"National Geographic Learning October Conference"

22.10.2019 -

"National Geographic Learning October Conference"
Two interesting sessions from Alex Warren!
I've found out that
- 1.8 billion photos are uploaded every day.
- "Images are more unique than words"
- We remember text or audio - 10%, text +picture - 65%.
- "We see an image and we think of words".
- "Without image, thinking is impossible"(Aristotle)
- Using images is easier to understand a text.
- Images + Text = increased comprehension.
- Photos - humanising the others
- No word is an island.
- Use collocations!
National Geographic Learning Ukraine

eТwinning “My International Penfriends “

Kaharlyk hub school 3
28.10.2019 our kids from classes 3-A, 3-C and 4-C, who are involved in the eTwinning project
“My International Penfriends", shared the information about their peers from Turkey, Georgia, Romania, Morocco and Tunisia.
They look forward to hearing more from them.

28.10.2019 року учні нашої школи з 3-А, 3-В, 4-В класів, які задіяні у міжнародному проекті eТwinning “My International Penfriends “, ділилися інформацією про своїх однолітків з Туреччини, Грузії, Румунії, Морокко, Тунісу.
Вони з нетерпінням чекають подальших новин від своїх друзів по листуванню.

Dinternal Education seminar

#Dinternal Education
29.10.2019
"How to plan a top class lesson in under 20 min" training by Sam McKea

n.

False friends

Grammar chants

Greetings to everyone

Chants and songs have long been recognised as fun and child-friendly tools in learning languages. If you want to have a fun way to practise grammar and vocabulary, stress and rhythm in YL classroom, you can try using chants. In today’s newsletter, you can find some useful tips and resources on how to use chants effectively and help your YL students sound more natural when they speak English.

Grammar chants: benefits and uses (YL)

Chants are repeated rhythmic phrases typically shouted or sung by a crowd. Unlike songs, chants are usually done without and harmony. Most are great sources of vocabulary and help improve pronunciation. As jazz chants are usually built around particular words or structures, you can also use them to revise or even introduce grammar structures. English learning chants use repetition to engage the right side of the brain's 'musical' intelligence’. The use of multiple intelligences can go a long way to helping students speak English 'automatically'. In the following video, you will learn why repetition in music, storytelling and language learning is a powerful activity.

Today we have prepared some tips on using chants with young learners.

How to chant

Using a chant is pretty straight-forward. The teacher usually stands up in front of the class and 'chants' the lines. It's important to be as rhythmical as possible because these rhythms help the brain during the learning process. The main idea is to break up a learning objective into small, bite-sized pieces.

For example, to practice questions forms you can start with a question word, then go on to the simple beginning of a question with the question word, auxiliary verb, followed by the main verb. In this way, students learn to group "chunks" of language that often come together. In this case, the pattern of auxiliary verb + subject + main verb, e.g., do you do, did you go, has she done, etc.

After drilling the chant chorally, divide your students into two groups. One group is responsible for asking questions, the other one is answering. When they feel comfortable enough, you can ask them to perform the chant in pairs.

One more way of drilling the chant is to exaggerate. Make it sound dramatic, allocate roles of an inquisitive colleague or a nosy neighbour. It’ll be fun!

How to create a chant

A grammar chant reinforces a grammatical structure, such as verb tense, a plural form, or the use of an article. These kinds of chants can be used to either to introduce or to review a particular structure. What is important is that the stress pattern coincides with or complements the pattern of the grammar point.

Knowing how to put together a quick chant can be a lifesaver. Here are the tips, taken from a workshop How to Make A Jazz Chant by Carolyn Graham, an undisputed queen of the genre. In this excerpt, she shows how teachers can create Jazz Chants to reinforce any vocabulary or grammar. You can watch it if you follow the link.

Five easy steps to create your own chants:

1. Choose a topic of interest to your students.

2. Use “real” language that’s useful and appropriate for the age of your students. (“What’s your name?” is a real language. “What is your name?” is not real language, because no one really talks like this.)

3. For a vocabulary chant, choose 3 vocabulary words – a 2-syllable word, a 3-syllable word, and a 1-syllable word and put them together with a bit of repetition:

Baseball, basketball, golf.

Baseball, basketball, golf.

Baseball, basketball, baseball, basketball

Baseball, basketball, golf.

4. To reinforce grammar, add a pattern: He plays baseball. She plays basketball. They play golf. They play golf.

5. Have fun and don’t be afraid to play with the language!

Advantages and disadvantages

Like any language teaching technique, chants have their advantages and disadvantages. And it is up to you if you want to use them in your classroom. You will never know unless you give it a go!

If you would like to learn more about other ways of using chants, you can check here:

• Ants in the Pants? Enchant Your ESL Students with These Great Chants
• Teaching Tips: Using chants, rhymes and rounds

Carolyn Graham developed the technique of jazz chanting during her twenty-five years of teaching ESL in the American Language Institute of New York University. Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, Graham’s jazz chants spread far and wide along with the ESL teaching methods and techniques. Graham published a number of books, tape recordings and CDs on her method mainly by Oxford University Press. You can watch her teacher training seminar on teaching with chants here:

— Teaching Jazz Chants - Carolyn Graham

— Carolyn Graham Part 2 -- Vocabulary Chant, Grammar Chant, Song

— Carolyn Graham Part 3-- Chants' The Weather and Days of the Week

— Carolyn Graham Part 4 (With Kathleen Kampa Vilina)-- 3-2-2-1, Adding Color Words, From Chant to Song

From Grade Education

5 сайтів для тренування англійської за допомогою диктантів

Можливо, вам здається, що диктанти — це жахливий епізод зі шкільного минулого, привід нервувати та ненавидіти навчальний процес. Однак цей спосіб вивчення англійської може бути цікавим, корисним, інтерактивним, а головне — він зовсім не нагадуватиме нудні шкільні диктанти і монотонний голос вчителя. По-перше, відтворюючи на письмі почуте на слух, ви вчитеся зіставляти усну та письмову мову, тренуєте водночас аудіювання та письмові навички. По-друге, диктанти підвищують грамотність — саме таким чином легко запам’ятовувати та вчитися використовувати ідіоми та специфічні мовні конструкції.

ЧИТАЙТЕ ТАКОЖ: Як розуміти носіїв мови та говорити, як вони: три корисні відеоуроки

Усього один диктант на тиждень — і зовсім скоро ви побачите прогрес своєї англійської мови. Можливо, вам навіть захочеться переписати почуте своїми словами та згодом перевірити результат? В інтернеті є безліч ресурсів для самостійних диктантів, зверніть увагу на нашу добірку найзручніших у використанні та тренуйтеся з задоволенням!

Listen and Write

На цьому ресурсі — велика добірка текстів для диктантів та пов’язаних із ними граматичних і лексичних завдань. Спершу варто визначити свій рівень англійської, а потім братися за диктанти відповідної складності. Перевагою цього сайту є те, що ви можете обрати найбільш комфортний тип диктанту. У режимі виправлення ви пишете повний диктант, а згодом перевіряєте помилки. У повному режимі програма перевіряє вашу грамотність одразу під час написання — інакше кажучи, ви не зможете продовжити писати, доки не виправите попередню помилку.  

У швидкому режимі вам запропонують вставити у слова пропущені літери — такий вид диктанту ідеально підійде початківцям. Також є диктанти, де потрібно вставити пропущені слова. На сайті ви зможете відстежувати власний прогрес, оскільки програма запам’ятовує результати та підраховує отримані за диктанти бали. 

Agenda Web

Навчальні диктанти на цьому ресурсі поділено відповідно до рівнів складності на 4 групи. Перший рівень — заповнення пропущених слів у короткому тексті. На другому рівні складності тексти трохи довші, і ви завжди можете обрати швидкість відтворення аудіозапису. Натомість на третьому рівні ця опція відсутня, і самі речення можуть бути складнішими та довшими. Останній, четвертий рівень — повноцінний текст, який користувач мусить відтворити письмово.

ToLearnEnglish

На цьому сайті ви знайдете добірку чудових диктантів для початківців. Після прослуховування короткого аудіоролика запишіть почуте, а потім перевірте себе. Або ж вставте пропущені в тексті слова.

Speechling

На цьому ресурсі ви знайдете добірку коротких речень для диктанту. Тут можна обрати швидкість відтворення аудіозапису, а також швидко перевірити себе й виправити допущені помилки. Як бонус — начитайте невеликий шматок тексту англійською та залиште його на порталі, і протягом 24 годин отримаєте фідбек від англомовних користувачів стосовно вашої вимови. 

Dictationsonline

На цьому сайті ви знайдете диктанти різного рівня складності, однак середня тривалість кожного аудіо — не більше 35 секунд. Перед тим, як вводити текст у спеціальному вікні, ознайомтесь із переліком ключових слів до тексту — це значно полегшить завдання та сприятиме розумінню. Аудіозапис відтворюється двічі, перший раз повільно і з урахуванням знаків пунктуації, вдруге — у нормальному темпі.

https://grade.ua/uk/news/5-sajtov-chtoby-trenirovat-anglijskij-s-pomoshhyu-diktantov/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=blog&fbclid=IwAR2dc9h5vov5JGqFSpGaFl6jSvf7XKpiXUXbTMAMOJlD5zHB6AMt4cv1JUU

Top-down and bottom-up in ELT

Greetings to everyone

Have you ever been lost in a forest? How did you feel? When reading or listening, our students might have a similar feeling of getting lost in the text. They face different problems because of the two processes we use to comprehend written and spoken texts. Do you want to help your students to improve their reading and listening skills? Read our today’s newsletter and and you will find out how.

Top-down and bottom-up in ELT, and how to use them in your classroom

The terms top-down and bottom-up refer to the ways in which someone might process a spoken or written text. In many books, they are seen as two separate strategies that can be used by students to process and understand listening texts, but what exactly do they mean?

There is a distinction between top-down and bottom-up processing. “In metaphorical terms this can be likened to the difference between looking down on something from above – getting an overview – and, on the contrary, being in the middle of something and understanding where we are by concentrating on all the individual features. It is the difference between looking at a forest, or studying the individual trees within it”, writes Jeremy Harmer in his book ‘The Practice of English Language Teaching’.

Let’s have a look at the following example:

Barack Obama był 44-tym prezydentem Stanów Zjednoczonych Ameryki. Urodził się na Hawajach w 1961 roku. Jego żona ma na imię Michelle, mają 2 córki, Malia Ann i Sasha. Jego kadencja zakończyła się w 2017 r. Jego następcą jest Donald Trump.

Taken from ‘The New A-Z of ELT’ by Scott Thornbury.

If you don’t speak Polish but you understood the gist of the text, you were probably using top-down processes in order to assess the knowledge of the topic and the text type. These processes have been triggered by certain recognizable names and words. Without the right kind of pre-existing knowledge, comprehension becomes more difficult. That is the problem for some learners. In their L1 they have shared knowledge of cultural reference and discourse patterning which differs from that in the English variety they are dealing with. So, they have to work doubly hard to understand what they see or hear.

In many cases, students are locked into a bottom-up learning mode. They are desperately trying to understand every single word in a listening text. Unfortunately, in many situations this is just impossible. They become frustrated and demoralized and often give up.

In the top-down processing the reader or listener gets a general view of the reading or listening passage by, in some way, absorbing the overall picture.

In the bottom-up processing the reader or listener focuses on individual words and phrases, and achieves understanding by stringing these detailed elements together to build up a whole.

We as teachers have to be aware of the mental processes that lead to better understanding of a text. This will help us to decide what to do in the classroom to help learners read and listen better.

CLASSROOM IDEAS

• Identifying topic. Good readers and listeners are able to pick up the topic of a written or spoken text very quickly. It allows them to process the text more effectively as it progresses. Before reading or listening you can ask your students to brainstorm information on what they already know about the topic, predict the characteristics of the text genre, or ask what they would like to learn from the text / content (if they don't have a lot of previous knowledge about it).
• Predicting and guessing. Both readers and listeners sometimes guess in order to try and understand what is being written or talked about. Ask your students to predict what is coming, make assumptions or guess the content from their initial glance or half-hearing. The subsequent reading/listening will help them confirm their expectations. Use contextual and extra-linguistic information (such as pictures, layout, and headlines for reading, who is talking to whom about what and why – for listening).
• Pre-teaching key vocabulary. This helps with bottom-up processing. However, too much help may mean that students do not get sufficient practice in guessing from context.
• Skimming a text and listening for gist. Good readers and listeners are able to take in a stream of discourse and understand the general idea of it without worrying too much about the details. By encouraging students to read or listen for gist, we help them to be ready to read or listen for more specific information. They are not ‘lazy’ options. The students will use their processing powers to make more of a top-down view of what is going on.
• Reading and listening for specific information. We often go to written or spoken text because we want specific details. Students need to know how to ignore all the other information and come to the specific items they are looking for. You can ask your students, for example, quickly look through a film review and find the name of the actor or the director.
• Reading and listening for detailed information. This also includes listening for inferring speaker’s attitudes, intentions, etc. Such tasks are more demanding and require more intensive listening. It may be a good idea to break up the recording into sections, allowing the learners to consult each other before checking the task in open class.  You can also try listening bingos, dictogloss and gap-fills.

From Grade Education