Last weekend I had the honour of giving a workshop session at the 30th TESOL France Annual Colloquium, which was a great event as I’m sure all who attended will agree. You can read notes on some of the highlights for me here (more on these to come soon).
I have to say a huge huge thank you to everyone who came to my session. I hope you found it practical, useful and, above all, enjoyable. I certainly enjoyed sharing some small ideas with you for activities to do in the classroom. Below you can find a pdf of the presentation slides and a few notes on the activities I demonstrated (these are intentionally brief, as I plan to blog in more detail about using sounds and images in the classroom at a later date – watch out for posts here, guest posts and maybe even an article!)
Before Words TESOL France 2011
The four activities I demonstrated (plus one I just described) were the following:
- Using sound effects to stimulate vocabulary production
- Basically, play a sound effect (ambient SFX are best) and ask learners to write whatever comes into their head. They could even do so in their own language, as long as they share them in English after.
- Using sound effects to set up a quick roleplay
- Again, playing a sound effect, ask learners to think about where they are and how they feel. Guide them a little bit, but not too much (for example, playing a rainy sound effect tell the learners to imagine that they are on their way to a house party).
- Using images to predict a poem
- Show learners a set of images from a video of a poem (some examples of these to come in a post very soon!) and ask them to guess what they are (no wrong answers here). Play the video and ask them if they have changed their minds at all.
- Using music and pictures as stimuli for a story telling activity
- Play 4 excerpts of music and ask learners to draw or write whatever comes into their heads. Learners then share their pictures in pairs or small groups and come up with a narrative to link 4 of them.
- Using pictures to analyse language and vocabulary
- Ask learners to write a simple sentence and then challenge a second learner to turn it into a picture. Pass the picture on to a third learner who has to try and guess the original sentence.
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Thanks for the post Mike. There’s a lot of great ideas in here. I still think there’s a gardening dinosaur in the poem pictures. I’ll take that to the grave with me.
I’ll have to share the gardening dinosaur one next time I use this video/poem in class. Wonder what a gardening dinosaur would grow…
This would have been just what I need right now, Mike – reminds me of a great session from Mojca Belak at IATEFL Brighton on music, voice, silence.
Hope I can catch it live sometime!
And Dale, you’re not alone: the gardening dinosaur is plain to see.
I hope it doesn’t get overplayed in the meantime – I have proposed the same talk (though, I may vary the content) for Glasgow but I’m still not 100% sure I’ll be able to go. Fingers and toes crossed!
Hi Mike!
Thanks for posting your presentation and writing up the activities, it is great to have your super ideas on hand to use in class! I was very fortunate to attend your session, from which I got a great deal of ideas. Hope to attend one of your talks again in the future! Congratulations on a wonderful session!
Kindest regards,
Vicky
Very welcome, Vicky! Still looking forward to the day I’ll get to see you present as well. Hopefully some time soon!
Mike =)
Some awesome ideas here Mike. Would love to see you talk at Glasgow about this. Good luck with the proposal. Hope to try some of these ideas out soon.
Thanks, Adam! I hope the audience at TESOL France at least took away something that they could use with their classes. Fingers crossed for IATEFL, though I think I may make some slight changes to the activities I’d demonstrate if I get to Glasgow. Have you submitted a proposal to talk about your current projects??
Mike =)
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