My Old Blog

I've taught online using Edmodo . Like Moodle, Edmodo is a Learning Management System (LMS) which allows you to share course content, updates, send messages to students, and manage student memberships. Students are able to download assignments, post replies to updates, send messages to either you or the entire class, and access their grades. Another interesting thing to note is that Edmodo's interface is somewhat similar to Facebook. Updates are posted with a profile picture attached. Replies to updates can then be posted and will appear just below the update. No "Like" buttons, invitations to play "Farmville" or ads on Edmodo's site, though! One of the things I think some Middle and Secondary School teachers (and parents) might like about Edmodo is that students are not able to send private messages to other students. One can then rest assured that no inappropriate correspondence is privately happening in the course. If students want to send a messag...

Someone recently shared this gem of a website  containing several images that are ideal for foreign language instruction.  I have been using images to encourage conversations and to be used as springboards in writing in my French class.  Often, I have turned to Flickr for photos, providing students with question prompts to help them focus in their responses to the images. Visuals can evoke different reactions in students, ranging from confusion to laughter.  What I have loved most about using visuals is that they solicit a multitude of responses from students!  This experience always reminds me of the importance of appreciating that there are several interpretations of one image and that there isn't one response that is the only correct answer. The images in the website "Visuals for Foreign Language Instruction" remind me of comic books, a favorite among my students.  They invite children to write dialogue on them and to consider what events might be...

I have used videos in the classroom in the past to promote writing skills development.  I have also used videos to promote oral language development.  For more details, please read this earlier post . Recently, I read a great blog post by one of my favorite online language educators, Sylvia Guinan, on using movies to teach English.  This prompted me to revisit some old Mr. Bean videos, now readily available for viewing on Youtube.  Apart from getting a good chuckle from them, they also gave me some inspiration for future classroom activities.  While watching them, I wrote down some starter sentences that students could use to prompt discussion on scenes from Mr. Bean.  Because it is important to increase fluency among language learners, I think that we should encourage students to communicate with one another in the target language.  Discussion also helps students articulate their ideas and can be a good pre-cursor to a writing activity. Belo...

I discoverd this free app on Miscositas' Facebook page this morning (¡Gracias!). Telligami is available on iPhones and iPads.  Tellagami lets you customize your character and record your voice or type in the text, select a voice, and have the character speak on his/her own.  You can customize the character's gender, hair, skin tone, and clothing items.  You can also change the background in which the character is displayed. I think Tellagami has good potential for the language classroom, particularly with my French students.  I would like to use it with the purpose of helping my students strengthen their oral language skills.  I plan to integrate this app-based activity into my morning routines in class, randomly picking students to quickly create a monologue in French comprised of about 3 - 4 sentences on a particular topic or in response to a question.

Happy New Year everyone! After a nice 2-week break, it has been back to the classroom for the past two weeks.  Since December, I have been creating my spelling tests (or in French, dictées) from words we have encountered in our weekly reading texts.  I have been using weekly texts to strengthen their reading comprehension skills through teaching strategies that will help them decode words.  I typically choose words that I think students would find challenging so that we can discuss them in class and so that they have a context when studying these words for their weekly dictées. This week's text is L'Alaska from the site Il était une histoire .  I use this site often for my weekly texts as I like that students can listen to the stories and play games that strengthen their comprehension of the texts on the website (provided the student or parent has a free account with the website).

As Christmas is fast approaching, I was reminded of this gem of a website that I blogged about last year.  If you have little ones or are teaching young children in a French language program, you may want to share this website with parents. You can customize a message from Santa to a child by answering some of the questions and sharing some images of family/friends. Please don't select that the child was "vilain" (naughty)! French Immersion teachers, consider drawing a name out of a hat once/twice a week and creating a personalized message for that child to share with the class.  This would undoubtedly rekindle the magic of Christmas among the children.  You can then introduce some of the vocabulary and expressions from the video message with the children in the classroom. Last year, my 4-year old daughter was listening with total rapture while listening to her personalized message from Père Noël himself. Visit perenoelmagique.ca to create your message! ...

Thanks to this great post by one of my favorite teacher bloggers, Ana Maria Menezes, I have learned how to create a quiz using PhotoPeach . This is my first time actually using PhotoPeach but I am not new to using images in the French Immersion classroom.  I see so much potential and benefits to using images as a medium of language instruction.  Images serve as visual aids and can help students more readily form associations between objects/feelings/places and their words in the target language. I have been a big fan of using images as part of my "Image mysterieuse" weekly writing activity in class.  I would put up an image from Flickr and ask students to write about what might be transpiring in the image.  Sometimes I would also use sentence prompts to accompany the images, facilitating the thought process behind this writing exercise. Using PhotoPeach to create Grammar quizzes would undoubtedly be a more refreshing approach to teaching grammar or spelling...

I recently installed the app for BookBox on my Android tablet.   This free app consists of several stories in multiple languages (English, Portuguese, Spanish, French).  Stories can be viewed on Youtube while words spoken are highlighted on the bottom of the screen to indicate which word is being read. My 4-year old daughter is enjoying these stories, listening to them in both English and Portuguese.  She listened to the story in English first (in which she is fully conversant), then in Portuguese (her target language).  I would highly recommend using Bookbox as an Android App for any language learner.  You can install Bookbox on your Android tablet or phone by visiting Google Play store at this link.

Since my last post about using Storybird in the classroom, I must admit that the excitement among students in using this site has begun to wane.  What is interesting to note is that it seems the male students in my class are the ones expressing dissatisfaction.  My female students, on the other hand, seem to generally still show enthusiasm about it all. When asking some of the girls in the class why they like Storybird, the common response is the illustrations.  They love the colorful, cute images.  This got me thinking about what it is the boys would find appealing.  I have boys in my class who love to draw in class.  One of my students has even gone to the lengths of drawing a character representing every boy in my class! So after some searching, I stumbled upon Story Jumper.  This site allows students to design their own illustrations and write stories.  The boys were all over this new site!  Everything from wizards to robots appea...

shawnzrossi (Flickr) When I introduced the site called Storybird to my students, I wasn't completely certain of how they would receive it.  Would they like the wide option of images offered on the site?  Would they think it would be too "juvenile" given most of them are around 12 years of age? They have been so excited about using this tool since I mentioned that we would start publishing their stories on our wiki.   Last week, my students were working on their Harry Potter Book project in Edmodo.  One of my students, who loves to write, approached me and asked "could I please go to the Storybird site?".  I casually responded with a "yes".  Shortly after, I heard a flurry of whispering among the students and a few other students then approached asking the same question.  They were eager to write stories! So what does this experience teach me?  Apart from the fact that Storybird has become a popular tool in my classroom, it is teaching m...

This fantastic gem appeared in my Facebook status update feed today.  The American Association of Teachers of French shared a link to this pdf version of a board game you can use with students in your classroom. This is a great game for students to learn parts of the body, colors, and action verbs.  Instructions are also enclosed in the pdf attachment at this link. Amusez-vous!

I came across this video in my Facebook feed today, thanks to a friend who is a Language Educator. The teacher featured in the video explains the value of using music to teach young children a language:  I also see the value of using songs with adult learners. There are plenty of wonderful songs that can be used to teach verb tenses, vocabulary, expressions, and grammar. I have used Youtube videos with adult learners for this purpose and find that in addition to teaching the language, I am also teaching the culture through them.  I would strongly recommend always preview the lyrics carefully to ensure the words are appropriate for the audience. I would also recommend providing the lyrics to students so they may sing along. For young children, encourage as much movement to music as possible. Correspond hand and body actions with words to help them solidify connections between the spoken language and its actual meanings.  Consider using songs with your lang...

My daughter is beginning to learn Spanish. I use Tux Paint, an open source drawing program for children, as an instructional tool to help my daughter learn Spanish more effectively. Last year, I published "An Educator's Guide to using Tux Paint: Creative Ideas for Using Tux Paint with Young Children" I have been using Tux Paint as an interactive white board on my desktop for language teaching. Young language learners will appreciate the colorful stamps as visual aids in learning new words. These stamps can be used for storytelling in the target language among other possibilities. As I've mentioned on this site, I also am very passionate about teaching mathematics. You will find plenty of ideas on how to use Tux Paint to teach mathematics to young learners in my guide . From teaching patterns to multiplication, Tux Paint is a very versatile instructional tool for the Early Childhood Mathematics curriculum. I would strongly advise teachers using tools lik...

I have begun creating podcasts for students in my French course. Although they have access to our class recordings, I thought they might appreciate having podcasts which briefly re-cap key vocabulary we have learned. I am using Podomatic to host my podcasts. It is a free service that gives you up to 500 MB of storage for podcasts. You can upload files from your desktop, publish podcasts from your Podomatic media library, or create podcasts using a webcam or microphone which Podomatic will access with your permission. If you want more features and storage space, you can choose the "Pro" option. For information, you can visit this link. There are language education podcasts at Podomatic at this link. They are also ranked within the category of languages. I am liking Juan France's Chansons podcast for French language learning. I think it would be really suitable for Intermediate and Advanced learners.

I found this link thanks to @Alice Ayel who re-tweeted José Picardo's update on this Teachers TV video. I particularly like the segment where José's students demonstrate how they use ICT to improve their spoken language skills. What is taking place in Mr. Picardo's class is a prime example of disruptive innovation in teaching. I have just completed reading "Disrupting Class" by Clayton Christensen, Michael Horn, and Curtis Johnson. In this book, the author speaks to the need for public schools to engage in disruptive innovation, whereby they begin using ICT to support personalized learning environments; furthermore, the teacher's role becomes a facilitator and coach, providing more one-on-one assistance to students. Rather than batching students together during instruction, students could work individually at laptops or desktops using software that helps them strengthen their skill level in a subject area whilst utilizing their strongest "intellige...