As I had been described my principal concerns about my students are they don't know much about general culture, they do not like to read and sometimes they feel afraid of speaking, so that to strengthen these weaknesses I have considered using some web sites with interesting readings and extra exercises that will have to be sent to my mail in order to assign a grade, in this way they will work in class and at home.
We have been started with http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/ , my strategy was divide the students in two groups to more productive activity. Last Friday, one group had to read "Royal wedding likely to hurt UK economy" and the other "Limits On Non-White Kids In French Football". I sent them to do three exercises which were sent to my mail. We shared our comments on monday at the end of the class. (Cooperative learning) It was a fruitful and rewarding activity because I could appreciate that they used new vocabulary learnt reading the news and I listened some interesting points of view.
This week I introduce a variation during the lab hour, within these two groups students are working in pairs (Think pair share) for reading new topics “Nissan to make future New York Taxis” and” Bin Laden photo to be release”
In their lab hour they had the opportunity to read, listen and comment the news, this weekend they have to complete their three exercises and on Monday we are going to share ideas again, but there will be other variation, I am going to choose one interesting comment and send to their mails in the afternoon so as to promote a discussion.
In this new week I would like to try other recommended web site so as to change the activities.
Ale
Dear Ale,
ReplyDeleteThanks alot for sharing this lesson with us. I loved it but I have a wonder why you haven't asked them to read some short stories?
Nice students and great classroom.
Mariah
Dear Ale,
ReplyDeleteWhat a nice lesson and what a brilliant idea to post the pictures!
Thanks for sharing!
Helô
Dear Mariah,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your comment, it motivates me.
Answering your question: My students have some short stories in their text books, they are about real facts, but as I have told you in other posts, they don’t know much about world news because they don’t like to read a lot, so I have had to create manners to push and “motivate” them.
It is giving me good results, the first day that I implemented these activities I heard one of my students say “It is really worth paying attention”
Ale