Grammar for the Laywomen

iPod made me venture into the technological unknown and in the midst of the mess, I stumbled upon many many many podcasts and few have proven to be entertaining and useful. Grammar Girl is such one and I genuinely believe that their 4-7 minutes voice clips of grammar tips and trivia may invigorate the otherwise plain ol' ways of delivering the materials to our saccharine sweet students.

1. How can I modify and use her ingenious grammar mini-lessons? Alongside process-writing!

2. Can the chosen sites be used as stand alone lessons? If not, what should they be combined with? Refer to Q1

3. Who are the sites suitable for? E.g. Sec 2 exp? NA? Sec 2 students onwards and from all 3 streams with basic knowledge of grammar but motivated Sec 1s will do too.

4. What would be their level of proficiency in the language? Bare minimum for the podcasts are quite colloquial. Er, They should be able to construct a simple grammatical sentence?

5. How would the sites be beneficial for them? The sites would enlighten them and make for entertaining education.

6. What are the LOs that would be achieved at the end of enacting / utilising these sites in your planned lesson? Hmm. I'll get back to this question soon after I ponder the possible answers.

O right and the Grammar Girl (for better writing)'s URL is
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/default.aspx
You can access it off iTunes' Podcasts and once you have downloaded the file, you can find the transcript under 'lyrics'.

The students now have a reason to listen to their mp3s in class.
Well..just this English class.

how to downlad & watch youtube videos

hiya,

signing into blogs is the hardest thing ever...this is the fourth time i'm signing in cos i forgot all my previous 3 passwords..and the system won't let me create a new account cos it recognises all my email adds & user names....hope i don't lose the post-it that i wrote my password on this time...sigh

anyway, thought i'd share this with you all--in case you guys ever want to use videos from youtube and there isn't internet connection in the classrooms that you're teaching in, here's a way that you can d/l the video and save it in your laptop so you can play it back later.. the really nice IT guy at my ESE sch taught me how :)

1) Download and install Free FLV player* from http://dl.filekicker.com/send/file/193122-0O88/FLVPlayerSetup.exe

2) Logon to http://www.youtubex.com/ and insert the URL of your desired youtube video into the Download Text Field. Click on Download Video

3) The desired video should now appear on the website below the header. Click on Download to begin d/ling of file

4) Upon completion of the d/l, launch the FLV Player

5) Drag the d/led video onto the player to play


I tried it so far and it works, so have fun!

Thank you and check out these proposed sites.... please!

Dear STs,
There ares some good sites that have been highlighted, please check them out... think about,

1. How are you going to modify and use them?
2. Can the chosen sites be used as stand alone lessons? If not, what should they be combined with?
3. Who are the sites suitable for? E.g. Sec 2 exp? NA? etc etc
4. What would be their (your pupils) level of proficiency in the language?
5. How would the sites be beneficial for them (pupils)?
6. What are the LOs that would be achieved at the end of enacting / utilising these sites in your planned lesson?

Alright, that it for now, please think about the questions and post your thoughts on them.

Thank you.

All the best!

Regards
Caroline Chan (Ms)
NIE 2007

This took forever....

Hi everyone:)

I found tons of lesson ideas, but it has been difficult finding suitable websites for the students themselves. (And has anyone found good podcasts?) Anyway, I don't know how feasible my ideas are. I know some may seem a bit ambitious, so comments pls!

Suggested Classroom Activities:

Website: http://englishcaster.com/idioms/

As a speaker, writer and reader, students will use language creatively. They will also listen for information from a variety of sources.
Level & Type of Students: Lower Secondary EXP/N / Lower-Upper N

There are various podcasts on this website, but this particular one is on Idioms. It is a fairly short one, and an appropriate length in my opinion, as compared to many long podcasts I found out there.

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Website: http://www.funbrain.com/kidscenter.html

Students will demonstrate knowledge about language and write legibly.
Level & Type of Students: Mostly Lower Secondary EXP/N

This site has interactive grammar/vocabulary/spelling activities pitched at different language competency levels.

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Website: http://www.writersdigest.com/writingprompts.asp?goto=closead

Students will present and develop ideas effectively in writing for a variety of purposes and audiences
Level & Type of Students: All Types

From writing obituaries to job descriptions, this site offers tons of writing prompts for tackling freewriting, text types or journal writing etc. The ideas are creative and varied, giving the students respite from run-of-the-mill questions. They can also be done as group work.

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Website: http://youtube.com/watch?v=JdsMqRaz2WY & http://youtube.com/watch?v=EROTbDCr5ag & http://youtube.com/watch?v=tsge5G8CpRo

(You can download youtube videos at http://www.kissyoutube.com)

Students will present and develop ideas effectively in writing for a variety of purposes and audiences.
Level & Type of Students: Secondary 4 EXP

After watching the clips (“Forrest Gump”, “I am Sam” & ‘Little Match Girl” ) and reading the synopsis if necessary, students will write a narrative based on a character inspired by these trailers. The latter could be intellectually disabled, autistic, orphaned or simply a racial minority. Students will begin by creating a character profile using character and personality adjectives, and eventually a narrative.
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Website: Beauty and the beast: http://youtube.com/watch?v=oeoPtz0F2Ck

Pocahontas: http://youtube.com/watch?v=TkV-of_eN2w

The Little Mermaid: http://youtube.com/watch?v=jBca8VL2zVI

Cinderella’s step sisters: http://youtube.com/watch?v=WdQFvIXvLFY

Students will listen to/read/view a variety of texts and demonstrate understanding of content in oral/written form & form the ability to acquire and use knowledge.
Level & Type of Students: Lower Secondary EXP/N

Students will watch various clips of the Disney classics and in groups of 4, they will begin brainstorming words to describe the hero, the heroine, the villain and the step-mother. After a discussion on gender stereotypes in films, each group will attempt to write a story with characters and storylines that are not stereotypical. (Ref: Shrek: http://youtube.com/watch?v=2cREdVeHTMI)

Resource. Resource. Resource.

Hllo pretty people!

Alas, even E-Learning has to come to an end.

But I've digressed.

These resources (this and this) may be useful in the following ways:

1. Journal writing
2. Comprehension passages
3. Expository writing

Clearly a little dose of drama in the classroom does no harm. (There are numerous links attached to that website which will bring you to places the classroom has never seen before.)

And what is your English class without its bits and bobs of wordgames.

Now, I am all for the use of multimedia in the classroom. But I do think it is so easy to go wrong with YouTube. But I think what may be interesting would be a project which would involve students recording footage and posting it on YouTube. I can see myself doing this for narrative writing for instance. So I may divide the class into groups of five. Each student records a short clip of 30 seconds. This may be footage of her pet cat feeding, or of someone nibbling on his nails, or just of blue sky. Whatever is it, after the groups have consolidated their material, they will proceed to weave a story using these clips as sources of inspiration. Workable?

best regards

E Low

Ideas to use my resources

Hello all,
These are some ideas of how I would use some of the resources I research on. Not too sure what to really do about the resources. Well, will try to figure somthing out, but if you guys have any suggestions, do let me know. Thanks! :)

Steph

Resources

http://www.kathimitchell.com/poemtypes.html

- Look into the example of Rhyming and after that Ballads
- Introduce to the students a familiar type of poetry style they have come across, briefly explain how the poem works and to read the examples given and then ask them to look at the ballad example and deduce its characteristics.
- How is a ballad similar or different from a narrative essay? Use the examples in the given links to do a comparison.

http://depts.gallaudet.edu/Englishworks/writing/narrative.html

http://www.webenglishteacher.com/narrative.html

- Look into the suggestion of students bringing their photographs and using them to come up with a journal entry
- Compare their journal entries with the style in Anne Frank’s diary. Are there any similarities and differences?

http://www.annefrank.com/download/material_af_story.doc

http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_155452.html

http://www.webenglishteacher.com/expwriting.html

http://www.graphic.org/goindex.html

- Read the newspaper article above and identify some key features of a newspaper article.
- Using a graphic organizer, list down the points for and against pig farming
- Respond to the article to state your stand regarding this issue, weighing the pros and cons of it thoughtfully.

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bonjovi/itsmylife.html

http://youtube.com/watch?v=g50vzZzAja0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbm0EuJQkQc

- Identify the parts of speech/ word classes you hear from this song
- Compare the language used in a song with the language used in the above advertisement, any similarities or differences?
- How is the language used in songs/advertisements different from that in newspaper articles and short stories (narratives)? Why is there the difference?