Nik’s Daily English Activities
I just take a closer look at some pages and blogs concerning the topic of new media and the possibilities of usage and came up with a very interesting blog by Nik Peachey who is a freelance learning technology consulter, a writer and a teacher trainer. He runs several websites with the topic of new technologies in the English classroom that features tips, resources and learning material for EFL and ESL teachers.
One of his blogs which I especially like is designed for autonomous ESL and EFL learners. It is called„ Nik’s Daily English Activities“ and gives ideas for simple activities and exercises which the learner can do on a daily basis. These activities can improve your English skills like pronunciation, listening comprehension or memorizing vocabulary just to mention a few. Beside this the learner get in contact with new technologies and new media in connection with learning the English language.
I really like the different activities because they are almost like little WebQuests because Nik uses websites with different tool or activities and designs his own tasks around these sites. I will give you an example how his activities work out by describing an activity that I like:
- Read and Write Very Short Stories: This one is an exercise where the learners are asked to write a short story based on five images. You can find these images on a site called Five Card Stories. Before starting to write their own stories the task for the learners is to read through several other stories on the website and then they are supposed to vote how good the story is according to their opinion. Through this they probably get some inspiration for their own writings and learn to give and receive feedback for written works.The next step is to write their own story to images or rewrite a story they have read using the same images. For writing the learner just need to fill in the title of the story, their nickname and their own version of the short story into a blank. After this they have to write two security words and then they can save their own version of a short story to the site. The learner can come back and see how other users like the story and voted for it! Additionally it is possible to create your own story by choosing images yourself. Go to the gallery of Five Card Stories and pick some pictures you like or find interesting. Then you can write your own story the same way already described before!
I really like this activity because on the one hand it is great for your students to improve their vocabulary and writing skills in a creative way and on the other hand this exercise does not necessarily need to be done on the internet. You can transfer these tasks easily to your classroom by just bringing different images and everyone can pick five of them according to one’s own interest and fantasy. After writing their stories they can put them somewhere in class and the other students can comment on their stories orally or through short comments on paper!
This is just one of the many different activities that the host of this blog offers for learners. As already mentioned most of the exercises are good hints and material for teachers as well and can be easily used in class. I really like this page and just can recommend it to you!
