Sunday, May 27, 2007

Students’ project


As you may have noticed I have been posting my students’ work since the beginning of May. In case anybody was wondering, I just wanted to explain why I did this and what the results were.
Every end of the school year, I make a booklet with my students’ work, pictures, projects, things that have been “creating” all year long and some new work, depending on their level and ability. This booklet was given to the students, like a “yearbook”
This year I just didn’t do it! I used the Internet instead!
Why?
First of all, I used the net, because I wanted to motivate everybody to take part. Once the first person posted something everybody wanted to do it!!
And every single one did!
I gave them specific subjects: in German we were mostly inspired by Goethe Institute’s project, the jung:de exhibition, which we visited in the middle of the school year, pupils wrote about their favorite thing and about their rooms.
In English it was mostly descriptions of places, people and movie reviews.
Using the Internet made it very easy for them to find information, pictures, videos and combine them, something they couldn’t easily do on paper.
It worked with everybody; even the laziest students took part.
I was really amazed with the enthusiasm. They brought things in the classroom (dolls, teddies, toys); they took pictures on their own, and made their own suggestions. They were really proud of themselves producing language and are still showing their “work” to their friends and family!!!
I posted everybody’s work in one page, mainly because I wanted to have everything together.
I did try to make an individual blog with one of my classes in the beginning of the year, which did not go very well, mostly because we didn’t have Internet access at the language school I work and I ended up doing all the work for them!!! Better luck next time!!!
I will hopefully continue with more projects from September on.
The blog will have a ‘summer look” from now on!

I WISH EVERYBODY A GREAT SUMMER HOLIDAY!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's cool that all your students took part! Sometimes the Internet does help!

Anonymous said...

It's amazing how teens can really get motivated and enthusiastic when posting on the net. A couple of years ago, my FCE students designed a website of their own. It was a group of 8 kids who started out from scratch and eventually produced a great website where they posted their photos, their schoolwork, their English assignments. Unfortunately, they didn't have time to maintain their website and so it closed down. I've been browsing through your blog and I must honestly say that I am impressed! That's great work, Theodora. I'll certainly revisit when I have some more free time over the weekend.

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