Google Slides Quizzes

Hi everybody! It's been a long time! I am now back teaching English to high school students, and it's been lovely to get back into teaching English full time after so many years (although I do love teaching Finnish as well). 

In Helsinki, we've been in distance learning again since the end of November 2020. By now teachers and students are much more prepared than earlier last spring. Teachers all around the world are trying to figure out ways of online teaching that would enable everybody's participation and of course, keep the students motivated and present in the lessons. 

I have found animated Google Slides quizzes to be a really handy, simple and easy tool to both revise and teach new material in a live online lesson (we use Google Meet). The slides are super easy to make, just add your text, pics and most importantly, the animated element to reveal the correct answer! I showed the students the questions online, and they replied in chat, which enabled them all to participate at the same time. 

I just now uploaded two slide quizzes with some background music on YouTube for students to revise. See the full videos here:

• Groups of Animals 1:48

• Verb + Preposition (or not) 1:28

I also created a Kahoot! to practise Groups of Animals, check it out here.

That's all for now! Have a lovely day!

Best, Minna

Excellent sites for improving EFL / ESL listening skills!

At the moment I am finishing off a summer course that had a focus on improving the students' listening skills and expanding their vocabularies. I teach at a Finnish upper secondary school, i.e. in a high school, where students generally take at least one of their A-level exams in a foreign language, and English is a very popular choice. 

The target level for high school leavers is B2.1 but many students reach a level even higher than that. The EFL A-level exam, or matriculation examination as it is called in Finland, is of a very high level which is why I had to plan the course so that the students would be well prepared for the actual exam in the autumn (A-level exams are arranged nationally twice a year). Yet, I also had to provide the students with listening material that was suitable also for those students who were struggling with the demands of the national exam.

To cut a long story short, here is a list of some excellent sites that I used as listening material. We used the videos and audios for open questions, multiple-choice exercises or for writing short summaries. Sometimes the students chose a video and after studying it, they created the listening comprehension questions with answers themselves. 

I hope you'll find the sites useful! My students surely did, the feedback I got from them was superb!

Abitreenit: Englanti *) Read more about this below

AsapScience

BBC Learning English (my all time favourite!)

BBC World Service Podcasts

British Council Learn English
Crash Course

English Listening Lesson Library Online - elllo

Indiana Public Media Podcast

LBC London's Biggest Conversation

Lyrics gaps

TED Talks

The Minimalist Podcast

VoA English @ the Movies

VoA English in a Minute

VoA Everyday Grammar TV

VoA News Words

Ykitreenit

News in English: 

ABC

BBC

CNN

CNN 10 (News explained in 10 minutes)

NEWS24

NEWS IN LEVELS: VoANEWS (slow English)

1NEWSNOW

SKYNEWS

YLE NEWS in English

*) If you are not familiar with the Finnish A-level system but would like to have a go with sample A-level exams in EFL, please don't get overwhelmed with the Finnish language on the site. The multiple choice questions are in English and you'll get the correct answers once you submit yours. Have a go and see how you would do in our national EFL test!

Ps. If you know any good listening comprehension sites, please share them in the comment section below!

Wishing you a lovely summer and see you after the holidays!

Best, Minna 

Some practical tips!

How to boost your language learning? Whatever the target language, in order for you to learn, you need to be motivated! There has to be a reason for you to learn the language be it related to work, relationships, travelling or something else. If the motivation is there, things will get much easier. Where there's a will, there's a way! 

1) Learning new vocabulary

• Not all vocabulary is the same. If you are a beginner, start with the 100 most common words in the target language. Whenever possible, try to use them. The best way to learn vocabulary is to talk, talk and talk. I believe we learn most through actively participating. Be also ready to accept that you'll make mistakes, it's totally OK. All language learners have been there, including me.
• Challenge yourself to learn 1-20 new words every. Even if you went for only one word a day, you'd still end up with 365 new words a year! If you did 20 words a day, well, then wow! That would lead to 7,300 new words a year! Depending on how you like to practise, you can, for example, jot the words down in a notebook or use Quizlet to create different vocabulary sets. Quizlet is easy and fun to use, you can choose whether you want to just read or listen to the words, or if you'd like to give a try at writing or playing games (btw. I'm not being paid by Quizlet, I just think it's a great help for language learning). Make learning new words a routine, you can really make great improvements in a short period of time. 
• As said before, it's good to talk. Always aim to use the new vocabulary. If there's no one to talk to, talk to yourself! Or to your pet, or to your plants. Just make sure you talk!
• Use a pocket dictionary, there are so many apps where to choose from! 
• Spend time reading in the target language. Whether you are at the beginners level or already at the advanced level, this will increase your vocabulary and familiarize you with the structures of the language. 

2) Improving your listening comprehension skills

• Whenever possible communicate with the target language as much as you can. There really is no substitute for this. 
• Listen to the target language as much as you can, choose something that really interests you: podcasts, audiobooks, radio programmes, TV, Netflix, music, etc. The more interest you have towards the material, the more you want to do the listening. Make it fun and interesting! Get used to the rhythm of the target language. If you are a beginner, then you can start by listening to useful phrases. 
• The internet is full of excellent material for language learning. In fact, at the moment I'm teaching a course for upper intermediate and advanced level EFL learners and I have gathered some excellent websites for my students to improve their listening skills. I'll share these super great tips in my following post. Until then have a great time learning!

Best, Minna

What are your best tips for improving your language learning?