CALL Lessons 2005-2007

A blog for the CALL lessons with my three 5th and 6th grade classes (2005-2007)

Report on CALL lesson 4

Each class was very motivated and had a wonderful time carrying out their task. One volunteer student was at the board and another at the computer. Those who gave ideas sometimes made minor mistakes and, as usual, I guided them to self-correction. In case this doesn't work, then I ask for peer correction. All others copy what is on the board into their notebooks. Many of the students have good ideas, but there are always those who will be quiet, almost always. However, I have a feeling that they are all getting something out of these lessons.

With Tuesday's task I tried to have them revise structures and vocabulary they've learned while at the same time learn new vocabulary. I added the pictures and the sound files after class, because there isn't time for everything. Not all students speak as well as the two girls in the recordings, but... they were volunteers, not picked out by me. Though they volunteered, they were nervous at first. I told them that it was natural, but asked them to relax, speak naturally and carry on if they made any mistake while reading, because that's also natural. We all do that.

I believe that what really motivates these students is working for a real audience - in this case, for two colleagues also learning English, and for teachers who have been interacting with them -, working with the computer, self-publishing their work, seeing it at once on the Web, and then getting comments from people all over the world.

As usual, we used the wireless connection . We were in Sala TIC with my laptop and a video projector projecting onto a whiteboard.

posted by: teresadeca at 23:22 | link | comments |

    CALL lesson 4

Next Tuesday, May 23rd, we will have our fourth CALL lesson. Wow! Time flies!!

We are going to write three messages. Each class will do a different message.

5. D will write (= escreverá) to Haneen, a 13-year old student from Sudan, who also studies English. She's the daughter of Hala Fawzi, a dear colleague and friend. They live in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. You will tell Haneen about our school and we will include some photos. Don't forget to tell her the name of the school, its patron (= patrono), where it is, the different grades there are, the number of students and teachers it has got, the facilities (= instalações) we have got, number of classrooms, and anything else you suggest. And you can ask Haneen to tell you about her school. Here are some photos that you can include:

http://64.71.48.37/teresadeca/school/photos/escola-entrada.jpg

http://64.71.48.37/teresadeca/school/photos/escola-profs.jpg

http://64.71.48.37/teresadeca/school/photos/escola-leste.jpg

http://64.71.48.37/teresadeca/school/photos/escola-santonio.jpg

 

5. C will write to Mariana, an 11-year-old Venezulean student, who is also learning English. She's the granddaughter of a colleague of mine, Horacio Idárraga Gil. You will tell her about your class and your English lessons. Don't forget to mention the name of your school, where it is, what grade you are in, the name of your class, how many students there are, how many boys and how many girls, different nationalities, the subjects you learn and the number of teachers you have, and anything else you suggest. Here are two images you can include with the location of our school:

http://64.71.48.37/teresadeca/school/images/parede.jpg

http://64.71.48.37/teresadeca/school/images/portugal.gif

 

5. E will write to your teacher friends all over the world. You will tell them about Parede, the small town where our school is and where many of you live. You can say where it is (its location), its population, the things it has got - schools, church, hospitals, beach... Here is a presentation about it that you can include. It was done (= foi feita) by students and teachers from our school in 2000:

http://64.71.48.37/teresadeca/school/hannover2000-en.ppt

If we have time, we will record podcasts or voice messages at

http://teresadeca.podomatic.com/

 

I hope that you have fun and enjoy this lesson!!!  

 

This message is for Haneen Fawzi in Sudan from 5. D

Our School

Our school is Escola de Santo António in Parede. It´s near Lisbon, the capital of our country. It`s also  very near the Atlantic Ocean.

We have students from the fifth grade to ninth grade. There are 610 students and 80 teachers. There are many classrooms.

We`ve got a library with 8 computers with internet, many books to read and videos to see. We have three football fields and a student room with a ping pong table and other games.

Here are some photos of our school:

The entrance to our school

 

Entrance to the Teachers' Room

 

A view from the East side

 Santo António, the patron of our school (a tile made by students)

 

A message for Mariana in Venezuela from 5. C

Our class

Hi, Mariana!

We are students of Escola de Sto. António in Parede, near Lisbon, the capital of Portugal.

   

We are in 5th grade. There are 20 students in our class, 11 girls and 9 boys. We have three Brazilian students and one Cape Verdean.

We have 11 subjects, such as Maths, English, Portuguese, Science, History, Music and Physical Education, and 11 teachers.

Visit our blog: http://fwe2.motime.com/

Bye-bye! See you!!   

Here's the voice message recorded by Margarida: 

 

 

This message is for all our teacher friends from 5. E

Parede

Our school is in Parede, a small place near Lisbon, our capital.

Parede has got a beach, a church, many schools, restaurants, shops, coffee shops, two hospitals and several pharmacies.

The population is more than thirty thousand.

Parede is a beautiful place to live. We love Parede!  

This is the voice message recorded by Francisca: 

 

To see what Parede looks like, here's a presentation created by some students and teachers of our school in 2000.

posted by: teresadeca at 19:23 | link | comments (10) |

Report on CALL lesson 3 and work done by each class

There was excitement in the air in each class from the moment I said that four teachers and friends of ours had left comments about their work with the table (CALL lesson 2) and we'd be reading them; that we'd be looking at a dog's blog - "a dog has a blog??!! how funny!" -, and that we'd be doing interactive exercises. That was a great start!

They felt very proud about the messages from the teachers complimenting them on their work and wrote the following three messages (#7, 8 & 9):

Hello, teachers!
Thank you very much for your messages. We like the CALL lessons, because they are in the computers.
Good bye, teachers! 5. D

Hello, teachers!
Thank you for writing the messages. We all like them very much. :-)
We like the CALL lessons very much, because
-- they are fun and interesting,
-- we have got a computer,
-- they are interactive,
-- we have a crazy and radical teacher :-))
-- we learn English playing...
Bye-bye from 5. C

Hi, teachers!
Thank you for your nice words and praise. :-))
We like our CALL lessons, because they are fun and interesting.
We'd like to meet you!
Kisses from 5. E

Next we visited Holling's blog - he's Sharon's dog - and the kids loved a special reference to them and the Portuguese flag above the Brazilian flag, and especially flipped at the idea of a dog having a blog. I told them about his problems with taking a bath. They enthusiastically saw all the pictures of Holling's Brazilian friends and dog friends, loved the 4th July cakes - "yummy!!" they were still talking about them today! -, and marvelled at the different snow flakes and the snow flakes game! Here are the messages they wrote for Sharon and Holling:

Hi, Sharon and Holling!
Thank you for the message for us and the Portuguese flag! =D
We like Holling's picture, the snowflakes and the game.
Bye! 5. D

Hi, Sharon and Holling!
We love your blog. Holling is very cute and the friends of Holling are very nice.
We also like the birthday cakes and the snow flakes.
We like the idea of a blog for your dog. ;-)
Bye-bye, Sharon and Holling! 5. C

Hi, Sharon!
We the students of 5. E like your blog and Holling. He's so cute!
We like the game and the message for us, and the snow flakes. They are very nice!
We like the cakes and the photos.
A kiss from 5. E

The content came from suggestions from several of the kids, mostly the better students, but all were enthusiastic and participating in the fun! I did the writing this time to speed things up and leave a few minutes for the interactive exercises.

During the exercises, I decided to have each student do a different question and choose the best answer. No one was allowed to give any suggestions or make any comments, not even when they knew there were mistakes. "Put a zipper in your mouth", I asked, as I usually do. Of course they knew who had made the mistakes, because I went around the class in the same order they were sitting, so during the correction they sometimes said in a joking way: "That was so and so!" At the end of each exercise I had them repeat each question and answer.

The final scores ran from 50% to 80%. They really enjoyed the activity, because there was a certain competition in the air. Above all, I think it was a good joint learning situation.

Last but not least, they did all this in 40 minutes! I think they did great! I'm proud of them!!  

posted by: teresadeca at 20:16 | link | comments |

   CALL lesson 3

On Saturday I created four interactive exercises for you. Two are about the Simple Present of like; the third is about the Simple Present of be, have got and like; and the fourth is a fill-in exercise about Rooms in a House. This will be part of your work next Tuesday, May 16th.

We will start our third CALL lesson by looking at messages from my teacher-friends about your work. Click here to read them.

Next we will read a message from my friend Sharon and look at her dog's blog. What's his name? Where has he got many friends? Do you want to send Sharon a message? In text and voice?

Finally, let's practice the Simple Present!

Do or Does?

Simple Present: Short answers

Best friends (S. Present of be, have got and like)

Enjoy your lesson! 

posted by: teresadeca at 16:55 | link | comments (2) |

Report on CALL lesson 2

I thought that it would be fun for my students to have a Geography lesson in English that would give them a very good idea of where in the world are those friends of mine and theirs who have left comments in our blog. At the same time it would be a nice way to say "thank you" to those twenty-five teachers from the five continents of the world.

I know from past experience that working with an interactive map is part of the magic of a lesson such as this one. So the three classes had to click the world atlas to find the necessary info to complete the table that I created. They were very enthusiastic about it. They enjoyed guessing the continents - in several cases they have no clue as to the whereabouts of the countries! - and then clicking on the world map to get to the country. The next step was finding the capital, a city with a big star inside a white circle. Finally they had to scroll down and look for the language spoken in that country and the colors of the flag.

Once again we used the wireless connection in Sala TIC (ICT Room) together with my laptop and a video projector, which projected onto a whiteboard. Three to four students in each class took turns at the computer while the others looked at the projection on the whiteboard lent a helping hand. Each student at the computer keyboarded the info directly in the table. The biggest challenge was looking for Elisabeth Fernandes' location in Japan. We couldn't find either Nishinomya or Hyogo! What is the closest city, Elisabeth? I've been doing some searching today and believe that Nishinomya is in the Prefecture of Hyogo, close to Osaka and Kobe. Is this correct?

Some students got impatient at times, because they said their colleagues didn't keyboard fast enough. I told them that "patience" is not only part of the work in a classroom, but also part of a teacher's job and of being a good colleague. All in all they did very well and filled in as much info as was possible in the allotted time. I filled in the rest. Each group has their info in a different color. At the end of each 45-minute lesson they really enjoyed seeing their work published online at the click of the mouse!

During one of the lessons I decided that there will be a follow-up: a quiz based on this table and the vocabulary that they learned and practiced.

There was a birthday boy in 5. C, Luis, so the whole class sang "Happy Birthday!" to him.

posted by: teresadeca at 17:47 | link | comments (2) |

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