ECU-KANSAS Go Teachers Program 2012: June 2012

Friday, June 29, 2012

Today I had a great morning. The picture prompts technique was really good. I felt as if I were Gabriel Garcia Marquez or any other inspired writer, I could not help but keep on writing.Thanks for sharing it with us, Fatimah!
In the afternoon I felt a little lost in Digital, but I will catch up, these are useful tools.

At Digital Classes you can see Roy, Bladimir, Ketty and Antonieta in this pic

A very enjoyable activity, a story writer myself, I could feel the joy of sharing my hobby with classmates this morning, however as a teacher I know it is not always that easy for students to elaborate a thought and as a group activity scaffolding with a picture and other's writing was a perfect way to help students produce. I personally feel impelled to use it in my classes!

My story was about a maze.... What would you write about?

Ideas:

creative writing prompts

Writing with Fatimah!

I have enjoyed the writing activitiy done this morning with Ms Fatimah Daud very much. I see that this offers many advantages. It let students to write with freedom. It also engages them in the activity as they have no barriers to create. Students try to do their bests as they are aware that their writing will be read by their partners. This activity also promotes cooperative work in the classroom and keep students writing and writing. In this way this writing strategy becomes very useful, and very fun.

I really enjoyed the writing activity in the morning. It was full of creativity and wisdom. It actually motivates students to free writing and the idea of becoming author of our own stories gives us the motive to write.

PIC PROMPTS

Reflection about the "PIC PROMPTS"

Creating engaging activites can be a useful tool to help our students be interested in learning and go beyond. Everything depends on the teachers'. If the teacher comes up with meaningful activities, the students will be eager to learn. That is our objective as teachers. Besides, there are many interesting resources to be found, we only need to take our time to surf the internet.
If you are interested in checking extra activities in writing. Help yourself!!!!
http://www.squidoo.com/esl-writing-activities

I loved the activity today! I can definitely see myself using this kind of activity with my students. I was thinking about using comics for easy writing for my middle school classroom. I found this page online, it gives you step by step details on how to teach writing!

http://nadabs.tripod.com/writing/

Writing a story using pictures

I think this activity was very meaningful because all the students were engaged and really enjoyed listening to the different interesting stories that were created. This kinds of activities foster the student's imagination and of course enriches his her writing skills.

What an Anecdote

WHAT AN ANECDOTE!!!!

I have learned many different things in these classes provided by our teachers. I have also learned a lot from my new friends. We come from different cities and regions of Ecuador. It´s kind of funny to share experiences from them and learn how to work together, help each other when we have doubts, telling jokes about the way we talk according to the place we come from, enjoy our free time and things like that….

Besides, another thing that I have learned is not to be so anxious and try to do things quickly While a teacher is explaining an activity to us, like the one that Delia was explaining The strategy "I do, We do, You do" for creating a blog. As soon as Delia finished the explanation, my partners who were sitting next to me told me “You said you didn´t know anything about how to create a blog but now you have it already done” Another partner assumed that I had it done before. Actually I was just following the steps because I didn´t pay attention to the instructions. Then I said “Sorry I thought I had to do it at the same time at the instructor was explaining. I was completely lost, however I could have completed an activity that was supposed to be an assignment for the following week. I was so embarrassed. Sorry for the misunderstanding, Delia.

This kind of anecdote has helped me to be conscious about situations that our students may face when they are not paying attention, don´t listen to the instructions or even when they try to do things quickly. We as teachers sometimes have students who behave like this. Taking the role as a student has made me comprehend them in a better way.

Hey, Dudes
Don't forget to work on your Reflection Wheel Journals for Assessment and Culture this weekend. And remember to do your Linguistic project this weekend, too. Have a good weekend doing assessments.

I really like today's classes both of them were really interesting. In the morning we make a funny activity about Picture Prompts. In this activity we have to chose a picture, then we have to start writing something about that picture. Then when time ended we had to gave our paper to our right partner so he or she could continue with my story, then I received the story of my right side friend and I have to continue with his/her story, at the end of the activity we have some stories written by different people, so they were very funny because people in the class have many ways to think and these different ways of thinking gave to the stories different points of view and different and funny endings.

In the afternoon we learned a lot of things about blogging. What things you must or mustn't post on your blog. How you can make your blog attractive to your students. So both classes were very productive and interesting.

Writing Activity & Picture Prompts Reflection

WRITING ACTIVITY & PICTURE PROMPTS

I really enjoyed doing this writing activity because I could see that we can make it very simple and fun just by making use of some pictures, creativity, a pencil and a paper. I think that this activity helps students to feel motivated to write in an easy and meaningful way. As a teacher, I have not tried before it, but now I think I am going to use it. Also, I think that this kind of activity promotes participation since everybody must contribute with something to continue the sequence of the story. Furthermore, I would say that through this activity students will develop their writing skills as well as their thinking skills since they have to come with some creative ideas in order to write their stories, but above all, they will have fun together.

IMAGINE! CREATE!

The activity with our instructor, Fatima, was very interesting and definitely can be applied in any subject and at any school level. Free writing - imagining and creating a story after looking at a picture made our imagination explore deep into our souls, writing our own version of the story portraits and reflects part of our personality, and even part of our deep thoughts, at the same time we improve our reading, writing and communicative skills by searching deep into our thoughts looking for words and putting them together to make sense and match the story written by a classmate. A great learning experience!

I really liked the Creative Writing Activity: Picture Prompts because it allows students to write freely, using their imagination as they start brainstorming ideas as soon as they see the picture, then of course every time they pass on the story to the person to their right, they read what the others have written in order to continue with the story. The greatest advantage of using this activity is that students feel motivated to give the story a new direction, some of them like drama, others like it fun so as they go on, they contribute with their brilliant ideas.

What I loved about it is that even though we were not aware of it at the beginning, once we read it all, we noticed that everybody added something particular from our country, which reflects our culture therefore affirms our identity.

This was great......

Writting Activity/Pictures Prompts

Feeling free of writing is the most wonderful things I've experienced in my life. Feeling free of expressing my ideas. This activity involved me in a story that was not mine, but I had to make it mine.
For a while I transformed myself in different characters and let my mind fly. I really enjoyed it, realizing that writing doesn't have barriers and when you have group work, you work better. It shows once more that.....working as a team gives better results and wonderful ideas. After listening the group stories, I am happy to say that we are the greatest writers. And I as a teacher can engage my students to be creative.

FREE WRITING

today in Miss Fatimah class we enjoyed a Free writing activity, we shared pictures and wrote something for fivr minutes, then we changed the papers and 5 partners added somrthing else to the original stories, the result was awsome, we discovered suicidal tendencies, mother instincts from a male partner, the creativity for making money from a girl partner, so much fun in this class thanks miss Fatimah

Dear Cristina, WELCOME!!!!

I really enjoyed the Picture Propmts writing activity in Fatimah's Digital Class. It seems to me an interesting way for students to find writing easy and funny at the same time. The activity did not require for so many resources. We just had to pick up a picture among many others, a piece of paper and a pen. I also liked the way Fatimah explained the activity. She said we had to use the picture we chose to begin writing any story upon it. She said we were going to have some time to write a part of the story before passing it onto the next person.. I liked that part because she did not tell us neither the amount of writting nor what exactly to write about. I did not feel any anxiety or frustration doing this activity. I rather concentrated on writing itself and being creative. I definetely loved it!

I like this activity because it has to with creative writing, and I feel confident and comfortable with this type of writing. Even though it was an activity dealing with creating writing, I could not create the entire piece of writing on my own, so it required me both to be creative and be careful in matching my peers' previous writing with my new writing in order to make proper connections and keep the main idea of the writing understandable and smooth. As I said in class, it would be difficult to do the activity in a class with beginner learners of English; however, we can always find ways to adapt activities like this into our classroom situations. I also look forward to doing it with intermediate and advanced students and find out how their creative writing is, and provide them with feedback afterwards. Either way, I think using this activity in my classes provide students a new chance to practice writing in English as well as let them flow their ideas in an relaxing and friendly environment. And I would like you to do more activities like this, which are helpful and practical. Great activity!!! Congras!!!

CREATIVE WRITING ACTIVITY, Maribel Jessenia Coello

CREATIVE WRITING ACTIVITY

I think that this activity could be very useful in my classes, because students could develop their writing and reading skills, it also helps them to understand and respect each other ideas and feelings. Creative Writing Activity is an interesting idea to work with children, teenagers and adults in any time of the class. It also could be use as an assessment activity at the beginning, during or at the end of the class. It’s our job to use it and find all the advantages from this activity. Maribel Jessenia Coello

Writing activity: picture prompt

I think this activity is great to develop our students' writing skills. They can have fun just like we did. I really enjoyed listening to my partners' stories. How creative you are guys!!!
As Boris said, I think what we write reflect our personalities so it can be a very effective way to get to know our students in an indirect way.
I work mostly with beginner levels so I am wondering if this strategy can still be applied with them.

Digital Technology Picture Prompt Writing Activity Reflexion

I really enjoyed today's afternoon class, as I loved my morning class. In the morning we saw a set of very interesting videos about how we can use blogging and media for teaching purposes. On the other hand, in the afternoon we were assigned to choose a picture and write a story related to what we saw, then after five minutes, we had to pass the paper to the partner on the right and he or she had to continue. I found this activity very interesting and useful not only with advanced English learners but also with beginners. This type of activity give us the opportunity of having our students create by their own and increasing their creativity and sense of independence. I'll definitely include this activity when I get back to my country as I consider this will increase my students' productivity and participation.

Writing activity / Picture prompts

I enjoyed the activity today, because it combined four different skills and at the end, it was funny to listen my partners stories with different endings for each case. I can apply it in my classes too with higher level students. The only thing, I would probably add as part of the activity is that "a funny end" should be a must and I would also make them post their stories in our English blogg as well.

Reflection on the Writing Activity "Picture Prompts"

This activity is very useful and can be applied in our classes in Ecuador. "Picture Prompts" help us to identify the different personalities and writing skills of our students. It also engages students in the class activities and motivates them to do a free-writing. Usually, it is difficult for students to write more than one page; however, with this activity students will find it easier to write as much as they can without getting bored or overwhelmed! In addition, this activity can help students to share their feelings and thoughts with their classmates, which will be very useful to build better relationships in the classroom. Finally, since the stories turn out to be really funny or creative, students are going to enjoy the class and have fun while they practice English!

The writing activity: picture prompts that we did with Fatima; our instructor of Digital Technology, is very useful for developing writing skills.
It was also fun to listen to the stories that some of my partners read and they were not the ones that they wanted to make.
Even though, there were nice, sad and hilarious stories that made us think about our role as teachers in order to motivate and encourage our students to have fun with writing. I really enjoyed this activity.