Session 3: CLASS DOJO, Hot Potatoes

Hi! guys!! I am Monster Decem from now on~ Given by Paul in my MA class!

Everyone becomes a monster in the CLASS DOJO and we can gain scores as an individual and as a group. Since every student knows the scores of each one of us, it creates a competitive atmosphere that we all want to obtain a higher score. Though we know that it is for fun, it successfully encourages us to achieve higher and higher. Cultivating the habit of self-improvement is crucial for all of us. THEREFORE, I HAVE MADE MY STUDENTS MONSTERS IN CLASS DOJO!

Luckily, my students show positive response and most of them are eager to gain higher scores. Some would love to have extra exercises in order to gain bonus points! THAT'S AMAZING! Monster Decem inspires her students with Class Dojo, which was inspired by the Master Monster Paul!

Tonight Paul introduced some online tools to create interactive English tasks to arouse students' awareness on certain topics or to test their understanding. It is a great way to make English fun to learn as all of the tools introduced (including Google form, Hot Potatoes- JMix & JQuiz) look like games to us! Most importantly, you can create the tasks/games within a few minutes even though I am a new user with little IT skills. Simple steps with hugh effect! I will make use of these tools more often in my English lesson. I am sure my monster students will love them!

Do you want to have a quick test about your English? Why don't you try this quiz in Google Form?

You can try this exercise about "If Clause" with Hot Potatoes - JMix . This is the link:) https://www.dropbox.com/s/4qq35h0ik9xrbvs/If_Clause.htm?dl=0

Arrange the words in a complete sentence. Just drag and drop the word boxes!

A box will pop up to show your result after you click "check". Great!

Cool! You can try this JQuiz as well! Select the answer you think is correct! Here is the link:)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/azzw8c0lipb9x7j/If_Clause2.htm?dl=0

This is similar to an MC quiz. Choose the answer and move on to the next question.

You can see your result in the pop up box! Carry on!

Sometime you may not get the correct answer, but no worries. Try again!:)

Here is another version which shows you all the questions on the same page, so it's up to you!

Great Job!! Guys!! I am sure you have learnt a lot through these fun games! I will share more in the coming weeks! Stay tuned!

Session 2: Corpus, Thesaurus

It is an eye opening experience for me to get to know many different useful learning tools introduced by Paul, which are helpful to my own learning and teaching. It is wonderful tonight as I know where to go to when I encounter some problems such as word meanings, word choices and pronunciation. It is great to know the websites which show real life examples and others with interactive learning resources. Time is precious! We can create slides in less than one minute by using http://classtool.net/qwikslides, which encourages me to make use of online resources more often even if the preparation time is limited. That's amazing!!

I love using corpus as well, which is a must-have tool for teachers, since it provides tons of authentic examples from all over the world. You must check it out. Here is it! http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/

I having been striving to make English learning fun in the lessons with the hope of rekindling students' interest and motivating them to learn . Most of my students, aged around 16 to 20, have rather low motivation in learning English but they are highly motivated when it comes to playing games with their mobile phones. It is probably the common phenomenon among teenagers nowadays. Therefore, it would be a good idea to take advantage of the technology and introduce thesaurus to them. Since my students usually have limited vocabulary in writing and reading English book is probably not their pastime, I am going to ask my student to use thesaurus to revise their first draft of writing during lesson. Also, I am going to ask them to modify a short passage with thesaurus at home so that it might help them develop the habit of self-learning and motivate them to explore the power of the wide variety of words themselves.

Here is the website you may try! http://thesaurus.reference.com/

How to improve the range of vocabulary in a student composition with thesaurus?

Original Draft

On the first day, we met our class teacher Mr Wong, we thought he would be very strict to us. After one week, we found Mr Wong was very nice! We like this secondary school and we like to be in 1A. This is a good school and 1A is very good. The teachers in this school are very kind and nice and our classmates are also kind, friendly and nice. We like each other very much.

Revised Version

On the first day, we met our class teacher Mr Wong, we thought he would be very strict to us. After one week, we found Mr Wong was very gentle! We like this secondary school and we are happy to be in 1A. This is a marvellous school and 1A is very attractive. The teachers in this school are very kind and gracious and our classmates are also kind, friendly and delightful. We love each other very much.

Session 1

With the increasing popularity of incorporating information technology into teaching and learning in schools, I am amazed by how powerful it is to support students in a fun and interactive way. Though I am exposed to different tools to help with students’ learning, making use of blogs as a teaching and learning tool in classrooms is, to be frank, a new idea to me. After visiting serveral sample teaching blogs, they are attractive to me as it provides an online interactive platform for teachers to share lots of learning materials and resources with students, including a wide variety of tools ranging from videos to e-books. As I always strive to make learning fun and motivate students to cultivate the habit of self-learning outside the classroom, I am interested in exploring more functions the blog offers so as to engage the students and enhance their English language proficiency.

Regarding my concern of using blogs, since I have no experience in using blogs in my teaching, perhaps I will need more time in preparing the lessons and familiarizing myself with the tools. However, I am confident that I will get used to it and more importantly, students can be benefited from the fun-filled learning resources. I can't wait to learn more new tools next lesson!