Using Quizlet as a part of your teaching

Quizlet is an online platform in which you can prepare supportive materials for your lessons and  also you can benefit from this platform to make a quick revision and check your students' comprehension by the questions you write. You know sometimes it can be hard to find the exact worksheet you look for, however, Quizlet lets you prepare your own questions. Especially, if you work on vocabulary base, well some says it encourages students to rote memorization, it depends on how you use it actually. Most of the time I use this tool at the end of my lesson just before the consolidation part, so that I can check their comprehension. 

Let's have a look at the site:

You need to get an account to have an access to this site, however, you won't have the full access unless you upgrade to a teacher's account. After signing in, you can create your own classes here and add your students in your class. You  or can also upload you word, excel or google documents here.

As you see in the picture, there is a "create" button on the bar. By clicking on this item, you can start creating your first quiz.

At first, it will give you 5 blanks in which you can write your vocabularies and add their definitions and pictures provided by Quizlet, you can upload your own pictures, too. To hear their pronunciation, or to record your own voice, you need an upgraded version. If five questions are not enough, by clicking on the "add cards" item, you can add more questions.

In my first try, I worked on the vocabulary related to baby animals:

The site also allows you to use the pictures and their definitions in the form of flashcards.

You can use these flashcards in your activities,too. The site offers you different types of questions such as; writing, spelling or multiple-choice questions. Also there is a game called "gravity" in which the students are supposed the write the correct definition of the 
words on meteors before they hit our World.

 You can edit the questions you write later and also you can share the link with your students!Besides, you can print out the questions you prepare here. I hope you like it!

Digital Story Telling-Animoto

Hi! As you know last week I mentioned about the benefits of story telling  so this week, I will introduce you a digital story telling application called 'Animoto'.

 You can download  Animoto by clicking on this link    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.animoto.android.videoslideshow&hl=tr 

 Using Animoto , you can create numerous joyful stories. Animoto gives you the chance of uploading your own photos, videos or music and then creating a story with using the themes in the app, also you can choose one of the songs in the app. There are lots of songs in various genres. 

Here you can see the process of creating a short story with the help of Animato


Kiki's Magic Trip 

First choose the photos you will use in your story and you can write captions for each of the photos

Choose a suitable theme and a song from the list 

At the final step you can add a short text and after clicking on the produce button you can see the preview of your story!

<= Produce Button  

That's it! You have a great story now! If you want to share  it with your friends you can share your video story on Facebook, Twitter,Tumblr etc. and also Animoto offers you the chance of downloading your video!

So now it's your turn! I have a task for you!

Following the steps I mentioned before, I want you to create a story about your unforgettable day! (Your first day in the school, first holiday, birthday party etc.)

Choose your photos, express your feelings add music and choose a theme! I will be waiting for your stories curiously! 

Here is an example for you! You can watch my story!

A Journey to Happyland

 

     Hi! This week I am here with a funny story. Do you want to hear my story? But before I will give you some information about the process of creating our own story. My friends, Sevda and Melike, and I are supposed to create our own story with our own drawings and also narrate the story we create so we decided to write a funny and also easy to understand story but it is not that easy to find the characters since we spent a long time to find the characters. We created a fantastic story full of colours and crazy ideas. We recorded the narration part in the school so there were lots of things to distract us while doing the recording part since we can't stop laughing and we tried to record it almost ten times and we had only 3 days to submit the story so it was the most difficult part I guess. As for the drawing part, we used Adobe Photoshop program  and benefited from Melike's digital drawing skills. After that I prepared the sound effects and finding the background music was another problem for us but we found it eventually! However, the sounds we found were too long for using at the background and also we needed some nature sounds like birds tweeting,bushes' rustling, magical appearing sound effect and also whinnying sound effect for our lovely unicorn so I had to combine them in a song. We used http://mp3cut.net/tr/ for cutting and combining the sounds. Finally we made them together with the help of Movie maker program. The most heart-warming part was seeing what we produced after all those problems. I think story telling is one of the best activities for gaining team working and organizing skills. Also it is super beneficial for putting your creativity into good use and developing your speaking skills. You can find the video and the text of the story below!



 

~A Journey to Happyland~


Once upon a time in Sugar Land, there is a little girl called Ice cream Princess. She doesn't have any friends except from her unicorn Buttercup. Everybody finds her weird because of her passion about discovering other worlds. One day Ice Cream Princess and Buttercup decide to leave the country in pursuit of realizing their dreams. They take some food with them but after 3 days,they run out of food. They are hopeless and helpless.

Suddenly, they hear a sound! It is coming from bushes. They are at the edge of screaming but a Chilli Pepper boy appear in that time. Seeing that they are helpless, he comes closer to Ice Cream Princess and says: Hi! My name is Chilli Pepper Joe, I am a friend who comes from Chilli Pepper Land. What's your name? Ice Cream Princess replies: Hi! My name is Ice Cream Princess and this is my unicorn Buttercup. We come from Sugar Land, we are looking for a place to live happily. Why are you here?
Chilli Pepper Joe replies: I left my town, everybody looks down on me because I'm so tiny and I'm also looking for a place like you.
   
Chilli Pepper Joe shares his food with them and they continue to walk together. suddenly they hear a sound and see an upturned turtle. Turtle says: "Oh, please can you help me? My feet are too short to turn." Ice Cream Princess and Chilli Pepper Joe immediately help the turtle and turn him to together. Mr. Turtle: " Oh, thank you so much. Without you, I wouldn't be able to turn. I want to help you,too.  Chilli Pepper Joe says: "You are welcome. We are looking for a place where we can live happily. Can you help us?" Mr. Turtle replies: That's easy, here take these tickets. I'm coming from there. The train will depart in 5 minutes from that stop." Suddenly a stop made up of candies appears. Ice Cream Princess and Chilli Pepper Joe thank Mr. Turtle and go to the candy stop. They get on the train and they live happily ever after in Happyland! <3

Barry Fun English

Hi! Today I'll give you some information about one of the sites I like most. You can find the site by clicking on this link : http://www.barryfunenglish.com/

As you see in the picture, the site has a colourful background which can easily draw the attention of students. The site mostly focuses on teaching through fun games, exercises, presentations and using basic grammar rules so we can say that the target audience can be everybody who is at the beginner to intermediate level. You should create an account for reaching the documents but it is required to have a premium membership to have full access to the exercises, actually there is no clear information about the owner of the site except from an email address, since it is an open resource you can upload your own products to the site.
If you want to know more about the site, you can contact with the creator of this site  barry@barryfunenglish.com

Barry Fun English  offers you lots of games, presentations, flashcards and also you can benefit from the tools which is very useful for time management in the class. 
Let's make a closer look to each of them.

Tools

If you use games in your lessons, you'll really like these tools. These tools help you shorten the time you spend for making groups. Once you enter the list of the students, you can use random student selector for making groups, or you can also you this tool when you ask a question since you don't have to choose between the ones who raise their hands, they all have to be fully attended to the class because no one knows who will be chosen.





You can also use dart board selection but you can hit the same target with the same colour so it may take more time, when something happens like this. You can use stopwatch and score board while doing classroom discussions which will make students more eager to speak and express their thoughts or comment on the given topic.  

There is another interesting tool called English name maker which gives students new names and make them feel less inhibited since their performance is really that of different person with a new name. Students learn through trial and error but children can criticize each other mercilessly and this may pave the way for a severe discouragement for the students make mistakes. However, assuming a new identity enhances students' feeling of security and allows them to be more open. 



Games






As for the games, there are lots of games in this site and everyday you can find new amazing games. I just tried one of them to show you an example. Most of us already know about the hangman game and in this site, this game designed as a way of teaching students past forms, past participles or other tense related words like 'will be going', 'was playing' etc. and also it is a good way to learn syllables.

Also you can choose the difficulty level which gives you the chance of seeing in which words or which subjects your students have some difficulties.











Flashcards

 There are numerous flashcards in this site. Flashcards are of course one of the best way to teach students the basic words but this site provides you a lot of flashcards about any subject you can think about and also there are lots of colourful pictures that can draw the attention of students.

Mainly there are four categories and for each category, there are also subcategories as you see in the picture. You can also print these flashcards and hang them in your classroom or download the pdf files for using them in your presentations.






Presentations

 There are a lot of short presentations that you can use for colouring your lessons. As you can see in the pictures, the presentations are prepared with funny pictures so that you can create a positive climate while teaching  and also you can support these presentations with the games in the site. Hangman can also be useful with the vocabularies. You can find other subjects in the part I draw with a red pen.

Worksheets

Worksheets are accepted as one of the best way to do exercises and revised the covered subject. Barry Fun English also provides you a lot of worksheets and they are all ready to print for classroom use. You can see the examples below.

As for my own thoughts about the site, I think there are lots of useful tools, worksheets, games etc. that I'll definitely use in my own lessons. Students really like colourful and funny things so in terms of these factors this site can be a rich resource for teaching in elementary classes and since they are all ready to print and download, it is really easy to access all these documents. Another good thing about the site is you can upload your own products to the site after signing up. However, I noticed that there are no video or audio lessons and also reading parts are pretty limited, this site mostly focuses on the exercising part Another thing that I hate most is that it is required to be a premium member to have an access for most of the games and worksheets, but still there are lots of things you can benefit from for your teaching in this site. 


I hope you enjoy while using this site!

Wikis in the classroom

    Here I am with a new idea that will be pretty useful in the classroom. Have you ever thought that you can benefit from Wikis for educational purposes? You may not be familiar with using Wikis so I will give a brief information about using Wikis in the classroom.

What is Wiki?

'' Wiki is an online application that allows users to contribute to or edit its content. Meaning “quick” in the Hawaiian language, wiki is a creative and open environment where everyone has a voice. The significance of wiki lies in the fact that there is no assigned “leader” or “head writer” ''
                                                                                                                ~elearningindustry~

    

        Web sites known as wikis have emerged as a cheap and easy way to do it. Providing an online environment for students typically involved creating a Web site, registering a domain, building pages and a lot of other fairly technical stuff. Fortunately, wikis allow anyone—from individuals to classrooms to entire schools—to have the equivalent, without the technical hassle. Wikis also are completely editable by anyone. They were designed to be an online forum, where someone could post a piece of information, and others would then edit it, or add to it. This dynamic is perfect in a classroom setting. Unfettered access means students can be involved in a project or lesson any time of day, from literally anywhere in the world.

                                                                                                            ~educationworld~

After giving you a brief information about Wikis, I want to talk about my own experience with Wiki. This week our teacher gave us a task for creating our own Wiki page for writing a book review. I chose a book that I read for my English Literature course in the high school, 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte. For my Wiki page, I collected the information I need for introducing the book and I read the comments and other reviews about the book to get and idea. Than I wrote the reason why I chose this book. The book was made into a movie so I gave the trailer of the movie to make the readers more curious about the book. Actually, as a person who likes writing and reading, it was really fun for me to create a page like this because I noticed that by searching for the information to write the review,  I learnt a lot about the writer and Victorian time, the understanding of life in that time. That is, you not only gain writing and reading skills but also it gives you the chance for expressing your ideas about a subject, story etc. and critical thinking that is quite important in learning and teaching. Maybe it may comes as a torture at the beginning for the ones doesn't like reading and also we can't say that all the things we share in the Wikis are completely reliable, but it's hands down that it's a good way for broaden your horizon and gain a critical comprehension.

Here is my example for you! Enjoy reading,  I hope you like it!

https://ourfavouritebooks.wikispaces.com/Jane+Eyre

                                                                            

Podcast ^_^

Hi there! Today, I'll introduce you something which is pretty useful for your teaching. As I mentioned before, technology has a great impact on our lives, so why don't we use this in teaching? I can say that Podcasting is a form of audio broadcasting on the internet and I met this great thing thanks to my Technology & Materials Design course.
                                                                            
   Here, I'll give you an example, this week we have a task for using Podcast effectively. We were given three options to choose and we chose creating a sound rich horror story.Our teacher gave us the beginning part of the story. My friends and I, the usual backseat students, wrote the rest of the script, you can't even imagine how fun it was. We were like 'ohh write this sentence.. Oh noo it sounds too fake, ahh wait a second how about this?..' so we had lots of creative ideas but limited time to speak. Think about it, in traditional lessons, sometimes we can't even find something to talk about for 2 minutes. As for the recording part, now it was time for us to show our acting and speaking skills. First we downloaded a variety of sound effects like door knocking, screaming, breathing, heart beats etc. and after that we shared the tasks among us. I played the background sound and Melike was responsible for playing other sound effects, Sevda wrote the text but we forgot to download tick-tack sound effect and there was no internet connection so we tried to record it from a clock but it didn't work, it was not scary at all so I used a song which contains clock tick-tacks and it worked! Surprisingly, we did a great job in our first try but in our second try, we couldn't stop laughing cause I played another song instead of our background sound and the song was in Korean which made it more funny. I think we did everything right in our third try and finally we created our own horror story! I really had fun while recording evil laugh part :) I hope we can do this again cause I feel like we're really a part of a story like the female version of 'The Three Musketeers' and not forgetting, we have an assister, Ms.Kar, Sevda's cat, thanks for giving us inspiration for the scary parts, she was really angry during our recording part :)

 I know you wonder our horror story, let's see how your friends can be this much crazy, listen to our story 'Panic House Revenge'!



Audio and voice recording >>


 




 Yeah, we're that much crazy! What are friends for! Here you have the full text of our story!

It was three o’clock in the morning and there was a storm outside. We were awake watching a horror film when suddenly the door was knocked... 

 Kate: Any volunteer? 
 Seddy: Don't look at me no way.. 
 Mel: It's your idea to watch horror film so go and open the door
 Kate: you cowards OK, I'm gonna open it.
 Kate: What happened?
 Mel: Someone poked me! 
 Seddy: It wasn't me! 
Kate: Me, neither.. 
Mel: I know you're trying to scare me! 
Seddy: No, please just calm down! 
Kate: Just stop it! I'm gonna open the door

 *** 
Mel: Where is she? 
Seddy: Yeah, it's been almost 10 minutes 
Seddy: What the hell was that? 
Mel: Yaaaa I'm scared! Kateeee are you OK? 
Seddy: Kateee I feel like something bad happened, I'm gonna take a look
 Mel: No, don't leave me alonee... 
Seddy: It's OK, I'll be back in a second. 
 Mel: OK, Mel calm down I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid 
Mel: Kate, Seddy is that youu? Heyy, it's not funny you know! 
 Mel: Omg! what's that? Kate! Seddy! 
Seddy/Kate: You should have come with us... 
Kate: You missed a lot by not coming to panic house.. 
Mel: It was all for just a stupid game, I could've die here!
 Seddy: You didn't come with us so we brought the game to you!
                             ~The End~ 

Me as Seddy, Sevda as Kate, Melike as Mel I hope You like it!

Welcome to my blog!

Hello everyone! Welcome to my very first blog. As an ELT student and a learner at the same time, I would like to share what I learn through my experiences or the things I read on educational issues with you.Time flies and nothing can stay the same so every new day brings us a lot of new ways that will help developing  the way we teach. By means of technology, today we have lots of chances for accessing creative educational ideas from all over the world so I will be blogging about English language teaching and learning taking these new ways into account. I am looking forward to reading your experiences about your education life. This blog will always be open to your new ideas, comments and contributions! Thank you!