Thanksgiving Day activity

Nearly 400 years ago, the first thanksgiving dinner was celebrated. The Pilgrims, who emigrated from England searching for a better life, wanted to thank the American Natives for helping them learn how to grow food and hunt for meat. It was a celebration of gratitude for what they had and friendship too. 

Today, it is celebrated in the United States on the fourth Thursday of November. Families and friends gather together for a special meal which traditionally includes:  turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and vegetables.

Why don’t we practise countable and uncountable nouns? Here’s a list of some of the ingredients needed to prepare Thanksgiving Celebration meal. Order them under the two columns COUNTABLE/UNCOUNTABLE. Check your lists with a partner and together discuss about the food you eat in family celebrations.

Ingredients:  flour, carrots, cranberries, sugar, eggs, pepper, butter, peas, salt, ½ cup of milk, cubes of bread, chicken broth, ½ onion, a cup of raisins, vanilla extract, garlic powder . . .
C O U N T A B L E	U N C O U N T A B L E

Back to school!

On August 22nd thousands of children and teachers will return to school to start a new school year. Each year brings its own challenges and new beginnings. For many children this is their first year while for others this is the last one before going to higher education. Books and materials are brand new and appealing with their colours and innovations. Children sometimes wonder what their teachers will be like or if there’s going to be someone new in the class. Parents also set big expectations on their children, the teachers and the school. This is a good opportunity to set some goals for this coming school year. We want to help you start setting your goals. Follow the next steps and use this as a first day activity:  

-          Make a list of things you want to achieve this school year especially in the language class, for example, join a study club, have more organized notes, learn more vocabulary words, or the like.

-          Pick the 5 you’d like more to achieve.

-          Write them including the steps you will take to achieve them.

-          Don’t forget to mention the people who will be involved with you, for example, teachers, classmates, parents, etc.

-          Share with your classmates.

The Beatles

John, Paul, George and Ringo are the music revolutionaires of last century. Their music and style marked a time and opened the new era of musical production. They were the first ones to combine orchestra instrumentation with guitars. 

We can learn English with The Beatles. We can use their songs to practise language or vocabulary or we can  read their biographies and develop the reading skill. 

Would you like to share some ideas?

ELT World at Scoop.it

ICT in the EFL classroom

Facts about ICT	Implications in the language classroom
Ubiquitous presence of internet	This makes it easier to incorporate its use in the teaching/learning process.
More miniaturized and portable communication devices	More personalized communication devices that can be used in the classroom because they are at hand.
Interaction among communities has produced new genres	Teachers must develop awareness of these new linguistic challenges and encompass their incorporation for their own needs and their students’.
ICT requires new pedagogic models to prepare future citizens for collaborative and life-long learning	Learners must be trained to become more independent and autonomous to convert gained information into knowledge and skills.
The new media will lead to a major change in the culture of learning	A change in the conception of the teaching/learning processes and the adoption of ICT as an enhancer to this culture of learning.
The new media offers among other things: a wider range of teaching contents, a self-directed learning, teacher-student planning of lessons, freer spaces from the constraints of traditional classrooms, facilitation of communication, etc.	Consequentially, new roles and skills are demanded from teachers: facilitator and guide, orchestrator, integrator, designer, researcher, evaluator, learners, collaborator. Skills: organizational, technical and conceptual. Learners become more active participants.
Multimedia programmes offer sound and vision, native speakers interactions, encyclopedias and dictionaries for instant reference, actual reports and news, etc.	Teachers must improve their didactic competencies linked to media and provide less instruction and information. Learners will be encouraged and monitored by the teacher to work in groups.
ICT will bring the pluralisation of learning environments beyond the school context	Teachers are to take into consideration the complexity and individuality of learning and make full use of the possibilities to extend learning beyond the classroom.
There have aroused a range of new skills, competencies and attitudes which help function in the new world	Teachers need to be given the opportunity to update in the knowledge, use and adoption of these new skills so they can pass on their learners.
Multimedia material changes constantly to meet their main purpose of informing, communicating, transforming, etc.	Teachers can be sure that the implementation of multimedia use in the classroom will provide the learners with authentic and updated material

Based on information taken from: “The Impact of Information and Communications Technologies on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and the Role of Teachers of Foreign Languages”

WIKI

A wiki is a collaboration tool - a web site where the pages can be changed and INSTANTLY published using only a web browser (no programming required). Pages are automatically created and linked to each other.

• A wiki invites all users to edit any page or to create new pages within the wiki Web site, using only a plain-vanilla Web browser without any extra add-ons.
• Wiki promotes meaningful topic associations between different pages by making page link creation almost intuitively easy and showing whether an intended target page exists or not.
• A wiki is not a carefully crafted site for casual visitors. Instead, it seeks to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the Web site landscape.

A wiki enables communities to write documents collaboratively, using a simple markup language and a web browser. A single page in a wiki website is referred to as a "wiki page", while the entire collection of pages, which are usually well interconnected by hyperlinks, is "the wiki". A wiki is essentially a database for creating, browsing, and searching through information. A wiki allows for non-linear, evolving, complex and networked text, argument and interaction.

WEBQUEST

Webquests are mini-projects in which a large percentage of the input and material is supplied by the Internet. Webquests can be teacher-made or learner-made, depending on the learning activity the teacher decides on.

Reasons for using webquests
There are many compelling reasons for using webquests in the classroom, including:

• They are an easy way for teachers to begin to incorporate the Internet into the language classroom, on both a short-term and long-term basis - no specialist technical knowledge is needed either to produce or use them.

• More often than not, they are group activities and as a result tend to lend themselves to communication and the sharing of knowledge - two principal goals of language teaching itself.

• They can be used simply as a linguistic tool, but can also be interdisciplinary, allowing for crossover into other departments and subject areas.

• They encourage critical thinking skills, including: comparing, classifying, inducing, deducing, analysing errors, constructing support, abstraction, analysing perspectives, etc. Learners are not able to simply regurgitate information they find, but are guided towards a transformation of that information in order to achieve a given task.

• They can be both motivating and authentic tasks and encourage learners to view the activities they are doing as something 'real' or 'useful'. This inevitably leads to more effort, greater concentration and a real interest in task achievement.

Structure of a webquest

There are usually four main sections to a webquest:

• The Introduction stage is normally used to introduce the overall theme of the webquest.

• The Task section of the webquest explains clearly and precisely what the learners will have to do as they work their way through the webquest.

• The Process stage of a webquest guides the learners through a set of activities and research tasks, using a set of predefined resources. T

• The Evaluation stage can involve learners in self-evaluation, comparing and contrasting what they have produced with other learners and giving feedback on what they feel they have learnt, achieved, etc. It will also involve teacher evaluation of the same, and good webquests will give guidance to the teacher for this particular part of the process.

Implementing a webquest

Shorter webquests can be used to complement coursebook materials - over one or a small number of classes - whilst long-term webquests are perhaps more suited to longer courses. In breaking down a webquest for use over several class sessions, ensure that your learners are aware of what they are doing - of why they are doing it, and of the benefits to them.