Summertime has arrived!

After a long School Year, we have arrive again to the summertime port. It has been a busy year also at our blog with near 25 post along the school year about really interesting class experiences. 

The Editorial Board members are very grateful of all the effort all the teachers did to update this blog regularly. We hope you will take your time in summer to relax and enjoy. 

Here we leave you a link with some special tasks you can do along this time. We hope you will find it useful:

• 7 Ways of Recharge your Passion for Teaching this Summer.  

THANK YOU!!

ENJOY YOUR SUMMER!!

SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER!!

Let´s go on!

The ESL Times starts the new course 2015-16, providing a site to share your works in English (news, art and entertainment, storytelling, school life, opinion). We want to continue helping teachers to show and share both their work and their students'.

You can participe with your students. We are sure they´ll learn and enjoy.

Find more about this project in the infographic below.

Don't be shy and join us! .

https://magic.piktochart.com/output/8734594-theesltimes

Summer holidays

See you next September!

Saint Patrick's Day

Today, we share Saint Patrick's Day celebration from IES Jaime Gil de Biedma in Nava de la Asunción (Segovia). 

Thanks to Inmaculada Cuéllar, the English teacher and Sara García Pardo that tells us in this post. 

Last Tuesday, we celebrated Saint Patrick’s Day during the break time. It is a festivity that takes place on 17th March in Ireland to commemorate the death of Saint Patrick, but each year it is celebrated in more cities around the world.

It took place in the “Salon de Actos” which was decorated with shamrocks, balloons and main symbols of the country as the harp, the Celtic cross and the Claddagh, the pot of gold that appears at the end of the rainbow and the Irish flag.
Moreover, the students of 1st and 2nd course of ESO could send drinks and food. Teachers and students could buy drinks as orange juice, kiwi juice, milk and tea which represent the Irish culture and their colours; and food as biscuits with the colours of Irish flag (green, orange and white), green and orange cupcakes, Guinness cake, Sponge with snakes, chocolate coins and bars.
The students collaborated doing a presentation of the story of Saint Patrick’s Day and of a legend called “the farmer and the leprechaun”. They also gave shamrocks as presents to wish good luck, and we have the opportunity of enjoying with the company of an authentic leprechaun.
It was short but complete break time.


By Sara García Pardo.

Juliet Capulet and Malala Yousafzai

Today we share an excellent English activity from IES Vicente Medina in Archena (Murcia). Inmaculada López, the teacher tells us:

by liverpuliana

Students from 3º ESO B and C have been working on “Romeo and Juliet” for the last two months. We decided we weren’t going to do an exam for this reading because we have come to the conclusion that reading and exam are two enemy words (just like Capulets and Montagues). So how would we evaluate this reading? Easy! Thinking of tasks which could be evaluated by the whole class, not just by the teacher and concentrating mainly on emotions and the role of women in the 16th century and how this role has changed in the last 4 centuries…or hasn’t it?

10th October, 2014 is an important date in the development of our task. Malala Yousafzai is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle for a quality education for everybody. Call it coincidence or whatever but straight away we see a connection between Juliet’s story and Malala’s. Besides, we agree that this brave girl deserves a little homage from us. We start listening to her words on finding out she’s been given the prize:

After listening to her, we decide to record a radio programme in which students have to work in groups and assign roles to interview Malala, asking her a series of questions to see the connection between Shakespeare’s play and her story.

You can access the whole process of the task step by step by clicking here.

I strongly recommend you to listen to these radio programmes. Simply awesome work ;-)

Malala iVoox Channel

On the road again!

Summer is over, so here we are again!!

A new school year begins and most of us will have to get used to new timetables, some will teach new students or even work at a new school , but all of us will face new challenges and look forward to achieving new goals, won’t we?

From the ESL Times we just want to welcome you back and wish you the best of lucks for the present year.

We want to keep managing this space in order to make it easy for you to use it, to share your students’ productions or your teaching ideas or just letting us know any news you think might be of interest. We will do our best to spread the word.

So, please, keep tuned; new sections and new features will appear here soon and, as usual, you –and your students- will be the stars!!

Happy back to school!!

Summer break

We'll come back in September

Saint Patrick's Day

Saint Patrick's Day is a cultural holiday celebrated annually on 17 March in Ireland and many countries around the world. People wear "shamrocks" and "green" clothes or accessories this day.

In CPR Los Castaños (Granada) at pre-school class celebrated it last month. 

Children were learning Saint Patrick's story, drawing pictures about "Leprechauns" and decorating the classroom. Everyone wore some green.

Here you can see some photos about this day. I hope you like it!

More information in Alpujarring Blog

Our project in Educación 3.0

In Educación 3.0 magazine number 14 (spring 2014) have been published a report about The ESL Times. 

Here in two pages, they talk about the beginning of our project explaining the collaborative idea for working, the newspapers sections and the reporters. 

Also, our presence on the web: Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest, ...

Especially thanks to Javier Palazón (@JavierPalazon) and Susana Velasco (@susanavel3_0) for this publication.

Don´t forget, You can participate in The ESL Times!

Email: magazine.esl@gmail.com

About Platero and I - El Greco

A team of three of my students at URJC are working on the #quenipintado e-Project at the Master's Degree they are doing until the end of April, in order to commemorate these two special dates to be celebrated in Spain in 2014.
In order to show all their e-proposals they have designed a nice Wix: Enjoy Learning: Art and Music.

As part of their e-project activities, they are connecting with Primary CLIL students nationwide through online questions, quizzes and so forth.

The first set of questions consists of an animated avatar that asks two very simple questions that any Primary CLIL can answer, with the aim of gathering information about kids' prior knowledge regarding El Greco and Platero. Just click on the image below and meet the avatar:

The first bunch of students to come forward and answer the first set come from Capileira, Granada. They have compiled a whole Pinterest board with their animated answers, also in the format of avatars.

Don't miss the chance to follow them and listen to their wonderful answers!

Thanks ever so much, @capileiratic, for your students' contribution to this e-project, and your hard work! Congrats, it's awesome, we really appreaciate it!

Open Voices now at YouTube and SoundCloud

Some days ago we introduced Open Voices in this very blog, a new e-project by a team of future CLIL Primary teachers at URJC.

Today, we are glad to present some evolutions in this e-project, as they have been working hard for the last days to be able to launch their e-project trailer as well as their podcasting channel, where they can already be depicted as talented brave reporters.




Don't miss their upcoming activities!

You can follow their blog and also their Twitter account, @openvoices_

Open Voices

At URJC, the students at the Master's Degree for the use of ICT and Digital Resources for Primary Bilingual Education, are approaching PBL for the first time. As explained in a former post in this same blog, they have been proposed some Challenge Based Starters to accomplish various e-projects.
They have three months to come up with a fine digital interactive web room where they can show some evidence of their learning and achievements to be shared with other worldwide peers.

One of those teams have decided to rise to the challenge of turning Primary kids into brave reporters, and now, after almost a month and a half searching for CC material and resources, compiling useful webmixes and diving into digital literacy and citizenship, they have opened up their e-project blog, where they will be adding interactive tasks, assignments and activities that may help Primary bilingual students become critical journalists.

Their e-project is called Open Voices and was launched onto the blogging planet on 10 March 2014, so it is scarcely two days old now, but a promising showcase of what a digital journal might become.

Good luck to @joserro_ge and the rest of the team. Stay tuned for their next episodes!

Certamen Escribana

Prevention of Drug Addiction Video Production Awards.

IES Villaviciosa. Córdoba

A great opportunity to gather and create material to be used as educational resources for drug prevention.

Don't miss it!

The 2014 edition is open and looking forward to receiving all your productions.

Good luck!

Is Health Care a Human Right?

This week's Do Now asks students if they think that health care is a basic human right and if all people should, regardless of wealth, have access to quality health care.  This issue is back in the news since open enrollment in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace, popularly known as Obamacare, begins October 1, meaning that people will soon be able to sign up for government-subsidized health insurance programs. The House GOP has also launched a shutdown battle by voting to defund Obamacare.

Here's the link to the Do Now:

http://blogs.kqed.org/education/2013/09/20/is-health-care-a-human-right/


whitehouse.gov

To respond to the Do Now, you can comment below or tweet your response. Be sure to begin your tweet with @KQEDEdspace and end it with #DoNowACA

How to use dinamic views in this blog

A few days ago, we've added a very simple element to this Blog that it allows us enjoy new possibilities of viewing the content. 

Thanks to Blogger, you can choose between some different and interesting views. Just have to try.

1º Clic on the word "Views" under the header.

2º Look at the menu on the left. Clic on the short arrow and select.

3º You've got seven possibilities to test, seven different styles.

Classic

Flipcard

Magazine

Mosaic

Sidebar

Snapshot

Timeslide

I hope you like it.
Please, tell us with a comment which is your favourite view.

Do Now

Do Now is a weekly activity for students to respond to current issues through the use KQED's award-winning online media resources and social media tools like Twitter.

Do Now orientation

Below are some materials for you to look at at your leisure. The orientation is asynchronous, which means that you can view them at any time between now and Sept. 13.
To show that you have completed looking at the materials, I require that you fill out an action plan. This plan will help you think through Do Now implementation with your students. It's a Google form that you will fill out and the link is at the end of this email.

So here are the materials for the orientation. They consist of videos for viewing and then the action plan that you must fill out. The entire orientation should not take more than 2 hours to complete. For each part, click on the title of the section to access the video.


Part 1: Set the stage: How Do Now looks in the classroom. This video profiles how a class at Burton High School in San Francisco implemented KQED Do Now. We hear from the Social Studies teacher and her students about the project and its impact.


Part 2: The Value of Do Now: KQED Do Now overview. This video is a basic overview of KQED Do Now, outlining what Do Now is and explains how it adds value to learning.


Part 3: Twitter Basics

This section contains 4 short videos (well, the Twitter 101 is a little longer) that provide a basic understanding of Twitter, its interface, functionality, how to download it and use it, and how to use if for Do Now. These videos may be useful to share with your students as well. The links to the videos and the guide are here:
1. Twitter 101 – An Overview of Twitter's Interface and Functionality

2. How to Set up a Twitter Account on your Computer

3. How to Download the Twitter App and Set Up an Account on a Mobile Device

4. How to Access Do Now on Twitter and Tweet to Join the Conversation

Part 4: Preparing to Implement Do Now with your Class

This video explores all of the variables and challenges of implementing Do Now in the classroom, and will help you plan for success. We also published a Guide to Using Twitter for Your Teaching Practice that can be useful for thinking about how to introduce it to your class in an educational context. You can access the Twitter Guide here<http://education.kqed.org/edspace/how-to-use-twitter-in-your-teaching-practice/&gt;.

Part 5: Try This Week's Do Now for Practice
Go ahead and try doing this week's Do Now, which looks at the pay for fast-food workers. We are asking students whether they would pay more for fast food if the money would go to increasing workers' pay. Here's the link to this week's Do Now:

http://blogs.kqed.org/education/2013/09/06/making-fast-food-for-little-pay/

Or you can go ahead and create/open your Twitter account, follow @KQEDedspace and then find our latest Do Now tweet.
You can retweet something meaningful that you find on Twitter, tweet an interesting article that you feel addresses the issue, tweet an opinion, or reply to someone who already tweeted for this Do Now. Remember to use @KQEDedspace and #DoNowFastfood in your tweet.
The last part of the orientation asks you to fill out the action plan which is a link to a Google form where we ask a series of questions that will help you come up with a strategy to implement Do Now. You should copy and paste your responses so that you have a record of them. Again, the action plan is due on Sept. 13 so that you are ready to begin Do Now with your students the week of Sept. 16.

Back to school icebreakers

Ready to get back to lessons? Looking forward to meeting your new students and start breaking the ice?

Here you are four icebreakers for those first lessons when you are all willing to get to know one another better.

Hope you enjoy them!

New School Year Greetings

We all know that after summer breaks, the first thing back in class is to introduce ourselves and tell everybody about our vacation, but, why not doing it through a voice mail? That will give everybody time to settle down a little bit.

Speakpipe allows you to record, receive, download, answer, and listen to your students' new school year greetings. Just embed it on your blog and let those shy new students leave their voice messages. Besides, you will be able to start assessing their speaking skills.

New School Year Resolutions

Build a Padlet wall and get your students to put their wishes and expectations for the new school year on it. It is a quick, easy and collaborative tool that you can always keep on filling along the year and then use it at the end of terms to check out if their resolutions are on the right track.

What would your students like to know about you?

As a teacher, prepare a timeline of your life in advance. Then, get students to ask you questions so they try to guess your birth date, what months are special for you and why, which years you may regard as turning points, and so on. Then, let them see your timeline to check if they were right. Finally, you can ask them to create and share their own timelines. Timerine makes this task quite easy and entertaining.

Self-portraits

Ask your students to plan a paragraph about themselves, their self-portrait, and share their writings through an online drive. Revise and assess the drafts together. When they have a final piece to hand in, get them to read them aloud as a rehearsal, and then record their self-portraits. 

You may choose either to create an audio or a video gallery with all the outputs and disseminate them all over your favourite video channel or sound community.

If they are brave enough, you could even challenge them to video or audio stream their self-portraits.

Photo from ELTpics

Summer Break

Our project in Novadors 13

Last Friday 5th July we were in Castellón (Valencia) at Novadors 2013 meeting. There, some members of the group (Diego, Anna and Manuel) were introducing The ESL Times project. 

We wanted everyone to participate, so we proposed as the final activity, they had to write "in English" their opinion or a message. Here you can see the video we recorded.

A good experience. 

Thanks everyone! Thanks Novadors!

I hope you like it!

ThingLink in the classroom

ThingLink is a simple piece of code that users can install on their website or blog. This code allows teachers or students to designate parts of sites or pages (pictures, etc.) that will produce a pop-up with a description and or a link to something else on the web. 

This is a great way to make static images interactive as well and using ThingLink will also allow users to track analytics of the images and links that they have shared.