Podcasting in Language Classroom

   

    This week we have learned how to incorporate podcast in language teaching. I have no idea what podcast is until I learned this mod. I am glad that I found out podcasting is a wonderful resource for language teaching. It is not a great tool for training listening skills, but also great for learning about latest news, technology, and different cultures. Moreover, both teachers and students can easily access to it without difficulties.

     Yesterday was the big day for England. It seems that people are crazy about royal wedding. Therefore, I have found this episode:World News for School: 28th, April, 2011 on BBC World News for Children.  

      Before listening to the episode, I would have students brainstorm what a royal wedding should look like. After students have some background information about the royal wedding, they would listen to the episode for two times and meanwhile answer the following question such as when was the royal wedding? What people are crazy about the wedding? Why this day is special for the world? What celebrity attended the wedding? What people did in England to celebrate the wedding?. I would like to use these questions to check their comprehension and also lead them to discuss this issue in depth. After the listening activity, students may go home to find more information on England and England Royal Family. The follow up activities would talk more about British culture.       

        Podcasting has a wide variety of topics that can satisfy the needs of teaching and the interests in learning. I think it is a easy and effective way for students to learn about the world while learning English.

ePals

      I think the most useful features that e-Pal can benefit my students is it create a forum for EFL students to communicate can cooperate others all over the world. In EFL context, sometimes students are lack of motivation in English learning because they don’t see the necessity of learning English and using English as a tool for communication. They learn because they are forced to do so. Not all of the students have the chance to travel abroad so that it’s not easy for them to aware globalization.
    E-Pal is a great tool for students have the opportunity to use the language they learned and learn with other students. By working cooperatively, they can both share their own culture and learn other culture. Thanks to technology, students can communicate and learn with e-pals with email and discussion forum. It would be an exciting learning experience. 

       For my future teaching, I would like to use e-pal to mediate cultural awareness for my students. By following the activity guide, I would like to have my students well-prepared to learn and contribute their creativity. After they finished one project, I would upload their works I order to motivate them by enhancing the sense of achievement. By engaging them in cultural project, I would like to have students start to use digital media and Internet to develop digital literacy.

   

Flickr and L2 classroom

I made this photobook with Bookr. I think it could be used for my teaching past tense and "used to ...".

I would like to show this  photobook to the whole class and share my childhood stories with them. Via experiences sharing, the whole class practice the use of past tense and "used to " in oral discussion. As a homework, the students would work in groups and make their own photo book to introduce one thing happened in the past. They could talk about how their campus/neighborhood used to be like. They could also talk about their childhood memories. By making notes with pictures sharing, students can practice the grammar in a meaningful and communicative way.

Creative Commons Licensing

Julieta is back! by dhammza / off
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

Creative commons license are tools that give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work. The combination of the tools and users contribute a pool of content that can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon without going beyond the boundaries of copyright law.

There are types of creative commons licensing application in Flickr:

 Attribution means you let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work ---and derivative works based on it---but only if they give you credit.

Noncommercial means you let others copy, distribute, display and perform your work---and derivative works based on it---but for noncommercial purpose only. 

 No Derivative Works means you let others copy, distribute, display and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.

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