Hi everyone!
Its me again! Actually, we have done a lot of talking today! We have discussed and explored another website for teaching English! Lets check it out!
What is it?
A website that provides various educational resources that can be used for the teaching and learning purposes in terms of variety of topic, lesson plans, videos and audios that can be downloaded for free.
How does it work?
# Teachers can choose variety of sections presented in the website but they need to make sure that it is suitable and fit to the learners' context to allow personalisation to be happened.
# The screenshot below shows various sections from the website:
Example of an English lesson:
Section: Australian at Work
Topic: Family Life in Geelong (1966). Click HERE!
Notes: This topic is based on a video without any narration or people talk. There are several good suggestion for classroom activities. I choose this topic because it relates to Malaysian context in terms of on how gender roles are assigned, particularly in the family. Therefore, the students can contextualise the lesson, making the lesson to become more meaningful.
How can it be used in the classroom context?
Taking the above lesson as example, teachers can do several activities such as:
How does it work?
# Teachers can choose variety of sections presented in the website but they need to make sure that it is suitable and fit to the learners' context to allow personalisation to be happened.
# The screenshot below shows various sections from the website:
Example of an English lesson:
Section: Australian at Work
Topic: Family Life in Geelong (1966). Click HERE!
Notes: This topic is based on a video without any narration or people talk. There are several good suggestion for classroom activities. I choose this topic because it relates to Malaysian context in terms of on how gender roles are assigned, particularly in the family. Therefore, the students can contextualise the lesson, making the lesson to become more meaningful.
How can it be used in the classroom context?
Taking the above lesson as example, teachers can do several activities such as:
1. Pre-teach vocabulary: Those that relate to gender stereotyping / bias /roles (language in context)
2. Comprehension question: Teachers ask learners to pay attention to the different roles that have been played by the people in the video and answer several comprehension question
3. Discussion activity: Based on the video, teachers asks learners to compare how the gender roles in their family are assigned (develop cultural understanding)
4. Writing activity: Teachers ask learners to write about the changes in terms of the gender roles that happen in the family now and family then
Who are the learners?
# Suitable for secondary school students based on the content provided
# Age range: 13 - 17 years old in Malaysia context which similar to learners in Grade 7-11 (based on the Australian education system)
What I like about this site:
1. Teachers can choose to design the lesson based on subjects (CLIL-ing the classroom) or by themes/topics. Once decided, they can just play the video/audio provided for listening activity in the classroom or if the internet access is limited, they can just simply download it (but we need free Flash player plug-in (version 6 or higher) installed in our browser in order to download the video).
2. There is also suggested discussion pointers and classroom activities that can help teachers to plan the lesson to be more active and engaging. They can also do the material adaptation or modification to suit their learners' context.
3. The activities involve sharing ideas and discussion, therefore they will engage students into a cooperative and collaborative learning environment, thus develop their cognitive thinking and speaking skill as learning is memorable when it involves interaction between people.
4. Various topics that are based on Australian context somehow provide learners opportunity to be exposed to different social and cultural values and background, thus assist to develop their intercultural competence and cultural understanding of other cultures.
What are the limitations?
1. Context
The topics are designed for Australian context which is maybe meaningful for the Australian learners but for the learners from other countries learning English, sometimes they might find that it is very hard to contextualise the lesson as they do not have the schemata of particular topics.
2. Listening text
The English words used in the audio or video are sometimes quite difficult to be understood as it might be because of influences from the context itself in terms of the accents, the tone and the speed of the speaker talking. This can make learners become confused to figure out what the speaker is trying to say, thus demotivating them to learn as the listening text is quite difficult for them. In addition, there is no any audio or video transcription given as guidelines even for the teachers to assist the learning process
3. Navigation
There is no any go back button. Therefore, you just need to click the underlined link provided from a disclaimer saying that "This is an archived website that was produced by Screen Australia Digital Learning. See all Digital Learning websites." for each site that you have log on to return to the main menu
Further Suggestions:
i) Breaking News English: Free ready-to-use EFL / ESL lesson plans in Word and PDF. Graded news articles, listening, podcast, and communicative activities.
ii) EnglishRaven: Clear and precise information on teaching methodology and techniques plus a whole host of resources for teaching reading skills, vocabulary, phonics and more.
iii) BBC Learning English: Excellent site with lots of teaching and learning resources for both teachers and students including lesson based on animation production.
iv) its-teacher: This site includes an online magazine for teachers of English, 400+ interactive exercises, a free community site for subscribers' students and lots more.
~Because English is FUN :) ~
Further Suggestions:
i) Breaking News English: Free ready-to-use EFL / ESL lesson plans in Word and PDF. Graded news articles, listening, podcast, and communicative activities.
ii) EnglishRaven: Clear and precise information on teaching methodology and techniques plus a whole host of resources for teaching reading skills, vocabulary, phonics and more.
iii) BBC Learning English: Excellent site with lots of teaching and learning resources for both teachers and students including lesson based on animation production.
iv) its-teacher: This site includes an online magazine for teachers of English, 400+ interactive exercises, a free community site for subscribers' students and lots more.
~Because English is FUN :) ~
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