Week 10: Mobile phones as learning tools.

Rate: 4

Nowadays, using a mobile phone is common for many people since everybody use it to communicate with others; however, mobile phones are not only used to communicate, we can also use mobile phones to do other things such as to study, to do homework, to send emails, to do exercises, to read books, to listen to music, to look up information easily, etc., with mobile phones there come a lot of tools that students can use to improve their language skills in an interesting and funny way.

Mobile phones are a useful school tool where students can learn many things in an easy way; since mobile phones are part of students' everyday lives, they will be able to study and practice wherever and whenever they are. Besides, in teaching mobile phones can bring a lot of benefits to students and teachers because both can use them to teach and learn in meaningful ways. Teachers can integrate mobile phones in their classes since students enjoy using mobile phones everywhere they are; for that reason, teachers can do different activities where students can use their mobile phones or give them homework where students can use mobile phones, which would increase the students' motivation to learn new language.
 

Week 9: Wikis: Good option to improve the writing skill.

Rate: 3

Wiki is a software application that resides on a web server that is accessed with any browser and it is characterized because it allows users to add content and edit existing ones. Teachers and students can access the wiki application easily. Teachers can use this applications to assign to students a specific task because Wiki is not difficult to use and students can do a lot of things since users are allow to edit, add, and modify any information. That means that students can express their ideas, share their knowledge or express their points of view about the ideas expressed by others students previously.

When using Wikis, at the beginning students may be a little bit skeptical about it, however once they get to try it and start working along with others in the same project, they will find it to be fun and they will learn how to work with others, which will increase their interpersonal relations. Also, using collaborative writing with Wikis, teachers can effectively promote students' interest in writing. This way, students will be able to improve their writing skills and get better grades in their writing assignments. Furthermore, collaborative writing with Wikis, help to develop the students writing competences and enhance their collaboration skills, which will serve them not only to improve their writing skills, but also to improve their other learning skills.

Lab Session

Welcome everybody to my Lab Session 1

     Topic: Animals Around the World

     Author: Gabriela Escobar

     Time: 60 minutes

     Level: A1

This lab session focuses in the topic "Animals". With this topic, students will learn the name of animals, how these names are pronounced and how they are spelled. Firstly, students will watch two video in order to learn about the animals in they names. Also, there are different exercises that will make students put into practice what they have learned about animals.

1.Watch the video about Animals Around the World. Try to remember the different animal names and the countries where they live. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcDoOnAkkME  4 minutes

2. Let's listen to some animal names, pay attention to their names and pronunciation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhQpT9-8Bss 6 minutes 

3. It is time to see a list of animal names for you to read and learn how their names are spelled. 
https://www.easypacelearning.com/all-lessons/learning-english-level-1/834-animals-names-with-pictures-learning-english 5 minutes

4. Read these interesting facts about animals and choose which is your favorite animal.
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/animals.html 10 minutes

5. Let's see how much you learned about animals with this animal maze game. https://elt.oup.com/student/i-spy/games/animals?cc=us&selLanguage=en#Instructions 5 minutes

6. What about testing your memory and animal knowledge with this memory game?
https://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/vocabulary2/zoo1.htm 5 minutes

7. Do you still need to practice? Let's practice vocabulary of animals!
http://www.myenglishpages.com/site_php_files/vocabulary-exercise-animals.php 10 minutes

8. There are a lot of animals living around the world. Do you remember what are their names and how they look? Let's check it!
http://iteslj.org/v/ei/animals.html 10 minutes

9. Now let's play a word search to know how much you learned!
https://www.eslgamesplus.com/animals-on-the-farm-interactive-word-search/ 5 minute