![]() They can check the words several times a day, so learning can be reinforced. Also, learners have access to the others’ sentences and pictures anytime and anywhere. As the material is created by the students themselves, it is more meaningful and interesting for the student, which increases the chance of long-term retention of the lexis. This activity enables the learners to create their own picture dictionary in a collaborative way. If available, the teacher can display the students’ pictures and sentences on a projector to give feedback. Then, they share an example sentence that uses the target word along with a picture that illustrates the sentence. The materials they find on the Internet make it possible for learners to infer the meaning of the target word. In this activity, each student is given a vocabulary item and they are encouraged to use the browser on their phones to find pictures and example sentences related to the word. The student can also take control of their own learning by, for example, replaying all or a section of video or audio as many times as they need.īearing these advantages in mind, here are four activities – one vocabulary, one grammar, one listening and one reading – that you may want to try in your own classrooms. These apps are designed to facilitate communication and as such provide another channel for students to contact the teacher and each other in the classroom.īecause the devices are mobile and personal, they can be used to create a collaborative, easily accessible written record that can be opened and used for revision by the student at any time. ![]() These possibilities allow greater authenticity of both the message and the medium, and give students another way to share their work with their peers, which encourages both creation and collaboration. You don’t need to source a projector or to repair the photocopier if every student can access the text from their pocket. Video, audio, text and pictures that have been found on the internet or created by the teacher or by the students can easily be shared. Secondly, the ease of sharing gives a wide range of possibilities. A Wi-Fi connection (which most language schools or businesses have) will help students keep the cost of data down. Further, neither the student or school needs to pay for expensive software or hardware, such as servers. If you choose the most popular application in your context – WhatsApp in Turkey but Wechat in China or Line in Japan – the majority of students will already use the application regularly. The Plus Pointsįirstly, unlike specialist learning systems or online tools, most students won’t need to learn how to use either the device or the software. It may seem strange to encourage students to spend more time looking at their phones in class, but there are numerous advantages of using such applications in a lesson. However, these days I use applications such as WhatsApp, Line, Facebook Chat or Google Hangouts inside the classroom as teaching tools. While not appropriate for those who teach young learners or whose schools have strict social media and socialising policies, with our young adult learners in Turkey this is actually expected of us. I used to use this group as an administration tool – a way for the students to contact me about grades or absenteeism, or to allow me to remind them of homework or a schedule change. ![]() When I meet a new class, one of the first orders of business, along with ice breakers, learning names and clarifying schedules and textbooks, is to set up a class messaging group. By Jonathan Donnellan, Hande Gunel and Melek Didem Beyazoglu
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