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?

BBC Learning English and Google for Education in a mixed skills language class

Have I already mentioned that I love BBC Learning English? I had a somewhat long break from using this fantastic site and now that I’m back to it, I clearly remember why it is such a great resource for teaching and learning English. I have many favourites on the site, The English We Speak and 6-minute-English to name but a few (in fact, I'm a big fan of all their courses).

Presently, I teach a group of immigrants with a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Their levels of EFL vary significantly from absolute beginners to intermediate level, which is why I ended up dividing the learners in two groups. However, the lessons happen at the same time and in the same classroom, so this requires a bit of planning so that each student would benefit from the course and improve their language skills.

What to do?
Picture by Papunet

I planned a programme for both levels and this is where BBC Learning English came into picture for the intermediate level students. Together with the students we chose two items from the site: an older series called The Teacher for learning idioms and Lingohack Words in the News for learning vocabulary. Both programmes consist of videos, which ensures that the students will get plenty of listening practice. In addition to informative (and funny, in the case of The Teacher) visual and audible resources, the material also includes a script for each video. This is particularly helpful for those students who need written material to support their learning.

Solution found!
Picture by Papunet

How a regular lesson could go when the students are practising vocabulary (they also study grammar during this course but that’s another story): I normally start with the beginners’ level students while the intermediate group already know the drill. They choose a set of idioms or news item to study, watch the video, listen and study the vocabulary. They do this alone, in pairs or in small groups. They then sign in on their Google Document (shared with the teacher) and report their learning process there: What were the idioms or vocabulary they studied? What do the idioms mean? In what kind of sentences the idioms or vocabulary could be used?

When we’ve had enough time with the beginner’s group, and they are engaged in their exercises, we then go through the findings together with the intermediate students. At this point the students also get practice in speaking. 

Google Docs is a great tool for documenting and sharing learning. Perhaps now that the students are familiar with the BBC site and the more self-directed way to find information online, we could try using Google Slides to increase collaboration and information sharing between the students. 

The idioms of the day

Do your students use BBC Learning English? Or, if you’re a student, do you use the site? Which is your favourite course on the site? 

Good old learning stations!

I’m a big fan of learning stations. They are great for letting students choose what to do, in which order and they are also a very natural way to differentiate teaching. I also very much like that students work in small groups and help each other. Learning stations naturally also allow the teacher to go around and be of help when needed. 

Since September my students have been learning Finnish at an overwhelming pace. This week they started to study vocabulary on Finnish nature. Here are a few glimpses of our Friday’s stations.

• Increase your vocabulary with Quizlet. Choose the themes you wish to practise: nature, trees, birds, animals in the forest, insects
• Study the vocabulary and play a game of domino.
• Start studying the text (challenging).
• Go out and find the following trees. Photograph them and show your findings to the rest of the group. Test if they know which trees you captured.

My favourite station this time was the one that took the students outside the classroom to explore surrounding nature. It was a sunny day, too! 

Speaking about nature, can you believe that Finland has 187 888 lakes!

A game of domino

Learning vocabulary with Quizlet. A picture of one of the 187 888 lakes in Finland.

Do you know what this tree is in Finnish? Check it out here.
Photo taken by a student in my group.

Listening comprehension summer course: Links for EFL learners!

Greetings from our summer courses!

For more than a decade our school has organized high school summer courses in various subjects such as English, Swedish, Finnish, Biology, Geography, Health Studies, History, Chemistry and Mathematics. This summer we had 24 courses with approximately 25-35 students per course. Now this is what I call motivation! 

Here in headphone land. Photo thanks to clemsonunivlibrary 

This summer I was in charge of the listening comprehension courses which are one of my favourite ones (well, they all are to be honest). To cut a long story short, the during the two-week-course the students practised for the up-coming national examination. We covered all possible exercise types listed by the National Board of Matriculation Examination. This includes:

• multiple choice questions both in English or in the language of instruction ie. Finnish or Swedish

• open questions in English or in the language of instruction

• a summary based on what you hear

I enjoyed planning and teaching this course. All EFL teachers in Finnish high schools know that it is seldom possible to concentrate on one particular area throughout the whole course, but with this course it was possible. The main focus was to improve students' listening skills and expand their vocabularies. The students who took the course were there for this specific reason so clearly they were very motivated and ready to learn.

Our school organised 24 summer courses for high schoolers in June 2015.

We concentrated on one exercise type at a time and students had the opportunity to test different techniques when carrying out the exercises. In addition, we practised previous years' listening comprehension test. The students had a chance to listen to the tests independently at their own pace, which got great feedback from them. They also frequently commented how they feel more confident to face the challenging exam now that they are prepared for it and know what to expect.

The national listening comprehension test. You can also find them on the net.

We also used some material on the net. Here are some links with brief descriptions of each site. I think they are great for practising listening skills and expanding vocabulary:

• BBC Learning English: Words in the news video stories: A great site for EFL and ESL learners scroll down a bit for the video stories and see for yourself!

• English in a minute: Short videos that explain idioms and often also their origins.

• BBC Learning English: The English we speak: Dialogues that shed light on the English idioms and colloquial expressions. I advise students to listen to these with the scripts.

• Yle news in English. Yle is a national Finnish broadcasting company.

• LBC 97,3: A talkradio that focuses on everyday news and issues.

• An example of the national matriculation examination test. This test is from 2006, soon this test type will be in history as the national exams will be reformed starting from autumn 2016.

• English Lab: Students can choose the level they want to practise: easy, medium, difficult

• For students preparing for the Finnish matriculation examination there are also a variety of listening comprehension exercises available. One of the best known is probably abitreenit.

There is an excellent blog for preparing students for the national exam, it also includes a posting on listening skills. Studying this was one piece of homework in our listening course (the blog is in Finnish). Additionally, if students wanted to practise test-related vocabulary, they could do that with the help of Quizlet. 

After these intensive courses it feels great to start the summer holidays!

Wishing you all a lovely summer! See you again in the autumn!

Have a relaxing summer!

Encouraging students’ plurilingualism

It’s been one of my busiest school year so far. Since my last posting, there’s been so much progress in the language and studying skills of my students in the preparatory class. For my new readers: After nearly 20 years of teaching EFL in high schools, I am now teaching Finnish as a second language to 17 to 25-year-old immigrants preparing them for basic education, along with other school subjects such as, for example, English, Mathematics, introductory courses to societal studies and natural sciences. The students come from various cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and in September they started learning Finnish from the beginning.

Lately I’ve been trying to figure out ways in which they could truly use their full potential and personality to help them in the face of the enormous challenge of learning Finnish and adjusting to their new home country. With this object in mind, I also took an online course on multicultural learning and teaching (arranged by Open University of Jyväskylä, which, by the way, I can highly recommend to anybody interested in the topic, the information is in Finnish).

In a truly multicultural and plurilingual school, the appreciation of different cultures and languages doesn’t limit just in theme weeks or projects, but instead multiculturalism is a natural and visible part of every school day. I'm now working on how to take this into account in my teaching and make multiculturalism a resource in learning and teaching. To remind the students that they already know many languages and have many skills, we started off by creating a poster in which each student wrote Hello and Thank you in all the languages they knew. They also asked me to add these words in Swedish since Swedish is the second official language in Finland. Later, they found flags of their own countries and glued them on the poster.

Hello! Thank you!

The following day we started with khmer which is spoken by some 16 million people and is the mother tongue of my student from Cambodia. She kindly taught us how to say hello, goodbye and thank you in khmer. The pronunciation was easy, but the writing was a huge challenge. This is how it looks like (copy pasted from Google translator, my handwriting wasn’t very presentable :) 

hello ជំរាបសួរ 

goodbye លា 

thank you សូមអរគុណអ្នក

What a great reminder of how difficult it is to learn to read and write with the alphabet you’re not familiar with! Just imagine the challenges for students who are not familiar with the Latin alphabet!

For the coming two weeks or so, we’ll be using these three words whenever possible making the effort to really learn them. After that we’ll take another language until all the languages in the classroom are covered. Three words doesn’t put too much strain on anybody nor does it take too much time from learning Finnish. What I am hoping it does, is to show appreciation of each student’s mother tongue and culture. It also reminds the students that they are the native speakers and experts of their own languages. It’s great that they can, in turn, be teachers and guides and show their expertise. I hope that this will further increase their motivation to attend the classes and carry on with their language studies. All the information the students give also integrates well with the introductory geography course we are about to start.

I've already tried out some other ways of taking the students’ plurilingualism into account in their learning processes and in my teaching. More about this in my next posting. I would be very glad to hear any experiences you might have on the theme.