Intercultural Project Based Learning for Students

This is a fantastic idea for creating intercultural exchange projects with students from different schools around the world.

The site has a really wide variety of really interesting projects that you can choose from and they are really well designed and structured with learning goals, levels and age appropriacy clearly sign posted.

In order to register on the site as a teacher you have to be located at a physical school which you identify when you sign up.

Once this is done you can select your project and get your students registered using a class code that you find on your dashboard.

The site automatically matches your class up to another class somewhere around the world. Class match ups are done every Monday.
Then your students will need to commit 30 - 45 mins each week for the length of the project (usually about 6 weeks)

All the materials are provided and the students just need a device (the service works on most devices) and an internet connection.
You can find out more about the details here: https://www.penpalschools.com/faq.html

PenPal Schools is free for the first 5 teachers at any school, after that the school has to buy a licence.

This looks like a really cleverly designed way to get your students engaging with other schools around the world.

You can find links to many more tools like this and activities for the digital classroom in my ebooks at: http://peacheypublications.com/. All my ebooks are available for iOS and as PDF.

Sign up for my twice monthly free newsletter and get a free copy of Digital Tools for Teachers at: https://tinyletter.com/technogogy/ 

My eBooks:

• 20 Tech Enhanced Activities for the Language Classroom
• Digital Tools for Teachers
• Thinking Critically through Digital Media
• Exploiting Infographics
• 10 Lessons in Digital Literacy
• Digital Video – A Manual for Language Teachers

Best
Nik Peachey

US Culture Blog from VOA

I've just been having a look an interesting blog from Voice of America journalist Ted Landphair.

The blog has a good collection of well written articles with some really nice images, that go behind the stereotyped view of the USA.

The postings are quite long and the English is quite challenging so they are probably best used with higher level EFL ESL students, though they are nicely chunked into sections with good clear paragraph headings, and the way the images are used with good captions, supports the overall understanding of the text.

You could divide the text up for split reading and get different students to read each chunk and then share what they have learned in groups.

Ted also includes a 'wild words' section which gives definitions of some of the more challenging words in the text, so they have made some provision for people whose first language isn't English.
I have to say that I found the blog pretty interesting (but I am in my 40s) and really liked the images. I created this activity, Where in America?, based around it for my Daily English Activities Blog.

Hope you like and enjoy reading Ted Landphair's America.

Related links:

• Create EFL / ESL Lesson Plans in Mins
• Adventure Narratives for EFL ESL Students
• Using Word Clouds in EFL ESL
• Prompting reading speeds
• More Reading Activities
• Where in America?

Best

Nik Peachey

What Can Students Learn from the Urban Dictionary?

I've just been struggling to write another activity for my Daily English Activities blog. I spent most of an hour browsing through the Urban Dictionary, another user created record of the modern English language.


On the one hand I thought that it was a complete waste of time in terms of finding any usable materials for EFL ESL students, but on the other hand I found it to be a really fascinating doorway into our modern culture and lifestyle.

The Urban dictionary is largely a user generated and edited collection of 'invented' words, some of which are gradually becoming part of our mainstream language, such as 'muffin tops' and 'spin doctor', whereas others .... well who knows? Will mass merchanditis and boyfriend drop soon become part of your everyday vocabulary?
In the end I decided to go ahead and use the site, as I thought that the cultural information in the content was so valuable. These are the word and definitions that I've chosen to use, and I think they give some valuable insights into our modern culture. Hope you enjoy them.

• Silent Rave
• Bus Surfing
• Deface
• Joe The Plumber
• The Spousal We
• Spin doctor
• Tag hag
• Gigabucks
• Guitarthritis
• Thumb lashing

Related links:

• Video Dictionary 2.0
• 12 Second Video Clips for EFL ESL
• Using Word Clouds in EFL ESL
• Picture phrases
• Personalised flashcards

Best

Nik Peachey