TimeToast in my English class

Once I have carried out the activity in class with my students, I write and upload this entry to my blog where I will paste the link to or embed the time lines realised in class. 

I have selected a few timelines to share on the blog: 

- Shusaku Arakawa https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/2545505

- Louis Pasteur  https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/2545518

- Ada Lovelace Group 1 https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/2547448

- Ada Lovelace Group 2  https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/2547452

- Ada Lovelace Group 3 https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/2544313

- Albert Edelfelt Group 1 https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/2547454

- Albert Edelfelt Group 2  https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/2547455

Next, I reflect of diverse aspects of the activity:

• Learning objectives of the activity
• To find the most relevant information in a text.
• To understand the information and summarizing it.
• To use information to transfer the ideas to the timeline.
• To complete the Final Task of the Unit.
• To work in collaboration.
• To develop creativity.

• Advantages of using TimeToast for this activity
• It is a motivated way of practicing reading.
• The use of new technologies.
• Transfer the information into a visual structure: the timeline.
• They develop their creativity.
• Significant learning.
• They learn to search relevant images on the Internet to be used in their timelines.
• They practice language 2.

• Steps followed to set up the activity

To carry out this activity I followed different steps:

1.    First of all, I decided the level in which I could propose the activity and the contents I wanted them to put into practice for creating the TimeToast. In this way, I decided to do this activity with my students of the 5^th Grade. The TimeToast was proposed as the Final Task of the unit, so they needed to complete it at the end of the unit. The contents we were studing were the Past Simple and professions, so they portrayed the biography of famous people.

2.    Then, I organized homogeneous level groups and prepared the texts according to their levels.

3.    Thirdly, I told them in class to “Log up” on TimeToast at home, as they needed to verify their accounts on their email address and was not possible to do it in the school, as they are not allowed to bring their mobile phones. 

4.    Finally, we spend 3 sessions to complete the TimeToast in class. They read the texts and selected the important information and the images to be included in their timelines. To complete the TimeToast I was helping them.

• Any problems and how I and the students solved them.

Well, to carry out this activity was very difficult. We have very few resources in the school, they are not allowed to bring their phones and to log in in their Gmail they needed to verify their accounts with a mobile phone, the web page is completely in English, so it is tricky for them as well.

To solve this problems I asked them to log up in class nearly 3-2 weeks beforehand, in this time they had time enough to verify their account on Timetoast at home and ask me their doubts. Moreover, I gave them English-Spanigh dictionaries before starting the activity and, of course, I was helping them during the full sessions.

I did it in groups of 3 students in a class (5^th B), because it was recommended in the activity. But I realized it coul be "crazy", as I can’t be in so many laptops at the same time. So in the other class (5^th A) I reduced the amount of groups, creating teams of 5 students.

• Students’ reaction – how did they feel about using TimeToast to complete the task?

They were happy and motivated to use a new tool to create their Final Tasks. Some of them preferred to do it as individuals, instead of in groups, but for that I need someone in class to help me, and I told them that was compulsory to do it in groups.

At the end they were very happy with their results and ask me to do it at least one more time. It was challenging for them, but when they finished they were very proud of themselves.

• Things that I would change / improve next time.

Next time I would ask to the management team to allow them bring their mobile phones just to log up in class. If it is possible, I would like to have one more teacher in class to help me attend the students,

• Ways that the use of TimeToast helped me achieve the learning objectives.

TimeToast helped me to achieve the learning objectives as it is a useful tool in which students can portray their creativity. It also helped them to select the most relevant information to be included in their timelines. Finally, I have used it to complete the Final Task, in which they put into practice all the grammar, part of the vocabulary studied along the unit, as well as we are practicing reasing and writing skills.

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Using EDPUZZLE in my English lessons

 

This entry is related to the use of EDPUZZLE for listening activities. The aims in this task were:

• To use authentic materials (spoken texts to be used by native speakers).
• To plan the tasks and learning process step-by-step (pre, during and post tasks).
• To make the experience significative and interactive.
• To give a greater degree of autonomy to students (flipped learning)

 

As always, I upload the video to my blog and leave a reflection which explains how exactly I planned to meet the 4 objectives mentioned above.

- This is the original video I used for the task https://youtu.be/y3gBNBtJMJw

- This is the cut video in which I included the questions using EDPUZZLE https://edpuzzle.com/media/607c5eb0f2411e419abbe4fd

 - This is the link of the Assigment Task for the students https://edpuzzle.com/assignments/607c646e9309624181061758/watch

 

Now, I will explain how I made use of EDPUZZLE in my lessons. I proposed this task to my students in the Sixth Grade, as they are the oldest in the school and who have a better control of new technologies, as they spend too many time using them.

I have used a video entitled “Lemons to lemonade”, which is a chapter of the series “Warren Buffett's Secret Millionaires Club”. The reason that encourages me to use this video is that it is motivating for my students: they are teenagers, so they can identify with them, as they are the same age; they have a goal to achieve, as they need to solve a problem, this can catch their attention to watch the video. Moreover, they are a “club” and at this moment, the unit we are learning in class is entitled “At the youth club”, so it is similar in some ways.

 

The learning objectives of the task were:

• To recognize certain words while listening to the video (bottom-up).
• To understand the general meaning of the story using the images of the video as an aid to get the big picture of listening (top-down).

 

To carry out this listening task using EDPUZZLE I have sequenced it into three main activities.

• Pre-listening: after explain in class how to use EdPuzzle I uploaded to Google Classroom a file they read before watching the video. In this document they found a Picture Dictionary of relevant word they will listen on the video, as well as the definition of some important words.
• While-listening: while listening to the video they answered the questions I designed for them thanks to EDPUZZLE.
• Post-listening: In class we discussed about the following questions: what do you think about the activity? Did you like the story? Do you like doing this kind of activities for practicing listening? Retell the story in pairs.

Pre-listening and while listening activities where flipped, that is, they were done at home to improve students autonomy. Furthermore, in this way, they could listen to the videos and played it as many times as they need before answer the questions. Finally, the post-listening part was done in class.

 

Finally, I would like to highlight some points of the experience. What I really enjoyed of the activity was that the students were very motivated, when I explained in class the activity, they were surprised that they can do an activity of this kind. Some of them wanted to download the app on their phones and they have asked me to propose more activities like that.

Moreover, the high school, made us a report about the student’s level of the children who were in our school last year, and listening is one of the points they really need to improve. I explained this  to them and used it as an excuse to introduce the use of EDPUZZLE.

As a suggestion in order to improve next time is to use it as a tool to work on the contents that we are studying in that moment. This was difficult for me as I did it as a task for the CEP course, so I used a motivating video for students, and similar to the topic of the unit in some ways, but not closely related to the vocabulary and grammar we were working on. Although, in the end, if we use authentic materials, to find something exactly related is a rough work.

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