Benefits of Using Portfolios in Education

Credits: Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

"How do Languages Change & Evolve" Questionnaire

Wordsearch on Technology

Technology

Past Simple of Irregular Verbs

Celebrating Zarco's School Day 2018

On Zarco's School Day, 
celebrate by visiting our eTwinning Project 
@ https://twinspace.etwinning.net/52703

To know more about the Project, click here.

Sports & Healthy Eating Habits across Europe

Visit our eTwinning Project 
@ https://twinspace.etwinning.net/52703

To know more about this Project, click here.

What is Blended Learning?

Blended learning combines face to face classroom methods with computer-mediated activities to form an integrated instructional approach. In the past, digital materials have served in a supplementary role, helping to support face to face instruction. The goal of a blended approach is to join the best aspects of both face to face and online instruction. Classroom time can be used to engage students in advanced interactive experiences.  Meanwhile, the online portion of the classes can provide students with multimedia-rich content at any time of day, anywhere the student has Internet access, from school to the coffee shop or the students’ homes. This allows for an increase in scheduling flexibility.

In addition to flexibility and convenience for students,  there is evidence that a blended instructional approach can result in learning outcome gains and increased enrollment motivation.

The following scheme, from the blog Free Technology For Teachers, sums up how an educator can take advantage of using tools, such as a blog or a wiki, as a complement of traditional ELT:

Halloween 2017 Class Activities

Can you match these frightful, spooky idioms with their meaning?

1. I don’t recommend that horror film. It will scare the living daylights out of you!

2. My old car finally gave up the ghost, so I’ll have to buy a new one.

3. When she saw the dark shadow in the in the moonlight, she was scared stiff.

4. What’s the matter? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost!

5. Oh, don’t be such a scaredy-cat. Nothing bad is going to happen.

6. That spooky old house gives me the creeps.

7. I wouldn’t do that if I were you. It will come back to haunt you.

8. No one lived there anymore. It was a ghost town.

MEANINGS:
be a mistake
very frightened
coward
make (someone) uncomfortable
make (someone) scared
very white, pale
deserted
stopped working 

IDIOMS ABOUT FEAR

If you want to get the full text by BBC Learning English, you can click here.

The importance of creating an audience for school tasks

To check some example ways of making it happen, as far as ELT is concerned, please visit T&L pages based on Google Sites:

- WRITING TASKS;

- BRITISH & AMERICAN FESTIVALS AND HOLIDAYS.

The Puzzle of Motivation

The Suprising Truth About Motivation

Social Networking as a Tool for ELT

Advantages of Social Networking

found pic @ ATL&S

- Educational tool:  most students nowadays are fluent in Web and social networking technologies. Teachers must leverage this knowledge to enrich the learning experience. With social media, educators can foster collaboration and discussion, create meaningful dialogue, exchange ideas, and boost student interaction, especially when they are moving inside a new linguistic code.

- Enhance student engagement: students who rarely participate in class may feel more comfortable expressing themselves on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. Social networking platforms enable teachers to establish “back channels” that foster discussion and surface ideas that students are too shy or intimidated to express themselves.

- Improve communication between students and teachers: Facebook and Twitter can enhance communication between students and teachers. Educators can answer students’ questions, post homework assignments or lesson plans, send messages and updates, schedule or announce upcoming events, and share interesting Web sites or multimedia content. Students can use Twitter to get help from instructors or other students. A great way for instructors to give participation points in addition to in class participation is by having students tweet about something that was discussed in class.

- Preparing students for active life: students entering the workforce can use social networking sites to network and find employment. With LinkedIn, students can establish a professional Web presence, post a resume, research a target company or school, and connect with other job seekers and employers. Students should follow professional organizations on Facebook and Twitter to be updated on new opportunities.

Disadvantages of Social Networking

- Social Media can be a distraction: tools like Facebook and Twitter may actually divert students' attention away from what's happening in class and may be disruptive to the learning process.

- Cyberbullying: While social networking sites provide a way for students and teachers to connect, they can be a weapon of malicious behavior. Teachers who use social networking tools as part of their activities must be aware of potential dangers and plan to intervene on minor incidents before they become more serious.

- Discouraging presencial communication: while real-time digital stream may create a safe harbour for students who are uncomfortable expressing themselves, students are missing valuable lessons in real-life social skills.

Now more than ever before the role of social media in education is under discussion. Advocates point out the benefits that social media provides for today's digital learners while critics call for regulation. Finding a middle ground has become a challenge. As an educational tool, social media enriches the learning experience by allowing students and teachers to connect and interact in new, exciting ways. Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn provide a platform where users can dialog, exchange ideas, and find answers to questions. These sites are designed to foster collaboration and discussion. Despite these benefits, critics argue that there are serious risks to using social media in the classroom. The main issue is: do these risks outweigh the potential for opportunity?

While the discussion goes on about the pros and cons of social networking in ELT, no one can argue the influence ICT has on our students. This new-millenium generation conducts much of their life through social media. They are already using YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter as tools for learning. They expect their schools and their teachers do it, too! Let's not forget that a new reality should be faced with a whole new attitude.

Intrinsic & Extrinsic Motivation to Learn

photo credits: Educational Psychology Interactive

The Web gives to both teachers and students an incredible source of learning and teaching tools. Time and place for learning a specific topic don't exist anymore.  But does this mean that all students are engaged in classroom activities and in taking advantage of cyberculture? Obviously it doesn't. In almost every educational context, the motivation factor, for learning and for school in general, is crucial and must be regarded by teachers as a key element to explore.

Regarding motivation as a set of biological and psychological mechanisms which allow triggering an action, its orientation and finally the intensity and persistence (Lieury & Fenouillet, 1997:9), it becomes impossible not to consider motivation as a crucial factor in the teaching and learning process, because the more motivated the student is, the more persistent and productive his activity will be. 

Lieury e Fenouillet mention two types of motivation: intrinsic (in which the activity is appealling in itself) and extrinsic (which depends on a wide range of outside rewards, such as, grades or prizes). From here we can conclude that the current use of the term motivation refers to the intrinsic type. Teachers always prefer this one because it creates better results. That is why it's so important to identify and promote factors as challenge, control, responsibility, curiosity, fantasy, cooperation and acknowledgement.  (Raya, Lamb & Vieira, 2007:62) These authors also highlight that intrinsic motivation is in inverse proportion of constraint, for example, surveillance or teacher control. It has been proved that students' discouragement is born out of a learning process.

Puzzle of Motivation (Lieury & Fenouillet)

On the other hand, the acknowledgement of competences, in other words, a higher value pedagogy, must be understood as a crucial factor in motivating students. We also need to pay attention to students who belong to ethnic minorities, lower socioeconomic groups and consequently more exposed to being considered less competent; the teacher's attitude towards these students can set the difference, as higher expectations may allow him to question social stereotypes. (Fontaine, 2005:44)

For all these reasons, it is very important to promote tasks that may increase intrinsic motivation (less exposed to constraint), such as, portfolios, group presentations, personal data files, where the teacher's role is much more of giving information, rather than controlling or evaluating, as students are intrinsically motivated and perform all tasks with pleasure. To sum up, motivation can be seen as the puzzle on the left, in which all the mentioned components find a match.

Google Classroom

Classroom is a new tool in Google Apps for Education that helps teachers create and organise assignments quickly, provide feedback efficiently and communicate easily with their classes.

This video shows how the tool works for teachers and students. In this video, you will learn how to set up classes and add students, create assignments, and review student work.

Some more English Idioms

Prepositions of place

The Cone of Learning Summarized

For further information about Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience, check Teaching & Learning here.

Strategies to increase students' participation

image credits: Areal Editores

Strategies for students who are not paying attention

image credits: Areal Editores

Maya Angelou's Biography by Catarina Sá