Podcasts for ESL students

In my opinion, podcasting is one of the best tools for ESL students. It is a great way to practice listening and pronunciation skills. There are tons of different podcasts on the internet that are extremely useful for English language learners and as an ESL teacher in Argentina, I was able to integrate some of them into my lessons for my students. I particularly liked using BBC for podcasts. For this class, I decided to explore some new podcasts that I'm unfamiliar with and came across English as a Second Language podcasts by searching in google. I came across a podcast episode, English Café 319 that is about T.S. Eliot, a famous American. This particular podcast would be really helpful in a more intermediate or advanced ESL class where the students are learning U.S. History. I like how they give a little explanation of what is going to be talked about in the podcast as well as a list of key vocabulary terms that you can look at or look up while listening. I also like how they focus on not only the story of T.S. Eliot but pronouncing consonant clusters which occur a lot in this podcast. Not only is this podcast good for listening, but also for vocabulary expansion and pronunciation practice.

ePals

The idea of project-based learning is extremely useful in today´s educational world and what better way than to incorporate it with students from around the world? ePal is the world´s largest K-12 social learning website that provides safe and collaborative technology for schools around the world to connect and learn in a project-based learning network. There are plenty of useful features in this program but a few that stood out to me the most were eFilms on ePals for students, the ability to upload and share projects as a teacher and the family forum. This program incorporates students locally and globally, families, teachers and others who want to get involved. I would like to use this program for a number of reasons but one specific way I´d like to incorporate ePal

into my own ESL classroom in the future would be for my students to be able to connect with students from other countries and work on a project that pertains to a topic that currently effects our planet, like global warming. It is important for students to be able to work with partners of diverse backgrounds(and also a New York State standard) and I think it´s a perfect way for them to be able to exchange ideas and opinions on how global warming effects them on an individual level but at the same time be able to see how global warming also effects us at an international level. They´ll be able to experience it for themselves in doing this collaborative project, without having to listen to their teachers lecture about it!

Digital Storytelling using Slideroll

Make a Free Flash Slideshow

I used Slideroll to create a digital story for my ESL class. If you click on my digital story, you can see how I created a basic story for beginner ESL students to watch on American holidays. Of course, you can get more creative. I hope to use digital stories in my ESL class for the use of visuals and listening practice. For classes such as history and science, this would be a great tool because students could make stories reproducing cycles such as the water cycle, rock formation cycle or even a timeline of any history topic all in a visual and auditory manner; digital storytelling! I think it´s a great educational tool because it allows the students to be hands on and creative while at the same time implementing content area topics.

Digital StoryTelling Part 2--Bookr

Welcome to the U.S.A. Story

The story that I created could be used for very beginner English Language Learners. I wanted to make a "story" that was short, simple and that would be for a newcomer, thus the American themed story. I am not sure that I would necessarily call this a full blown story, but it could definitely be implemented in the classroom as a guide while describing American culture. Since it is very general, I would even let my students build off of what I have to make a more detailed story on American culture by choosing just one of the pages and going in their own direction(with enough scaffolding, of course). This story would definitely be used to work on listening and speaking skills since little words are used and plenty of visuals.

Digital Storytelling

Photo by Palos Verdes Library District


As an ESL teacher to be, I am glad to have discovered digital storytelling. I think it is a fun and creative way to be able to implement reading, writing, listening and even speaking skills in not only one place but simultaneously as well. In a nutshell, "Digital storytelling is the practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component"(7 things you should know about digital storytelling). It is being used around the world, for many different purposes. In the UK, BBC uses digital storytelling to capture and share stories from around the country that reflect different local histories and cultures. In California, a local radio station in San Francisco collects stories from High School students about how they came to live there.In the college of Education at the University of Houston, faculty is coming together to educate students and instructors on how digital storytelling provides endless amounts of educational opportunities.In Buffalo, New York(or wherever else I end up teaching), I hope to use digital storytelling in my ESL classroom for many different purposes. Firstly, it can be used for collaboration purposes as well as individual purposes. Since it first begins with a script, I would ask my students to begin writing a story on how they arrived to my classroom from wherever they came from. Then, I would have them add audio effects(like music), animations, video effects, images and whatever else they wish to include. This would be a great idea for an icebreaker in the beginning of the school year. Also, since images and sound can be included, this assignment would work for beginners as well as advanced students. It would be the perfect way to be able to incorporate all different levels of ELL's in the same assignment(and in one place) because with digital storytelling, you can really alter the content to fit any level and situation. Educational resources like digital storytelling really excite me to become an ESL teacher and to start using these kinds of tools where I know students will be much more engaged in their learning process.

Microblogging in Education

As a future ESL teacher and a graduate student, I think it is important to be part of the microblogging world.  In the article Integrating ICT into the MFL Classroom, I was able to get a whole bunch of new ideas about useful ways I can use twitter as a teacher.  First of all, it gives us the opportunity to communicate with other ESL professionals.  It is a place where information is shared and where questions can be asked and answered.  It keeps you connected and gives you the ability to join and engage in conversation with other ESL teachers and mentors.  After reading the article 28 Creative Ways Teachers Are Using Twitter, I was able to get a better understanding of twitter and plenty of new and innovative ideas for my future classroom.  By using twitter, I will be able to give my students instant feedback(real time).  Another good reason to use it in an ESL classroom is enabling discussion and conversation outside of the classroom.  This is really important because it gives students the option to continue their English learning process outside of school. It doesn't have to stop when class stops! Share a story is another way I will integrate microblogging in my ESL classroom. The first student will tweet a sentence and each student thereafter will build onto each sentence all through twitter! This gives the students the opportunity to be creative and to work together with their peers while at the same time allowing me to monitor their stories and give them feedback. I am looking forward to exploring all of the endless possibilities that twitter has to offer as a professional and a future ESL teacher.

Learning with Computers

The Learning with Computers(LWC) social networking group seems like a very useful group to be apart of as a future ESL teacher.  This group posts many FREE interactive learning games for students that seem interesting and fun.  It also has many online resources for teachers and points to which ones are the most helpful for teachers trying to integrate technology into their plans.  This group is a perfect fit for me because it is beginner friendly(for teachers who are just learning how to use technology in their classrooms) and provides step by step processes for plenty of online tools that would be of good use to me in an ESL atmosphere.  It´s a good group to be apart of if you want to share what you already know and learn from others about how they integrate computers into their teaching.