Teacher Feature: Learning Links by Darlene Brown (TLE, SWLSB, CDC Vimont)

Link: www2.recitfga.qc.ca/learninglinks

Quick overview: Darlene Brown, Executive Director of  The Learning Exchange and English teacher at CDC Vimont (Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board) maintains a site full of useful web links for multiple subjects. Learning Links can be used as a professional resource for teachers or used directly with your students. As Darlene teaches in the FGA classroom herself, you can expect to find material which is relevant for your Quebec general adult education students.

What is it? Quickly and easily find interactive, printable activities on interesting topics without having to search through numerous sites: Multimedia resources, videos, puzzles, information, quizzes, interactive materials, references, lesson plans and games organized for easy use. Sections include enjoyment and entrainment, workplace skills, law, basic ICT usage, and so on. Thanks Darlene!

Teacher Feature: Hilda Smolash (EMSB, Marymount)

Teacher: Hilda Smolash (CCBE, English Literacy)

School Board and Centre: English Montreal School Board, Marymount Adult Centre, in Montreal, Quebec in conjunction with the RECIT FGA Regional Service.

What is the project? Hilda’s video project aimed to help literacy level (ESL) students improve their communication and writing competencies through the production of short video skits, based on real-life situations.

How did it work? In the first class, Hilda’s students were placed into groups and each group was asked to recreate a real-life situation in which they wanted to improve their spoken English. The situation had to include an exit strategy (an ending). Hilda reported that the initial part of the activity sparked lots of animated discussion as the groups had to reach a consensus. The following class, each group practiced their skits, but without written lines – they had to improvise the words just as they would need to do outside of the classroom. Next, they filmed their skits. With some assistance from Hilda, students were then asked to summarize the main parts of their skits by writing short captions in the third person narrative. In the last class, the students acted as “directors” and worked with Avi to incorporate their written captions into their video skits. Avi took care of the video editing so the students could continue to focus strictly on language learning, not on the video making process.

Are you interested? If you’re an FGA teacher who would like to develop a similar activity in your English or FSL class, please let us know. We can provide pedagogical support and technical guidance, along with equipment.

Video: To see an in-class video (2 minutes) demonstrating Hilda’s project, click the play button below.. Also don’t forget to check out the official press release!

Teacher Feature: Ann Fairhurst-Lozyk (EMSB, James Lyng)

Teacher: Ann Fairhurst-Lozyk (Basic Education)

School Board and Centre: English Montreal School Board, James Lyng Adult Education Centre in Montreal, Quebec.

What is the material? Ann’s project instructs teachers how to illustrate a dialogue between two students using a variety of readily available ICT tools. The project prepares the students for a visit to the doctor’s office by using the Internet to help them learn how to research the necessary medical vocabulary, how to clearly describe symptoms, and how to construct appropriate questions to ask the doctor.

How will it help students? The final product of the project is a doctor/patient PowerPoint role play. The use of ICT is a great motivator (while helping students develop speaking competencies) and makes a star out of even the most reluctant students.

Download: Please click this link (27MB) if you’d like to download a copy of Ann’s PowerPoint project. If you’d like to contact Ann for more information, please let us know and we’ll put you in touch.

Video Tutorial: For a how-to video on how to setup an activity seen in Ann’s project, please click the play button below:

Teacher Feature: Marie-Christine Kovacs (ETSB, New Horizons)

Starting this month, I am starting a “teacher feature” to spotlight individual FGA teachers who have created exemplary ICT materials that they’ve used successfully in their own classrooms. With the teacher’s permission, these ICT materials will be shared on the blog and made available for my readers to download.

Teacher: Marie-Christine Kovacs (Level 4 French)

School Board and Centre: Eastern Townships School Board, New Horizons Adult Education Centre in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

What is the material? Marie-Christine created a SMART Notebook presentation for her level 4 French class. Her presentation was a review of one of the chapters she worked on with her students in her class. The main subjects were: The subjonctive, movement prepositions, the interrogative pronoun “Quel”, directions, questions, pronoun “en vs y” and a review of vocabulary seen in the chapter they were working on.

How did it help her students? Marie-Christine explained to me that because the presentation was so visual and hands-on, it helped her students more easily grasp the concepts they were reviewing. Marie-Christine also found that her students were more interested, focused, and enjoyed learning in a fun and different way. They were also more successful with the test that followed the presentation!

Download: Click below to download a copy of Marie-Christine’s SMART Notebook presentation “revision.notebook” from the ICT Blog. Believe it or not, this is Marie-Christine’s first SMARTBoard presentation! If you’d like to contact her, please let me know and I’ll put you in touch.

Click on image below to download a copy of Marie’s presentation: