Hello!

I intend to write about Kid’s English zone. There are certainly many of you who already know about it, but I think it's worth a post anyway. Kid’s English zone is 26 television programs that contain brief scenes of everyday life for children and contain cartoon characters and skits.

It is BBC who produced the programs, which are for children between 6-9 years. Themes that appear in the programs are close to the student and therefore easier to grasp. For example can the programs focus on the body and food. The children also face common phrases, colors, and more.
I have noticed that the students like to sing along and do the movements that are present in the programs. There is a teacher's guide, and to each program there is information on what will be discussed and tips on activities that can be done in the classroom after the program.

At this level the introducing to English should give a pleasure and a positive feeling for the language. Which I think Kid’s English zone conveys. Of course this is a supplement to other learning, but a quite good one, I think.
A disadvantage may be that some songs are a little difficult for children in this age, who just start to learn English. I have not experienced any major problems with it, and I have noticed that students have had a positive attitude and made good attempt to sing along.
Thank you for reading.

/Helena

http://sli.se/apps/sli/prodinfo.php?article=U11191-01&db=49

There is a website called eslgamesplus.com. On this website, you can find all sorts of games and activities to use in your classroom. You do not have to sign in to use it, it is available for everyone and it is for free. However, if you want to have access to video lessons, you will have to pay an amount of money every month. There are a number of different games and activities to choose from. The games and activities often come with different levels so they can fit many kinds of pupils. The website is available from a computer, but also on mobile devices such as ipads and smartphones without even needing to install an app first.   

If you click on the link Topics, you can see all the activities that are linked to a chosen topic on the website. For example, if a teacher wants his/her pupils to practice different verb tenses, they can play a Jeopardy Quiz game. This game, and a lot of other games under a link called Classroom Games, is a good game for classroom teaching. The classroom games can also be played in pairs or in smaller groups.

There are a lot of different memory games as well. When your pupils play a memory game, they will also hear how a word is pronounced. On one card there is an image and on the other card the same word is written. When you click on the card, you hear how the word is pronounced. When your pupils play the memory games, they will practice listening, reading, spelling and word recognition.

You can also find crosswords and word search puzzles practicing different themes such as food, animals, clothes, jobs, weather et cetera. The crosswords and other worksheets are all printable.

You can find the website here: http://www.eslgamesplus.com/

If you need help with something on this website, there is a link called Help in the right corner of the screen.

This website has been very useful to me because it has games and activities suitable for pupils in all ages, no matter in which level they are in their English knowledge. There are games and activities for everyone!  

Use Adobe Spark Video as language teaching tool

At the beginning of November I was attending the SETT-Syd in Malmö, which is a big conference about how to use ICT in teaching at modern schools. I notice that the difference between this SETT and the SETT in Stockholm four years ago is that the topic of ICT-teaching in the school/preschool is not longer questioned. Instead, now we are talking about how to use ICT in school and make progress with the help of it..

It is quite often we see ICT in classrooms and more and more teachers are getting used to this. I have been working with ICT in teaching for many years and have used lots of apps. One of my favourites is Adobe Spark Video and that is what I have to tell you guys about. This is the one you should try out. 

How does Adobe Spark Video work?

First you go to the app store and find Adobe Spark Video, then download it. You can log in from your facebook or Google account (create one if you don't have an account) and use it for free.  With the app Spark Video you can make your story in just a few minutes.

When you get your pictures done you can just go to Spark Video, chose one of the themes such as schoolbook, travel, film and get started. 

In every page you can put pictures and text.  You can even record sound directly at the same page. Compared with the iMovies direct recording the sound quality in Spark Video is much better. Besides, you can create as many pages as you like. You can choose either with music or without music. There are lots of different music to choose from if you don't want to choose your own. I prefer to have music.

Before you upload your project, to Youtube for example, you can preview it and see if everything is ok. Than share it with friends, colleagues on Youtube, Google Drive or Dropbox. I would like to share one of my presentations which I made by Spark Video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8CvgLp7Q8g

One thing I have to mention is that Spark Video is based on internet, which means you can access it with any computer, phone or pad as long as you can log in from your facebook or Google account. A good point in using Spark Video is that it is very effective and you can have your project done in two to five minute. Adobe Spark Video is not an app that just aids in language learning. You can use it very broadly.

Why use Adobe Spark Video?

As a teaching resource teachers can use it for their planning. According our syllabus and curriculum (Skolverket, 2011) teachers should plan their lessons according to what pupils react to, which is called “formative teaching”. Spark Video is a good combination with pupil´s feedback and teacher´s planning. You can make a new planning in a few minutes.

One of the processes of formative teaching is feedback from teacher to pupils. Teachers can use Spark Video to make records of when you question your pupils and give feedback.  

Spark Adobe can also used as a good teaching resource for pupils. A good example I can give is once when I worked “reading and understanding” in Swedish with the year 4 pupils and we made a drama and theater “Monsterfest”.  One of the pupils was very shy and could not talk fluently in front of an audience. She agreed to make a record with Spark Video. This took much longer time, but in the end the pupil was very satisfied with her effort and the whole team-work. Though this was Swedish teaching, what I mean is that you always can use this idea in the teaching of other languages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4DEQog1v4U

Like every other technology resource Adobe Spark Video needs developing to fit our requirements. As an example it can still not add video into the project, which I feel is a pity. I believe there will be more people using this app when it gets improved. 

I´d like to take a moment of your time to talk about an app called Book Creator from Red Jumper Limited.

Since many schools have Ipads for ther pupils this is an easy app to make your own presentations or books. It allows pictures, sounds, Youtube clips and films in the books you make. Young pupils can write with their fingers or draw pictures. You can even make comics with it.

You can download the free version or use the full version for schools. There are no in-app purchases and it´s being used in over 90 countries. For support they have a website www.bookcreator.com  with webinars and twitterchats if you want to learn more.

I´ve used it with pupils in special needs classes and they have been able to make their own books within their first try. Since it is easy to administer it soon becomes the pupils favorite way to make diaries and communication books to take home.

When you first get started there is a short tutorial in the app that shows you how to get started.
You make your book and then save it in  iBooks on your iPad. Once in iBook you cant make changes by mistake. You can email or print out the book or just have it on your iBook.

The only limit is your imagination.

SVAAPP - Listening to books in different languages, answer questions and voice record answers!

The SVAAPP is designed for teachers and students to use in the classroom! You can't even login if you don't register a school user. It doesn't matter much right now since I've seen the tutorial online on how to use this app in practicality. Below is the link and I hope it'll work for everyone to watch!

So, I searched online and have tried very many language apps on my smartphone. I think it's very difficult to find a good language app that has a good variety, different levels and interesting material for the little older language learner than the very beginner and with a focus on meaning and communication. I might be a little picky but I think quality is important!

My goal was focused on grades 4-6 and I think this app is very interesting and would target that range well. The students can hear English books being read, they get questions read out loud to them and can also voice record their answers. It seems like a good quality app, especially designed for education. Teachers have the ability here to send out different tasks to different students and if you want them to get different reading material with different levels and even in different languages, it seems easy to do that. This app could also be used in parallell subjects as well!

I don't think it costs anything, it says it's free to download, but then you never know if it's a free trial or if some of the features costs. In any case, I think it's better to pay for an app you would have great use for and I would pay to use this one. Not to say free apps aren't good, there are many good ones out there too and in the end, it's the students that are going to use them and needs to like to do it, so I think being open to their input and ideas is important too!

SVAAPP was spot on for what I as a teacher was looking to use it for. It gives a great overview of all students' tasks, what books they have completed, what books they are working on and what they have recorded! Watch the link and tell me what you think!

Thanks for reading ;)

/Patricia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LYkv8QYplo

Use the app "Fun English" in your classroom

Hi colleagues out there!

In this blog post I want to share information about an app you can work with in your classroom. It is called “FUN English”, by Studycat, (you can download it from app store) and it is made for teachers who teach english as a foreign language, and it is suitable for children from age 3 up to 10. There is a free version to download in appstore with lots of material to use. It is also possible to pay for more material and lessons inside the app - if you want.

The good thing about this app - and that is why I think you are going to like it - is that it is developed for and by teachers. Every day approximately 4.500.000 pupils around the world use it. Now then, how can you use this app in your classroom and why should you?

“Fun English” provides lessons with different themes, for example colours, and there are games within every theme to help pupils acquire new skills. The lessons aim to teach vocabulary, listening, speaking, singing, spelling and grammatics in a fun way. For example if you want your students to practise colours you can use this app in various situations. You can let the whole class take part in playing a game on your smartboard or in pairs on an ipad. You can play memory with colours and every time a student turns around a brick the app says the name of the colour. There are many songs you can sing in the class. In some exercises pupils get to hear and see the colour at the same time as it engages them in a game. Another thing you can do with this app is to record your own voice inside games. That is very clever if you ask me. The pupil first hear a voice that says the name of the colour on different things in the picture. The voice says “it is red” and then it is time for the student to copy this phrase which get recorded in the game. Later in the game the pupil hears its own recorded voice again and shall choose the right picture as belongs to the phrase. I think this is genius because it lets pupils train their producing skills with no risk of feeling anxious about talking in front of others. The student can take an ipad to a private space and play this game and then I (the teacher) can hear the recordings. You can also do it in front of the whole class and record when the class repeat words in chorus.

In summary this is an app you can use as a complement to the ordinary teaching. I don´t mean that it can replace your english book, but it can be fun and rewarding to try out. The best thing about it is that the pupils get to speak, which are a rare activity in most lessons. The pupil can hear their own recordings in the game and play recordings to the teacher and classmates. If you like to involve the parents it also has a user guide just for parents and most games and lessons in the app are free. At last I just want to say - thank you for reading and keep inspire those young stars.     

Elevspel.se/Helpfulgames.com

I would like to tell you about a website you may already be familiar with. It is called Elevspel.se or its English equivalent Helpfulgames.com. This is a website that can both be used by teachers, parents and students. It has games in different subjects suited for students from preschool to high school age. These games can be played on all types of computers or IPAD. Students can play individually or in pairs, at home or at school. The teacher can also project the game onto a screen so that the entire class can see and play the same game together.

It is free to use this website but if the teacher wants to create his own game, follow-up his students progress on these games or give feedback to a student as well as have the student comment on these feedback, he needs to become a member but this is also free. The teacher can create games which teaches his student to read or write. These games can also be created according to which level his students are in their knowledge of English. The good thing about this website is students, parents and teachers can read what is being trained as well as the age or class it is meant for.

There are different levels to each game which the student can replay or move on to the next level. Each level may or may not have pictures to each question. Each question have two or three alternatives for the student to choose from. If the student gets  the answer right, there is a tick and if he gets it wrong, there is a cross.

The link to the website is: http://www.elevspel.se.
This is the link for member: http://www.elevspel.se/medlem/.


My students and I have used this site a lot. They have practiced time in Matematics, the body parts in Biology or colors in English. I have given my students homework from this site and parents think it is an interesting site. If you have not tried it, I would encourage you to go and take a look.

Below are pictures of what it looks when you go to the website.

Kunskapsspel för barn i skolan

Välkommen till elevspel! Vi har spel som barnen i skolan tycker är roliga samtidigt som de lär ut kunskap. Lärande ska vara kul! Välj kategori nedan för förslag på roliga och pedagogiska spel för skolbarn i grundskolan.

Populära ämnen

Matematik

Engelska

Svenska

Spanska

You click what subject you want to play games in and then you come to many different topics. For example:

Engelska

Det engelska språket omger oss alltmer i vardagen. Spela dessa engelskaspel så att du kan, vågar och vill använda engelska i olika situationer. Här har vi samlat alla spel inom ämnet Engelska. Spelen passar förskolan, grundskolan och ändå upp till gymnasiet. Sortera på hur populär spelen är, hur nya de är eller efter namn.

Sortera på:   PopularitetDatumNamnBetygMålgrupp

animals = djur

Årskurs 2 - Årskurs 2

Spelet tränar:

• djur på engelska

Lär dig olika djur på engelska, både vilda och tama.

3 av 3 nivåer klara

Am / is / are

     (25)

Årskurs 4 - Årskurs 9

Spelet tränar:

• Verbet är - am/are/is

Träna verbet "är" som på engelska heter antingen am, is, eller are.

0 av 2 nivåer klara