Student Blogging: Travel, Tourism, Migration

Finally, I feel like getting down to blogging again. In this post, I'd like to continue sharing some ideas about a blogging project I did with my students. There have been several posts about it, so this time I'll write about the task my students particularly enjoyed.

The topic we were working on was related to travel, tourism and migration. In order to practice vocabulary in different ways, I offered them to do role play situations on travel and tourism and to do the blog task on migration issues. Prior to desinging this course, I managed to find some great resources to help my students learn more about this topic and explore the usage of vocabulary related to it. One of such resources is the interactive activity developed by the Tenement Museum. By doing this activity, students can learn more about immigrants to the USA in the early XX century and their everyday lives. They can take on a personality of an immigrant and explore the harsh realities of their journey and daily struggles. In this quest, they are accompanied by video stories of Victoria, an immigrant girl, who shows them all ins and outs of immigrant life in New York a century ago.

As my students were completing this quest, they had to accomplish the following task:

In this activity, you will get acquainted with the realities faced by immigrants in the USA around a century ago. As you enter the site, press "i" for instructions.

You will have to choose an immigrant character for yourself and follow further steps.  A girl called Victoria will be your guide in this adventure. After you have completed all the stages of this game you will be offered to send Victoria a postcard. This is the base for your blogpost (you don't have to do the task on the game site; you should write a letter in your blog):

Write a letter (200-250 words, 20-25 active words and expressions) to Victoria describing your imagined experience based on the choices you made throughout the game (mention as many details as possible) and your imagination. Make sure you include some facts from Victoria's stories too. Also, paste an image of your immigrant passport and any other pictures you  consider relevant. 

Some works by my students:

Alina
Maria
Alexander

History Lessons

Last week my students and I were discussing outstanding historical figures and remarkable events in our English classes as long as the topic of the unit was called "History lessons". As a rule, I like adding some extra activities to those suggested in a coursebook (and I believe I'm not alone here). Being a genuine history lover, I designed some activities based on information I'd come across surfing the net. So here's my list.

1. A funny warm-up "You'd never believe it". I found some unusual facts about well-known people and wrote down their names on the blackboard. Then I would present the facts like this: "This person .... did so and so..." and have students guess. After presenting all the facts I asked them what they remembered about each person from the list. We had a lot of fun! A worksheet can be found here.

2. Short jigsaw reading "Dating tips". I found this information in this blog and thought it would be cool to use it with my students. The post was about imaginary replies of famous historical figures to commonplace dating problems of different people. I arranged  problem letters and the replies in a table and printed it out. In class, some students got the letters and others got the replies. The task was to match a problem letter with a corresponding reply. The worksheet is here.

3. A speaking task "Portrait Interviews" (from How to Teach English by Jeremy Harmer). In pairs or small groups, students choose a portrait depicting a person or event from the past. Their task is to present a conversation that might have taken place between the people depicted in the picture. If there's only one person on the portrait, they could present it as an interview with him/her. I've just given this task to my students so I'm looking forward to their presentations. I'm sure they will come up with something special. I was also thinking to help them with a choice of a portrait by using this great tool by Classtools: 3D Gallery

.... and finally decided to do it: http://www.classtools.net/3D/201504_hauPCv

The Arnolfini portrait by Jan van Eyck
Image source: wikipedia

The origins of BBC

For me, as an English teacher and a person having a constant affair with the English language BBC is an inexhaustible source of must-watch documentaries and must-have online resources. Having said that, how possible was it for me to overlook this article?