Students Created Videos – Made Possible by Mini Ipads

This year I am the luckiest teacher in the world. I get to teach at the best school ever – International School of Morocco, with some of the best, most creative, teachers ever. Each time I walk into someone else’s classroom, I get inspired and we just seem to spiral great teaching ideas off of each other. It’s a wonderful place to teach, and since we are all collaborating, it’s a wonderful place for our kids to learn – a teacher’s dream, right? I have tried and tried to convince the other teachers to create blogs of their own to spotlight and share some of their amazing ideas, but everyone is super busy. Instead, they have each agreed to let me spotlight some of their ideas right here on Raki’s Rad Resources. So, each Friday night, I will be posting an ISM Spotlight.

This year, the International School of Morocco invested in 6 mini iPads.  We have 3 mini iPads upstairs split amongst Year 3 – Year 6 and 3 mini iPads downstairs split amongst Year 1 & Year 2.  Additionally, each classroom, including the nursery and reception classes have full size iPads.  We use the iPads (full size and mini) for a large variety of activities, but one of the best ways is to have students create videos.

When students create videos, they work on all of the same skills that you use in writing – brainstorming, creating (drafting), revising, editing, publishing, knowing your audience, focusing your topic, including enough information, etc.  However, with video creation, you also talk about things like animation, backgrounds, fonts, formats, embedding, and how long your audience will stay around to watch.

Videos can be used to talk about all of the genres of writing: re-telling common stories, sharing information (or teaching others), persuading others to do something, telling original stories or even reciting poetry or songs.  Here are some examples of videos that have been made by ISM students.

These three videos were created by Year 1 and Year 2 students, re-telling the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff.  They were created using the Puppet Pals app.

 

These three videos were created by Year 3 – Year 6 students, to teach other students about math topics.  They were created using the Explain Everything app.

 

 

 

I use this planning sheet and rubric when my kids are working on their math videos.  Stop by next week for more information for what is going on at the International School of Morocco, or click on the banner below to find old ISM Spotlight Posts.

 

TESOL Teaching Tip #49 - ESL Students Need Real Life Experiences to Learn Vocabulary

As a teacher at an International School, many of my students are English Language Learners. Even my native English speakers are living in a non-English speaking country. Due to my unique teaching position, I have had some readers ask for tips on teaching English Language Learners. Here is this week’s Tuesday TESOL Teaching Tip:

 

ELL Teaching Tip of the Week: Use Regalia and Videos
I have had lots of teachers tell me that their English Language Learners don’t “get” the vocabulary they teach.  The first thing I ask them is “How many senses have your students used to understand their words?”  This generally gets me a puzzled stare as often teachers only “explain” the meaning of a word, meaning that students have used their sense of hearing only.  Additionally, they have heard probably 10 – 12 words, or which they truly understand 5 or 6.  This does not lead to good understanding of a vocabulary word.
Let’s use the example of the word wrench.  A student who doesn’t speak English well doesn’t know what a wrench is.  So you explain to them. “It’s a metal tool used to tighten nuts and bolts when you are building or fixing things.”  The underlined words indicate the words they probably DON’T understand if they don’t understand the word wrench.
Hmmmm…… So what is a more effective way of teaching students what a wrench is.  In all of my ESL Vocabulary Packets, I include a suggested daily routine for teaching vocabulary.  On Monday, it includes introducing students to the words with as many REAL WORLD examples as possible.  So, when we are working on the Tools Vocabulary Packet – Monday is the day to bring the toolbox to school and pull out the real wrench.  Don’t have a real wrench?  What about a video showing how a wrench works?

  Using either of these two methods, students have now touched, seen, heard about and maybe smelled a wrench.  Additionally, they have hopefully connected the word wrench to the corresponding word in their home language and noted it down on their vocabulary sheet for further reference.  The possibility that they will remember this word has gone up exponentially.
While it is more prep work to ensure our ESL students have these real world examples, you will find that the more real life examples they have, the more understanding increases, allowing them to connect what they know with knew knowledge and increasing the spiral of learning.



Do you enjoy the weekly TESOL Teaching Tips? Would you like to view an hour long presentation on this topic? I recently presented on Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners at the Everything’s Intermediate Expo. Now you can grab the presentation for just $3.95 from Teacher’s Notebook.


Find more TESOL Teaching Tips here, and come back every Tuesday for a new tip!