SECRETS OF POWERPOINT FOR TEACHERS. ACTIVITIES AT THE LESSON.

Microsoft PowerPoint can work perfectly not only for creating presentations, but also for making up animated activites for the lesson. In this post you will learn how to make games in this programme.

At the lesson you will need a projector and an interactive board.

1. Sea battles. A well-known game from our childhood can be used to practice speaking skills and revising grammatical structures. I used this one at the end of the school year (New Hot Spot 3). Students have to make a sentence using the suggested structure and the expression. If the sentence is correct, then you click on the field and check wether there is a battleship. Here you can download my presentation and transform it according to your needs.-->A sea battle game

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BRAIN-FRIENDLY LEARNING. TEACHING STRATEGIES

Do you know what it means  A BRAIN-FRIENDLY LEARNING? If so, you don't need to read the information below. But if you have a very transparent idea of it (as I used to have), read it, you may find out curious facts about our brain and how this knowledge can be used in the classroom. The information below is taken from the book by Janet Nay Zadina "Multiple pathways to the student bain. Energising and enhancing instruction."

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TEACH LIKE FINLAND

It is often spoken today about the Finnish schools. Their students are praised for showing better results with less or no homework. And they spend less time at school. How is it possible?

I tried to search for the answer as it interests me greatly as a teacher and a parent. And this is what I have found out and would like to share with you. I believe it can be useful.

• ·        The way of thinking. The thing that is common for Finland and the countries of the Scandinavian region is the lack of competition between pupils. It is also true for teachers and people of other professions. They do not compete with each other who is the best pupil / teacher or who is richer or more successful. That is why cooperation is thriving and giving its contribution to such good results. Finnish teachers work together on a common problem with a pupil, ask each other for advice. It is the mentality of prosperity that gives a chance to develop and be happy with what you have achieved in a team. Mentality of prosperity brings happiness.
• ·        The less is more or Finnish design of classrooms. Simplified design of classrooms lets pupils concentrate better. A study has proved that pupils showed less progress in education when the walls in the classroom were richly decorated rather than when it was vise versa. It is especially important for younger children as it has effect on their concentration of attention during the lesson.
• ·        To use or not to use new technologies? Finnish schools do not devote too much of their attention to technology at the lesson. Surprising it may seem but students concentrate better when there is a limited access to technology.
• ·        Independence or let the pupils decide. Who but the teacher may know better what to teach? This is how I always thought. We as teachers often make a decision for pupils or are imposed from above what to teach how many hours to devote to it. Finnish teachers have a little bit more freedom in it and have such a privilege as sharing the responsibility for content with their pupils. But a good idea would be to ask pupils what they already know on the topic we want to teach or even ask a simple question what they would like to find out?

If you are interested in more facts about schools in Finland I strongly recommend to read the book by Timothy D. Walker  - TEACH LIKE FINLAND. 

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TEACHER AND TECHNOLOGY - 2Ts

One can surely teach without technology and you won't be a worse teacher because of that but why not make the process of studying more appealing for pupils?
Today you will learn about three really great computer applications that you can use at the lesson as well as after the lessons.
The only minus is that you may need computers at the lesson, interractive board or maybe smartphones, but if you have a lesson in the computer class once a week, as I have this year, it may work perfectly.

1. #1 is Quizlet. This program is mainly for vocabulary, but you can use sentences as well. It contains several categories at which you can train vocabulary:

• learning the words
• flashcards
• writing skills
• test
• matching
• game - gravitation

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WORD CLOUD ACTIVITIES

A Word Cloud (rus. облако слов) is another technology as well as QR codes that help to make your lesson friendly for the brains of your students. Word Cloud is a way to visualise the data in the form of words. Long lists of english vocabulary do not have to be dull any more. Quite the opposite, words have different sizes, shapes and look more attractive for dyslectic children.

How can you make a word cloud yourself. In the Internet there is a special program for doing it. All you need is to find this program and type in your words. I use 'Free online Wordcloud generator'. It's very easy to use. You have to choose the theme, shape, mask and type in the words. Save it on your computer as a jpg file.

But how can we use it at our lessons? I can suggest several ways.

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CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT. YOUNGER LEARNERS

 

 There are special tricks a teacher can introduce at the lesson, that may help for some time. BUT it's not the remedy and sooner or later they won't work too. In this case it would be a good idea to ask or help a more experienced colleague-teacher at your school.
Anyway, these tricks may help you for the start and can make your lessons more attractive for your younger pupils.

Here we go....

1. Bouncyballs. 
It's a program in the internet that you can use to controll the limit of noise at the lesson. You will need a computer with internet connection and a microphone. The balls that you see in the picture start bouncing when the noise is increasing. So, the louder are the students, the quicker the balls are bouncing. You can change the theme from plastic ball that you can see in the picture to smilies, bubbles or eyeballs. It can work as a reminder for the pupils that it becomes noisy and they have to calm down.

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 Chatting with Google Docs at the lesson.

To use it at the lesson your students will need computers, access to the Internet, an account in google and a shared access to the document.
The idea is that students exchange their ideas, give comments on the abstract of text that the teacher reads to them.
So, it looks like that: the teacher reads some chapter from a story, students listen, then after the teacher has finished reading, they write and send their comments on what they have heard. The interesting thing in this is that everyone sees what the rest of the class think as google docs has such a function as sharing the document with others and edit it simultaneously.
Then the teacher reads, students listen and again write what they think. My students were writing the comment 3 times, that's quite enough.
The curious thing about it is that every next comment they write is longer and contains deeper thoughts.
"But what if I have no access to computers or Internet at the lesson?" There is a way out:-) I used usual pieces of paper for every comment. At my lesson reading their comments was the most interesting part of the lesson for the students. There was such silence at the lesson, everyone listened. And that was great fun too. So, we trained listening and writing.
 

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QR codes in education.

What is it? It's a Quick Response code or a machine-readable optic label originally invented to store data.
How can they be used at the lesson? It's like a box that contains something but nobody knows what exactly untill they scan it.

This is how it works:


1. You need to code your words/sentences/text/pictures or even video in QR codes. It will look like the one on your right. There are lots of QR code generators for teachers, so it shouldn't be a problem.

2. Your pupils have to install the app with a QR code reader beforehand.

3. For the lesson you make your own dominoes with qr codes or find similar in the Internet.

4. Divide children into groups and make a kind of contest among/between them. The winner is the team that finishes first.

I'm sure your students will remember the lesson, have lot's of fun and what is best, will learn the vocabulary or structures you want them to learn.

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