Philipps-Universität Marburg Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik

2010/11

Learning and Teaching English with the New Media Developed by Students of the Class “New Media in Foreign Language Education”

Ed. Anna Maria Schäfer

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Foreword ....................................................................................................... 4

Learning Vocabulary ....................................................................................... 5

1. My Vocabulary 6 2. Planet TMX – Improve your English 6 3. Quizlet - A Learning Community 8 4. Yummy! Learning is like eating chocolate! 9 5. Learning Vocabulary with Flashcards – Wherever and whenever you Like! 10 6. Sheppard Software: Learning new Words! 11

Digital Storytelling......................................................................................... 13

1. Be the director! – Write a screenplay and make a movie 14 2. Bring the Book to Life 16 3. A Comic or Video as an Impulse for Writing 17 4. Students Present Self-Made Comic in Class 18 5. A Comic or Video for Presenting Content 19 Conclusion 20

Collaborating Online ..................................................................................... 23

1. Share your Creativity with storybird.com 24 2. Write Collaboratively with Indian Teenagers on Gandhi 26 3. Write Articles, Letters or Essays Collaboratively with mixedink.com 28

Listening Comprehension .............................................................................. 31

1. Podcasts in English 32 2. Select Language ESL PodCards 33 3. Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab 35 4. English Listening Lounge 36 Further Interesting Websites for Listening Comprehension 37 Conclusion 38

Publishing on the Web .................................................................................. 39

1. The Tool www.weebly.com 40 2. The Tool www.figment.com 41 3. www.amazon.com for Book Reviews 43

Using Videos in the Classroom ...................................................................... 47

1. Being a Real Travel Guide! 48 2. Vocabulary Learning with Mr. Eggy’s Exciting Neighbourhood! 49 3. Debate – There is no Right or Wrong! 50 Variation 51

Summary ....................................................................................................... 53

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Foreword This is a compilation of teaching ideas with the new media that have been developed by students of the University of Marburg. All students were participants of the class “New Media in Foreign Language Education” in the winter term 2010/11. For many of them, it was the first time they thought about the use of new media in English language teaching.

The book consists of six chapters, each one deals with another typical situation in foreign language learning and teaching. First of all, vocabulary learning has been chosen as one focus area, because in each language learning context this is a crucial part. The new media offer a lot of tools here, some of which are introduced starting on page 5. A creative way to use the new media in English lessons is digital storytelling. Based on images, comics or video students write their own stories. Examples are given from page 13 onwards. Not farfetched is the idea to use new media for online collaboration in the language classroom. Reading and writing are crucial skills for each language learner and starting on page 23, several ideas how to improve those with the new media are given. From page 31 onwards, ideas for listening comprehension tasks with the new media are explained and discussed. The new media are great for individual listening tasks, for example with podcasts, and many ideas are introduced in this chapter. Following this chapter, ideas for the publication of own content on the web are described from page 39 onwards. Students can use several websites to publish their own stories and other pieces of writing and make them available to a larger audience. The last chapter starts on page 47 and makes suggestions how to use online-videos in the classroom.

The authors of this book are not experienced teachers yet; therefore all teaching ideas need to be tested by teachers for their usability in an actual classroom context. But the students have acquainted themselves very well with the pedagogical backgrounds for the use of the new media and the various possibilities the new media offers for language learning, and we are sure that the ideas in this booklet can be an inspiration for your own lessons.

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Learning Vocabulary By Jana Heiers and Christian Robbers

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1. My Vocabulary

Short Description This website includes puzzles, word lists and tests. In the root-puzzle the students get the roots of different words and the students have to fill in the word. Furthermore, you can find vocabulary lists for a huge variety of topics. When students want to evaluate what they have learned they can do different types of tests. For instance there are cloze texts or puzzles.

Didactical Analysis The students do not get any translations on this website. For example when the students do the puzzles they get a definition of the word which they are supposed to fill in. Against this background they really learn a language and do not just learn vocabulary lists by heart. The word lists on this website are provided for writing. This is a very good method because the students have to use the vocabulary in a context.

The Use of the Website Using this website is very easy for teachers or students. There is even no need to register which means that you can start immediately. Depending on what the teacher wants to do, one should use the different possibilities of this website. If the students are supposed to learn vocabulary they should do puzzles. Afterwards, the class could take some tests online to check how successful they were. If the students are supposed to learn vocabulary by using it in a context like writing exercises, they should use the word lists. The students could use the vocabulary of a list to write a text. In this process they learn these new words.

Hints for the Classroom The exercise mentioned in the third part of this guideline is a good example how we could use this website in the classroom. I would like that my students write a story about a specific topic by using a word list from this website. In the process of writing they will learn all the words from these lists. The puzzles are a nice exercise especially for younger students. It is also good that the students get used to monolingual dictionaries.

Link http://www.myvocabulary.com/

2. Planet TMX – Improve your English

Short Description Planet TMX is a flashcard-based learning website which may help your students to improve their English. There are, for instance, flashcards with pieces of vocabulary on it, but there are also

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flashcards with cloze tests on it where the pupils can fill in the answer by using a checkbox. This tool can be used in order to build up a specific vocabulary which is not included in school books.

Didactical Analysis The fact that the flashcards on this website are so different makes this website interesting for teaching languages. It is possible to teach vocabulary which is not part of the school book to prepare pupils for their future. One could use it to teach English business terms so that pupils are able to write a résumé in English.

The use of the Website If you visit this website for the first time you, should get used to the method which means in this case that you try out already existing flashcards of other users. With this approach, the teacher can figure out how this flashcard system works. In a lesson where Planet-TMX is used for the first time, the teacher should open specific flashcards for the pupils to prepare the topic of the lesson. It is necessary that the teacher makes sure that the pupils get the right flashcards and that they only work with the predefined flashcards. This method will help to improve the needed vocabulary which is essential to teach a new topic. In an expert class one would narrow down a range of subjects and ask the pupils to find matching flashcards by themselves. They should decide on their own whether a flashcard is useful for the lesson or not.

Hints for the Classroom The résumé we mentioned in the second part is a perfect example for using this tool in class. In a very easy way, we can teach vocabulary which is absolutely necessary for writing a résumé. It would be good to do such lessons in the last year in school to prepare the pupils so that they are able to write a résumé in English if they, for example, want to apply for an internship or a job in a foreign country.

Like on every vocabulary website, you can change the difficulty by changing the assortment of the subjects and flashcards. For younger pupils it would make more sense to use flashcards with a vocabulary which is more basic.

The usage for younger students could be a problem because this website is very complex and the vocabulary fits better for advanced learners.

Link http://www.planet-tmx.com/

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3. Quizlet - A Learning Community

Short Description The service “Quizlet” is what we would call a learning community. It is possible to create your own flashcards or to use flashcards which have been created by other users. These flashcards represent various topics and you can use them to study vocabulary and to do tests on the flashcard you used afterwards.

Didactical Analysis The fact that you can use flashcards of other users and these users can also use your flashcards makes it very interesting. The fact that it can be used like a social community makes it very modern in times when “Facebook” and other web communities are used by many students.

You can find flashcards for many different topics and so it is a good method if you want your students to learn specific vocabulary about specific topics.

The Use of the Website If you visit this website for the first time, you should try out flashcards of other users. With this approach, the teacher can look up flashcards for several topics and can get used to the tool. In a lesson, where “Quizlet” is used for the first time, the teacher should choose flashcards for the pupils to guarantee that the lesson will be successful. One could use the computer control software to open the flashcards so that the teacher can be sure that every pupil does what is expected.

In an expert class, you could narrow down a range of subjects and ask the pupils to find matching flashcards by themselves. They should decide on their own whether a flashcard is useful for the lesson or not.

Hints for the Classroom This method is ideally suited for the fifth or sixth grade. It can be used to build up the basic vocabulary for a teaching session. If, for instance, the students are supposed to write a short text about a topic, this website can be used to prepare the students in order to expand their vocabulary. One example could be that you want to do a teaching session on animals. To be more specific, one would limit one session to birds. In this case the students could use a flashcard of “Quizlet” to learn the vocabulary. Afterwards, we could use the new vocabulary to write texts or to do cloze tests.

On this website the only way to make the exercises more challenging is the assortment of the subjects. For younger students, it is better to use basic vocabulary of course, but for older students the subjects should be more specific and also the exercises which are following in class.

This website should be used by older students because the structure is too complicated for younger classes. If the social network features are appropriate remains to be seen.

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Link http://quizlet.com/

4. Yummy! Learning is like eating chocolate!

Short Description Mmmh! By using this tool, pupils can enjoy learning like eating chocolate. It aims at helping pupils reviewing and memorizing vocabulary in an easy and efficient way. Five games are designed to let the pupils further strengthen their memory. The target group of this tool is beginners; pupils learning English in their first years.

Didactical Analysis This tool should be used in class, because the way how pupils learn vocabulary is funny. Therefore, it increases their willingness to learn. With this tool various competences can be trained. It improves their listening comprehension, their spelling and enlarges their vocabulary. Another advantage of the tool is that it is straightforward. Due to the fact that the tool makes use of sounds and pictures, it addresses various types of learners at the same time.

The Use of the Tool First of all, you need to decide which field of words the pupils should be working on. Once you open the website you see all the different topics it provides. If you like the topics to be organized in different sections have a look at Content in the top bar. Eight sections are listed in alphabetical order: animals, basic, body, clothing, food, home, nature and others. You can choose one section and select a topic your pupils should deal with, e.g. in the section body you can find the topics arm, body, eye, head, internal organs, leg, skeleton and tooth. When you have chosen one topic, you can explain your pupils how the tool works. Once they know how to deal with this tool, they can practise on their own.

Working on one topic is divided into six steps:

1. Review: The first step means reviewing the vocabulary this topic includes. It does not matter whether the words have been introduced before or whether they are new to the pupils. Pictures of all the words which should be reviewed are given. In addition, the pupils can use the sound button next to each word to listen to the pronunciation of each word.

2. Match up 1: The pupils now get a list of the words with a sound button next to it. Their task is to click the sound button in the bottom bar to listen to the pronunciation. Then they should drag and drop the sound button to the sound button next to the corresponding word. When they have finished all words the pupils can click on Complete to see their results, which includes mistakes and their score. The score is explained under Help. Every correct answer gains 10

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points. There are five seconds for each answer. If you are one second sooner, you will get one point more. This is the same for all five games.

3. Match up 2: The pupils see pictures of the words the topic deals with. Then they have to drag and drop the words which are listed in the bottom bar to the appropriate box next to each picture.

4. Match up 3: The pupils see pictures again. This time they click the sound button to listen to the pronunciation in the bottom line. Then they drag and drop the sound button to the button at corresponding position.

5. Fill in: Here they get pictures and they have to click the box under every picture and fill in the answer. The pupils can press "Tab" to switch to the next box.

6. Dictation: The pupils have to click the various sound buttons to listen to the pronunciation and then they have to fill in the answers.

Variations Because of the fact that the vocabulary offered by this tool is for beginners and pupils in their first years learning English, variations cannot be presented to make it more challenging for older students.

It can be mentioned that to work on one topic generally does not take longer than ten minutes. Therefore, it is a useful tool in order to introduce a new field of words or to review vocabulary. The pupils can work on it independently, so the tool can always be used when time is left in the lessons.

Hints for the Classroom Pupils should work independently, since every pupil has its own pace of working. If your pupils like competitions, they can pay attention to their scores and in the end you can reward the winner with a chocolate.

Links www.learningchocolate.com

5. Learning Vocabulary with Flashcards – Wherever and whenever you Like!

Short Description This tool makes vocabulary learning easy with the help of flashcards and an online card box. Flashcards can be set up online and can be systematically learned and revised with an online card box. Flashcards are widely used as a learning drill to aid memorization by way of spaced repetition.

Didactical Analysis Learning vocabulary with the help of online flashcards and an online card box is convenient, because the pupils can learn wherever they are and whenever they have time; in school during the lessons or in free periods and at home. The tool enlarges the pupils` vocabulary to a high degree. Another advantage is that the tool might bring the pupils into the habit of learning vocabulary systematically and frequently.

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The use of the Tool Startseite: The homepage offers an introduction for the users and gives an overall explanation how the system of the online card box works. In the top bar you can click on Fächer, Meine Karteikarten and Mein Lernplan.

Fächer: All subjects are listed with all the words that are available. Pupils can choose vocabulary lists introduced by others and add them to their personal Lernplan. Another advantage of the tool is that it can be used for several subjects at the same time.

Meine Karteikarten: Pupils can create their own flashcards here. You have to click on Lektion hinzufügen. Then you can add the title of the unit, the subject and a description of the unit. You can also decide whether or not you want your flashcards to be available for others. Then you can save your unit. When you have set up several units you can decide whether you would like to add new flashcards or whether you would like to learn a unit. If you would like to set up new flashcards you can click on Karteikarte hinzufügen and then you can write a word on a card (Vorderseite) and an answer overleaf (Rückseite) and save it. If you click on Lektion lernen you can learn the words of the units.

Mein Lernplan: Here the pupils can see all the subjects and the units which they have set up for a subject. You can click on one subject and see the units you are working at. You can see the percentage of how much have already learned from this unit. The percentage is explained so that the pupils know how they are supposed to learn the vocabulary.

Hints for the Classroom The most likely problem with this tool is that the pupils do not spend enough time using this tool. To avoid this, the teacher could frequently give the pupils time to practice during the week.

In addition to the card box and flashcards online, the pupils could have a real card box or a vocabulary book, because the teacher can check at a glance what the pupils have done.

Link http://www.karteikarte.com/

6. Sheppard Software: Learning new Words!

Short Description Even though this website contains a lot of activities for kids in primary school, parts of the website are appropriate for advanced pupils, who would like to learn new words. The website offers helpful tips how to learn vocabulary. Furthermore, new words are introduced by flashcards, which provide definitions of these words. Moreover, questions are given asking for the meaning of words.

Didactical Analysis The website provides ten vocabulary learning tips, which are helpful for older pupils. For some pupils these tips might be new, for other pupils especially in the higher grades, they might be a good reminder to pay more attention to learning and revising vocabulary. The flashcards should be used, since they provide a broad range of new words with helpful definitions for pupils who would like to learn advanced vocabulary. In addition, learning new vocabulary in context is an important method

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to enlarge the pupils’ vocabulary. Games, crossword puzzles and Hangman improve orthography and enlarge the vocabulary.

The Use of the Tool The pupils start by reading the vocabulary learning tips. In the course of reading the tips the pupils are encouraged: “Go Play Our Vocabulary Games”. Pupils can review vocabulary and learn new words with flashcards (first box). Moreover, they can learn vocabulary in context (second and third box) and they can also learn medical and computer terminology (fourth and fifth box). For pupils who like games involving letters and words there is a word games section, which consists of crossword puzzles, hangman and word scrambles. This section is more appropriate for younger pupils.

Hints for the Classroom The pupils should be given the link where the vocabulary tips are the start page, because otherwise it is confusing to find the appropriate part. What is also important is that the pupils frequently get time during the lessons to practice, so that they can memorize the new vocabulary easily.

Link http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/vocabulary_tips.htm

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Digital Storytelling By Dominik Baumecker, Jan Renke Samusch and Moritz Zöckler

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Introduction Over the past few years, the topic of storytelling has grown significant importance in the Hessian Curriculum for grammar schools. This starts at grade 5 where the pupils get trained in the competence of creating stories out of pictures from their English book, goes on in the 8th grade, where they have to be able to verbalize alternate endings of a storyline, including a change in the narrator‘s point of view, up until they should finally be able to create a own storyline with creative writing tasks in 12th grade. The competence of storytelling is trained throughout the pupils’ whole school career.

Considering recent studies observing the use of New Media by children between 12 and 191, New Media have become an important part in the life of these young adolescents. It is only natural and legitimate for teachers, teachers in their training phase and future teachers to take a close look at these New Media and take them into consideration when lessons are conceptualized. By using these media, teachers are offered a great possibility to increase motivation, oral participation and thus competence in almost every field of the Hessian Curriculum, not just simply because the students are confronted with New Media in their daily life anyway but because of the fact that the more channels for the reception of information are used, the better for the pupils’ language acquisition or their learning process in general, as Jörg Zumbach showed in his book “Lernen Mit Neuen Medien -Instruktionspsychologische Grundlagen“.2

This chapter of the booklet will focus on internet tools and software, which are suitable for the creation and visualization of stories in the classroom and thereby able to link New Media to the content of the Hessian Curriculum. After presenting and explaining some of the tools briefly, several ideas how these tools can be embedded in an English lesson will be introduced. Even though some ideas might state that you should create a video or a comic, these two are generally exchangeable with each other.

1. Be the director! – Write a screenplay and make a movie The first teaching idea dealing with the field of digital storytelling in the ESL classroom is a creative writing task that eventually results in the production of a video clip. In this exercise, the pupils are first instructed to write a fictional story on a given topic. After this is completed, the pupils are supposed to generate a video corresponding to their original story from the creative writing task. This video will then, in a final step, be presented to the other members of the class.

Variations As a structural support for younger language learners, the teacher could hand out info sheets on which topics for the story and additional background information is given, e.g. places, characters and storyline. This would facilitate the process of the writing task.

For higher level learners these facilitations would not be needed. Instead, the pupils could jumble their written stories and randomly

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redistribute them in class. Eventually, the pupils have to create their video on the basis of someone else’s story which poses a different challenge.

Didactical Aims and Trained Competences One advantage of this approach is that the exercise is highly motivating for students as they can experiment with the online video-making tool and get to create their own version of their written story. Thus, a very individual task is provided which opposes textbook based approaches that limit the learner in his or her creativity. Moreover, the combination of the visual and the verbal channel pose a good frame for language learning involving practicing vocabulary as well as sentence structure. Finally, the exercise could be split up into an in-class and a homework part. The story would be written in class giving the pupils the chance to ask when problems occur, and the actual video creation would be completed at home.

The exercise lays its focus on the improvement of writing skills and spoken language. Both of the skills are trained in the preparation of the story and in the final step, its presentation to the class respectively. On a higher level, the students have to anticipate the requirements of the story so that it makes a well structured video in return. This planning skill is very useful when it comes to adjusting different pieces of work according to one another.

Apart from this, multimedia skills like the creation of a video are trained. This involves the logging in on an unknown website and exploring different functions of the program.

First Time Version For beginner-teachers it is crucial to know how to work with the program he or she chooses for the exercise. For this purpose, the instructor benefits from trying out the exercises himself and even may discover technical weaknesses in the program or things to include in the exercise descriptions. In addition to that it is of advantage to have a number of good materials in store in order to support the pupils if they have difficulties to invent a story.

Expert Version The experienced teacher who is a professional in dealing with online tools and the methodological procedure can have a go and write his own story with the corresponding video himself. This can either be used as an example in the lesson or function as a personal input from the teacher in order to show the pupils his engagement for instance.

Practical Hints This specific design is suitable for grades eight to nine, due to the rather high degree of independence necessary and the need for technical understanding.

Another point of concern is the quality of the stories which represent the basis for the videos and presentations. In order to have a good storyline for the videos, the written stories have to be of a certain quality and structure, with clearly recognizable time lines, characters and a solid plot.

Link A tool for comic strips offering various templates for different strips or single pictures and a vast variety of tools for editing expressions, gestures or looks of the characters and creating props:

www.bitstrips.com

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2. Bring the Book to Life This exercise is similar to the preceding one, differing only in that the pupils are instantly given a written text which subsequently has to be converted into a video as an outcome. For this matter the students are supposed to use one of the online tools described in the corresponding section.

Variations According to the level of English, the text templates can be varied in complexity, which results in a multilayered video respectively. To introduce a new challenge to the advanced learners, the instructor could ask for the inclusion of an internal monologue in the video, which poses further contemplation about the characters and technical know-how realizing it in the video.

Didactical Aims and Trained Competences An advantage to the previous task is the possibility to control the quality of the language used in the template. Thus, the teacher does not run the risk of language mistakes being transferred from the story into the video. Even though it could be argued that the text template limits the creativity of the pupils, there is still space for personal interpretation in the visualization. Finally, this is one of the main advantages of this exercise. The teacher can motivate the pupils to deal with a given, rounded up topic or issue in a fun way.

Since the pupils have to read and comprehend the text template, their reading skills are trained in the course of the task. Furthermore, the learners have to extract and select parts of vital information that should go in their videos. This results in another skill to be trained: scanning a text for important information. After all, the user proficiency of the video tools is crucial and is steadily improved while working with it.

First Time Version Again, it is absolutely mandatory to fully comprehend the tool with all its functions. It is important to carefully choose the topic of the written text in order to guarantee a profound realization in the form of a video. To prevent an upcoming stagnation in the video creation process it is of advantage to have a number of good supporting guidelines or tips concerning the conception of an animated movie at hand.

Expert Version As an expert on the field of video making, you could hand out different chapters of a book and start a project, where a new episode of a series is created every week. The pupils could also design a fan website for the series including feedback for the different episodes, comments, episode summaries and rating tools.

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Link A video-creating tool with extremely colourful characters but a nice time-line based function. The videos, however, often look rather rough:

www.kerpoof.com

3. A Comic or Video as an Impulse for Writing This idea is a rather classic approach and is widely-known as an impulse for creative writing. The teacher creates a single comic picture, a whole strip or a video with the tools mentioned above. The students then have to use that picture to write their own story, which should be presented later on in class. Depending on the grade, the teacher has to explain that the students should not only describe the pictures but also how the characters feel and what their background is and, if you have not included dialogue, what the characters say. This is particularly necessary if it is only a single picture which should only serve as an impulse for a story which can stray completely away in its plot from what the picture depicted in the first place.

Variations It is possible that you ask your students to create a story for the picture and tell it freely while showing the picture in class or ask them to write only bullet points, not a whole story and then tell it to the class on that basis. It can be also used to link writing and learning new vocabulary as you can include new items or expressions in your comic, discuss them in class and students internalize them playfully by writing the story and use them. For that, you have to have the restriction that these words should be included in the text.

Didactical Aims and Trained Competences This idea can be used in every grade but of course you have to adjust your pictures according to the age of the students, younger students have to be able to use the vocabulary according to what they see on the picture. In contrast to the classic picture story out of a book (see introduction) or a worksheet, the teacher has the freedom to adjust it to his aims or topics discussed in class. As students are quite free to write about whatever they want and use their imagination this is a fun and motivating task. However, they should be aware or be introduced through these kind of tasks to consider such aspects as how a plot is built or how speaking and expressing ones feelings can be conveyed through both literary and visual elements. At the centre of this task are writing skills and the students need to have a minimal register to be able to create a story. The variations mentioned above leave room for training to present content freely in class. This sets the writing nature aside and focuses on training to speak freely and to articulate well.

Concrete Example A teacher creates a short three picture strip for his sixth grade about a cat and a dog meeting in the street and fighting over a cake an elderly lady baked. In the end the lady scolds the two. The teacher

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asks the students to write a story based on the pictures and they should also write dialogue, describe the feelings and the surroundings ("It was a hot summer day ...") and so on. These two parts should take about thirty minutes; the last fifteen minutes can be used to present some results. To make it more difficult, dialogues can be included which have to be weaved into the story of the students. This is not recommended for higher grades than 5-8, because it is too simple for older students, for whom a more open form of task, probably only one picture as a single impulse, is more interesting and challenging.

First Time and Expert Version We will not differentiate between these two in this case because the teacher's role is relatively uncomplicated in this task. He has to explain what the students have to do and of course has to know the tools. An important hint for younger teachers might be that it seems nicer if you do your own picture instead of one from the book but to create it takes more time and planning than using the existing one. This should be considered depending on the workload, which often leaves no room for creating new material for your students, even though that would be more useful than the often bleak ones from the book.

Link This video-creating tool leaves more freedom for the creator and the videos look more organic and natural than the Kerpoof ones but it takes a lot of time to create a movie with it:

www.xtranormal.com

4. Students Present Self-Made Comic in Class The teacher asks the students to create a comic or video with the final aim of presenting it in class. The students have relative freedom - the story should comply with basic ideas of storytelling and should be coherent - concerning the comic or video, the only restriction or focus the teacher has to give is that they have to present it in class. The resulting comics can also be printed out, which might circumvent technical issues and so on.

Variations You might choose to either use a comic or a video, which has to be commented or "acted" out by the students. The presentation leaves room for slight adjustments. For example, you can allow your students to use bullet points as a help if you think they will not be able to tell the story solely on the basis of the pictures. And if you are dealing with a certain topic you can limit the topics of the presentations or delegate certain students to work on the basis of different topics. You could also ask the students to incorporate certain elements, which are central to whatever you are dealing with at the moment. Another, more complex idea is to merge the presentation of the comic with a role-play: the comic is the basis and the backbone for the play and the students have to act it out while presenting it. You could also ask the students to create a comic or a video as a part of a presentation about a certain topic. It does not have to be limited to "storytelling" in a classical sense.

Didactical Aims and Trained Competences In this task, the presentation skills are the main focus. But in contrast to a presentation based on bullet points, students can use the comic as a framework. It is more motivating than a "classic" presentation, because you can playfully and on a highly motivating level bring your students to

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practice presentation skills in class. In contrast to writing a story with a basic literary form or a certain degree of language knowledge, this task enables younger students to be acquainted with the concept of a story. Of course you have to explain that there has to be a connection between the pictures so that they have to serve as the basis for a coherent story. But in the sixth grade you cannot expect your students to freely present it in a coherent way, so do not pressure them too much on that level. This is also a very creative and good basis for learning to present content in a rather early age, as we said from about grade 6 onwards. Limiting the range of topics or focussing on a single topic also provokes the use of certain vocabulary or a certain register.

Concrete Example You spent two hours with your class, a seventh grade, introducing them to the tools and give them some basic ideas how to compose a relatively coherent strip. For homework, you ask everyone to create a comic and tell them that they have to be prepared to present it freely in the next lesson. If you have the time and the school has an intranet, it would be probably a good idea to ask the students to upload their results before the lesson, so you can prepare it and are able to help them if they get stuck while presenting it.

First Time As a first timer you should be aware and are sure that your students are well introduced to the basics of storytelling and of course the tools. It is very unlikely that students will produce satisfying results if you ask them to do this without these basics, especially in the lower grades. For that you have to be well aware of how the tools work, this helps to prevent that you will not be able to solve a technical problem that might occur in class. Depending on the vocabulary range and the age of your students it is probably a good idea to limit the range of topics or stick to one topic at first as safety net.

Expert If you have the feeling that both you and your students are ready and able to use these tools you have a wealth of possibilities how to use them, not only as a central element of your classes but also as a visualization for other topics. The more you feel you can leave the students to freely create a comic, the more motivating your tasks are and as a result, students might be keener on presenting contents freely in class.

Link A wiki with a wealth of links to diverse storytelling tools. This is a perfect starting point, if you do not like the ones mentioned above. The list includes tools with which you can paint your own comics without templates or ones with which you can incorporate photos and many more:

http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/StoryTools

5. A Comic or Video for Presenting Content This concept encompasses several ideas about how to use these tools for presenting contents from topics other than literature, (creative) writing or practising presentations. There are no limits to the topics aimed at; you can use it for grammar, intercultural learning, vocabulary learning, etc. The different ideas are presented below.

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Variations The teacher creates his own comic or video with which he can present certain contents, for example past tense as a grammar piece. This is a very teacher-centred approach. The comic offers a way to visualize these contents.

A second idea is similar to that, but this time the students get involved, by filling gaps you leave in the comic on the digital whiteboard or in any other way shape or form the comic on the digital whiteboard.

The last idea is that students create a comic to present content, which they have worked on in a group work. Like a poster as a result, the students now use the comic as a result of the work.

Didactical Aims and Trained Competences What is important here is that, on the one hand students may be able to grasp a content much easier if you have nicely visualized it and on the other hand are more motivated to work on topics, which might be perceived as rather dry, because you have the more visual elements and are able to involve the students more interactively by using the digital whiteboard. The competences and particular didactical aims depend of course on the context you use these tools or techniques for.

Concrete Example A concrete example for the first variation would be a comic with two pictures, one depicts a situation (a broken tool lies on the ground, two kids look rather moody) and a time, the second one depicts another situation in which the tool is intact, and an earlier point in time. You tell the students a story about it, highlighting the past tense forms. For older students you could use it as a basis for discussion about a certain topic, for example if you create a rather provocative comic about, for example, racism. You could "open" up the two-picture strip described above by letting your students fill in gaps you leave in the speech bubbles or in the tag spaces of the pictures.

First Time To create your own comics or videos as your individual materials takes at least a basic knowledge of the tools, so do not try to force it while you are in a stressful phase because it might take you a bit to get used to the programs. You should also start by using the functions on the digital whiteboard you feel comfortable with and before you use it as a tool for a gap text you should try out how that works. The last variation above makes only sense if it fits to the topic. As visualization for a group work you should use this rather sparsely.

Expert As an expert you have the possibility to exhaust both the tools and the possibilities of the digital whiteboard.

Conclusion As hopefully underlined in this chapter of this booklet, the possibilities with online-tools about storytelling are nearly endless, even though just some of these tools were presented. But teachers, teachers in their training phase and future teachers have to take some important points into consideration:

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1. First of all, there is the time issue. Regardless of the skills of the teacher with these presented tools, you must always bear in mind the time some pupils need to get familiarised with each tool. You cannot expect the pupils to be as fast learning as the teacher and you probably have to spend one or two lessons to introduce the pupils to each tool. Moreover the video- or comic-creation process takes some time, as well.

2. Secondly, there is the issue of the curriculum. As pointed out in the introduction of this chapter the topic of storytelling has grown importance in the curriculum of the Hessian grammar schools, but do not expect that the above mentioned methods do fit at any time. Additionally, not every class is suited for project phases over several lessons, which these online-storytelling projects definitely need.

3. Last but not least, you should not underestimate the motivation and the creativity your pupils will pour into their projects. This may at first result in a period of excessive trying out of the tools, before they are able to create good work. Sometimes pupils need to be slowed down or be asked familiarise themselves with the tools at home.

Nevertheless, with the right amount of preparation and effort and a motivated class, it is definitely possible to create some great work with these tools. On top of that it is a well accepted alternative to the “normal“ ways of teaching competences in the field of storytelling.

Sources 1 Medienpädagogischer Forschungsverband Südwest. "JIM -Studie 2010." Last accessed: 29 Jan. 2011. <www.mpfs.de/fileadmin/JIM-pdf10/JIM2010.pdf>.

2 Zumbach, Jörg. Lernen Mit Neuen Medien Instruktionspsychologische Grundlagen. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2010.

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Collaborating Online By Elisabeth Konert, David Linz and Juliane Charlotte Martin,

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1. Share your Creativity with storybird.com

The Tool Storybird is a free web tool which provides possibilities for collaborative storytelling. It can be accessed by everyone, also with a fictional ID. One can use it either to write a story collaboratively or to share personal stories with others. Each story, called “storybird”, is presented like a digital booklet with separate pages. The author can create a cover and publish his stories on his personal account. Once shared, the stories can be read and commented by others. The author can also invite other users to collaborate on his story or to revise it. A great advantage of this tool is the huge set of pictures provided. The images can easily be added to the stories. Therefore, the stories could be art-inspired or completed by images. The use of the tool is very self-explanatory and the tool can be used by students of all ages.

Teaching Idea The session can be used to introduce students to the process of creative writing. The students are supposed to create a “storybird” consisting of about 6 pages. They work in groups of two but on separate computers. One of the students invites the other one to collaborate on his “storybird”. Each story should have a beginning in which the protagonists are introduced, a main part in which something happens unexpectedly and a plausible ending in which the problem is solved. This structure of a story should have been discussed before. Either, the students can choose the topic of their story and can get inspired by the illustrations provided by storybird.com. Or, to specify the task for students who are not yet familiar with writing stories, the teacher can suggest different topics, e.g. “The Birthday Party” or “Mystical Incidents in Town”. To write the story together, the students have 30 minutes.

Afterwards, every group publishes the “storybird”. The students can now read their fellow students’ stories, comment on them and give advice how to improve them. To make sure that every story is read and commented, groups of four should be created. Each group focuses on their group members’ stories. It might also be helpful to give the students some vocabulary for criticizing and giving advice.

As this task serves as an introduction to creative writing, the teacher should make sure that he only gives general advice or limits concerning the plot of the story. The task should be a free work in which students can be creative. A too limited process of writing might discourage the students.

Didactical Analysis Creative writing is a very important aspect of teaching a language and teaching literature. In the process of creative writing, students get access to fictional worlds. They learn to express feelings and emotions, to get access to other people’s perspectives and they train their creativity and flexible thinking. Creative writing also supports the reading and writing fluency. Students practice their

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language skills; they train their active vocabulary, language accuracy and how to express themselves in a foreign language.

As creative writing is a very complex process, students need to get introduced to that. Storybird.com offers a lot of opportunities to start a creative writing process. It gives inspiration by other “storybirds” which are already published or by the images provided. Since images can open fictional worlds, the teaching idea offers the access to them even for students who are less creative and imaginative. It is also very motivating for students to get into writing since their stories can be published and therefore being read and revised by others. Thus, the students do not write a story for the sake of writing it but for other people’s entertainment. In addition, students can start to write immediately without preparation. They can try out and play with their imagination. By reading and criticizing the other stories, the students become aware of what a good story consists of. They get a feeling of how a story becomes interesting and what makes a story boring. Furthermore, the tool offers an aspect of social learning since the students learn how to criticize their fellow students in a constructive way.

In general, storybird.com can be used for every grade. This teaching idea is useful for students of 7th to 9th grade since they need certain language skills to understand the tool and to be able to deal with the task.

Variations To make the task more challenging one can release the length of the “storybird”. The longer the story becomes, the more complex it will be. Another variation would be to let the students write a story with a partner. Each partner could write the beginning of a story and invite the other one to collaborate on his “storybird”. The other student has to finish the story in a plausible way and in the “tone” of his partner. To make the task a little easier, the teacher can write the beginning of the story (e.g. the first page of the “storybird”) to give his students further inspiration. Once your students are familiar with the tool, it’s also possible to grade their work. As they might put a lot of effort in their work, it’s encouraging for them to honor their “piece of literature”.

Hints for the Classroom Storybird.com offers the opportunity for the teacher to create a class-account beforehand. This allows the students to use the tool in class immediately and safes a lot of time during class. The teacher can add all his students to the account and gets an overview of the activity of his students. He can see how many “storybirds” each student has created, when and how often they visited the page and how many comments they wrote on their fellow students’ storybirds. The teacher can also create assignments and set dates on which the assignments are due. The class-account offers a lot of free and creative work and guarantees the safety of the students’ personal data since the teacher creates the account. Therefore, storybird.com is a useful tool to introduce students to collaborative work online.

When storybird.com is used for the first time it might be helpful to prepare the students for the storybird-session. They could read “storybirds” which are already published by other users of the tool and make themselves familiar with the tool as a homework. As there are a lot of interesting images and “storybirds” to discover, students might want to click through the page before they start working with it. The teacher should give them the chance to – it’s worth it!

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Unfortunately, storybird.com isn’t a real-time writing tool. The collaborator has to refresh the page to see what his partner wrote. Or he has to wait until his partner has finished and saved the latest draft. Then the other user gets an invitation to go on writing which says “It’s your turn now!”

Link www.storybird.com

2. Write Collaboratively with Indian Teenagers on Gandhi

Short Description Titanpad is a web-based collaborative real-time text editor with no additional software to download. It enables pupils to simultaneously edit a text document, and see all of the edits in real-time and has the ability to display each author's text in a different color. Anyone can create a new collaborative document known as a 'pad'. Each pad has its own URL, and anyone who knows this URL can edit the pad and participate. The document is auto-saved at regular intervals. The first web application providing all these possibilities was EtherPad, but later on TitanPad was developed by Michael Prokop to provide an EtherPad setup which is unrelated to any commercial and political entities.

Didactic Analysis The main advantages of TitanPad for the collaborative writing process with Indian teenagers is that collaboration is one of those important 21st century soft skills pupils should develop in order to be able to work productively and in a socially competent way. TitanPad enables them to do so, since it allows instant and easy collaboration of pupils from two different continents. Thus, during this exercise TitanPad brings the classroom to life and makes it dynamic and engaging for the students! Another plus is that there is no user account required. There is a chat option so you can give comments and discuss the content.

It is especially useful when pupils collaborate as a group in answering questions. In this exercise it even allows to communicate far beyond the small group and the walls of the school. Best of all, the text can be saved as an HTML, Microsoft Word, PDF etc. A time slider is provided to show when revisions of the text were made. TitanPad is also awesome because it allows teachers to see each student's contributions individually by the color.

Exercise with Variations Overview of the exercise: A German class and a class from India (both grade 12) watch the documentary 'Mahatma Gandhi - Pilgrim of Peace' on YouTube, which analyzes Gandhi’s role in the independence movement. Afterwards both classes use TitanPad in order to collaboratively write an imaginary interview with Gandhi for fictive magazine. It will be for sure a very interesting collaborative process, in which intercultural competence can be developed, because after a long

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discussion, exchange and negotiation of at least two different cultural perspectives one common version has to be found.

The relevance of Gandhi within the curriculum: According to the curriculum for the state 'Hessen', 'The (Post-) Colonial Experience' is the facultative topic for grade 12 (2) and India is even stated a a reference country. Thus this task is highly relevant in this context, since it introduces the pupils to Gandhi - the 'father of the Indian Nation'. His non-violent protests led to the independence from the British.

The detailed steps of the exercise in one double lesson:

1. Pre Viewing Phase

• giving out the task and some new vocabularies (before film) (5 min.)

• dividing the class into four groups, who work with the respective group of the Indian class

2. While Viewing Task

• taking notes concerning possible interview questions / answers (45 min.)

3. Post Viewing Tasks

• writing collaboratively on the imaginary interview with Gandhi via TitanPad (25 min.)

• comparing the four interviews within the class in each country separately (10 min.)

• evaluating the task (collaborative writing process) (5 min.)

Variations - The following task can be given instead

To simplify the task: Answer the following questions together with the Indian teenagers:

• What did Gandhi believe? / What was his role in the independece movement? / How did he achieve independence? / How did he inspire freedom fighters worldwide?

• Write a short biography of Gandhi together with the Indian teenagers. • Write a letter to Gandhi asking him three questions (the Indian partner answers them)

Further simplification: All tasks can be done without the Indian class also.

Additions to make the task more difficult: • Adding internet research on colonialism and presentations on different aspects of it • Adding project work: create an exhibition on Gandhi in group work and present it in school

Goals: The goal is that the pupils exchange and discuss their perspectives and write with teenagers from a former British colony. This is a great opportunity for developing intercultural, social and collaborative competence and for improving their writing, reading and speaking skills!

Hints for the Classroom Click on the button 'create public pad', enter your name, start typing and invite people to collaborate by sharing the URL. Since anyone who knows the URL can access the pad, students should consider what they write! Be careful: TitanPad only allows 16 authors/logins at the same time!

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Further Usages of TitanPad: You could also do a brainstorming session, interview experts, update sick students, give instant feedback on pupil's questions during homework, write a class story (all pupils log onto the website and one big screen is projected on the wall), discuss a theater play with a class in the same school or in a different city or you can do project work and have the pupils collaborate via TitanPad.

Links www.titanpad.com http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=189083

'Mahatma Gandhi - Pilgrim of Peace' part 1-5 (45 min.): 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuZXRN6Rct0 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AfYmTOFMDA 3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IctZRjIrCw 4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkVocJ5Pmc4 5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GnjXdEvz0w

International schools in India: http://www.dis.ac.in/Home.aspx http://india.englishschools.org/british-school-new-delhi.htm http://www.dsbindia.com German Embassy: http://www.new-delhi.diplo.de

3. Write Articles, Letters or Essays Collaboratively with mixedink.com

Short Description of mixedink.com Mixedink.com is a collaborative writing tool which is easily accessible. Mixedink provides an interface for real-time collaborative writing. The organizer, who sets up the topic and the task, is the only one who has to create an account. Other people can contribute without having to create an account. The amount of people working on a project is not limited. Mixedink exhibits several features and might serve for different purposes. It can be used to write endorsements, newspaper articles or essays collaboratively. The organizer sets a countdown and the people working on a certain project can submit own drafts, revise and edit the drafts of someone else and finally rate the different versions. The top rated version can be revised again until the countdown stops.

Didactical Analysis As already mentioned, mixedink is easily accessible. Students can simply be invited to a topic by the organizer who only needs the students’ e-mail addresses. The possibility to set a countdown, which is always visible, contributes to a concentrated learning atmosphere. When using mixedink, students are encouraged to write their own drafts but they are also allowed to borrow

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sentences and phrases from classmates and their drafts. Since the borrowed sentences are marked within the new draft, everyone can see whose ideas are incorporated in someone’s draft. Pupils are encouraged to critically analyze, to synthesize and evaluate pieces of work. Pupils might initially be cautious about borrowing sentences from classmates but they will find out that their ideas and the use of language often parallels that of their classmates. Moreover, the students have the collective aim of writing the best piece of work collaboratively.

Teaching Idea The session could be used in order to write a letter to a local newspaper collaboratively in an 8th grade. The teacher as the organizer creates the project on mixedink before the lesson starts and invites the students via e-mail. At the beginning of the lesson, the students open their mail-accounts and follow the invitation. On mixedink.com, the students read the task which is writing an article about the recent school festivity. Within the following five minutes, the teacher explains the most important features of mixedink and encourages the students to begin writing. After 25 minutes, the teacher asks the students to stop writing and to submit their first drafts. As a consecutive step, the students rate the drafts of their classmates and begin to revise their own drafts. The teacher encourages the students to borrow and incorporate ideas and sentences from classmates. At the end of the lesson, the pupils are given the homework to continue the editing process at home and once again to rate the final versions.

The final version can be send to the local newspaper by the teacher.

Variations Mixedink.com can be used for different age groups. Teachers might make use of it in order to write political endorsements collaboratively but also to write a brief letter to a fictional character from an English class book as it is often done in lower grades. Moreover, one can also allow people who do not belong to the class to participate. Due to the possibility of setting a countdown, the teacher can also determine the extensiveness of the task.

Link http://www.mixedink.com

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Listening Comprehension By Ann-Christin Bensmann, Franziska Emde and Alexej Schustek

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Introduction Listening comprehension in a foreign language is highly important in order to develop a natural feeling for using that language. We, as future teachers of the English language, want to provide concrete teaching examples that enable the students to enhance this listening comprehension.

The internet offers a great number of different online learning tools for EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students to improve their listening comprehension skills. It will be shown that it is of great value to use some of those tools in school. One of the most important advantages that we found is that students are able to listen to spoken passages by people whose mother tongue is English. This means students can listen to authentic American or British English, just to name two examples of different English dialects. Only this way the pupils will be able to develop an understanding of “real” spoken English. Even if the teacher’s grammar and use of English is completely correct, it is very common that most of them are not native English speakers and, therefore, will always speak with some kind of an accent. This is not meant to sound negative but it should underline the fact that it might be very valuable for students to be able to listen to different varieties of the English language.

In the following, we will focus on four specific online tools for listening comprehension for ESL-learners. We will point out the most important advantages and some limitations. Most importantly, we will provide concrete examples on how a teacher can actually use that specific web page in the classroom.

1. Podcasts in English

Advantages of the Website This website offers English podcasts for students. One of the most important advantages of this tool is that the podcasts are free. Another advantage is that students can learn progressively because they can choose between three different English levels: beginners (level 1), intermediate (level 2) and upper intermediate (level 3). There are certain samples of worksheets that are free as well: one free sample for each of the levels. Teachers can find a lot of articles and useful topics on this website where they get tips and download resources such as worksheets, videos and transcripts to make their classrooms more interesting and productive. It is important to say that most of the recordings are conversations or interviews with a range of different dialects. Students can listen to different kinds of dialects and learn about them. As a paying member, one can download podcasts and have access to the whole website.

Concrete Example for the English Classroom Using “podcastsinenglish.com”, we want the students to get used to a specific kind of listening comprehension. The teacher should shortly explain how such podcasts work and why he/she is using it with the pupils. As a next step, students should learn how to get an overall understanding of a spoken passage. The aim is that they should not listen to any specific detail at first, but rather to get

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a general idea about the topic that is talked about in the podcast. One could, for example, choose the passage “Raindrops keep falling. Idioms ... rain”. Here, two people are talking about different expressions on how to express that it is raining. The students should understand the gist of this conversation, namely that the topic is about how to use different expressions about the fact that it is raining.

It is highly important for students to listen to as much “authentic” spoken English as possible. The podcasts such as the ones on “podcastsinenglish.com” enable the students to listen to different English dialects that are spoken all over the world. As the students are listening to the same dialect of the teacher all the time, such exercises are highly valuable in terms of listening to English spoken by native speakers.

Depending on the age of the students, the teacher can adjust the level of this listening exercise. One possibility could be to play the spoken passage more often when teaching younger students. Also, one can, according to the level of the pupils, give more background information before playing the podcast. All in all, there are a number of different possibilities on how to make this task more challenging or easier.

First Time and Expert Version The website is very well explained and, therefore, not difficult to use even if one does not have any experiences with podcasts. If one is not sure how to use the audio samples in the classroom, one can first work with the worksheets that are offered. After being accustomed to the usage, one can just select a podcast and create his/her own worksheet based on the knowledge gained before. Another practical hint for the usage in the classroom is the possibility to download the audio sample so that not every student needs his or her own computer. They can now listen to the podcast on their own MP3 player or can just play it in classroom without a connection to the internet. If they should listen to the podcasts individually you have to make sure that there are enough headphones.

Limitations Although all podcasts are for free and some worksheets are available, only members receive the learning English worksheets, vocabulary tasks, webquests and transcripts. In addition, there are a number of applications which non-members cannot access. One can find further information about a membership on their website. Teachers have to decide whether they want to spend €18 for three months (or €30 for 6 months) to have access to more material.

Links http://www.podcastsinenglish.com/index.shtml http://www.podcastsinenglish.com/listen/level2/rain.mp3

2. Select Language ESL PodCards

Advantages of the Website The web page “Select Language” provides a number of different audio samples which are called “podcards”. Those “podcards” are created for learners of English as a foreign language. One of the biggest advantages of this page lies in the great variety of different audio samples one can choose from. Users can just click on the flag of one of the following English-speaking countries:

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- Australia, England, Canada, Ireland, Scotland, USA, Wales, New Zealand

Being able to select one of the English language varieties, students have the chance to get an authentic overview and understanding of the great variety of English dialects that exist. In addition, the various samples deal with cultural topics about the specific countries, as they describe certain regions or cities. This also contributes to the positive aspect that students, besides listening to the different dialects, can get to know a great deal about the countries as well.

Another positive feature is that, additionally to the free audio samples, one can access worksheets for free. The worksheets deal with the spoken passages and provide questions or further information the students have to deal with. Also, in the end of the worksheets, the transcript of the “podcard” is added. According to the level or age of the students, the worksheets indicate what level they cover. That means one can chose between a “low” and a “high” level.

Concrete Example for the English Classroom As a concrete example one can click on the USA-flag and then use the “podcard” about the “White House”. One topic in the English classroom in German schools is the “Political System of the USA”. As one part of this major subject matter, it might be very interesting for the students to also get some information about the home of the American president. Speaking an authentic American dialect, the speaker gives some very interesting facts and details about the White House. The worksheet provided offers a great deal of questions about the spoken passage.

The reason why this audio sample might be very valuable lies in the fact that it provides some pieces of information that are probably not written down in any textbooks or workbooks students usually use at school. Besides, the students have the feeling that they are getting some kind of “first-hand” information, which are up-to-date as a person speaking American English as his mother tongue speaks the passage.

To make it either more challenging or easier, one could decide to provide the students with parts of the transcripts of the “podcard” or not. In classes where the level is not very high yet, giving parts of the transcript might be a very useful method to make sure that, after listening, all students can get all information they need to answer the questions of the worksheet.

First time and expert version When using this web page for the first time, it is the easiest to just stick to the audio samples and the worksheets that are provided. However, some worksheets might not cover the questions the teacher actually wants to deal with in class. In this case, it is very important to become familiar with the certain “podcards” and to generate own worksheets that can go into a completely different direction than the ones that are already given.

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Limitations One limitation is that parts of the web page are actually in Italian. This might be distracting sometimes but it does actually not prevent one to be able to use the most important features. In addition, you have to make sure that every student brings his or her own headphone.

Link http://www.select-language.com/podcards.html

3. Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab

Advantages of the Tool Randall Davis, ESL instructor and computer lab coordinator, develops different web sites for people who have problems understanding native English speakers. One of these pages is “Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab”, a multimedia listening website which tries to help students to improve their listening comprehension. There are several advantages for the usage of this tool in classroom. First of all, the page is well arranged and quite informative. The ESL lab offers different handouts which explain the features of the site and how it can be used for teaching and learning. Furthermore, all online activities are free and one does not have to create an account before using the page. The audio samples, which deal with everyday conversations about lots of different topics, are divided into different levels: easy, medium, difficult. For each audio sample, the web site offers quizzes or worksheets which are grouped into pre-listening, listening, vocabulary and post-listening exercises. All audio samples are spoken in American English, which can be an alternative to British English, which is taught in school more often. In addition, several links to other pages for ESL learners or teachers are provided.

Concrete Example for the English Classroom The major aim of this web site is the improvement of the listening comprehension skills. Students should feel prepared for conversations in their daily life. Therefore, most topics are related to everyday life. Nevertheless, many topics are included in the curriculum. One example could be “Thanksgiving and Christmas: Holiday Traditions” which is part of regional and cultural studies in grade 9. This audio sample could be used as a kind of consolidation after the students talked about their own traditions or ways of celebrating Christmas. These everyday situations and topics are much more interesting for younger learners. This has a positive influence on their willingness to learn. The easiest way to use this audio sample is to solve every exercise one after another just following the structure of the page.

One could raise the degree of difficulty by offering a research activity. The students (alone, in pairs or groups) could search the Internet for traditions in other countries or how other countries celebrate the holiday already discussed. If one wants to simplify the exercise, one can choose only one or two exercises and check how the students can handle the task. The listening exercise could also be

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simplified with using the script of the interview in which new vocabulary is explained and listed at the end of the text.

First Time and Expert Version When using this web site for the first time, one should first of all read the information about the web site. This makes it much easier for to understand the general structure of the audio samples and the different exercises belonging to it. In addition, there is an information sheet, which can be handed out to the students in order to become familiar with the online tool. It takes some time to get used to this whole learning environment. Thus, one should take some time to explore it. It will be worth it and one will later benefit from this study.

If the students are already accustomed to online learning, one could also include a complete self-study sequence into the lessons. One can find this so called “Randall’s Basic Self-Study Guide” on the same web site.

Limitations When visiting this web site the first time, the whole page seems a little bit overwhelming. There are lots of different links and one first does not really know which lead to the audio samples and its exercises and which link to other web sites. In addition, there are a number of commercials on the web site which could be a problem for younger learners. However, one can use all exercises for free, which would not be possible without the advertisement. In general, every student or at least every pair needs his or her own computer and headphones to use this web site, especially for the exercises which are all based on the internet. It is not possible to download the audio samples. Additionally, all podcasts are only in American English.

Link http://www.esl-lab.com http://www.esl-lab.com/tradition/traditionrd1.htm

4. English Listening Lounge

Advantages of the Website Englishlistening.com is a website that provides podcasts that are called passages (different podcast themes). The main advantage is that all the podcasts are free.

Another important aspect is related to the data privacy. Users do not have to register or log in to use the resources of this page. One can listen to different podcasts/passages which have different levels for the individual English learner: new listeners, regular listeners and advanced listeners. For students, it is very important to learn and to recognize different English dialects (or domains) like American English, Academic English and Narrative English (folk, fairy stories, etc). A further advantage is that one can chose between a wide variety of topics and themes like family, education, travel, sports, business, music, etc.

For teachers, it is a very useful information page because they can find some theory about second language listening comprehension as well as about the transcription system. The final and most important advantage is that learners will learn “real” English recorded in real contexts and not pre-recorded English studio sessions.

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Concrete Example for the English Classroom One can play a concrete passage about a featured, a new or a specific topic. Students can compare and listen to different dialects explaining the differences of each one. Doing so, students will train different competences at the same time as they are learning with this website: listening comprehension, pronunciation and linguistic aspects. Learners practice their vocabulary and they will discover on their own that English is used by real people in everyday life contexts.

First Time and Expert Version First time users will find out very easily how to browse and use this page. They can chose between different sections without any difficulty. All podcasts/passages are included in only one section: passages. Thus, it is very unlikely that users do not find the podcasts. New users can find some guides to understand the key works they need to understand if they are using this page. Expert users will find out podcasts according to specific topics.

Limitations One limitation is that users cannot download the podcasts directly. This means they cannot export and listen to this podcast on their mp3 player or iPod if they do not record the podcast before with an audio solution tool. This website is rather new which implies some negative aspects. For example: some familiar topics are empty to date such as family, holidays, etc. Also, there are no podcasts in British English.

Link http://www.englishlistening.com/

Further Interesting Websites for Listening Comprehension Literacy Net – Story Archives: http://www.literacynet.org/cnnsf/archives.html

Several stories with questions 1 Language – Listening Center: http://www.1-language.com/esllistening/index.htm

Different topics with pre- and post-listening activities EFL Club Songs: http://www.eflclub.com/2songs/songs.html

Songs with and without word lists, filling in the gaps Using English for Academic Purposes: http://www.uefap.com/listen/listfram.htm

A Guide for Students in Higher Education: Listening Comprehension and Note-Taking The Internet TESL Journal: http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Ross-ListeningComprehension.html

ESL Listening Comprehension: Practical Guidelines for Teachers Bildungsserver Hessen: http://lernarchiv.bildung.hessen.de/sek_i/englisch/themen/Kommunikative_Fertigkeiten/Hoerverstehen/edu_1225974992.html

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Conclusion The different examples of online learning tools for listening comprehension have shown that teachers and students probably benefit a lot of them. All of the presented web pages are fairly easy to use and once one has accustomed oneself to them, it is simple to insert own ideas and to develop some of the suggestions provided on the specific web page. Thus, some web pages can just function as a kind of suggestions on how to present certain contents in school. It is then up to the teacher to further developing those suggestions.

For the students, using such online learning tools represent an interesting alternative to more common teaching methods. If they have internet access at home, they can even easily use it there. Nowadays, almost every school should be sufficiently equipped with computer rooms and internet access so that it should definitely not be a problem for teachers to use such methods. As one web page (Podcasts in English) even offers to download the spoken passages as a podcast, it is not even necessary that a computer room is available. As long as it is certain that some students bring their MP3 players, it is possible to work just with those.

To sum up, it has become quite clear what potential different online learning tools dealing with listening comprehension represent. It is definitely worth the time to further browse the World Wide Web and to search for other online learning tools concerning listening comprehension. Even if some ideas might seem to be undeveloped, some can be useful and seen as hints that can be then further developed by us as future teachers.

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Publishing on the Web By Ralf Fabian Jost, Laura Sophie Nachtigall and Alana Rosenberger

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1. The Tool www.weebly.com The use of this tool is free. The language of this tool is English and it is available for people of all ages.

Advantages The website weebly.com is a great tool to create your first internet page on your own. The handling is very easy and the several steps to create your site are given to you by little hint-bubbles which appear on the screen when you are working with weebly.com for the first time. It also makes it possible to change everything you want whenever you want to and keep your internet page always up to date. On weebly.com the students are able to publish their own work and to let it be commented by others. Through this, the students will be much more motivated to work creatively and to give more accuracy into their pieces of work because they will not only be commented on by others but also be presented to the whole world wide web community. Being aware of this huge audience the students´ skills of writing, spelling and the correct grammar use will increase because the possibility exists to be taunted if they do not watch their language.

Concrete Examples Simplified (students of the 9th grade): Before using the tool weebly.com the whole class agrees on a specific topic, like Shakespeare for example. Now the class separates into smaller work groups and the teacher gives writing instructions to each of these groups. One of the groups has to write a paragraph about Shakespeare´s life, another one has to write about his works, about theatre in the Elizabethan Age and so on. Each group has access to a weebly-site the teacher created beforehand where it gets one particular subpage for its task. To give the possibility not to publish the whole paragraph and to provide it to the world wide web before the writing task is completely finished, the several groups are allowed to hide their pages so no external guest of the weebly-site will be able to read the unfinished paragraphs.

More challenging (students of the 12th grade): Each student gets his own weebly.com account and each lesson there will be new working tasks provided by the teacher which the students have to solve. The tasks can include several pieces of work like paragraphs, pictures or mind maps. Each student has the task to select a number of several tasks and to publish his results on his weebly-site where it can be read and commented by other students, the teacher and anyone else on the web.

Use of the Tool First Time: If you have never used Weebly.com before, you have to register or to sign up by providing a username, your e-mail-address and a password of your choice. To avoid mechanical abuse, the sign in option on Weebly.com is protected by a random generator that offers you two words which you have to enter into the designated position. After that is done you will be able to sign in again easily only by typing in your username and your password. Being registered, you have to enter a title for your website and, not obligatory, define the type of the site you are creating. The next step to create your site is to choose your website domain. Here you have to decide if you want to use a sub domain of Weebly.com, so your http-address will end with the words “.weebly.com”, or if you want to

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register a complete new domain in which the word “weebly” does not occur and ends on “.com”, “.net” or “.org”. Being a first-time-user, you should choose the option to create a sub domain of Weebly.com and you will be guided automatically to your personal weebly.com site. Be careful: Choosing a separate domain (which does not end on weebly) costs money! Another option is to use a domain you already own and to connect the weebly-site with it.

Now you are able to design your site as you like by choosing one of the themes Weebly.com offers to you. These themes can be changed by choosing them and using the design options where you can adapt e.g. the lettering to your personal requirements.

By using the page editor, you will be able to create more pages which means that you can separate your weebly.com page into several subpages which will appear on your homepage. With this tool, it is also possible to create a blog where other people can leave comments on your work and you are able to comment on that, too.

Expert: It is possible to hide a page, so it will not appear in the navigation menu of your website. The data content of this page will still be available for you but external guests on this page will not be able to see and therefore not to read it. It would also be possible to protect a page by setting a password but to do this you would have to grade your weebly account to weebly pro which is not for free anymore. It is possible at any time to change the settings of your page, like the title or the address.

Practical Hints: • When you sign in you have to look closely at the particular slot of the sign in screen, because

there it is shown to you automatically whether the username you want to use is still available or already in use.

• The option to create a complete new domain for your site is not offered for free. You will be asked for credit card information.

• It is absolutely necessary whenever anything has been changed on the weebly-site to click on the “Publish” button – otherwise changes will not be visible for other users.

Link www.weebly.com

2. The Tool www.figment.com The use of this tool is free. The language of this tool is English. To be able to use this tool you have to be at least thirteen years old.

Advantages The tool figment.com is an opportunity for students to be creative and to present their pieces of writing to the public. Creative tasks are more fun for the students than other tasks that limit their creativity. On figment.com they are able to publish their stories or poems on the internet and therefore make it accessible to other people. It differs to a great extent from just writing something down into an exercise book and probably nobody will ever get to read it. So it can be very motivating for a student to know that other people will read the poem or story and that these readers also have the ability to comment on it or to write a review about it. It can be expected that the students pay

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more attention to correct orthography and grammar when they have in mind that their piece of writing will be read by others. So over a period of time their orthography and grammar might improve and furthermore the students are able to make use of their creativity, which is a point that should not be neglected in language classes. It is helpful that the students are likely to get some feedback by a variety of readers.

Concrete Examples Simplified: Before using figment.com the students have read a story or a passage of a story written from one specific point of view. Now each student has the task to re-write the story from another point of view, either from the point of view of another character of the story, or a character that does not exist in the story but whose point of view might be interesting. There should be a given amount of words for the task. Especially suitable for this task are short stories but you could also use passages of a book. Afterwards the students publish their stories on figment.com and their fellow students read them, comment on them or write reviews about them.

More challenging: The students brainstorm on a specific topic (e.g. Aborigines). They may already have some information on the topic or have already seen some pictures concerning that topic. The brainstorming should also include their feelings, impressions and thoughts on the topic rather than just plain facts and figures. The collected keywords are now used by the students to create a poem on the topic, but there is no need to use all of them. A minimum length of the poem should be given by the teacher. Later, the students can upload the poems and their fellow students can read them, comment on them or even write reviews about them. To make this task even more challenging the teacher could give e.g. a specific rhyme pattern that the students have to use in their poems.

Use of the Tool First time: If you have not used figment.com before you need to sign up by choosing a username, providing your e-mail-address and a password. When you come back to the site, you can sign in by typing in your e-mail-address and password. You have the ability to edit your profile and to give information like e.g. gender, location or favourite authors and you can upload a picture of yourself or choose an avatar, which is a picture that represents you on the web. On figment.com you have also the option to find writings, writers or tags. Similar to Twitter, you are able to follow other writers here and other people are able to follow you. On the page “I’m following” the writers you follow are listed and also their latest publications.

You can save your pieces of writing on this platform and edit it, e.g. by giving it a title, attach tags to it, give a description of the writing and classify it according to a specific genre. You have the opportunity to add several chapters to your story and you can safe a draft of your story first or publish it right away. You also have some features known from word processors, like copy and paste, bold or italic letters. You can even choose one of figment’s cover designs or upload your own design. You can add the title of your writing to the cover and also a line that includes your name. You can have a preview on a page that shows e.g. the amount of chapters and words, the genre and how long

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it will approximately take to read the writing. By “Start at the beginning” a reader opens which has a table of contents so that you can choose individual chapters and there is even a button which will show the writer how many readers liked the writing by clicking it. On “My desk” you have your followers, writers you follow and one of your writings displayed. You can view all your pieces of writing by clicking “View all writing”. On “My writing” you can create something new or view, edit or delete old writings.

Expert: It is possible to invite your friends to figment.com. Furthermore various contests take place where you are able to take part in. All you have to keep in mind are the word limit and the deadline.

On the page with the overview of each piece of writing there is a table with buttons. By clicking these buttons you can share your writing with others. You have also the opportunity to comment on the writing or write a review about a piece of writing. There is also a poll that indicates if the story e.g. made the readers cry, shiver or laugh.

The figment library shows recently published works, the most popular works of a certain genre and the most popular tags. Here you can search for writings, writers or tags. The page figment features includes exclusive excerpts from new books, interviews with authors, articles and more. You can also take part in the figment forum and participate in discussions with other writers here or open up new threads. There is also a figment blog where you can read through various blog posts.

Practical Hints The teacher has to make the students take the tasks seriously, but not too seriously because writing is supposed to be fun for them. They just should put some time and effort in writing the poem or the story because they will publish it afterwards and might get feedback by their readers. Beginners might be afraid to write creatively in the foreign language. The teacher should encourage them to try it and if the students are very insecure about publishing their pieces of writing one might suggest that either the teacher or the students proofread the stories or poems of one another before they are published. After a piece of writing was published it can still be edited.

To sign up at figment.com a student needs to be at least thirteen years old. These teaching ideas may be too challenging for very young learners but they are certainly appropriate for years 11 or 12 in an advanced course. Depending on the situation, these tasks may be too time-consuming to let the students work on them in the lesson. In this case one might give it as homework.

Link www.figment.com

3. www.amazon.com for Book Reviews

Advantages The website amazon.com offers a great range of items, e.g. media, electronics, sport equipment and clothing. But above all it has become famous for its variety of books. Before ordering a certain edition of a written work, the customer has the opportunity of becoming informed by reading the product description as well as checking the great diversity of the other users’ reviews.

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Therefore, the use of amazon.com as a web tool in English classes has several striking advantages. First of all, it offers publicity for the pupils’ book reviews. This characteristic is especially helpful because it inspires young people and creates new interests. Furthermore, students can compare their own works to the ones already published and therefore gain more ability to evaluate. They will also be more critical with themselves because in fact, all of the world could be reading their ideas.

The great range of users makes working on the internet interesting and motivating because it resembles the real world more than the class. Establishing contact to other online users and responding to their messages can be a good language exercise and thus helps to improve the students’ self-esteem.

The main aim of amazon.com is selling books. Especially for young people it is interesting to gain an overview of all media which is available via the web.

Concrete Examples Simplified: Amazon could be used in class in order to create book reviews and publish them online. This can generally be done with any literature. A possible task for students in a 10th grade can be the creation of a summary or personal review on a book of their choice.

As a more concrete example, I would use William Shakespeare’s tragicomedy “The Winter’s Tale”. Students read it in class and the exercise for the students in 10th grade would be the composition of a summary of the play or a review. This should be published on amazon.com. The next step would be the response to the other users’ comments. Additionally, it would be interesting to let the students react to their classmates’ summaries. This variation is likely to cause the greatest interest because it involves the social relations within the course.

More challenging: An even more challenging task on “The Winter’s Tale” for students from 12th grade on is the creation of a personal essay about its meaning in today’s society. The students should discuss whether it reflects on modern people’s thoughts, with whom they can identify and for which reasons. (Although there are usually published only book reviews on amazon.com, I like this task because it represents a very personal view of the drama and it is also interesting to read emotional impressions and not only objective summaries.)

Use of the Tool First time: Even for a student who has never used amazon.com before, no problems are likely to occur. A registration is not necessary in order to read comments and it is free of charge. But if you are a registered customer or simply a user of the information which is available online, there are personal book recommendations based on your past interests every time you sign in. But be careful if you do this with your students, they should be aware how quickly books are ordered! There are also various features on the customer’s account, recent shopping, community and participation which involve the user’s activity. Although these opportunities are interesting, it does not necessarily have to be used to be informed about literature. Even registered user has to choose a “pen name” in order to publish comments, but this procedure is simple and quick.

As an introductory task to the topic of online publishing, pupils of any age could enter the site amazon.com and search for books they already had to read in the course of their scholastic career. Still knowing their contents and having reflected on their contexts, the students should be able to evaluate different authors’ comments and can already start to respond to some if they are willing to.

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Expert: On amazon.com there is the possibility of searching for interesting and acquainted people and adding them to one's list of friends. Through this feature, becoming part of a community which has in common the interest in literature is possible. With the help of “Listmania” one can create lists of one's favourite media. For that purpose one has the freedom of inventing interesting personal names and referring to any topic. These are only the main features available on amazon.com; indeed there is more to discover than those.

Practical Hints This teaching idea takes lots of time and therefore, I would recommend it for optional English courses in the afternoon or a project week rather than for regular English classes. It should be certain that there are enough computers available which can be used for working on the web.

As amazon.com is a very well-known web site, the students should be thoughtful with the content they publish. Representing world-wide publicity, most young people certainly treat contents on the web respectfully enough. To avoid mistakes or inappropriate content, the best solution would be a correction by the teacher before the publication of a review. As a teacher, one should be especially careful with the pupils’ language; it should be non-ambiguous and appropriate. Furthermore, their reviews should not contain political opinions in order to avoid conflicts. But generally, teachers should not set boundaries to the creativity of the online work of their pupils.

Link www.amazon.com

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Using Videos in the Classroom By Laura Göbel, Sarah Günther and Tanja Berger

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Concerning the topic “Using video in the classroom” we created three different lessons that focus on using the medium “video”. We tried to use various methods so that pupils will get as much diversion as possible. Using videos in the classroom is a method that has gained more and more attraction for pupils as well as teachers during the last years. There are various advantages: First of all, nearly every learning-type is affected. Visual as well as auditory learners can profit from this method. It’s a flexible medium that generates excitement for every age. In the following we will present three different types of an English school lesson (45 min).

1. Being a Real Travel Guide! Video: Irresistible New Zealand (Grade 10)

At the beginning, the teacher shows the video without sound. The pupils are supposed to watch the video attentively and get a first impression of what is shown there. Afterwards they have to get together in groups of 3-4 pupils and should discuss about what they have seen. In a next step, the teacher explains the task: “Imagine, you are a guide and you have to present the highlights of this land to a group of tourists. Write a travel report and try to reduce it to the most important facts which strike you most. Keep in mind that you have to present your result while the video is running in the background”. Then the video is played a second time without sound and the pupils should make notes. To make it easier, the teacher stops the video after each minute, so that the pupils can put their notes into the right order. The pupils work on the topic for the next 20 minutes. To give some help, we thought of passing around some sentences like “The most beautiful place is ...”, “One of the highlights is ...” After the students have presented their reports, they will watch the video a third time but with sound. A sheet with questions will be passed around concerning the content of the video, which will be discussed afterwards.

Didactical Analysis By the end of the lesson, the students should have practiced to write a text about a topic they are not familiar with. They should gain writing experience as well as learning new vocabulary. While writing the report it is necessary that the students have access to dictionaries. The presentation helps the students to practice their pronunciation as well as getting feedback from their fellow students concerning the content. When watching the video a third time with sound, they are expected to listen carefully and try to understand as much as possible. When students listen to a native speaker, they can train their listening competence, learn new words and get an impression of different dialects. Group work is a social activity, where students learn to cooperate and compromise about certain things. They exchange ideas and profit from the knowledge of each other. Beside these competences, students gain multi-cultural knowledge.

The reason why we choose a video for this teaching session is that it is often easier to introduce a new topic by showing pictures or films. Especially when dealing with cultural studies, it gives

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students a better and general understanding of New Zealand and what the landscape, the people and the culture looks like. Beside this, videos generate much more excitement than reading texts. In this task, different skills are trained: The students get knowledge in writing, speaking and listening as well as social competence. With this task different learning types are affected.

Link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5idUSes4jfs

2. Vocabulary Learning with Mr. Eggy’s Exciting Neighbourhood!

Video: Eggy's Children's Rhyming Story (Grade 5)

In the beginning, the teacher shows the video and asks the children to listen carefully. Then he shows the video a second time and stops after the appearance of an animal, which is a new word for the pupils. The teachers writes the noun (e.g. cat) on the board and asks the pupils “What is it / What does he see?”. He points on the word “cat” and says “It’s a...” and all the pupils shall answer together “cat”. He continues with this procedure until the video is over. The video is played once again and after each new vocabulary item the teacher stops and asks for the English word as well as for the German meaning. Then he writes the German word “Katze” beside the word “cat”. After he has written down all the translations the pupils copy the words into their vocabulary book. As a hint the teacher shows that the words rhyme. In a last step, the teacher prepares an active game for the pupils. The pupils are supposed to form a circle. The teacher starts by giving a word (“cat”) and points on a pupil who should respond the corresponding rhyme word (“bat”). Then the pupil continues with another word and picks another pupil. The game continues until the pupils are aware of the right pronunciation.

Didactical Analysis In this English lesson pupils shall be introduced to new vocabulary items concerning the topic “animals” and easy words such as “chair” or “boat”. They get to know each new word with the help of the video which is shown by the teacher. Furthermore they shall practice the right pronunciation of the new words and their teacher is, in our case, Mr Eggy the speaking egg. In addition to this, they learn the German meaning of each word and for this purpose the English word and the German word are written on the board by the teacher so that pupils can copy them into their vocabulary book and learn them at home.

Why did we choose this video? This video is a nice introduction for grade 5 to learn new pieces of vocabulary in an exciting and interesting way. We chose this video because it contains a lot of things which are adequate for children, especially for younger children. The first thing we really liked about the video is the nice and suitable for children introduction because it starts with an egg “Mr Eggy”

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which is able to speak and welcomes the children to its world. We think that this likeable animal makes the pupils curious of its story and what it will tell them about its neighborhood. Especially the different animals which occur in the video are very suitable for younger pupils because they are interested in animal stories and like to watch them. Also the other things such as “chair” or “boat” are illustrated in an adequate way for children. After the introduction of “Mr Eggy” it tells the pupils about animals and things he saw. Pupils see the different animals and because they really see these different things and “Mr Eggy” explain the new vocabulary “This is a cat” and “This is a bat” so pupils can better understand and keep it in mind. Due to this, every pair like “This is a cat and this is a bat” rhymes and this is really helpful for pupils to remember each new word. “Mr Eggy” also uses prepositions in its story, but we only want to focus on the new vocabulary. It is very helpful for pupils that “Mr Eggy” explains each vocabulary twice. It is also good for the right pronunciation of each piece of vocabulary because it is often the case that pupils especially in lower grades are not able to understand a new word at first. “Mr Eggy” summarize all things which it saw at the end of the video and this is also very helpful for pupils to keep new vocabularies in mind after hearing it for more than two times. The more they hear a new piece of vocabulary the better they understand it. Nice pictures of the animals and all the other things make pupils easier to understand the new vocabulary because they see the animal and know the German word for each of them. They only have to concentrate on the English meaning.

All in all the video is very suitable for younger pupils because it is colorful, contains animals, a virtual narrator and rhyming sentences. All these elements make it easier and more exciting to learn new vocabulary especially for younger pupils.

Link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Y-RdhjK00

3. Debate – There is no Right or Wrong! Video: Turkish Germany National Geographic (Grade 11)

As an introduction to a political debate in an English lesson, the video about “Immigration of Turkish People in Germany” will be played by the teacher. The teacher has to choose a video in which nobody takes side concerning the topic, and in which a topic of the current news is implied. After the pupils have seen the video, the teacher asks the question: “Can someone summarize the content of the video?” After they have understood the main ideas of the video, the teacher explains the task: “Form two groups. Group one on the right side will deal with the arguments against the integration of the Turks in the European Union and the other group will focus on the arguments for the integration. After having collected your ideas, you will hold a debate.” The pupils sit in a row in front of each other while they are debating. In the end, the whole class summarize the main important facts on the board.

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Didactical Analysis In this English lesson, the pupils learn how to hold a debate and how to convince people of a certain opinion. It is very important that they understand how a discussion works and that every student has the chance to state his or her arguments. Furthermore, they learn to summarize a short video sequence and reduce it to the main important facts.

We chose this video about “Immigration of Turkish people in Germany” because it gives a neutral overview of the situation of Turkish people living in Germany without any opinions or comments that can influence the pupils. The vocabulary is adequate for an 11th grade. It is really important to show a neutral video when a discussion is planned. Otherwise it might influence the pupils’ opinion. Furthermore, a political topic or at least a topic of the current news is always interesting and related to the present time. It is important to check whether the students have already previous knowledge or if the topic is new to them. The choice of the video depends on what the students already know. It is helpful to let someone summarize the content to make sure that every students gets the content.

Speaking freely and finding arguments to underline an opinion as well as social competences are trained in this lesson.

Link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AJbb1UJY-o

Variation

First Time Version When using videos in the classroom, it depends on the knowledge of the teacher how he makes use of the tool. There are different possibilities to access the medium “video”. For an inexperienced teacher, it is the easiest way to choose a video and present it as a whole to the class.

Tips for Beginners 1. Watch each video first: You have to decide what is appropriate for your lesson and which

application you really need. Pick a video that fits to the content of the lesson and will involve the learner in the lesson. Keep in mind that the vocabulary as well as the content must be adequate for the grade. If not, hand out a vocabulary sheet. Pay attention to parts which may attract interest. Students may respond to it later during a discussion.

2. Provide a reason for viewing: Give the students a task they can work on afterwards. While watching the video they have something specific to look for and can make notes. This will focus attention and encourage active viewing.

3. Provide pre- and post-viewing activities that will incorporate the video into the entire lesson.

4. When you want to use videos as an introduction, remember that it should not be longer than five minutes, because otherwise students will not be able to pay attention any longer.

Tips for Experts 1. Only show parts of the video. Normally, most of the videos show a great amount of

information which students cannot remember easily. 2. Use other options to enhance the lesson: Use the pause, rewind and fast forward function.

The pause button can be used to point out certain information and check the students’ knowledge.

3. If you do not want to use video as the only medium you can also include it to a presentation.

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4. There is the possibility to show a YouTube video from a certain point onwards by appending the minutes and seconds to the URL, eg.g. “#t=2m07s” starts the video at 2 minutes and 7 seconds.

Hints for the Classroom 1. Make sure that the necessary technical equipment is available, e.g. beamer, computer, TV,

internet access. 2. Avoid showing videos that are longer than five minutes. 3. Make sure that all pupils can watch the TV set.

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Summary Use of this booklet This booklet can be used by all language teachers and students who want to become teachers as an inspiration for their own lessons.

Copyright This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

You are free:

• to Share - to copy, distribute and transmit the work • to Remix - to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

• Attribution - You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

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work only under the same or similar license to this one.

The images for the chapters have been created by the Linguistic Engineering Team at the University of Marburg. The screenshots have been taken from the websites that are explained on the same page, the link can always be found at the end of the section.

Contact Information Anna Maria Schäfer Wilhelm-Röpke-Straße 6D 35032 Marburg Germany annamaria.schaefer@uni-marburg.de

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