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As preposições ON e IN em Inglês

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As preposições sao um tema importante pra muita gente, muita gente tem uma confusao seria com as preposições em ingles  particularmente  ON e IN.

ON ou IN em ingles é a palavra EM em portuguese por isso é confuso!

 

tem uns conceitos chaves das preoposicaoes que eu gostaria de compartilhar com voces,

o conceito de IN é um espaco fechado.

box-for-in

A chave da palavra ON é a idea de uma superficie

picture1

uma superficie pode ser uma tela de uma telvisao por exemplo

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ou o chao por exemplo

 

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mas o que é muito importante é aprender os oppostos de ON e INscreenshot-30

agora nesse quiz voce pode testar o seu conocimento das preposicaoes !

divertamse!

 

https://edpuzzle.com/embed/assignments/5823584aab1f901c3f35e48c/watch

 

 

 

 

 

 

fun with projectors ! board races for grammar!

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The first time I did the board race idea it was a lot of fun!

I used a board race to make the students do a relay race to practice comparatives a superlatives, the only problem was having to write the comparatives up on the board myself. I took ages and my handwriting leaves something to be desired!

 

I fixed this problem with a power point!

it looks like this

Screenshot (78)

There are three slides like this, both can be used to practice comparatives or superlatives

 

here are the students in action!

 

 

 

 

here is the power point to download.

 

comparatives and superlatives board race

it could be easily edited to practice past simple, past participles or potentially relative clauses!

 

let me know how you guys get on with it!

 

 

Fun with projectors: all guns blazing! grammar with shooting practise!

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 Fun with projectors- practicing grammar with toy guns

As I said to the students… I just couldn’t resist!

A lot can be done with a projectors that is not just showing students videos!

An idea I had recently was a shooting competition between the students with small plastic toy guns for children.

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The premise was simple,the students had to complete flashcards with a wide range of questions such as a small grammar, vocab, error correction  exercise or general knowledge web quest in groups.

A different member of each group presented the flashcard for correction in order to gain an opportunity to shoot at a projector screen with a target.

Screenshot (37) Screenshot (38)

 

Here is the power point presentation I prepared for the event!

shooting target faces

the prize…? Well Chocolate of course!!!

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s U.K. Asda Supermarket Store Operations

 

the winning team said victory never tasted so sweet!

 

How it went down on the day with two groups..

 

The students had a chance to shoot at the board using either a bow and arrow or a small pistol, almost everybody preferred the pistol funnily enough!

Aloisio the killer….

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The students really got into this activity and I have never seen people complete grammar exercises so quickly in my life! It was so fun and interactive although I had to concentrate very clearly on where the bullet hit to mark the scores  that I was incredibly vulnerable to a clear point blank shot in the face!

My original idea was to get the students to shoot two at a time with a power point set up with 2 targets , but it proved impossible to do alone!

I had to supervise where the shot landed and then imediately turn my attention to the next student who wanted me to correct their flashcard

 

 

Reflections and improvements for the next time

I think on reflection the best way would be to introduce a round by round system whereby the teacher can simply correct the groups sheets at one time, the results would determine how many shots the group can take in that round. This way the teacher can focus exclusively on correcting the flashcards and then focus on watching the students shoot at the target.

Essentially instead of using small cut up cards, hand out one  worksheet per  which the students can complete round by round instead of presenting flashcards to me which got very complicated for me as the teacher, as I tried to correct a flashcard, immediately turn my attention to the student who was shooting and then distribute a new flashcard to the next group….tough going I can tell you!

When I did the activity with the first group, they got very competitive and excited which is great but it led to the students arguing with me about where the bullet had hit the target! So with the second group I introduced  a rule that my decision was final!

This activity has the potential to reinforce any grammar point although I particulary liked the movie and general knowledge questions!

Here is the worksheet that I used for flashcards with a wide variety of questions in an editable word document:

flashcard questions

I put on music for special effect with a different variety of songs although some were too slow of a rhythm to generate the kind of high paced atmosphere I was looking for some of the best ones I felt were:

The Terminator theme from the 1984 movie:

Mission impossible theme:

I could have got music that better fit the shooting better war and explosion sound effects

and this war music video would have been ideal!

 

 

 

Teacher toolkit: First steps with video in the classroom.

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Video in the classroom.

There is something magnetic about the video screen when working with students, somehow in this day and age we seem infatuated with the motion screen.

This is one of the reasons why I feel that video based education is one of the best ways to really stimulate and get your student’s interest.

I started using video class based material just to “spice things up” from the usual course materials, especially on a Friday to end the week with something rewarding.

This post is written with the intention to help teachers who would like to take their first steps with using more video in the classroom and to give resources to teachers who use video in the class already.

first things first…… 

Wifi is not your friend!

Murphy’s law: whatever can go wrong will go wrong!

No matter how good your  wifi connection is, as teachers we should be prepared for the wifi to fail at any second and in response to this we  should always have a copy of the video you intend to show  downloaded and saved on a USB stick or your own device beforehand.

There is nothing worse than having a class ready to go and you are watching your video desperately trying to download and buffer so your class can watch it!

The easiest way to do this is to type ss into the youtube url just after the http://www.ssyoutube.com

For example

Here is a video url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pco91kroVgQ

If you want to download it type ss into the url like so:

https://www.ssyoutube.com/watch?v=pco91kroVgQ

image how to download youtube videos for the classroom

this will take you to a page to download the video.

download page

The page is a little glitchy at times so click refresh a few times if needs be.

The page will also sometimes prevent downloads on copyright grounds and generally it won’t download a video longer than 30 to 40 mins but it is a really quick easy way to get your video onto a usb stick or your own device!

Resources for videos online for teachers

viral elt

http://viralelt.wordpress.com/is an excellent website which uses a viral video to stimulate a discussion which has proved really successful for me in the classroom.

Many video worksheets  prepared for the classroom can be quite sophisticated in that they have a lead in, gist task, closed task and production stages built into the lesson. It can be time consuming (and extremely rewarding !!) to create a  video lesson, you can easily spend up to 2 hours preparing a class. However it doesn’t have to be this way!

At a recent teacher training session at the school where I work, we created some short quick discussion activities based on a video from youtube as a group of teachers.

Here are some examples of classes teachers could create in 5 minutes flat.

Here are two examples.

 Food with Maddie Hiller with special contribution by Maire Wyer

1. Talk about some food from your country that is normal for you, but seems weird for others.
2. What’s the most unusual thing you’ve ever eaten?
3. Have you ever tried any strange Irish food, like black pudding?
4. Is there anything you saw in this video that you wouldn’t try?
5. In pairs, research on your phones the most peculiar dishes around the world. You and your partner will describe/share the weirdest dish you find with the class.

Past modals with Ciaran Mangan

Lead-in Questions: 1. Have you ever had a big argument with a friend or family member? What was it about? Do you wish you had done anything differently?

Follow-up discussion Questions:

2. Why do you think the two guys in the video are fighting? Why did he decide to apologize?

http://viralelt.wordpress.com/ is truly an excellent website but the simplicity of the idea of using a youtube video as a springboard to a discussion activity is genius and has worked for me again and again in the classroom

Simply find a viral video or any video of varying but short enough length and write or find discussion question based on the topic in several minutes flat!

special thanks to the creator of viralelt Ian James, a teacher and teacher-trainer at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona!!!

Here are some blogs and websites that have proved very useful for me in the past.

There are a great many video lessons here that you could print off and prepare in 10 mins flat.

http://freeenglishlessonplans.com/

https://tefltastic.wordpress.com/

www.busyteacher.org

http://film-english.com/

http://viralelt.wordpress.com/

Projectors in the classroom

A surprising amount of teachers don’t feel confident using a projector in the classroom because they have simply haven’t used them before.

Here are some short tips for happy projecting in the classroom!

It might seem like a simple thing to say, but the first thing you should do is PLUG IN THE PROJECTOR! You can be surprised how often you can make that mistake.

Plug it in, and make sure it’s switched on.

If you have plugged it in and switched it on and you STILL don’t have power, check the trip switch in the room. This is the white looking square device on the wall, you will see different button and press until you see a red light in the dial or keep pressing buttons until you get power!

If you get everything powered up and you still get a blank screen

Go to the projector in the room and look carefully at the cable connected to it and check which colour it is. If you are trying to project and not getting a signal, go back to your computer and make sure the same colour cable is connected to the computer. Sometimes people bring in their own devices or cables can be left disconnected.

And of course ALWAYS turn off your projector as soon as you can!

If you finish up your video and the students have moved onto the discussion stage or exercises, TURN IT OFF! The bulbs inside the projector have a limited life span and are expensive to replace!

 

VLC player in the classroom.

you gotta have the right tool for the job!

largeVLC

VLC media player is the best software that is free to download and use in the classroom.

An essential key to this program is learning to not use the mouse during playback of video or audio and learning some basic keyboard controls that let you save time when using VLC not only with video but with your listening exercises in the classroom.

One problem with video is that it is an authentic source, most of the videos were not made with ELT students in mind so the videos can be too fast for students!

One of the great features of using VLC player is the ability to reduce the speed of playback.

This key [ will reduce the speed by 10 percent increments and ] will increase by 10 percent.

You can find these keys to the right of the letter P on the keyboard as you can see here:

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This is extremely useful when using and audio with groups. We’ve all had the experience of using the course book with a slightly weak group. Reducing the speed by 20 percent can make a huge difference for the students.

The human voice can be reduced to as far as 60 percent if necessary and still remain intelligble

The space bar functions as a pause or play button.

learning to fast forward or move backwards through your video clip is essential and you can lose a lot of time using the mouse, in my humble opinion using the keyboard to do this is much faster!

Hold shift  and press the  left or right direction button to skip back or forward by 3 second increments.

Hold ctrl and press left or right direction button will skip forward and back by 8 seconds.

You have two options with this, you can press the direction button or you can hold it down to search though your video or audio clip even faster.

another excellent feature of VLC player is the ability to take screen shots of your video.

When I’m making a worksheet a nice quick way to get images for the worksheet is to take a screen shot of the video.

Hold Shift + S at the same time to take a screen shot.

In my experience it’s useful to control where the image is saved in order to be able to quickly find it later.

As you have VLC media player open like so:

Screenshot (33)

press ctrl + P at the same time to bring up the preferences section.

we want to find the video section:

Screenshot (34)

if you click on browse you can choose which folder your screenshot

Screenshot (36)

This can save a lot of time digging around for your images!!

I hope this have been of some help to you!

Please comment if you have any new tips!

Terry