Language Sensei

A Language Teacher's Journey

Best of 2014 – Number 5: Conversation Skills, Kahoot & Cool Tech Add-ons

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MP900385755(1)Looking back at the most popular posts on Language Sensei in 2014 I am always surprised at what resonates. I am pleased when something ‘hits home’ for others because, truthfully, I write for one person – me. Blogging has helped me to clarify – for me – what I value and, more importantly, where I am headed as an educator. So for the month of December I’m going to take the lead from one of my favourite #langchat colleagues – Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell (@SECottrell) and her Musicuentos blog and re-publish some of the most popular posts. And wouldn’t you know it – a 3-way tie for 5th place!

Developing Conversation Skills – the “Follow Up Question” Game: We work hard in my class on developing an ease at conversing. It isn’t natural for many people, including me I’ll admit, so why would we expect it to be so for our students? This semester I have a new crop of Grade 10′s, 30 students who are in my class for the first time. When I asked what it is they want to many of them wrote ‘have a regular conversation in Japanese.” My job is to have them meet that challenge. I’ve written before about extending conversation skills using ‘follow-up questions’ and this group needed a way to jump-start their ability in this area. So I invented the ‘Follow Up Question’ game….my fancy title for essentially practicing conversations!  Continued…..

Fun, Team-building & Reinforcing Learning: Using Kahoot! In Your Classes: I’ll admit that in the past I have shied away from online class games. Our school is limited in WiFi availability and I have not wanted to either single out students who didn’t have phones, or ask them to use data to play. But the #langchat community is big on the Kahoot! – and I just had to join in. Basically you create a multiple choice quiz. When you start the game students see a ‘game code’ – they go to the web site and enter that code – create a team name – and you begin. I’ve tried to use it in my classes to both increase teamwork and minimize data use. Why do I like it and how do I use it in my classes? Continued…

Cool Tools – My Favourite Browser Extensions, Add-Ons and Docs Extras: We use a lot of tools, apps and other on-line resources in our teaching. I had to work on a browser the other day – which required me to re-enable the add-ons and extensions for it. It got me to thinking about my ‘go to’ tools that I use with both Firefox and Chrome. So I put together a collection of my favourites – probably some of yours as well. Continued…

Colleen

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