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As future teachers, we believe that human beings never stop learning. Since learning is a process, it is necessary for us to reflect on our performance and analyze what are our strengths and weaknesses as both teachers and learners.

When we started the course, we were asked to do a SWOT analysis. Identifying our weaknesses was easy, as we knew (from our previous experiences) creativity was something we lacked. However, our strenghts were harder to find. We only knew we had the necessary knowledge of the language and a positive attitute towards learning more to become better teachers.

Luckily, we had the opportunity to learn form each other, form our classmates, and from our teacher. This course gave us the chance to explore our minds and perspectives as students and as future teachers to find new, better and more attractive ways to teach and learn English. We were also presented with fun and innovative platforms or apps that were completely unknown to us, but that had the potential to make a lesson memorable.

In simple words, we were invited to a whole new world in relation to designing materials. A world that we thought didn't exist, mainly because we were limiting ourselves to go beyond what we knew.

In this course, we learnt the importance of designing challenging and innovative materials. Usually, we claim that motivating students is very difficult nowadays in this technological era. Intrinsic motivation is what makes the learning process more meaningful, and students usually do not have it. Extrinsic motivation is something we can work on, and that can be done by designing lessons that meet our students' needs. Searching for new apps that can help us make the learning process more entertaining is paramount; we need to seek for more opportunities and realize our students learn differently from how we did it when we were in high school.

Below you will find our first SWOT analysis:

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Grammar is not always seen as an engaging topic to be covered, mainly because of the nature of the activities related to it. In this section we propose an activity aimed at practising a specific grammar item in a different and (hopefully) attractive way.

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A Dictogloss is a fun, engaging and useful activity to integrate all English skills and focus on specific features of the language. In this section we present our own design of a dictogloss.

Link to our jeopardy game: https://www.jeopardy.rocks/thehands/play

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In this section you will find our EdPuzzle activity. We had a lot time surfing on the net trying to find a video that was both interesting for the students and for us to use as a pedagogical tool to work on a specific topic/language focus.

Here is the link to our EdPuzzle Activity:
https://edpuzzle.com/join/vugrovz

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We meet again...for the last time.

This is the end of a journey through learning, self-inquiry, and many challenges related to EFL teaching (although the cycle never ends!). Throughout this term, we have discussed and tried different ways to engage our future students in activities that go beyond our comfort zones as teachers. Our purpose is clear: we need to make our students learn, but, most importantly, enjoy the language, so as to make it meaningful for them.

In this final part of our portfolio, we present activities related to the integration of skills and to a different view of grammar instruction. We have included and EDPuzzle activity, an interesting and fun Dictogloss, and a challenging and innovative Grammar Activity. Plus, we have elaborated a final reflection on our performance and learning process in this course.

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Working for the first time with Socrative was not an easy task to carry out. I had some problems trying to launch my activity which made me feel frustrated. However, in the end everything went as plannes as some of my classmates helped me solve my problem out.

Socrative does not only help teachers create assessment tools to help him/her see if students were able to attain the learning objective of the lesson, but also helps them get closer to the students' reality.  As digital natives, students will always be one step ahead of teachers when it comes to ICTs, and due to this, sometimes the normal inside-classroom teaching will become boring and nonsense. This is the reason why apps like Socrative need to be wisely used and integrated to the teaching-learning process.

As you can see by having a look at the results my "students" go when answering my quiz, the task can be considered effective and well created. Most of them got a 100%; in fact, just 1 student got 1 of the answers wrong because the other person ("Pet") was me trying to test if my quiz was correctly working but I did not know how to use it so I messed it up (UPS!).

Well, I think that the task was successful mainly because all the questions were straigh-forward and literal, which did not demand students to process the text but rather return to it to look for the answer in the paragraphs. Actually, when analyzing the questions, I realized that all of them were placed in the Remember category of Bloom's Taxonomy. Probably, if I had added higher-order thinking questions, the results would not have been so good.

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The Socrative activity was a very interesting and engaging task to work on. I had never used the platform before or even heard of it. However, once I started using it, I became aware of its usefulness for teachers and students.  It is very simple and it is well organized, so creating an activity for students is quite pleasant.

All in all, the development of my task went very well. I chose a story which was entertaining for my classmates and for me. Once they had to enter the platform to answer the questions, only one of them did not really understand how the platform works. But, in general, they had no problems to complete the task.

I think I will definitely access Socrative in the future to include it in my own lessons provided the right conditions.

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Chart with the students' results:

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Using Socrative in the Classroom: The Frost, by Jonathan Sreeves.

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Using Socrative in the Classroom: The Frost, by Jonathan Sreeves.

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The story:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/34mMPN5rvW9bvvhdwVPC3Gk/the-frost

Questions:

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Questions created to make sure students are able to comprehend a text and put into practice their higher-order thinking skills to accomplish the learning objectives.

The text: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1nPFm8v8sQGM2l7N4JNTfsM/its-a-wide-world-gold-winner

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Chart with the students' results.

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This is the video used in the role-playing to contextualize the activity and help students know what they are expected to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koNwUeG-iKE

The learning objective for this activity is:

Students will be able to ask and answer questions to talk about phobias and to enact a real "psychiatrist group therapy" in front of the class.

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In this section you will find our Suggestopedia Lesson along with the checklist for the showcase portfolio.

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Using Socrative in the Classroom: The Grannies who Flew to the Moon, by Katie Denyer

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Using Socrative in the Classroom: The Grannies who Flew to the Moon, by Katie Denyer

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Here it is the story in which the Socrative Activity was based on: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/13rGsTBHSwTnv4Qhv2ZhR8b/the-grannies-who-flew-to-the-moon

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In our portfolio this time, you will find our experiments using Socrative as a useful tool inside the classroom; our lesson plan bases on the suggestopedia method; our innovative and very creative role-playing activity designed for students to learn while having fun; and, finally, a set of questions inspired in the text "It's a Wide World", created to activate the students higher-order thinking skills.

So, now, put yourself comfortable and enjoy (hopefully) this new journey in which you have embarked on.

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We have to admit that it was very difficult to come up with ideas for our own lesson after watching your (the teacher) lesson. All of the activities you proposed were innovative, and thinking out of the box it is not one of our strengths. Due to this, when designing our lesson we felt demotivated and clueless. We did some research on the internet so as to find some suggestions but nothing called our attention, and, in the end, we thought we were not going to be able to complete the task you asked us to perform. However, we managed to come up with some ideas to fulfill the purpose of the task and step out of our comfort zone. Also, we believe that we were able to integrate each language skill when designing the activities for the microteaching, which is one of the challenges of every lesson plan.

There is still a lot left to learn, but we hope we managed to do a good job. Each learning opportunity provides us with new insights on our teaching skills and how we can improve them.

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Enjoy the best memes – fresh, funny, and share-worthy on meme.am.

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Every day is an opportunity you are given to learn something new.

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Trying to be able to get to that Ferrari...

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Trying to be able to get to that Ferrari...

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Lesson Objective: Students will be able to use the past simple tense to create an interview based on Walt Disney's life.

PS: The image of the duck on slide 2 it is suppossed to be a gif. Unfourtunately, it doesn't work if you watch the slideshow presentation from Padlet. Fortunately, it works if you download the PPT ;).

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Part 1: On Enzo Ferrari.

a) What would be your learning objective for the lesson?

Lesson Objetive: Students will be able to identify the use of the past simple tense in Enzo Ferrari's biography, so as to be able to write sentences about Ferrari's life.

a) Which two would you pick as a follow up / post reading? State your reasons (2 or 3 lines for each selected activity).

1. DISCUSSION

STUDENT A’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student B)
1. | What do you know about Enzo Ferrari?
2. | Would you like to have met Enzo Ferrari?
3. | What would you like to know about Enzo Ferrari and why?
4. | ___________________________________________________
5. | ___________________________________________________
6. | ___________________________________________________
7. | ___________________________________________________
8. | ___________________________________________________

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STUDENT B’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student A)
1. | What did you learn from this text about Enzo Ferrari?
2. | What questions would you like to have asked Enzo Ferrari?
3. | What would his answers have been to those questions?
4. | ___________________________________________________
5. | ___________________________________________________
6. | ___________________________________________________
7. | ___________________________________________________
8. | ___________________________________________________

Reasons for choosing the activity: to apply this activity as a follow up would enhance communication among students and would provide them with the opportunity to work on the knowledge of the text to elaborate new structures using the past tense, language for preferences and wishes, and conditionals.  Therefore, the teacher will be able to assess both the extent to which students are able to use those structures and their progress on the skills involved (i.e. the entire activity encompasses the use of the four English language skills).

2.  CHOOSE THE CORRECT WORD

Delete the wrong word in each of the pairs in italics.

Enzo Ferrari was born in 1898 and died in 1988. He made / making his name known all over the world for fast cars and motorist / motor racing. Ferrari was an Italian car driver and businessman. He found / founded the Scuderia Ferrari Grand Prix motor racing team. It became the most successful Formula 1 team in ever / history. Ferrari also built a factory to produce super-fast sports cars.

Ferrari was born in Modena, Italy. He grew up with a compassion / passion for fast cars and racing. He served / serviced in the Italian Army during World War I. After he returned home, he tried to find a job at FIAT, without successful / success. He joined a smaller car company called CMN and took up racing in 1919 but wasn’t such / so successful.

In 1920, Ferrari joined Alfa Romeo and did good / well as a racer throughout the 1920s. He managed a team of 40 drivers and taken / took responsibility for the development of Alfa’s cars. Ferrari resigned from Alfa and went his owner / own way, setting up his own company in 1947. He built a car to participate / participation in the very first Formula 1 World Championship race in 1950.

Ferrari’s first victory came / come in the British Grand Prix in 1951. The first championship came in the 1952-53 season / seasons. Ferrari started making sports cars in order for / to finance his Grand Prix and Le Mans adventures.  Ferrari headed the company until he stepped up / down in 1971. He died in his hometown of Modena. His name is the most famous in motor sports.

Reasons for choosing this activity: to apply this activity as a post-reading task would provide students with the chance to think about their knowledge of the language and, therefore, apply metacognitive and metalinguistic strategies to do so. Also, the teacher would be able to assess the students’ proficiency in terms of tenses, prepositions, collocations and word formation.

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Things that you will find in our portfolio:

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Things that you will find in our portfolio:

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In our portfolio you will find three main windows which showcase different activities we have done so far in the LCL498 course.

1. I do want to drive a Ferrari! --> In this section you will be able to have a look at our own understanding of the lesson on Enzo Ferrari's life. A possible lesson objective is elaborated and two possible follow-up activities are proposed with a brief explanation of their importance in the process of checking comprehension.

2. Trying to be able to get to that Ferrari... --> In this section you will find our (copyright reserved) creative and entertaining lesson on Walt Disney's life.

3. Learning is a never-ending cycle :) --> Explore our minds as learners by reading what we learnt from the text Public Education Under Siege, and what we would like to have a better understanding of so as to become the teachers of English that we have always wanted to be.

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This platform will introduce you to the various activities designed for the "Análisis y Diseño de Materiales" course.  Feel free to go through each activity and enjoy their purposes and dynamics. Every section has been carefully organized in order to provide a complete understanding of the development of the subject throughout the term, and to illustrate the many possibilities and resources that teachers have to fulfill their teaching goals inside the learning environment.

We invite you to take a look inside our creative minds!

Giannina del Río.
Consuelo Asenjo.