CALL Lessons 2005-2007

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

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 18:16 | link | comments |

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