Zimmer Twins

Zimmer Twins is another tool for movie making. Similar to Dvolver, Zimmer Twins allows us to create digital video and share it across the interwebs. It is a tool perfectly made for English language teaching, making it more interactive and interesting.

Things to know about Zimmer Twins:

1. It offers 3 characters (Edgar, Eva and 13), talk bubble clips, action clips, expressions and settings
2. It provides several story starters that we can include our own endings to complete the story. 
3. The animated movie can be saved. 
4. We can also insert a title and a brief description to the movie.
5. We can always review and edit, if we are not satisfied with the movie.
6. We may also share our video to friends as an email. 

The three characters: Edgar, Eva and 13



The talk bubble clips, action clips, expressions, star clips and the settings.

How to use it in the class?

1. To practise new language point

• Zimmer Twins is a mean for practicing new grammar point. Teacher needs to first set a topic. The topic sets a context and also acts as a stimulation for students to apply the new language point. Without which, language will be used in a discrete way and loss its authenticity. 

• For example, instead of asking students to make conversation with party-related vocabulary, teacher may set a topic, called "A birthday Party". From there, students build up dialogues and story in relation to the topic and they unconsciously apply a range of topic-related vocabulary. Therefore, with a context, students can practise the new grammar in a real and meaningful way. At the same time, language acquisition take place naturally and unconsciously.

2. To stimulate students' creativity and imaginative skills

• Teacher may ask students to watch a starter video and create their own ending for the story. The starter video can either be elicited from the Zimmer Twins site or created by teacher himself/herself. This activity encourages students to explore on their imaginative minds and creativity to come up with any possible events that might take place after the early part of the story. It also stimulates students' thinking skills in making sensible predictions. 

3. To enhance students' storytelling skills

• Students can use Zimmer Twins to create any story they like and share it with the whole class via email. Besides, students can also have access to their peers' Zimmer Twins profiles in order to have a view of their friends' works. Teacher can set up this task as an out-of-class activity. To ensure that the plan is successful, students need to put in their commitment by updating their movie-maker consistently.

Why is it so special?

1. It promotes visual learning

• Students learn about language as they look at the photos while creating movies. They learn about different expressions of the characters, various vocabulary that explain the actions, and simple sentence constructions.

2. It gets students to be engrossed into the classroom activity

• Cartoons and animations offer a lot of fun in English language learning. Using them as part of classroom activities may generate greater interest of students in learning. Likewise, students' affective filter for learning is reduced; therefore, they can be seen more effective and focused in English language learning. 

3. It promotes autonomous learning.

• When teacher instructs students to create story individually, independent learning takes place. Students can be seen making their own decisions on how to generate a great story. 

4. It develops the sense of ownership

• As students take charge of their own creation of the story, they instill whatever they like and personalise the story. This in turns makes students to be proud of their own video, developing the sense of ownership

5. It is of the advantage of younger learners with limited linguistics knowledge

• Zimmer Twins is simple and easy to use. It has little barriers to entry. Also, the "action clips" and "expressions" provided are of students' competency level. Younger learners are able to explore on the vocabulary and maximise the usage through story-making.
  
  

The Limitations 

1. The characters in the Zimmer Twins cannot speak aloud.

2. We need to create an account for Zimmer Twins if we want to save the movies we create.

3. The tool does not provide an embedded code for us to embed the movie into our blog posts.
  

Have a look at the Zimmer Twins I have created http://www.zimmertwins.com/node/1330139?designated=new

You may log in to the website and have fun creating your story, too! 

Click & Learn

ClicknLearn is an interactive learning site that offers students with numerous activities and exercises to help in language learning. Even though this educational website is originally developed for Spanish language teaching, it then offers other languages, including English, French and Valencia. 

"Education is not the filling of a bucket but the lighting of a fire" 

                                                                                       -William Butler Yeats

ClicknLearn upholds the educational principle that language teaching and learning process should be carried out in a fun and enjoyable way. Fun is the big word for language acquisition! It is the source of motivation, the driving force and the stimulation. The sense of joy develops students' interest and commitment in language learning. Without which, language acquisition may face the risk of stagnation. 

ClicknLearn is a helpful site for both teacher and students in English Language Teaching  (ELT) classroom. Some of the features of ClicknLearn that make it a useful tool for ELT:

• It has hundreds of graded units. Each focuses on a different topics, teaching about vocabulary, grammar and cultural issues. 

Online English learning units

• It offers wide variety of Flash-based activities and exercises with sound

The flash-based activity (related to the topic - family) with audio aids

• It also provides printable handouts for teachers to use in classrooms

The printable documents related to the learning units

• Scoring is obtained after the completion of the language task. 

The test scoring

How can teacher use ClicknLearn in the classroom teaching?

1. As a form of 'blended' learning

• A "blended' learning classroom situation means the incorporation of technology as a mean to support language teaching. In this case, teacher integrates ClicknLearn as a helping tool or a supplementary activity for English language teaching. For example, teacher may select a related activity from ClicknLearn and let students to do after a lesson. The topics ranges from shops, clothing, weather, etc. 

2. To teach vocabulary 

• The activities and exercises in the site are arranged accordingly to the topics; therefore, teacher may use them to introduce topic-related vocabulary. Learning is made more effective as these vocabulary comes with images and illustrations. Pictures allow students to visualise the words, enhancing their vocabulary learning. 

3. As an online test

• After a topic or a grammar point is introduced, teacher choose a related activity for the class to attempt as an informal test. The score reading, which comes after the activity, gives teacher a general overview of students' current understanding towards the lesson learnt. This activity can be carried out constantly as a formative assessment on students' English language progression and proficiency. 

4. As a dynamic homework

• The activities and exercises in ClicknLearn can also be applied as a form of homework assignment. Unlike the conventional form of homework, students can attempt an electronic exercise as their homework. By doing so, students can be seen more committed in completing their homework. For instance, teacher may pick a relevant activity and ask students to attempt the questions repeatedly until they score perfectly in the exercise.

What do I like about ClicknLearn?

1. Language activities and exercises cater learners of various levels.

• Students from lower-intermediate, intermediate, or upper-intermediate can attempt any English learning units in accordance to their language proficiency. In other words, ClicknLearn gives students of all language competency the equal opportunity to use the tool. 

2. The English language units can act as a curriculum syllabus

• English learning units are compelled together systematically  to form a self-contained syllabus for students of different levels. Language teacher can always refer to the site while constructing lesson plan. Teacher can also print out some worksheets and give to students as classroom exercises.

3. It is an integrated approach to language learning. 

• The online English language units have reading, listening, grammar, vocabulary and cultural points covered simultaneously. 

4. Language learning becomes fun and enjoyable.

• Language activities and exercises are presented in a dynamic contexts, with animated characters, interesting backgrounds, visual aids, and comprehensible audio elements. These elements may attract students, especially younger learners, to tackle the exercises and activities. Language learning affective filtered becomes lowered when students are doing tasks that is of their interest. Students, thus, become more engaged and motivated in learning.

5. The flow of the activities and exercises is fast and quick. 

• Students can instantly progress to the next exercises or questions after the completion of the previous one. It is dynamic. 

6. The activities and exercises are interactive.

• ClicknLearn is an interactive tool. It can tell whether the students acquire the right answer or not. If students choose the right one, he/she can progress to the next one; otherwise,  they have to try it again. Hints and explanations are given as a support when they fail to acquire the right answer. 

7. Autonomous learning is encouraged. 

• Teacher may introduce this website to the students so that they can try out the exercises on their own. With the tool, students can self-direct their learning and progress at their own pace, promoting independent learning. 

What are the limitations of this tool?

1. The activities and exercises in the topic is non-reversible. There is no 'back' button for us to press and look back at the previous questions or exercises that we have done. All we can do is to finish the activity and start all over again. 

2. Certain activities and exercise require students of the cultural knowledge of the western countries. 

3. Students need to have internet access if they ever want to try the activities and exercises out at home. 

Word Cloud: Wordsift &Wordle

Transform your text into word clouds with Wordsift and Wordle!

What is word cloud?

Word cloud is an attractive arrangement of randomly positioned words. It is a representation of word frequency. Words that appear more frequently than others are displayed in bigger fonts. this implies that they are the possible key words of a text.

Both wordsift and wordle are two famous sites that help in generating word cloud.

How they work?

Both wordsift and wordle can immediately capture and display the vocabulary structure of texts. You just have to cut and paste any text into wordsift or wordle, and in a blink of eye, the text is transformed into a visually captivating word cloud. The programs help to quickly identify important words that appear in the text. They then give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently than others in the source text. 

Differences in their features:

A) Features of wordsift:

The outlook of word cloud presented by wordsif

1. can sort the key words from common to rare, rare to common word, or alphabetically from A-Z and Z-A
2. includes 'examples from source', i.e. the range of sentences in which a particular vocabulary can be found
3. provide thesaurus
4. show related images

B) Features of wordle:

The features of wordle

The outlook of word cloud presented by wordle

1. can tweak the cloud with different fonts, layouts and colour schemes.
2. may look more visually appealing and colourful as compared to wordsift 
3. can be printed out, saved in the wordle gallery for public view.
4. can choose to remove the 'common language', i.e. preposition, article, etc. 

How can teacher include wordsift and wordle into language teaching?

1. As a pre-reading/ writing activity

• Word cloud is an interesting way of introducing students with the possible vocabulary, which is related to a reading text or a writing task. The set of vocabulary builds up students' schemata and gives students a framework on the content of the upcoming text. 

2. To practise reading skill

• Word cloud, which summerises text with key words, can be a method to train students skimming and scanning skills. Having the knowledge of the key words in minds, they can then skim and scan the reading text with ease and get a better overview in their first reading. 

3. To set up an information gap activity

• Teacher may ask each student to make a word cloud of the text that they read. Then, working in pairs, they need to exchange their word clouds with their partners. From there, they need to guess the content and provide a rough description to their partners just by looking at the word clouds. To do this activity, students explore on their creativity and thinking skills (making prediction from clue, analysing, etc) 

4. To compare and contrast the key words in the text

• Teacher may ask each student to write an essay (let's say "A Sports Day") and generate a word cloud out of the text. Then, working in groups, they exchange their word clouds with one another. In this activity, students need to compare and contrast the key words they use. This allows them to see which words they have in common, which words are use more frequently, and who tends to use certain words in their essay more than others. Looking at these words, students can learn the topic-related vocabulary collaboratively. 

5. To write story creatively 

• Teacher may present students a word cloud without telling them the possible topic of the text. Students are then ask to write any possible story with reference to the set of key words in the word cloud. 

The advantages of wordsift and wordle

1. Students learn the use of vocabulary in a contextualised text. 

• Wordsift provides a range of sentences, in which a particular vocabulary is embedded, from the source / text. This allows students to learn how particular word can be used in sentences. In this case, vocabulary is not learn in a discrete method. Students learn the vocabulary in a more meaningful and natural way.

2. They promote visual learning.

• The interesting font, colour and layout of the wordle are believed to draw greater attention from the students towards the key words. Same goes to the more prominent words are enlarged.  Additionally, the interesting features of the tools are also believed to enhance students' memorisation towards the key words. This, in turn, is useful when students are learning unfamiliar words. 
• Wordsift, on the same notes, include related images to the words. This helps students to visualise the meanings of the vocabulary. 

The limitations

1. The tools cannot differentiate word family. For example, walk and walked are not distinguishable. 

2. We need to install a Java Plug-in in order to produce word cloud.

Podcasts made easy with Vocaroo

Podcast - The buzz word

Podcast is an online audio content. The audio file is downloadable to iPod or other portable media players on demand. Listeners can then listen to it anytime and anywhere at their convenience. To produce a podcast, we can use a tool, called Vocaroo, to record voice or audio with much simplicity! 

What is Vocaroo? 

Vocaroo is one of the online voice recording services that allows us to send voice messages across the interwebs. Vocaroo has slowly gaining its popularity for podcasting purposes. Let's look at its specialties:

1. Free! 

Vocaroo is a free service! We can create audio recordings without the need to install any software! We don't even have to create an account to use it. Even if we would like to create one, it is free of charge. All we need is a microphone or a built-in one. 

2. Easy to use

To create a voice recording, we just have to

• plug in a microphone or use the built-in microphone, 
• click record, and 
• start speaking.

"Click to Record" button

The tool has also allowed us to review our audio and try a second or third take. After listening to the recording and If we are not satisfied with it, just click "Retry" button. Otherwise, we can just choose to publish it without going through a another attempt. 

"Retry" button

3. Cool

What is so great about Vocaroo is that it offers us to

• embed our voice recording to blogs or other websites using the HTML code provided, 
• download it as a MP3, Ogg, FLAC, WAV
• share the audio file to other social networking sites, and 
• email it to friends or anyone. 

Sharing options

How can teacher use Vocaroo in classroom teaching?

1. To allow students to practise reading independently

• Teacher can ask students to read a text (of any genre) aloud and record their own reading using Vocaroo. The text can be a story, a speech, a poem, a report, a news etc. Learning takes place as students listen to the audio recording, determining how fluent and smooth is their reading, checking on the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation. In other words, students learn as they compare their own reading to what is considered a good reading. 

2. To assess students' speaking skills

• Teacher can assign any topic for students to talk on and listen to the audio recording created using Vocaroo later on. While listening to the file, teacher may make evaluation towards students' speaking skills. This includes checking on students' fluency, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary choice, sentence construction, etc. Other than having teacher to do the evaluation, teacher may also allow students to exchange their recordings so as to promote peer-assessment and feedback. 

4. To give students oral exercise as a homework

• Teacher may design a speaking task and ask students to complete it using Vocaroo at home. The tool brings innovation to the design of homework. Students can have oral exercises, other than just writing, listening and reading exercise. In this way, students are encouraged to use English both in the class and out of the class, hence, maximising the opportunity for students to speak in a second language.

5. To record students discussion in a communicative activity

• Recording what has been discussed allows students to review on the points  that have come up with. Nevertheless, it also allows both teacher and students to evaluate the latter's communicative skills. Both teacher and students can access on latter's linguistics knowledge, pragmatic competence (how to use language to achieve communicative goals), discourse competence (how to perform turns-taking, how to maintain a conversation, how to develop the topic), strategic competence (how to express successfully with the lack of resources) as well as fluency. Communicative activity often exhibits a real communicative situation; therefore, the recording can tell how well students can use language in a meaningful way. 

Why would we use Vocaroo?

1. To promote autonomous learning

• The tool encourages students to take responsibility and self-direct their own learning. As discussed above, students can listen back to their own recordings and self-evaluate their speaking abilities. If they find their speaking skills below the desirable level, they might do something to improve their competency. 

2. To create E-portfolio

• As the audio file can be downloaded, shared via emails or other social sites and can even be embedded in the blogpost, both students and teacher can have a record of all the voice recording created. With a record of the audio files, they can review the recordings from time to time and observe how much is students' progression in speaking and communicating. 

Limitations of Vocaroo

1. We cannot edit the recording. If any mistakes occurs, we have to begin recording again from the very beginning.

2. The recorded files are deleted after one year for those without a Vocaroo account.

3. We need to have access to internet in order to use the tool. 

Here is an example of my audio recording created using Vocaroo. 

Record and upload voice >>

Try out this tool yourself now!