Podcast for ESL students

English as a Second Language Podcast

ESL Podcast 1097 – Landscaping a Home

             I would like to introduce a podcast named 'ESL Podcast 1097 – Landscaping a Home' for ESL students. This podcast made by native speakers of English and deals with daily conversation. This podcast provides short daily conversation and its script for students to help them understand. As the speed of speaking is not that fast, intermediate level students are able to understand it easily. It consists of slow dialog (1:15), explanations (3:03) and fast dialog (16:15). It is about conversation between a man and a woman who are interested in growing lawn in their yard. The speaker has us listen to the dialog first, and then explains us the meaning of some target words and key expressions. As his explanation is easy and explicit as well as includes spelling of the words, ESL students can understand and even note some words after his explanation.

             The following is the script of the conversation the speaker provides. The conversation is relatively short and easy to understand.

Mona: I want a lawn. I’ve always pictured our new house with a lawn.

Kellan: Lawns require a lot of water and upkeep. I think we should use hardscape for most of the yard and plant only drought-tolerant plants.

Mona: I don’t want my yard to be full of gravel and rocks. I picture a water feature in the middle, with annuals and perennials planted all around it, surrounded by a big, beautiful lawn.

Kellan: We can have some kind of slow-growing ground cover if you want to, but the rest isn’t practical.

Mona: I don’t know what you mean. We can plant a hedge over there and install planters along the walkway.

Kellan: Who will do the pruning and mulching? Who will pull the weeds and mow the lawn? Who will rake the leaves when the seasons change?

Mona: Well, I guess I will, with your help.

Kellan: Don’t count on me. My motto is: No muss, no fuss!

Script by Dr. Lucy Tse

             For my future lesson using this podcast, my specific language objective is L.4.3.a Understand vocabulary and discourse features of content areas from Michigan department education. I will use this podcast for my future students’ listening activity. I am going to make this podcast listen to my students and memorize the target words and expressions for daily life, especially growing lawn. They will learn the vocabulary related to growing lawn and plants. Then, I will distribute the script for students who cannot catch the target words well. And I will ask them details in conversation such as ‘who is the speakers?’, ‘what are they talking about?’, ‘why do they have trouble?’ and so on. 

My picture book for flipped lesson

My Storybird link

Mary's one fine day

            I made short picture story in Storybird. As they provided nice drawings, teachers can make their own teaching materials especially based on reading. My story is about the day of mole mom Mary and her two sons. I refer to Michigan English Language Proficiency Standards for K-12 schools, especially R.5.2.c restate fact and details of fact.

             Making this story, I tried to put useful expressions frequently used in daily life. The target students are from pre-school students to elementary third graders. As my target students are young, I focused on their ability to restate the fact and details. Through making their own story, students can use the words and expressions I used in this material. 

            Students will be able to make their own story with very short sentences and beautiful drawings. They can review what they have learned through the lesson. I will give them an reading quiz to ask them what they have read in this story.

My first photo story for flipped lesson

My Animoto link

Sports and activities

         I made the photo story about English words related to sports and activities. Through this photo story, my students will be able to learn the phrases about sports more interestingly. I refer to Michigan English Language Proficiency Standards for K-12 schools, especially S.1.1.a Use learned phrases to respond to questions and directions. 

      Using photo and music, students will be more likely to get involved in my lesson. After learning phrases related to sports and activities, student will be able to use these expressions in their speaking activity. During speaking activity, they can demonstrate what they have learned in my photo story lesson.

      They will get their own assignment as well, which is supposed to put their own pictures. In the assignment, students will find some words related to the pictures they choose and learn them. Then, I will give them oral test to check whether they have learned through their photo story assignment. 

My learning objective and how to check it from TED-ED

My TED-ED link:

Erin McKean: Go ahead, make up new words!

My language learning objective is based on Michigan English Language Proficiency Standards for K-12 schools, especially L.3 Identify main ideas and supporting details from spoken English.

In this talk, Erin Mckean who is an lexicographer, explains the diversity of new words and the benefit of making up new words. She encourages us to make up our own new words to express our ideas and get our meaning across.

To see if the objectives had been met, I make two multiple choice questions for main idea and details of the talk.

1. What is the main idea of this talk?

(A) making up new words

(B) finding the history of new words

(C) learning how to use dictionary

2. What is not included in the ways to make up new words?

(A) compounding

(B) stealing

(C) deleting

And to enlarge our students thought, I also made an open-ended type question.

3. Why does the speaker encourage us to make up new words?

The review of "Flipping Your EL Classroom: A Primer" written by John Graney

I would like to review the article named Flipping Your EL Classroom: A Primer written by John Graney. Teachers are bound to be frustrated when the teaching material or instruction they prepared do not work well. The author of this article suggests that teachers bring students assignment into the ‘flipped’ classroom and their instruction parts move out of the classroom to help learners engage in more cognitively demanding activities with the teacher present. The frustrated student, the confused learner, the student in danger of tuning out gets attention and support when they need it (Bergmann & Sams, 2012). Like all good homework assignments, these activities still challenge students to use what they have learned. 

The author of this article argues that teachers can break a flipped classroom lesson into three parts: work at home, work in class, work after class. In exemplified lesson, it is intriguing that teachers insert a quiz into the video which students are supposed to watch at home. Then the teacher sets up activities and prepare some needed materials.

According to the author, what happens in the flipped classroom revolves around the learners' needs. The activities help learners elicit the misunderstandings and take the students deeper into the subject. In addition, the author refer that by moving instruction outside of class, learners gain control over their learning. Students who cannot follow or understand the teacher’s instruction are able to review again and again until they understand well. They can use Internet and freely find more required information.

As video are closely related to the flipped classroom, the author also introduces some way of choosing video materials for class. First of all, as the flipped classroom becomes more popular, better instructional videos should become available, such as finding an Existing Video in YouTube or TED-ED. Creating a Video also can be a good way to use video material for class. With regard to other nonvideo Options, the author advises that the videos are the important part of flipping, but teachers can use a variety of resources for the initial exploration of a topic.

In conclusion, teachers can encourage their learners find their answer, changing the methods of teaching, so-called ‘in flipped classroom’. And they are also responsible for explaining the instructions well and making their learners get involved to their class. 

Serious game _ Third world farmer

I played the serious game. According to Wikipedia, a serious game or applied game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to products used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, health care, emergency management, city planning, engineering, and politics.

I chose Third World Farmer. It helps students experience some of the hardships of farming in a poor country. This game provide us the opportunity not only to know the English language but also to think about poor countries’ farming conditions including unexpected bank corruption, lack of basic necessities, disasters people would encounter or economic disadvantage. It means that this game is designed not just for language learning. Through this game, students are able to think about the poor countries and difficulty of farming besides the language learning.

I have played this game three times. The more a student plays games, the more he can get more points to buy utensils or farm plants. Clicking the person or items, students can see the details of the picture they clicked. The instructions and explanation are provided and students can buy necessities for their farm. Reading the instructions, students can learn vocabulary and expressions about farming and economy.

In addition, in the end, it provides ‘annual report’ including data such as plant they put or items they bought. The most interesting thing is that they also provide the information about some natural, social or political reason for the farming result this year such as bankruptcy, big fire and so on. Through this annual report, students can expand their vocabulary knowledge and be aware of some natural or social phenomena around the third farming country.

With regards to my learning objectives, I have chosen Michigan English Language Proficiency Standards, especially for reading and comprehension, R.5.2.c Restate facts and details of text. According to Kyle Mawer's task types, I can assess ‘story telling’ including narrating a game story or writing the narrative of a game. As an activity, I would like to have students play this game first, and then, have them to write what they did including the expression they’ve learned in this game. In addition, they are supposed to write about the reason why their farming was not successful reciting the reason presented in the ‘annual report.’ 

Goodgame Empire – Encouraging my students’ problem-solving ability by themselves

Goodgame Empire

Link

http://empire.goodgamestudios.com/?country=us&lppid=30&lppla=www.ogigames.com&lpref=http%3A%2F%2Flp.empire.goodgamestudios.com%2F%3Fcountry%3Dus%26pid%3D30%26gid%3D12%26network%3Dd%26creative%3D41379680045%26placement%3Dwww.ogigames.com%26keyword%3D%26matchtype%3D%26camp%3D3%26adgr%3D115%26gclid%3DCPXx2sCFpsQCFUQ6gQodRAEAZw

          

              I played this game three times. It took a relatively long time (over 30 minutes for a one time) because it is based on building a castle and manipulating the army. However, it is worth to spend time because it’s so interesting and arouse intrinsic motivation to finish the stage or complete the assigned task.

             In terms of language performance indicator, this game provides systematic level-up experience and specific instructions. This game aims to build the castle, collect the source to buy or upgrade my own property in the castle and take care of ‘my people’. In other words, learner can be the knight to protect my people’s safety and prosperity. The background of this game is the medieval times, and also it provides good back ground music. This back ground setting encourages learners to get involved in the situation as they seem to be there and gives a kind of sense of reality.

             As I mentioned above, learners do not have to be scary about being stagnant on their own level. According to the specific directions on each level, some ‘arrows’ let learners know what to do and how to do. At each stage, Wilhelm and General Sir. Ulrich assign the tasks and learners can do exactly what they have to do. And also they provide the specific instructions for each assignment. For example, when I was confused with how to collect my sources to upgrade my property in my castle (its name is Barracks), some arrows presented the area what I should click and Wilhelm gave me advice for upgrading my property. 

             I think the most important benefit of this game is making learners be accustomed to some new words and sentences given as instructions. All sentences not only are made of good sentences without any grammatical error but also have clear message to understand the task. It would be very helpful for learners because they can learn not only how to solve the problem in the game but also well-made sentences with the instructions. If learners have no idea about the word presented in the instructions, teacher just let them know or encourage them to think what they mean. Teacher’s role is limited in this game but the teacher can be a good interactor to student, helping them to solve the problem or accomplish the assigned task by themselves, with minimum external support.

             The game proceeds to collect some resources such as wood, coins, bread (food for people) and the knight (army). Learners have to concentrate on the screen because they can find those sources above of the people’s head (in the game) such as bread, coins and so on. When learners find those sources, they have to click on that and get that source. Collecting the sources, learners can buy the new property such as ‘stone quarry’ or ‘storehouse’ and they also can be used to enhance the castle’s barrier. After completing my task, even if it was a very small task, they praised and encouraged me to go to the next steps. Through every step, learners feel the sense of accomplishment, and even have a passion to complete the task in allotted time.

             If I show the ‘walk through’ to my students, it would be the following:

1.    Build your castle: First, follow the instructions and arrow.

2.    Then click the button. Then, set the building you want where you want to put.

3.    Collect the sources: Take Wilhelm and General Sir Ulrich’s advice.

4.    Keep your eyes on the above of the people’s head in my castle. Sometimes, one person have the picture of source over their head. When you see it, just click and get it.

5.    Then, use collected source to upgrade your castle and army.

6.    After, you upgrade your castle and army, your level also will go up.

7.    According to your level, you will get more challenging but interesting task.

         Specifically, with regard to my specific learning objectives from Michigan English Language Proficiency Standards for K-12 Schools, especially R.3.2.b, students will be able to use meaning clues and language structure to expand vocabulary (pictures, background knowledge, context clues). 

       To assess whether my learning objectives were accomplished or not, I can encourage my students to follow specific written directions or instructions to perform activities.

      I will give students the first quiz with a written form. I will use pictures, putting 10 pictures in it to match students’ word knowledge from this game. Pictures encourage students to remember the words more easily. For example, my students are bound to learn some words in this game such as ‘knight’, ‘coins’, ‘foods’, ‘employ’, ‘tools’ and so on. I will put 10 pictures of the words from the game. Students are supposed to match each word to each picture.

        Then, I will give students the second quiz with 10 questions. This quiz aims to check they can expand their word knowledge from the game. I will ask them to fill in the blank. In terms of ‘fill-in-the-blank questions’, I will ask one words from the game for each question. In other words, I will give a context/sentence with a blank and students have to choose only one word among 4 words choices and fill in the blank with the word. These are formed as multiple-choice typed questions.

       Through this activities, my students will be able to make sure what they’ve learn from the game and expand their language according to my learning objectives, Michigan English Language Proficiency Standards for K-12 Schools, especially R.3.2.b.