Posts

Nearpod: Keep your Resources Near

By
Image
Image credit: Nearpod Once upon a time, teachers used to have loads of papers with resources for their classes. When they felt busy, they asked their colleagues in their schools for new activities. Their boards were always full of ideas from their school's library...... I think most of you either took part in this story or saw it in reality. I can assume that you are able to complete it with what happened after the spread of mobile learning , am I right?! 😄 As you know, mobile learning or as it's known by m-learning is a learning process across electronic devices especially the mobile ones, such as laptops and the mobile phones. This turning point, in the educational process and in ELT in particular, changes the face of learning. Now, teachers can use e-boards, have e-resources and provide students with code to join an online class through different platforms such as Nearpod . So, if you would like to be updated with new techniques of teaching and preparing for your class an
1 comment
Read more

PlayPosit: Posit your Blended Learning Experience on Interactive videos

By
Image
  Image credit:https://techilive.in/ With the onset of 2020 and the advent of the pandemic, e-learning has become a way-out mode of learning that replaces the face-to-face standard for nearly 2 years all over the world. Yet, the procedures started to be updated in educational institutions due to the controlled situation of the virus. This encourages the idea of blended learning to take place in many schools and universities as a step that combines both the face-to-face and the online options for achieving better learning outcomes. But, the story hasn't ended here, it actually starts 😃😂. Not all teachers find it easy to deal with blended learning either because they can't choose the right approach for the two different modes of delivery with the same group of students or as they are not able to link between the material used and the allocated tasks in both cases. I reached to this conclusion after I have been through some discussions with many teachers who said: Teacher A : &q
2 comments
Read more

From YouGlish to Fluency

By
Image
  Image credit: YouGlish Most of ESL teachers make use of YouTube as a source of free videos that help their students improve their listening and their pronunciation especially in their online classes. However, not all teachers have heard about YouGlish .  And a few of them know how to use it not only to enhance listening and pronunciation; but to boost their students' fluency as well. This post will open a door to  YouGlish , showing its benefits and possible limitations. What's more, I will show you a  a sample lesson plan, using  YouGlish   to help promote your students' fluency.   Ready to go?! 🤩🧐 YouGlish 's benefits : 1- Discovering the world of  YouGlish   with my peers, we got really impressed with this free source of videos with its simple layout and its rich content . 2- The very first option that attracted my attention was the number of English varieties the website provides, i.e. British, American, Australian, Canadian, Irish, Scottish and New Zealand. T
2 comments
Read more

Neophobia & Technophobia: A War against Fears Using VoiceThread

By
Image
Image credit: appsonwindows.com We all face some students who suffer neophobia (the fear of trying new things) and technophobia (the fear of technology). Believe it or not some teachers do have the same fears, i.e. I used to be one of them 😃😉😂. In the last post, we explore the role some platforms play to improve collaborative learning in online writing classes, but what about speaking?! Let's remember the old days before COVID-19. You were in your classroom and about to start a speaking activity....How many things do you miss from this scene in your online class?  Oh! Do you have many things to mention?! I think you will have a list like this 👇: Visibility : we can't see our students and students can't see each other and this affects their pair and group work in speaking activities. Also, some shy students do not prefer using the camera. Sometimes, we are not prepared with clear set of instructions for the online speaking activities. Timing : speaking activities take l
2 comments
Read more