For the Finnish-speaking readers

Isn't it always nice when somebody is interested in knowing what actually happens in your classroom?  Yesterday our principal came to observe my lessons as part of her own studies. This is the report she wrote about what happened in the classroom. The link is in Finnish: Tvt tiedonhaussa ja soveltamisessa

Tellagami

Last spring I attended a webinar by Joe Dale and learned about some great iPad apps for language learning.  Yesterday we finally got round to testing Tellagami in the classroom.  At the same time we also tested our brand new Apple TV.

The students had already been studying adjectives and how to describe people. Thus we decided to use Tellagami for this purpose: The students introduced their characters and described what kind of persons they were. This required the use of variety of adjectives.  I was truly impressed how well they  all spoke given the fact that some of them have been in the country for only three months (!).

Here are some observations on using Tellagami:

•  It is fun to create the character and choose the way he or she looks. At the same time the students can revise some key vocabulary (body parts, colours, clothes etc.)
• It’s possible to preview your message and record it again. Many students took advantage of this and recorded their messages a few times until they were happy with the result.
• Everything went well apart from one iPad that got stuck after recording and the student had to do the work all over again (this time on her classmate’s iPhone).
• In the end we watched everyone’s gami messages on the screen. I am so pleased about having an Apple TV in the classroom now. The voice quality was also surprisingly good.

We'll definitely be using this app more in the future!
Please share if you have any ideas or comments to add on the use of Tellagami!

Lately we've been also working with apps such as Micro Phone + Recording Pro, Decide Now! and Dragon Dictation. More about them on another posting!