i) Note-taking in the listening activity: This activity can be done in the classroom in which teachers play the audio without the transcript. While listening to the audio, learners have to jot down the points. Then learners in pairs can have a short discussion, comparing each other notes. To reward their efforts, teachers give them the comprehension question to be answered. This can enhance learners' listening and writing skills at the same time. If there is no internet access in the classroom, teachers can download the audio at home before introducing the lesson.   

ii) Speaking activity: Teacher asks students to work in pairs and choose the topic that they like. They need to listen to the conversation from the audio and pay attention to the pronunciation and the tone of the speakers. Then teacher can ask students to practice speaking using the transcript given 

iii) Summary writing activity: Students listen to the audio and write a brief description or summary to conclude the main points of the audio.

iv) Self-study / do-it-yourself activity: Students are encouraged to do one or more the exercises at home and share their work in the next lesson.

Who are the learners?

1. Secondary school students in Malaysian context who have basic knowledge on how to use computers
2. 13-17 years old.
3. Suits to all levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced) as various activities based on different level of proficiency are provided

What I like about this site:

1. It is free for those who are interested in learning English and available on iTunes and iPhone application as well!

2. The materials ( videos / audios) provided are based on variety of accents and cultural backgrounds according to the geographical area. Therefore, learners are exposed to wider context of using authentic English across the world, at the same time develop their cultural understanding of other cultures because various topics are covered. 

5. This website involves combination of multiple skills, which are listening (good for the auditory learners), reading and writing (the transcript), speaking (with the correct pronunciation) and the visual through videos (good for the visual learners)

6. This website also provides printed materials (exercises and vocabulary sections) and downloadable audios that can help teachers in designing the lesson and they could do material adaptation in order to suit the learners' context.

7. Several ads that are based on educational purpose at the sidebar of the website are quite helpful and useful for learners to extend their language learning.

8. All the lessons are based on different proficiency levels, therefore teachers could apply differentiation in which lower level learners can be given the topic that is less difficult compared to the advanced learners, thus motivate them to be responsible for their own learning. 

What are the limitations?

1. Even though the activities based on the proficiency levels, but there are no categories to be chosen. So teachers need to find them by themselves and this consume the time.

2. It is not really systematic because there are no specific themes / fields for the resources(eg: history, environment, sports etc)

3. Sometimes too many ads provided can make the website less attractive

4. We have tried to use this website in the class, but because of the problem with the internet connection, some parts of the website are missing and the setting and layout are mess up, making the lesson turned to be boring, thus can reduce the motivation to learn in an enjoyable way.

Further suggestions:
i) Fun Easy English: this website mainly focuses on the basic English knowledge and teaching tips, its courses include pronunciation, grammar, idioms, slang, writing, tests and much more. Most of those courses are launched in Video format, in addition with text scripts and pictures. There are two columns of educational link at the sidebar; one for students and the others for teachers.

ii) Learn English: With an over 11 years history, Learn English Free Online is an abundant website for EFL/ESL learners and teachers. You can learn vocabulary with the related pictures, you can get some English learning tips, you can do some dictation to enhance your spelling and listening skills, learn the British culture and take some funny test, and so on.

You just need a computer with internet access, then visit some English learning websites and try to design the lesson for your students without paying any money. It sounds cool, right?

~Because English is FUN! :) ~

The ICT lesson for this week is really great as more amazing web tools have been introduced by Russell, therefore, it is worth for me to share those tools with you guys in this entry. I will explain all the tools in separated entries. So, enjoy!

First tool: Zimmer Twins 

What is it?
A movie-maker tool that allows users to create cartoon movie endings from pre-created starters or even  users can start their own animated movies from the scratch! It is designed based on the Qubo animated-series.


How does it work?

For online training video, simply log on to Russell Stannard great website

- Teachers preview the pre-created starters to engage learners with the tools, later ask them to work in pairs or groups and select one of the starters.

- Learners need to finish story however they would like based on the instruction from the site or hand out from teachers

- Learners need to write down the complete story in their writing book.
# [Movies festival / competition]
- Teachers ask learners to work in groups and produce their own group movie from scratch based on selected topics. This will encourage collaborative learning environment.
- Teachers and the other learners will evaluate and give feedback and comment on how good the movie is and how to improve it. 

Examples of lesson plan: 

i) Lesson plan I

ii) Lesson plan II

# More lesson ideas...

What are the learning styles that involve?

1) Gardener's Multiple Intelligences: 

2) Blended Learning: 

3) Bloom taxonomy: 

# Age range : 11 - 17 years old

Example of the end product:
This is the movie that I have created in the class with my friend, Tiqa. I cannot embed into blog and share to people worldwide because only VIP Members that pay the fee can do so. Therefore, I can only share the link with others through email. To view the movie, just click on the picture below:

What are the advantages?
1. Develop creativity and boost the motivation : as learners need to direct and produce their own animated movies, therefore their learning process involves the use of memory, motivation and thinking  (cognitive psychology)
2. Personalisation: by using this tool, learners construct their own knowledge by choosing their favourite characters and contexts, provide the characters with dialogue and emotions, write their own screen plays based on their personal experience and ideas. This allow them to contextualize and personalise the information by themselves (constructivism)
3. Allow learners to become active rather than passive as they are doing meaningful activities that are practical and require them to think and reflect on their own learning
4. Foster autonomous learning: this tool is provided online, therefore learners can do the task on their own space anywhere and anytime as location and distance are not issues.
5. Various suggestion for classroom practices: click HERE!

What are the limitations?
1. If users do not register the account (require email address), they would not be able to save their creation
2. For the free members, their movie can only be watched by those who have the movie link. If they want their movie to be watched worldwide, they must pay the fee.
3. Users cannot edit the starter, they just can continue the story
4. Limited access as it can only be used if the computers and internet access are available (there is no software downloaded version)
5. Users need Flash 8 (or higher) installed for the Zimmer Twins to work properly

Notes: Even though users need to pay certain amount to enjoy more beneficial features especially for the classroom purposes, but it is worth paying as it is affordable and beneficial. To compare the benefits, just click HERE

Further suggestions:
i) Kerpoof! : another great website for digital story-telling as it provides opportunity for learners to create animated movie and even create the story and turn them into books, make greeting cards, draw and colour the pictures, making it as teacher-friendly resources where many activities can be integrated into language learning classroom environment.

ii) Toontastic and Story Patch: application that are very good for educational purposes, but only for iPad users. The former is useful for making animated movie while the latter is a story-telling application that is beneficial for language learning.

~Because English is FUN! :) ~

Hi everyone! Its me again! 

For this week, I am going to introduce another amazing websites that may help to improve students' writing and speaking skills!

What are the learning styles that involve?

# Gardener's Multiple intelligences:

i) Linguistic intelligence: This type of learners learn better through writing the story or caption

ii) Visual spatial intelligence: Visual elements are useful for providing comprehensible and meaningful input for second language learners

# Flemming's VAK:

i) Visual: Visual learners might like this kind of lesson very much because images does help to facilitate information retrieval, thus helping them to convey their own thoughts and ideas


Who are the learners?
# Secondary school students whose the age range is from 13-17 years old (in Malaysian context)

# This site is also suits all levels, even for the beginners because they can choose their own favourite pictures and construct their own story or caption using simple sentences and vocabulary that they have.


Example of the end product:

I have produced this story regarding my trip to Turkey during last summer by using Bookr.

# Teachers can encourage learners to use hint provided if they could not listen to the audio properly, for example because of the word pronunciation and different accents that have been used.

How the task can be carried out?

# The web-based lesson like this can be used in the class but I would rather say that it is more likely suitable for the outside classroom activity, such as learners do it as their self-study at home, thus fostering autonomous learning.

# If teachers need extra information for online training, this Russell Stannard's website is very worth to opt for as all the steps involved for the task are visually and clearly presented. Teacher themselves might be interested to show to the class at the beginning of the lesson before asking learners to do the actual task. 

What are the learning style that have involved?

# Flemming's VAK: This site is useful especially for the auditory learners as the repetition of the words is involved

# Multiple Intelligences: Involve linguistic intelligence in which students need to listen and type the words in their target language correctly, thus enhancing their language skills.

Who are the learners?

# Secondary school students whose the age range is from 13-17 years old (in Malaysian context)

# This site is also suits all levels, even for the weakers' because through the same audio text, there are different tasks can be carried out according to the language ability levels, for example the blank mode require learners to fill in the blanks, full mode in which learners write the words in full and the quick mode for those who are at the beginners level as they only need to write the first sound of a word.
# Learners can move from one level to another and challenge themselves to complete the task.

What are the advantages?

1. Improve multiple skills

# At the beginning of the class, teachers provide brief tutorial or model and instruction sheet on how to use this tool
# Teachers ask learners to work in pairs and create their own movie. Teachers need to decide whether the topic is theme-free or based on certain issues.
# For example, in the literature class, teacher can assign task to learners to do the summary of every chapter in the novel that has been used as a part of the syllabus where they need to pick up one each (one pair for one chapter) and transfer the information into dialogues in the movie.
# As every movie created has a link, teachers can ask learners to send the link to them and their peers' emails.
# Teachers can choose which movie is the best, show it in the class and write some comments.
# Teachers can also get feedback from the students on how to improve the movie especially in terms of content.
# Apart from that, teachers can publish the links on their blog, create a poll and make learners vote for the best.
# To vary the learning styles, carrying out the role-play based on the movie can be a good follow up activity

What are the learning styles that have involved?
In this case, it involves the implementation of Flemming's VAK:
1) Visual: Learners can enjoy seeing and exploring the characters, contexts and scenes in colourful animation type
2) Auditory: Learners can hear the sound provided, involve in discussion with their peers and listen to the explanation of the instruction, lead by the teachers.
3) Kinaesthetic: Learners can try to act out the movie that they have produced.

Who are the learners?
# Secondary school Malaysian students whose mostly first language is not English
# Intermediate and advanced levels of English as they are believed to be already equipped with the sufficient level of English, some vocabulary to be used plus knowledge from the previous experience in learning English back in their primary school.
# Age range: from 13 - 17 years old.

However, this should not be seen as a barrier that denies the lower level learners' opportunity to learn as teachers can also play their roles in providing assistance for example, at the beginning of the class, teachers can work together with them and come up with an example of the movie, then later show it in the class. This will engage learners' attention to the actual task. Then, students can be asked to work in pairs and try to produce their own movie using their own vocabulary.

Apart from that, it is also worth for the teachers to provide hand out containing the steps involved, just to guide the learners who are not really good in using computers. For example:

The example of the end product:
The movie below is produced by me and my friend, Vee Vien during the ICT class:

1. It is fun and great for motivation

As the learners at the age of 13 years and above are usually enjoy watching movies, this tool can arouse their interests towards learning English and deviate from the usual chalk-and-talk traditional teaching method. They will have so much fun creating and even more fun watching the end product. They will also get excited by the prospect of actually producing something that they could show or send to family and friends, thus perceiving English as an interesting and worth subject to be learned.

This tool is equipped with different sections such as backgrounds, characters, sky and plots that can be chosen by students thus providing them the contexts and make them focus on what they are going to do for each step.