Retelling stories in the ESL classroom.

Reading shouldn´t be a boring and passive activity. On the contrary, it should be fun and active. The process should be creative in a way that students insert in the story itself and they feel part of it.If teachers provide these conditions, learning will be meaningful. Maybe many of you think how I can achieve it and I will tell you that IT plays an important role. As you probably know  if you see concrete display beyond paper,  students will be motivated and excited (they will do their best). The big question is how to retell stories meaningfully. Well, I will provide you an example with the story Rio. I assigned two o three scenes per student and they took their time to draw and write them.They felt free and full art was displayed. Then, they rehearsed and recorded them in my mobile phone. Once all work was done, I took pictures of the scenes to make an e-book and I uploaded all audio in Soundcloud so that all scenes could be heard one after the other.It was an unforgettable experience. This is a video about it:

Brazil and Argentina have started with their contributions in the Padlet for Link To the World

Today students from Brazil and Argentina have embarked on their amazing journey to connect global through a common passion:FOOTBALL. These are their posts:

Created with Padlet

Prezi: a great presentation tool

This is one of the tools we are going to use to insert in our Padlets for Football Worldcup.I`ve chosen it because you can create a cinematic and engaging experiences. I leave you some tutorials so that we get familiar with it.

References:https://www.youtube.com/user/PreziVideoChannel/featured

Football World Cup

As I`ve already told you Football World Cup is about to come and there will be many interesting activities to work in Link To The World. Today I`m going to present you one which is a Padlet which I called Football World Cup Teams. Students are going to post about their national teams.It could be infografics with stats, videos and why not chants. Maybe you or your students don`t know how to use Padlet, so I will post a tutorial by Richard Byrne to introduce you this amazing collaborative tool.


This is our padlet Football World Cup Teams.Join us and work with your students:

References:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCylhHbAUoqgdN-XQpJPobOg

Created with Padlet

Write a textbook for your students

As a member of  The 30 Goals Challenge I was inspired by the goal proposed by Bulton Burns:Share A Page Of Your Future Textbook. I totally agree with what he said about the importance of presenting students motivating material created by yourself .You as a teacher are the one who knows what your students need to reinforce and the areas you have covered. Many resources that we find fell apart in real classroom use.It demands you more time to modify them than to design ours.Besides, your activities can be more communicative because you know about your students interests and you will meet their needs.You can create more motivating activities adding cliparts and attractive designs which will encourage your students to practise more.Undoubtedly, they will benefit because their learning will be meanignful.
These are some of the pages of my future textbook:

My future textbook from Maria Josè Giavedoni

Getting ready for Football World Cup in Link To The World

We are getting ready in our international community with many interesting activities to work together.We`re going to use technology to create infographics and videos.We`re going to use not only pcs, but also mobiles and tablets so that access to applications will be possible for all.There will be collaborative tools such as Padlets to work all together and profit from each other.It`s going be very interesting because there are many countries participating and we`re going to learn about football and culture worldwide. Have a look at it and join us if like it.I sure you WILL !!!

https://plus.google.com/communities/102242336148220737279/stream/f4d6a468-9fc8-4dd8-b3d3-bf412fa439d3

Xtranormal:all about characters and text

References:https://www.youtube.com/user/cng

                  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBtpETBYCSiIh-4wUA8PwTA

Animated videos with Xtranormal

References:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTXFD44c9LW2Yfb9tI7m3Ew

More about Piktochart

References:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0miFingOVhM_gPGPb-rEkA

My Paper.li:Language News

Use Paper.li and create amazing newspapers

References:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3AYZEjNnyy6CcIPOsLpaGg

Tutorial and example using Historypin

References:http://www.historypin.com/channels/view/55567/#!map/index/#!/geo:-32.817606,-60.715831/zoom:20/dialog:242843/tab:details/

Biteslide used in Link To The World

How to use Biteslide

References:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUFP4p0G7izV7ixNMn-5g7A

An example using Slidetalk

Students can write letters and then use Slidetalk to give them a voice. It`s motivating activity which will foster students` creativity. SlideTalk Video: Branco

SlideTalk Video to give your videos voice

References:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqhFNRCOYaq9rYuVUPn4TPw

Tutorial for StoryJumper

                              
References:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwup6Ts4zmkHidobjTcIs_Q

My example using THINGLINK

Improve writing skills motivating students.

Writing is not an easy skill to teach in the digital age we live. The problem is that most students make punctuation and grammar mistakes. This often happens because they write in a hurry .The faster they finish the best.They don`t have enough motivation to check and look for new vocabulary. What`s worst they aren`t involved in their writing. They feel it`s just an exercise and it`s unreal. I asked myself how I could change this situation and I found a real purpose to motivate them:I realized that they could produce letters to real people from different countries in the community I created for a goal I proposed:Link To world https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/102242336148220737279 They could also choose who to write to. I wanted them not to leave the pen and sheet because they make you unique: you have a spelling which identifies you and your personal touch, so I decided to make my students take pictures and  post their productions. I was really surprised.There was a real change: in their effort to impress recipients and make their post perfect they paid attention to every single detail. They took their time to do their best and the results were great. They are looking forward to hearing from others and send them another letter by the virtual world. These are moments I captured so that you can picture what I`m telling you about.

Tutorial for SWIPE

                                       References:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRFO7_1ApEdZZfS84eIuD7g