Pixton

     After investigating both tools, I consider Pixton more convenient for my methodological practice as this tool could be very useful for the first two years of CSE. The activity I organized with this tool intends to deal with vocabulary learning, for that reason I designed a comic to illustrate an example of what I expect to get from my students. Although I couldn’t manage to include this activity in my lessons this year, I will include it in my programming in the upcoming years. 

    After revising the vocabulary of the unit, let’s say that we are studying the vocabulary of the house and furniture, students will work in pairs and they will have to create a comic with the different parts of the house including the vocabulary seen through conversations. Creativity will be the core of the activity so students will have the opportunity to approach the design as they want. I will ask them first to think about the words they are going to include in each room. 

    By preparing the activity, students will be revising all the terms related to vocabulary. Creating the comic with pictures and realia it will be easier for them to associate the word with the meaning. Apart from that, as it intends to be a motivating exercise students won’t feel as much pressure as they could feel doing fill-in-the gaps activities.

Interaction

     In this occasion I would like to review two of my colleagues' blogs.  Getting inspired by other is the best way to improve your own performance so I'm really excited when new material come into my hands. I found really interesting the way Nuria Aranda has exposed the different reading strategies that English teachers use in class. It seems to me a very organised text in which the ideas are explained very clearly. Here you will find the link to her blog: https://myenglishblognuriaranda.blogspot.com/2023/05/modulo-2-reading.html?sc=1686429658025#c2816194695462564911

    On the other hand, there is another activity that called my attention during my investigation and it is a Genially presentation that Going Bananas! has posted in her blog 👉 https://bananasgoing.blogspot.com/2023/05/exploring-genially.html?sc=1686428369313#c7448095112351977571.  I got really surprised by the topic of her project as it involves a lot of investigation on the part of the students. It really caught me the way in which the presentation was made since every step and direction is very simple and clear so that students can understand the main objective of the activity. 

    I hope you can get very inspired as I did reading these fantastic blogs!

Mini-project with Genially

     The way I’m going to approach this project is from a revision point of view. The class will gather all the grammar structures seen during the year and in groups will have to prepare a presentation explaining these structures, providing examples and interactive exercises. Then, in order to make the preparation easier they will write down a draft given by me with specific steps. This draft will be as follows:

1. Choose the grammar structure.

2. Choose the template (video, presentation, interactive picture…).

3. Find the examples to illustrate your explanation.

4. Divide the work. Write down what each participant is going to expose.

5. Write some ideas about the design of your genially.

6. Choose the interactive activities.

    These steps not only will be useful for the preparation but also the students will have clear instructions of what they need to do. Thus, this project will be developed in five sessions; the first session will be devoted to the selection of the topic and getting to know how the Genially works. The second sessions will be aimed to find examples, interactive activities and the information. The third and fourth sessions will be used to work on the platform and in the last session all the projects will be exposed.

An example of the results expected: Countable and uncountable nouns

Genially project planner👇:

Edpuzzle activity

The video I have chosen for this type of task is designed for a group of 4th year of CSE and the topic is related to the introduction of the passive voice. The reason for picking this part of the grammar is because the passive voice is sometimes a bit difficult for students to understand. 

Regarding the learning objectives, I pretend the students take advantage of this resource to have an idea of what the passive voice is about. Thus, the video will be uploaded to Moodle as I intend to use it in a flipped classroom. I don’t expect the class to know all the concepts, changes and parts of the passive voice, in fact I just want them to know the difference between active and passive voice and the structure subject + verb + complement. At the beginning of the session, the class will play a short kahoot so that I can measure the level of knowledge about the topic. After that, I will give the class two sentences, one active and one passive and the class will have to identify the structure and explain the difference between these two terms. Finally, after arguing and explaining this part of the grammar students will get a set of sentences in Quizziz and they will work on changing from active to passive and viceversa.

One of the main problems I may encounter could be the fact that most of the students may haven’t seen the material. This would provoke a very low fluent class, for that reason students will be asked to explain orally what they have seen in the video resulting in an evaluable activity through which some speaking criteria will be assessed.

Working with TimeToast

Before explaining the task I have designed it is important to mention that all you will see here has been developed in a hypothetical scenario due to the impossibility of carrying out this methodological strategy in my classes.

Nevertheless, I’m sure I will be able to bring this fantastic activity to my next year class. Let’s get started! I have designed this project for the 4th year of CSE as I find this educational stage very challenging.  At this point, students are really accustomed to doing everything with their phones and when it comes to a foreign language they automatically get their hands on online translators without even making a minimum effort. For that reason, I aim to train students on using the new technologies properly the best I can. Regarding the skills, I expect the students to identify essential information on long texts introducing the concepts of scanning and skimming. Apart from that, taking into account that we are going to create a timeline, grammar becomes a relevant aspect as students will have the chance to work on past structures. In addition, the students will work on the importance of respecting the English culture as the topic I chose for this project is Historical Characters. 

As for the preparation, in groups of 2-3 students would choose  the character they want to present. After that, a set of webpages and videos will be given to them so as to get all the information they need to write their timelines.

Among the problems I may encounter, synthesizing and selecting the information could be one of the main problems together with some organizational difficulties. In both cases, my role will be supervising the time they spend working on the project in class.

The advantages I see using TimeToast, taking into account my experience using other online tools, are the way in which creativity and group work is boosted. Moreover, TimeToast is quite simple to use as it is very easy to distinguish what kind of information you have to add, from the date till the part you include the info. Although I couldn’t include this type of activity in my sessions, I have included an example of my expectations regarding the final result of the project.

 Edgar Allan Poe's Time Toast example: https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/edgar-allan-poe-a4d8bf02-5116-42bf-8a7a-d50cb0d4fc47

MY READING HABITS

 

    My reading habits have changed over the past few years. During my adolescence I started reading fantasy novels as a way to get entertained apart from the books that school told us to read as in picture 4. Throughout the time, I became more interested in reading manuals as I started my degree at University. Nowadays, I'm fond of reading all kinds of things in all kinds of formats; emails, manuals, books, articles... etc. It is true that I mostly read about topics related to my area of work, that is to say, English and teaching. In addition, I devote plenty of time to reading as I consider it key to my inner development as it can be seen in picture 1. I normally read at night on my tablet or laptop, as it is very comfortable and accesible. To be honest, I am so accostumed to reading in English every day that I don't see myself reading in Spanish anymore except when I update myself about local news.

    Regarding the photos, I reckon that people in pictures 1 and 5 have chosen the books they want to read as in a library people are free to choose what kind of books they want to read. In picture 5 a man is just sitting reading a newspaper and the context seems to point out that he is reading for pleasure. On the other hand, in pictures 2, 3 and 4 people seem to have received instructions about what to read. Finally, in pictures 2 and 4 there is an educational context so I guess they are reading about something very specific for learning whereas in picture 3 it looks like more than learning, this elderly woman is training her motor and cognitive skills with a basic text just not to lose her comprehension capability. 

Get ready to learn English!

 In this blog you will find useful resources to practise and develop all the skills (Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing). Don't hesitate to immerse yourself in this wonderful world and be free to grab any material you find helpful ☺. 

You will find some useful webpages to whet your appetite:

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/

https://es.islcollective.com/

https://wordwall.net/es