Sunday, March 18, 2018

Mobile phones: activities in the classroom


Today was seminar day in German, held by a very popular publisher in Greece.
Most presentations were about their books and there was also a big book exhibition.
One thing that intrigued me to was a session about mobile phones and ways to use them in the classroom.
I thought they would introduce us to apps that we can use with our students, like some apps they have developed at Goethe Institute, games, words etc,
But, the session was more practical, using almost no apps.
Some suggestions were:

  • use the video to record students mime words and then show them to class or in pairs and try to guess the words
  • use video to record students introducing themselves and writing down information
  • use recording device to read words or text so that other students listen to it and write dictation.
  • take pictures of items and make collocations or compound words
  • use the calculator to practise numbers 
  • record noises to practise vocabulary
  • use the weather app to talk about weather
  • use your phone calendar to make dialogues about meeting on a specific time and date
  • use messenger/ what's up / viber to set a date instead of speaking activity

I believe that all these ideas are very practical, but I would also suggest some apps.
  • I use duolingo to practise vocabulary in different languages and the constant repetition has helped me a lot. 
  • Another game that my students absolutely LOVED is The mystery of Nebra. The language level has to be A2 or more, but it is an adventure game that you will definitely enjoy.
  • Another fun game to play is Der heisse Kartofel
  • For more beginners, there is also Deutchtrainer A1 with  basic vocabulary practice.
I also use my phone as a dictionary, there are several online dictionaries that you can use.
Last but not least, I use You Tube to watch clips, songs and everything I can find in the target language.


Thursday, March 8, 2018

Guest teaching day 2

Another wonderful opportunity to work with children!
This week I used material from the British Council site Learn English Kids.
The older ones watched Shakespeare's Midsummer's dream, did the activities that followed online and talked about the play.


The younger ones watched Ali and the magic carpet. The specific story is about weather conditions. We explained vocabulary and there were some wonderful online and worksheet activities.


To make it a bit more interesting, I printed some phrases from the video,  cut the words and created a running game for the kids. They were separated in 3 teams, one of them had to run, find the suitable words to make a sentence, go back to their team and create the sentence. When the sentences were ready, they had to connect them to a topic word. For example: This place is hot and dry - desert.


The youngest ones played running dictation with a text from their books.


 It is really interesting that young children want to be up all day, so instead of reading the exercises from their book, I told them to run around and tell me in turns the correct answers, which were shown in the interactive board.


In the end, we practised colours. First we used a soft ball to revise (a ball is always a good way to revise vocabulary) and then we played colour dictation. I used a sample of the Starters booklet of the Cambridge British Council exams, but any colouring worksheet will do.


It's always a pleasure creating new games for the kids! I get even more enthusiastic than them!!!
Thank's again Ms Psarra for giving me the chance to explore more opportunities of learning!

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

When my students are in a roll...




Ich bin ein großer Bär 🐻 
Eine gescheitere Person 
Ein freundlicher Hund 🐕 
Ein großer Bruder für alle 
Ein Motorrad 🏍 und ic sehe die Welt 🌎
Eine Blume 💐
Ein Meer 🌊
Ein offenes Buch 




von Stergios Gouras

Featured Post

Teaching online through Lockdown

Some months ago, when I wrote a blog on online Teaching for iTDi , I could never imagine that the teaching world would turn digital overn...