Google Maps as a creative teaching tool.

If you want to try a different and technological activity with your students, here I let you some ways to do it with the Google Maps website or application.

Nowadays everyone knows about the Google Maps application for the mobile phone, but we use to focus on the most characteristic function, the GPS. However, there are more options in the website, and, some of them can be interesting and stimulating for the english classroom.

First of all, we can use the most common option too for the classroom. the maps borrow concepts from many different disciplines, such us math, geography, art and language. At this point, we can measure distances, create routes for group trips, explore historical or far away places... For the students is really stimulating to explore and know new places, they can take contact with other cultures, even they can only visit in a digital way.

The second option is Earth Picker. It is a game which place you in randon places around the world. The children guees where are they in the map. They have to pay attention to the signs, the language, the type of buildings and other clues. This option can teach our students the importance of the culture in the society, a english student must understand the importance of the culture in the language and the world society.

If the last function of the Google Maps website is too easy for your children, here I let you one option for older students: MyMaps. MyMaps page is a powerful tool for the english classroom if we want to work with extracurricular links, such as geography or maths. Thanks to this application the children can create their own map using Google´s interface: They will be able to edit the base map, include markers and icons, make directions and different areas, they can even plan a trip... In conclusion, it can really be applied in the english classroom if we want to give them the opportunity to be creative and learn more about the cultures and how the world works.

For finish. I would like to mention too the Smarty Pins as one of the Google Maps tools. Smarty Pins is a web- game created by Google which include a Quiz with art. culture. science, history, sports and current events questions, they are scored depending on how far is the answer is in relation with their physical position in the map. For that I think that it can be also a good tool if we want to assess our students knowledge in a  creative way.

The Circus of the sounds!

Here you have an activity that I made to work in a primary english classroom the oral comprehension and production in a creative and funny way.

In this post, as I said, I am going to talk about the oral comprehension. In this appart of the english language learning process, the teachers use to choose exercises in which the student must listen to a dialog and then, the teacher assess their understanding level according to the mistakes in their answers.

As I said before, we must try to be creative in our classrooms. Fot that, for the oral comprehension I made a Power Point Presentation related with the Circus. I focused the attention on the sounds because I want to work also the oral production, during th presentation the students have to repeat some phonetics sounds which use to be common in the english language. Such us, the S; they need to notice the diffeence between the "s" of the word "sun" and the "S" of the word "she".

For that reason, the story of the Circus of sounds can be really helpful if we want to work the oral comprehension while they are listening to the characters, but also, can be really useful if we want to work also the oral production and the phonetics.

Welcome to the Circus of Sounds by Sandra Ortiz Calvarro on Scribd

Creative writting production in the English Classroom.

We know writing production is not the favorite part of the learning process for children, fot that reason it is specially difficult to find interesting and funny ways to motivate them to write in english.

As I said before in the Blog, from my point of view the creativity should be present in the whole learning process. For that reason, I am goint to use this post to talk about the creativity in the writing production.

I use a website that can be a really helpful tool for improving our children writing production and also their motivation to the english language. The page http://www.playcomic.es gives the students the opportunity to create their own comic, choosing the characters, the stage, the ballons, the objects, speciall efects and, of course, writing the story.


The website is easy to navigate and understand. It is stimulating and interesting for children. It has, also, an area fot the teachers where you can find educational suggestions with different versions of the game: Finish the comic, paint a situation, dramatize a comic, fill the ballons... For example, if the teacher wants to practice also the oral comprehension, he can use the game "Listen the dialog and create a cartoon".

It can be used at the classroom and at home, you can save the comic and continue later or even you can print it if you have finished. This aspect is really helpful for the learning process, it can be difficult to create a whole story in english in only one lesson, for that I think that in this activity it is also important to give the students time to think the story, the characters, how to tell the story in english, discuss it in group, make questions to the teacher, etc.

In conclusion, I think the "Paint a Comic" page is a really useful tool for the english classroom, the students can be creative and design their own story in a really easy and funny way. All of this will improve our children motivation on the english learning process.

Here I let you an example of comic that I made for the english classroom!

Creating our own Quiz Game.

As teachers we should know creativity is one of the most important element in the learning process, but it is also true that it is not always easy to find the perfect way to be creative.

For example, when we must assess the reading comprehension, usually the teacher makes a test or exam with the most important content questioned on it, then the student use to answer in a repetitive way. From my point of view, we should avoid this kind of repetitive learning, because it can make decrease our students´ motivation.

But, How can a teacher be creative in a reading comprehension assessment?
We can evaluate our children with a personalized quiz online. Thanks to the website  https://kahoot.com we can design our own questions and answer, talking about the topics we want to work at the moment. Even at the digital blackboard, the whole class can make the quiz, discussing what is important for them or not, writting posible questions and answers...It is a good tool if we want to improve our students reading comprehension, and also, oral or writing production depending on how we want to work it.

The page https://kahoot.com is really complete, we don´t only have the prsonalized quiz option.
There are a lot of different quiz games, each week they post a new quiz. You can find quizzes about the World History, the Climate Change, Science, Sports, General Knowledge... Topics interesting and useful for the young learners, more if we want to work with extracurricular links or with the CLIL methodology.  Of course, you can find the quizzes in english or spanish.

In addition, the website gives the student the opportunity to reinforce the lesson, with the mobile app the teacher can assign kahoot as homeworks or optional reinforce. It can be a different way to practice at home, the children love to use the new technologies, specially the mobile phone, so, Why not to take advantage of it?

How can we use the Art learning advantages in the English classroom?

ART IN THE ENGLISH CLASSROOM

In the english classroom the teacher should provide the students with opportunities to express themselves and, also, with interesting materials to generate motivation. From my point of view, the teacher can figure it out with the ART.

The children feel good when they are creating something new, what helps their self-conficence. We, as english teachers, should know how important is the confidence when you try to learn a new language, you need to be able to make mistakes, to experiment, to rephrase and repeat... For that reason, if we need secure students we need to give them resources in relation with self.esteem, such us artistic contents.




Here you have an example; There are so many museums, like the Louvre Museum and the Prado Museum, which have in their websites virtual visits and resources for the schools. It can be an interesting method to show the children how important is the art in the world, and at the same time, we are working with them multicultural knowledge.

We can also use the art as a graphic support for the new english contents. For example, we can use the page: http://kidmons.com/game/paint-online to draw and write new vocabulary words online with different colours and materials. Moreover, in this page we can save and print the children designs.

This site is really easy and simple to use, it can be perfect to use in a digital blakboard for young learners.

Another page in relation with the art, but more complex that the precious one: http://www.colorwithleo.com/artstudio.php. This page teach the children how to draw animals or simple figures with oral instructions in english, there are also some games to make a portrait, to exercise the memory with the colours, puzzles, complete shades,etc. In the english clasroom we can use this page to introduce and support new contents in a dinamyc and funny way for the children.