PECHA KUCHA: Our last ECO II Project.

PECHA KUCHA is a short presentation that consists of 20 slides which are shown for 20 seconds each. The 20x20 format allows each presenter to talk for 6 minutes and 40 seconds on a personal project or interest of their choice.

PECHA KUCHA is a Japanese word literally meaning "Chit Chat".

20x20 presentations are awesome because they force the presenter to focus on the point and to say what it's really important. Pictures help listeners to follow and understand the presentation.

This year we made two PECHA KUCHA presentations. The first one was a practical work for Diction and we tried to answer the question "WHY CERTAIN SOUNDS ARE MORE DIFFICULT THAN OTHERS?". The second one is our last ECO II project and we will present it in our final exam.

Writing the script is the most difficult part of PECHA KUCHA presentations. You have to decide what you want to say and say it in only 20 seconds. It took us hours and days to finish both scripts.

Making powerpoint presentations were the best part of PECHA KUCHA. There are two ways of doing so: you can choose funny pictures or you can choose pictures which represent what you are saying. In our first presentation we chose funny pictures but for our second one we decided to do it more formal. 

My biggest problem is to memorize the script. I cannot study by heart and for this kind of presentation this point is crucial. Let's see what happens tomorrow in the final exam!!!

EDMODO

EDMODO is a secure social learning network for teachers and students. It is also called "Facebook for Education".

We have been working with EDMODO from the Student's perspective since the beginning of the year. 

In one of our last projects, we had to work with EDMODO from the Teacher's perspective. We had to plan a lesson and design the activities using authoring tools and upload them to the EDMODO group we had created. The topics given were: revision of GO, HAVE, GET and PAST SIMPLE IRREGULAR VERBS. We decided to upload all the steps to the EDMODO group beginning with the homework and finishing with the Warm up stage of the lesson so students could see the activities and tasks in the correct order. We created a crossword and a word search using EDUCAPLAY and a multiple choice together with a fill in the gaps activity using HOT POTATOES. 

We really enjoyed using the tools. My favourite one is the fill in the gaps activity. We chose the song "Because you loved me" - Celine Dion for students to complete all the verbs in the past form. We also added a link to the clip of the song in YOUTUBE and we wrote the verbs in the infinitive form to help them complete the activity.

I think that using EDMODO is an interesting and different way of teaching a lesson. Students are motivated because they can work at their own pace, communicate with each other using their computers and complete the activities as if they were games. However, we must take into account that the Internet connections in our schools are not so good  and this reality can change our innovative lesson into a complete failure.

POPPLET: Another WEB 2.0 tool.

POPPLET is a platform which allows users to visualize connections between ideas and bits of information by organizing them into a graphic map. 

It is easy and simple. It provides blank "bubbles" and the tools to fill them in with images or texts. Each of the bubble contains individual ideas. A single mouse click allows users to zoom in on a specific area of the graphic.

POPPLET offers an appealing option for supporting visual learners. It can be used by students to present online research projects. Teachers can also use POPPLET to help students organize their ideas before writing a story, letter, article, among others.

I created a POPPLET about HALLOWEEN. The aim of this graphic map is to activate previous knowledge using pictures related to the topic. It is thought to be used in the Presentation stage of the lesson. It can also be used to help students write about this celebration. They can add more information and connect the ideas in a different way. Moreover, students can look for information about the origins of HALLOWEEN, its traditions and supersticions.

Source: Education World.

WORDLE: How to use it in the EFL classroom.

One of my favourite WEB 2.0 tools is WORDLE because it is really easy to use and you can create word clouds in a few simple steps. However, I was not sure in what way it could be effectively used in an EFL classroom. "The Teacher's Magazine" Nº 127 (August 2010) gave me some useful ideas. According to the magazine, Word clouds can be created to revise vocabulary and grammar and to develop different skills such as Reading and Writing.

In order to revise Vocabulary, the teacher can create a word cloud with five or six words, all but one of which have something in common in order to make the students find the odd one out. Or s/he can show the students a cloud with words belonging to a certain semantic field (food, animals, etc) and ask them to make sentences. Or the teacher can ask students to find pairs of opposites/synonyms in a word cloud.

For Grammar, word clouds can be created with scrambled sentences for students to put the words in the right order. Or they can identify words and classify them as nouns, verbs or adjectives.

For developing Reading skills, word clouds can be used to brainstorm ideas about the text before reading it. Or they can retell the story read using only the words in the word clouds.

For Writing, they can create or predict the ending of a story using the words given or they can write their own stories.

These are some of the ideas given in the article. They can be adapted to different ages and levels. I think they are great ideas and they can help the teacher to make lessons more attractive. And what's more important, designing this teaching material is not time-consuming!!!!
Source: Starc, M. (2010, August). WEB 2.0 tools for EFL teachers. WORDLE. The Teacher's Magazine, (127), 24, 25.

Source: http://teacheng.us/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/gatsby2wordle.png