Using Technology to Teach Writing Skills

Besides traditional techniques to teach students how to write properly, teachers can use some other interesting ways to reach this goal. Technology offers a wide variety of options. For example,

• Using this website http://www.telescopictext.org/write/ you can ask your students to create their own story. The funny thing about this tool is that students can either fold or unfold pieces of their story. In this way they can learn writing skills and share their work with their peers while having fun.
• This is another tool by Google where you can create a short story with as many characters as you want. You can also add some music according to the story’s track. Your students are going to love it! This is an example of a dialogue among three characters I made myself. You can go ahead and create your own or better yet you can ask your students to do so.   http://goo.gl/TZOyhN
• This is a website on which you can create your own comic strip or a complete comic book if you prefer. Comics are quite in trend nowadays so you can take advantage of it and use this as a tool to enhance your student’s understanding, creativity and their writing skills at the same time.  Here is the website and an example of a strip I did about two powerful girls fighting against each other. http://marvel.com/games/play/34/create_your_own_comic

Conversation Questions

To encourage your students to speak up about different topics you can use this website: http://iteslj.org/questions/

There you will find questions about almost any subject; most of the questions are very interesting and attractive. The only thing you need to make sure is if the vocabulary fits your propose and your student’s English level.

Using Short Films to Teach English

Short films are such an amazing tool to be used in English lessons because of time and creativity. They talk about important and current topics. Here there are some links where you can find short films and activities to work with your students.

• http://eslimaginarium.wordpress.com/
• http://film-english.com/

Using Movie Segments to Teach English

Almost everyone loves to watch movies. Using movies segments to teach different English skills is always funny and will catch your student’s attention. You can choose any movie related to the topics under study and create your own worksheets.

If you don’t have enough time, you can also try this blog out which contains a lot of exercises and movie segments that can be used to stimulate grammar, reading, writing, pronunciation, listening and so on.

http://moviesegmentstoassessgrammargoals.blogspot.com/search/label/can%20x%20may

Encouraging Writing Skills

Just like Andy from Toy Story everyone had a special toy. To encourage your student’s writing skills ask them to write a story about that special toy they had when they were kids.

First of all, ask your students to watch the following video.

As a teacher you can ask your students to write a descriptive paragraph.

The paragraph length is up to you but I will recommend a maximum of 10 lines.

This activity can be done with teens and adults.

Remind your students to include an introductory and concluding line.

Ask your students to follow these steps:

• Prewrite your ideas.
• Organize them.
• Write a draft.
• Ask someone else to read your paragraph.
• Check on grammar and spelling.
• Rewrite your paragraph
• Publish it.

They must include, for example, their toy’s name, special features, kind of toy. For how long was the toy with them? Who gave it to them? Do they still have it if not what happened to it? Why did they choose it as their favorite toy? They can add any other detail they consider important.

Lyrics Training

Music is always fun to listen to, so why do not use it as a tool to improve your student’s skills. Here is a website where students can listen to their favorite songs and fill in the black the missing words. http://lyricstraining.com/. This tool is actually very entertained; moreover, the student will improve his or her listening skills while having fun.  

Infographics

Another tool that a teacher can use to catch his or her students attention is an infographic. Infographics are images that contain both words and pictures. 

This is an example of an infographic I did about the use of multimedia in the classroom.

Piktochart.com is the website where you can create this kind of infographics.

Brainstrom

Always talking about the use of multimedia in the classroom here is a tool you can use when you want your students to brainstorm. 

After reading an article, for example, ask your students to summarize in a few words what they understood about the reading.

Here is a sample of a brainstorm graphic I created about a reading regarding Teaching English Using Multimedia. 

These are the links for the reading paksira.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/teaching-english-using-multimedia and for using the tool worldle.net

This is tool as you can see is very useful because it promotes critical thinking and creativity among your students. They will have a fun opportunity to review concepts and difficult topics in an attractive way. 

YouTube Videos

To reinforce your students understanding about a topic playing back a video retrieved from YouTube.com is always a good option. You can prepare some activities to analyze the video or just promote a conversation among your students about the topic under study. Here an example of a video you can use to teach kids vocabulary about animals and numbers.

Creating Your Own Story

This blog pretends to stimulate the use of multimedia in the classroom. As you know multimedia embraces many aspects. So here you will find some recommendations in regards to different tools and apps you can use to facilitate your student’s English comprehension and increase their different English skills.  

For instance you can write your own story using this website http://storybird.com/. There you will find different ways to create your tale according to your class and your students. The images are really attractive. Your students will love them. 

Here I have an example of a story I made myself for kids around 12 years old.

If you are interested in this tool you can create your own story or if you want to see mine, you can reach me and I´ll send it over to you e-mail.

The Use of Technology in an English Classroom

The Use of Technology in an English Classroom

When learning a second language, students face many challenges. Some of main ones are: 

• Difficulty to find someone to practice with.
• Culture shock

The use of technology makes the process of learning interactive, interesting and dynamic and helps the student to overcome the challenges mentioned before.

In the classroom, for instance, the teacher can use different approaches, methodologies and strategies if some of the topics are difficult for the students to follow and understand.

Besides students can reach English native speakers, and establish a fluent communication with them. This allows the student to use the language in an authentic situation.

Technology also promotes critical thinking and production.

Graphics, videos, chats and other tools stimulate students to learn vocabulary, idioms. There is also a better comprehension of the target culture avoiding cultural misunderstandings.

To read more about this topic you can go to International Refereed & Indexed Journal of English Language & Translation Studies.  April-June, 2013. www.eltsjournal.org