ESL Pods

There are tons of podcasts on ESL Pods for English learners.

The podcasts are about different topics such as travel, business, daily life, entertainment, etc. The one I reviewed is called ESL Podcast 938 – Learning to Ride the Subway. This podcast is organized by a brief introduction, a dialogue, an illustration for information in the dialogue such as vocabulary and concepts. At last, the podcast ends with the dialogue appears at the beginning in a normal speed. The speakers talk slowly enough so that they can make sure ESL learners can listen clearly and understand better. I could use this podcast for teaching vocabulary in context. Because the dialogue includes target vocabulary for taking a ride of the subway, such as transfer, line, local train, fare, etc. The speaker usually introduces a new vocabulary by first repeating the sentence in which the word occurs. After that he will spell it out slowly, then gives definition, which is followed by more explanation related to speaker’s personal experience. ESL learners will learn a word in a context, so they have a good grasp on its meaning. By learning a word’s form, meaning and use, ESL learners can use the vocabulary in a proper situation.

ePal

    The online community ePal provides a great learning platform for people from all over the world to share their work, ideas, projects and everything. The projects are not only about language learning but also about math, science, art and music.

  One project is designed to invite students from all over the world to discuss natural disasters. Students with their ePals discuss how the natural disasters, say hurricane, form, how people react, and how to deal with it. After their exploration, they will produce a presentation and teach others about this natural disaster.

   As for language teachers, ePal is beneficial for teaching language and arranging activities. The project that I like the most is one of the tasks in the Student Speak Video Series: I’m a global citizen. In this task, the students are asked to make a video to define global citizen based on their own understanding. When giving the direction of this task, its generator first includes his/her thoughts in defining a global citizen, such as someone who understands the interconnectedness of the word, who believes in responsible stewardship of the environment, who has a respect for human rights and cares about injustice, and who promotes peaceful conflict resolution. To prevent the video resulting in any other forms, the sample video as a demonstration and the guidelines are presented. One of the reasons that I love this project is the pool of ideas towards a topic. Students with different cultural and educational background bring their unique interpretations to share. By reviewing other’s video, they will sense the cultural diversity, make friends and learn from each other. Another reason is that it also helps to practice critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Besides learning and practicing using English, they could put their English learning in authentic contexts.

Your students MUST love your comic

Comic strips are simple, easy ways to demonstrate language features, with dialogs and thoughts shown as texts. Students are directly attracted by animated characters and funny stories in those strips. In order to get an idea of what the story is about, students should focus on each sentence and try to understand the overall meaning. Therefore, teachers can use comic strips to teach grammar, since grammar should be taught with form, meaning and use. From this perspective, in a well developed comic strips, students will notice how a language structure is constructed, what semantic contribution is makes whenever it is used, when it is used, and why it is used in this way. Using the online tool, Strip Generator, I created the comic strips, Which beauty, to demonstrate how to use it to teach grammar.

In this dialog, students will see how English article is used in a context. They will notice there are different articles, like a (beauty), the (one), zero article in front of two beauties, added in front of the reference. By reading the dialog, students will get a better understanding of this grammar feature.

Tell us about your culture!

Can’t wait to tell the whole class about your culture? How about using digital storytelling? Well, check out mine, Legend of Spring Festival.

         Digital storytelling is an efficient tool to show cultures. I would use it for students to tell cultural stories, such as mythology of festivals, biographies of folk heroes or famous tourism attractions. Students, with diversified cultural background, can use digital storytelling to make up their own stories. This is also helpful of constructing cultural identities. In addition, students’ would love to watch animated stories in an informative and concise way. What’s more, by viewing stories from many other peers, they can broaden their knowledge on different cultures.

         I would recommend Stupeflix, a digital storytelling tool. Students can create their own stories within a minute for free! It is easy to control and add texts, pictures and music to their meaningful stories. I believe students will enjoy creating stories and, in so doing, experiencing a sense of satisfactory. Why not trying it out now?

Tell us about your story

The forms of storytelling are varied from traditional oral narratives from up-to-date storytelling via interactive media or digital tools and technologies, which is also called digital storytelling. According to Wikipedia, digital storytelling refers to "a short form of digital media production that allows everyday people to share aspects of their life story". An effective digital storytelling incorporates elements of text, video, audio, music and pictures, and can be interactive.

The digital storytelling is also pedagogically applicable. It is a powerful tool for instruction and consolidation of course content for teachers. Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling suggests that teachers could use it to present new materials by creating new stories, and, in so doing, to motivate students in engaging learning activities and exploring new ideas and topics. In addition, since some of the teachers may find it is difficult to perfectly integrating multi-media into their instruction, storytelling is a good way of consolidating course content by making abstract concepts more concrete and by involving students into discussion. Besides, digital storytelling can be an effective learning tool for students. Through creating their own story, students will develop communication skills such as to “organize their ideas, ask questions, express opinions, and construct narratives”. What’s more, they will gain valuable experience by researching a topic and then choosing a particular point of view. Also, a collaboration work on digital storytelling provides a platform for students to learn learning styles from each other and to share learning resources.

Except for the pedagogical means to use digital storytelling mentioned above, it also benefits me in my future teaching. Firstly, it is a pool of cultures that students share with each other. Students, through first person narrative, would identify salient features from their own cultures, arrange materials at hand, tell their story and demonstrate to others. In the storytelling process, students’ cultural identities are gradually established; by being exposed in dynamic culture contexts, students will experience authentic cultures in this way. Secondly, digital storytelling is used as a reflection of students’ learning experience. When students are asked to think about their identities as language learners, they are required to trace back what they did to contribute to language learning process. In doing so, teachers and students will gain a knowledge of their cognitive development in language area, which enables teachers to provide feedback for their future learning and allows students to see personal ownership and accomplishment.