Fun online games for Young Learners

Easter holidays are already here for many students (and teachers!).  Here in Cantabria, schools break up this Wednesday for 10 days.

And then, it'll be back and gearing up for the busiest time of the year for me - organising and running the sessions of Cambridge English: Young Learners Tests here in Cantabria.

So, I thought it would be an appropriate time to mention a great place with some fun games to work on different vocabulary areas for Starter, Movers and Flyers.

ENGLISH FLASH GAMES for Learning Vocabulary

Here you will find English vocabulary games for kids and ESL students: Hangman, Memory matching games, Drag & Drop games, Hidden object games... 



You'll find Vocabulary lists (pictures with words underneath) organised by topic (clothes, food, animals, colours, etc..).  You can click on the speaker symbol and listen to the word, although I have to say that I found that being redirected to another page every time to hear the words very frustrating and I had to listen carefully or I missed the word!

And then there are the games.  It's going to rain, so you have to make the man jump to catch each item of clothing and get him dressed before the rain starts.  

http://englishflashgames.blogspot.com.es/2008/08/clothes-game.html

Or, you click on the different food and drink on the list in a big picture of a kitchen.

http://englishflashgames.blogspot.com.es/2008/09/food-game.html

Hope you and your Young Learners enjoy the games!  

And Happy Easter!  I won't be posting till next week - going to give myself a short break!

www.hdwallpapersarena.com

Today in Santander

Just getting ready to head into Santander to give a seminar on Cambridge English: Advanced.

I'll be focussing mainly on Writing and Speaking, but will also be considering typical areas of difficulty with the Reading and Listening papers.

Hope to see one or two of you there!

Anne

Great, simple idea for Describing photos in Speaking Tests

I have just finished reading another post from the Cambridge English South East Europe Blog.

(I mentioned the tips for teaching YLE a couple of weeks ago here.)

I really liked a new tip for preparing the photo task for the Cambridge English: Preliminary exam.

Laura Casetti from Argentina submitted this tip. I thought it was great and well worth a mention on this blog.

Exam preparation idea for:
Cambridge English: Preliminary (PET), Speaking paper, Part 3

Summary:
1. Ask students to bring in a topic-related picture.
2. Divide the class into pairs and ask the students to swap pictures.
3. Ask the students to describe their partner’s picture.
4. Ask each student to describe their own picture to the class, and then explain how their partner described it.
5. Encourage the class to discuss further ideas.

Materials needed:
A picture or photo from home

Describing a personal photo
“I usually ask students to look for a picture at home, related to a given topic (usually the one we are dealing with in class), and bring it to the following class. This gives them the chance to choose a picture that, in a way, inspires them. The class works in pairs, exchanging their pictures, which, as I said before, have a topic connection.

Once they have done this, I give them a task for Part 4. After they have finished this, they are asked to tell the group how they would have described the picture they brought, and how their partner actually did this. Then, they can ask the rest of the group for further ideas.

This activity proves quite fruitful, since it allows students to open their minds to new ideas about what to say about a picture, enlarging the scope of possibilities. If this is done regularly when we finish dealing with a given topic, at the end of the course they will have a folder with their own pictures, which will be useful for revising the topics, prior to the oral interview.”

I would suggest that the same idea could be used with groups of Cambridge English: First, Advanced and Proficiency students.

With these groups, you could either ask them to bring in two related photos or they put their photos together and make pairs of photos and think of a question that could be asked in the style of the Cambridge English: First, Advanced or Proficiency photo tasks.

The Cambridge Experience events start in Porto

Today I have the pleasure (and the time!)  to chat with my colleague Nick Shaw, member of the Cambridge English Presenters Team who will be delivering the talk "Worried about going for Schools?" at The Cambridge Experience Porto , next Saturday 23rd of March at Hotel Eurostars das Artes

Nick Shaw graduated in Modern Languages from the University of Cambridge and subsequently completed a PGCE course at the University of London and taught French and Spanish for a year before deciding to move into English language teaching. Although he has been preparing candidates for Cambridge English exams since 1977, his active involvement with the organisation began as an oral examiner in 1985. 

In addition to being a member of the Seminar Presenter and Centre Inspector teams in Spain, Nick acts as a consultant to Cambridge University Press on a variety of projects including mainstream coursebooks, examination preparation materials and grammar books.

Nick delivering a seminar at the latest
Cambridge Experience in A Coruña

Hello Nick, first of all: why did you decide to go into English language teaching?

After graduating from university with a degree in Modern Languages I spent a year trying to get myself converted into a trainee accountant, after which my employer and I mutually agreed that the honorable profession was not made for me (or vice-versa). So I decided to take myself off for a year to reflect on my future, and answered an advert for English teachers needed in A Coruña, a town near which I had spent a couple of months four summers previously. Thirty-seven years later, I'm still there and still reflecting!

What is the favourite bit about your presentation?

The questions from the audience, for a variety of reasons. First , if there aren't any I feel that I have failed to engage and interest participants in what I wanted to say. Secondly, they show me to what extent I have been successful (or not) in getting my message across, and most importantly of all, they more often than not make me think on my feet and remind me that we're all learners.

Who or what inspires you?

The teachers I work with, not only at the school in A Coruña, but at events and conferences I attend (not always as a speaker!). There's always so much you can learn from your colleagues if you remember why we were born with two ears but only one mouth...

What’s your all-time top tip for English language teachers?

Softly softly catchee monkey. Or to put it another way, a slow, careful and persistent approach to what you do, giving your students time to grasp a concept, make their mistakes, practice until they get it right more often than wrong and finally internalise it is almost always going to give you better results than a showy display of classroom fireworks that leaves them dazzled, but only able to remember that they'd had a good time.

Do you have a favourite elt website?

No, I don't do favourites. ELT websites, authors, musicians, football teams - you name it, there's good and bad to be found in absolutely everything, and if you keep your ears, eyes and mind open and exercise critical judgement, you can generally get something of value from anything you come across - even if it's realising that although questions don't necessarily have to have a right answer, they can certainly have wrong ones...

A gadget you can’t live without?

A P38 can opener (see picture). I first came across this amazingly versatile and useful item on one of my earliest camping trips to Spain when I was a teenager, and it instantly replaced the much more cumbersome, expensive and pocket-stretching Swiss Army knife as my number one gadget. In my experience, small is beautiful and the simplest solutions are always the best.

And finally, why do you think teachers should see your talk?

You'll have to ask them! I hope that my talk will help to allay some of the fears surrounding the idea of 'external evaluation' and show that Cambridge English: Preliminary for Schools and Cambridge English: First for Schools examinations are not as daunting or unattainable as we may think, and in fact to a great extent mirror the way our students use the language they are learning from us in real-life situations, making what they do in the classroom much more relevant to them.

Thanks Nick! It's been a pleasure to chat with you!

Monkey Puzzles - great activities for Starters, Movers and Flyers

I've finally got round to trying out the Monkey Puzzles games.  Another thing that I had on my 'to do' list and in my 'For later' bookmarks.

http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/prepare-and-practise/games-social/monkey-puzzles/

There are 8 mini games.  I've tried out three so far:

Meet the animals.  I played pelmanism here.

Sports day.  Here, you have to click on the correct picture above the basketball hoop to choose the right picture for a sentence like 'This is a shoe.'

Art in the park.  Here you see a picture and have to drag the letters into place to spell the word.

As you complete these activities, you 'unlock' other activities such as Snowball fight or It's your party.  I haven't tried these out yet.  If you do, let me know what you think of them!

And of course - pass this information onto your Young Learners and they can have fun, learn and practise for their Cambridge English:  Young Learners English Test!

Memorise it with Memrise

On one of my recent trips, I made myself a note to check out a website called Memrise.

I couldn't remember what prompted me to jot down this website, but I checked it out yesterday and thought it looked interesting and that therefore, I'd share it with you.  From the name, you can guess it's connected to remembering things - words in fact (and facts too actually)

You can choose from a wide range of languages (I might just make a start on Italian with it!)

You click on a 'course' and then you are shown a definition and a mem or a picture to help you remember it.

Then, you are tested via multiple choice questions, questions where you have to type the answer (one of the items you have just focused on).

I checked out this 'course' with terms for the DELTA.  Looks good for a teacher who wants to brush up on terminology.

There are other memrise 'courses' for beginners and advanced students, on general and academic English.

Must try out one of the beginners Italian courses and make a start!

Link to a great post on Take a Photo and...

I received an email on Monday from the Blog 'Take a Photo and'.  It talked about a new post on their blog by Paul Braddock.

I clicked on the link and read the post.

I was very impressed.  It's one of those things that you can go off and take into your classroom immediately (well, all right, you would have to prepare the photos in advance and check out the links, etc).

I have also made a note to myself to sign up to Lino and Popplet - two web tools used and recommended by Paul in his post.  My 'for later' bookmark list just grew again......

What if our students are colour blind?

I've just returned from a trip to Rome, where I gave a session called 'What's in an image?'

One of the points I was suggesting that we as teachers should consider is that we may well have colour blind students in our classes and a proportion of candidates taking a Cambridge English exam will no doubt be colour blind in some way.  Colour and pictures are an important part of the Cambridge English: Young Learners Tests.

I have discovered a very useful site called Vischeck.

You can upload a photo or picture and it shows you what the picture looks like to someone who is colourblind.

At the conference in Rome, I showed the teachers what a picture used in a former Starters speaking test would look like to a boy or girl who is colour blind.
They can still see that two girls are playing basketball, but the actual colours that the the ball or the blonde girl's hair are changes. If we are asking them questions like 'What colour is this girl's hair?' then their answer would not be the same as ours!

Original picture (Starters Practice Tests 6 page 53)

Deuteranope means that people have a red/green colour deficit 

Tritanope means that people have a blue/yellow colour deficit.

On the Vischeck site, you can also check what a webpage might look like to these people.

One advantage would be that students with red/green deficit would be that having a teacher who overuses a red pen would not have the same effect!  But I was just thinking that the traffic system which functions around red-amber-green just doesn't seem logical!!!!!

Apparently, 7% of US males and 0.4% of US females are colour blind in some way.  Presumably, this is also the proportion that will apply to the students in Spain where I live and work.  And very probably in your classrooms too.  Bear this in mind when you show them a picture and ask:  What  colour is this?'!!!!!