier to transport and you can access any book you want at any time. In general, I read mostly novels, but I also enjoy reading non-fiction, especially about history, and I like reading the local newspaper to keep up to date about the things happening around me. There are some things I have to read but don’t enjoy like the documents we have to read at work, instructions or some formal letters/emails sent by official agencies or organisations.

I tend to read more in English than in Spanish. I started reading English as a way to keep up my proficiency in the language, but now after all these years of reading in English, I have no preference and read English and Spanish in the same way. In general, I don’t like reading translations, so I prefer reading English-speaking authors in English, and Spanish-speaking writers in Spanish. 

I usually read every day before going to bed, but at the weekend I have more time to read and I sometimes do it in the afternoon. 

Hello!!! Welcome to my bog

 

Welcome to my blog! You will find different tools and suggestions to practise your English. There will be activities for B2 students to practise the five skills: reading, listening, writing, speaking and mediation. Here you have some links to do some initial practice about the topic tourism:

- Reading: https://test-english.com/reading/b2/egypt-travel-guide/

- Listening: https://test-english.com/listening/b2/dark-tourism-b2-english-listening-test/

- Vocabulary: https://test-english.com/vocabulary/b2/tourism-b2-english-vocabulary/