Animoto: Britain and its less known customs

We may think that we know a lot about Britain, its culture and icons but ... is that so?
There is sooo much more to learn about this country and its peculiar customs!!! Shall we take a closer look?

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Geotagging: Discovering Oxford

Let's discover some of the most interesting places in Oxford, England. I lived there for 2 years and I can say that it is an amazing place!
With this brief tour of the city, you will have the opportunity to touch a little bit of its history, architecture, customs and traditional pubs.


View Oxford Sights Tour in a larger map

My wiki

Our first newspaper

http://ourfirstnewspaper.wikispaces.com/

This project extends and supports students' creative writing skills. It gives them the opportunity to write their own newspaper articles and stories.

The language aims of this task are:
- To develop intensive and extensive reading skills
- To write newspaper articles based on the sample material

The target audience of the project are adults or older adolescents and the duration could be one semester.

This kind of project encourages students to work independently but at the same time they have to interact with their classmates and comment on their work.

Podcasting (II)

BOOK REVIEW

Talk about the book you've read. Cover the following points:

- What the main characters are like and look like.
- Whether you approve/disapprove or sympathise with their actions and why.
- Read up a quotation from the book (remember to mention the page) and explain why you picked it

Podcasting (I)

THE ORIGIN OF MY NAME

Have you ever wondered what your name means? Do some research and record yourself asking the following questions:

Do you know what it means?
Do you know why your parents gave you that name?
Does it go with my personality?
Do you like your name?

Treasure hunt

MOTTAINAI






INTRODUCTION

Have you ever heard of the Global Mottainai Movement? It has to do with promoting making the most of limited resources and using them as efficiently as possible: as represented by the "3Rs": to reduce waste, reuse finite resources, and recycle what we can.
Shall we take a closer look?




QUESTIONS

What does the word Mottainai mean?
Where does Mottainai come from?
Who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 and why?
Who set the Mottainai campaign in motion?
What are the most representative events and activities in Maathai’s life and work?
Can you give three examples of end-products that the Mottainai project promotes?




The BIG QUESTION

Do you think that a similar approach would be successful in our country?


LINKS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mottainai
http://greenbeltmovement.org/w.php?id=59
http://greenbeltmovement.org/a.php?id=384
http://mottainai.info/english
http://mottainai.info/english/topics/
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14054262
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/takingroot/
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/takingroot/timeline.html

ASSESSMENT

In groups, students collect material and do background reading. Each group collects material, ideas, pictures, etc. and decides on a format for their presentation: a poster, a chart, a quiz, a Powerpoint presentation, etc. They prepare it and present it. The presentations can be recorded too, and the teacher can use these recordings for follow-up work in class at a later stage.
The project could be extended through students exchanging ideas and information with other students around the world using email or the Internet.
The final aim of this task is to increase environmental awareness.

My alter ego

Being able to combine both teaching and entertainment is an effective way of engaging the students in the language. Sometimes we just have to improvise a little bit and don't be shy!




Another way to engage students is sharing cultural aspects and also comparing them with their own. Let's not forget that cultural information is necessary to a full understanding of the people and the language they are studying:

Christmas Vocabulary

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