Hot potatoes activities

We talked about the program "Hot Potatoes" in older posts. As a class activity, we had to do some excercises for children using this program, in his five ways, using JCloze, JCross, JMatch, JMix and JQuiz.

The program produces the activities in links, so it need a browser for being used.

This is the result!

            ◾JCloze

            ◾JCross

            ◾JMatch

            ◾JMix

            ◾JQuiz

I let you here a presentation where I explain step by step how I did it. Click here!


We had another class activity, and we had to do a video tutorial, so I did mine and I explained how to create a Wiki page. Watch it here!

Consonants (19/01)

 Labiodental:

• /f/ and /v/: touch your top teeth with your bottom lip. Blow out air between your lip and your teeth.
• /f/ most of the students do not have difficulty with /f/. it may appear in initial, medial and final position.

Spelling /f/:

• -f: fine [fain], few, off (not of)
• Off: offer
• Ph: physics, phonetics
• Gh: laugh (just for this word)

Spelling /v/:

• We do not have this sound in Spanish because we usually replace it with /b/.
• It is helpful the contrast of the sound in in
• The sound /v/ is usually written with the letter “v”.
• Visitors, heavy, seven, eleven, seventeen, seventy.

Other spellings:

• Ve: give, have, five, twelve.
• F: of but “a bowl of fruit”

Fricatives: dental

	Symbol	Word	Transcription	Place of articulation
Voiceless	θ	Thought	[θɔ:t]	Dental
Voiced	ð	They	[ðei]

• /ð/: there is no similar independent sound in Spanish, although we can find a similar phoneme between vowels, e.g. lado , dedo, etc.
• We should try to discriminate between /d/ and / ð/: the day, they did that, etc.
• To produce this sound, put the tip of your tongue between your teeth, touching your top teeth. Blow out air between your top teeth and your tongue and use your voice.
• The sound / ð/ is always written with the letter “th”: with, mother, brother, father, feather, that, etc.
• If the letter “th” are at the end of a word, the corresponding sound is voiceless: bath
• “with” as it is a very frecuently used word it is pronounced [wi ð]
• It may appear in:

                 - Initial: then, this, that

                 - Medial: brother, other

                 - Final position: with, bathe

• It is very similar to the Spanish sound represented by “z” or “ce”, “ci”.
• To produce this sound sollow the same procedure as in / ð/ but do not use your voice.
• This sound is always written with the letter “th”.
• Mouth, month, thirsty, three, north, south, through, throw, think. 

Alveolar

	Symbol	Word	Transcription	Place of articulation
Voiceless	S	Say	[sei]	Alveolar
Voiced	Z	Zoo	[zu:]

/s/

• We can found a similar sound in Spanish and although most students can produce it they tend to say [espu:n] instead of [spu:n].

Spellings:

• The sound /s/ is usually written with the letter “s”.
• S: class, lesson, student.
• C: bicycle, exercise.
• Se: house, horse.
• Ce: policeman, face
• X: pronounced /ks/: six, box, exercise.
• But “example”: [igza:mple]

/z/

• There is no similar independent sound in Spanish, although when “s” precedes a voiced consonant (e.g. mismo, rasgo), we can see it is very similar although with some differences.
• Remember to use your voice to produce this sound.
• We may find this sound in English in

                 - Initial: zip, zoo, zebra

                 - Media: busy, crazy

                 - Final: lose, loose, wise, days.

• Note: both /z/ and /s/ are very important in English because they can represent the plural morphemes, the Saxon genitive and the third person singular present tense. 

Palatoalveolar

	Symbol	Word	Transcription	Place of articulation
Voiceless	ʃ	Ship	[ʃip]	Palato-alveolar
Voiced	ʒ	Measure	[məʒə]

/ʃ/

• /ʃ/ it doesn’t exist in Spanish.
• In some parts of Andalucía and Extremadura it is used instead of “ch”, for example, “muchacho”.
• Pronounce first /s/ then put your tongue up and back a little to make /ʃ/.
• It may appear in:

                 - Initial position: ship, shut, shave.

                 - Medial: fishes, fashion [fӕʃn], dishes [di ʃiz]

                 - Final position: wash, crash, rush.

• This sound is usually written with the letters “sh”: ship, shop, finish.
• Other spellings: Russia, sugar, Scottish, Irish, polish, French, Turkish, Spanish.

/ʒ/

• There is no similar sound in Spanish.
• To produce it follow the same steps as for /s/ and use your voice because it is a voiced sound.
• This sound is not found in initial position (except for some French words).
• It is found in:

                 - Medial position: leisure, treasure

                 - Final position: garage has 3 transcriptions.

Spellings:

• The sound /ʒ/ is usually written with the letters “s” or “ge”.
• Usual, pleasure, television.
• /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ are very productive in the pronunciations of the endings in –tion and –sion:
• /ʃən/: nation, reduction, creation, motion.
• /ʒən/: vision, explosion, decision, exclusion.

Affricatives

/tʃ/ /ʤ/

• Sound consisting of a stop consonant followed by a fricative.
• They are also called affricative.
• They have got two elements, the first one is plosive and the second one is fricative. 

	Symbol	Word	Transcription	Place of articulation
Voiceless	/tʃ/	Church	[ʧɜːʧ]	Affrcatives
Voiced	/ʤ/	George	[ʤɔːʤ]

Sound production:

• Begin pronouncing as if it was a plosive, then relax your mouth and when you gradually open your mouth there is a friction.
• There is a similar sound in Spanish, usually written with the letter “ch”.
• Examples: cheap, child, match, chalk.

Other spellings:

• Tch: watch, butcher.
• Ture: picture.
• T: question.
• Tune: fortune.
• Other important words: cherry, lunch, chocolate, children, chicken.

/ʤ/

• There is no similar independent sound in Spanish.
• We can speak when we pronounce “y” emphatically (e.g. yo, ya).
• Once you have understood and pronounced /tʃ/ use your voice to make /ʤ/.

Spellings:

This sound is usually written with the letters:

• J: joke, jam.
• g/e: german, gentleman, vegetables, oranges, cabbage.
• Dj: adjust
• Di: soldier.

How to plan a didactic unit (19/01)

Steps to plan a didactic unit: 

1. Legislative framework.
2. LOMCE (We have to use inclusive and heterogeneus groups in class)
3. Primary education curriculum.
4. Relation among competences contents.
5. Primary education curriculum in Ceuta. 

LOMCE-LOE

Key competences

The nomenclature and definition of key competences in the lomce is based on a European commission document on 21st century competences.

• Linguistic competence.
• Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology.
• Digital competence.
• Learning to learn.
• Social and civic competences
• Initiative and entrepreneurship.
• Cultural awareness and expression.

Curriculum

• The LOMCE defines the curriculum as: the regulation of the elements that manage the teaching And learning

Curriculum of primary education

The new curriculum will be integrated by:

• The objectives; they are the reference models related to the outcomes the students must achieve at the end of the educational process.
• The competences or capacities to activate and apply the contents in an integrated way, with the aim of achieving the appropriate fulfilment of activities and the effective solving of complex problems.

Contents:

The contents, or sets of knowledge, abilities, skills and attitudes that contribute to

• The achievement of the objectives
• The acquisition of the competences

Evaluation criteria: 

They are the specific referent models to evaluate students’ learning. They describe what must be assessed and students must achieve.

The didactic methodology that includes both:

• A description of teaching practices, as well as
• The organization of teachers’ work.

That is to say, it is a set of strategies, procedures and organized actions.

Evaluative learning standards:

They are the specification of the evaluation criteria that allow to define the learning results and that specify what the students must know, understand, know how to do in English. 

• They must be observable, measurable, graduable.
• Schools will have autonomy to elaborate, approve and carry out:

                          - An educational project.

                          - A management project

PLANNING

• For each of the communicative tasks listed and described in the standards.
• We will have to incorporate the set of contents included in its corresponding block of activity.
• To evaluate the degree of acquisition of each of the earning standards of a particular language activity, we will apply each and every criterion of evaluation included and described for the corresponding activities.

The curricular proposal

The curricular proposal will be elaborated by the stage teaching team, and will comprise the following elements: 

             a) Contextualisation of the stage objectives and the integration of the key competences in the curricular elements.

             b) The methodological and didactic principles

             c) Strategies and instruments for the evaluation of students’ learning.

             d) Curricular and organisational measures of individualised attention.

Criteria for grade advancement.

             e) Reading plan

             f) Information and communication technologies plan

             g) Integration of cross-curricular elements.

             h) Agreement for improving learning outcomes.

Didactic plannings

1. Didactic plannings for each areas will be elaborated by the team that teaches in the same school year.
2. Didactic plannings must include, at least, the following elements:

             a) Sequence and timing of contents.

             b) Profile for each key competence or relation between the evaluative  learning standars and each competence. The elaboration of these profiles of the key competences will make its evaluation easier.

             c) Evaluation criteria.

             d) Strategies and instruments for the students’ learning.

             e) Methodological and didactic decisions.

             f) Procedures of evaluation and evaluation of the curricular adaptations.

             g) Didactic resources.

             h) Students’ materials, including textbooks.

             i) Program of extra-curricular and complementary activities.

             j) Evaluation procedure of the didactic planning and its indicators. 

Writing in a foreign language (18/01)

The process of learning to write in a foreign language should be started in Primary Education and it really never ends.

3. What do we mean when we refer to writing?

• Academic: writing is the production of a sequence of sentences arranged in a particular order and linked together to form a coherent whole called text. 
• From a communicative perspective, we could understand writing as “the ability to communicate with each other and express our own ideas in written form”
• Writing is clearly a complex process requiring the ability to manipulate many sub-skills simultaneously.
• “Involves being creative, spelling, grammar, punctuation, choice of appropriate words, sentences linking and text construction.”. 

3.1. Graphic or visual skills.

• Spelling: difference between pronunciation and spelling in the English language.
• How can our students improve their spelling?
• We advise them to:

                    a) Select priority words to learn.

                    b) Get plentiful, regular practice.

                    c) Know about the language. 

                    d) Learn techniques. 

                    e) Develop an interest in words.

                    f) Check their work.

                    g) Have confidence in themselves.

• Punctuation: learning how to use punctuation correctly is a slow and laborious process. It should be started from the very beginning.
• Layout: there are certain conventions on how to write a letter, construct a paragraph, organise a written text and so on that are culturally determined. 

3.2. Grammatical skills

• This refers to the students’ skill in making efficient use of grammatical structures and constructions. 

3.3. Expressive or stylistic skills

• This includes the learner’s capacity to select the most appropriate meaning in a range of styles and registers.
• Sociolinguistic competence. 

3.4.Rhetorical skills

• It refers to the ability to use linguistic cohesive devices – what we call “connectors” and “modifiers” – in order to link parts of a text into logically related sequences. 

3.5.Organisational skills

• The organisation of pieces of information into paragraphs and texts. 

4. Relationship between the four skills

• It is an obvious fact the languages are spoken before they are written.
• There are people who communicate perfectly in the spoken language without being able to express themselves in writing. 

When introducing the skills we should know:

• What stage the learners are at in the acquisition of their first language skills.
• To ensure that we do not interfere with the learning process of their own language.
• Only when children are confident with reading and writing in L1 can we begin the task with L2. 

At beginner levels in particular, writing practice should be aimed at:

• Reinforcing the learning of linguistic elements which have been practised orally.
• Without forgetting to introduce our pupils to vocabulary practice and the structures of written language itself. 

JCloze (Hot potatoes) (12/01)

• The JCloze program creates gap-fill exercises.
• Unlimited correct answers can be specified for each gap, and the student can ask for a hint and see a letter of the correct answer.
• A specific clue can also be included for each gap.
• Automatic scoring is also included. The program allows gapping of selected words, or the automatic gapping of everyday new word in a text.

• It is better to use a text processor (like Word) insead of using the programme directly. 

• Files should be saved in the same folder.
• Hot Potatoes does not include software for the edition of images, sound or video.
• Suggested software: Gimp, YouTube Editor, Audacity…
• The videos should not be too long, but it depends on the students' age. 
• Use long names without spaces.
• Browsers read spaces as: “%20”.
• There may be navigation errors. For example: Reading_in_English instead of Reading in English. 

Plosives /k/ and /g/ and frictives (12/01)

Plosive /k/

Place of articulation:

• It is the soft palate at the back of your mouth.
• You should be able to feel the strong release of air that clearly…

Spelling:

• K: king, kiss, kitten, make, sack, baker.
• C: cure, cat, bacon.
• Ch: chemist, Christmas, school.
• Que /kw/: quaint, queer, queen.
• Cqu /kw/: acquaint, acquire.
• Qu /k/: conquer, liquor, antique. 
• X /ks/: box, lexicon. 

A mute “k” can be found at the beginning of a word when it is followed by an “n”: know, knife, knacker.

Plosive /g/

• Voiced version of /k/.
• This sound is made at the back of the throat.

Spelling:

• It is usually written “g”, overall when followed by a “a”, “u” or a consonant and when it appears in final position: gate, goat, grey, pig, big. 
• In some other cases it is pronounced /ʤ/: Gem, ginger.
• We can also find a mute “g” when it is followed by an “n” at the beginning of a word: gnaw, gnat, gnome.
• Or when it is followed by an “n” at the end of a word: Reign, sign, foreign.

Fricatives:

• Consonants produced by the friction of the breath through a narrow opening between two of the mouth-organs. Also called aspirant. 

	Symbol	Word	Transcription	Place of articulation
Voiceless	F	Fine	[fain]
Voiced	V	Verb	[vɜ:b]	Labiodental

	Symbol	Word	Transcription	Place of articulation
Voiceless	θ	Thought	[θɔ:t]	Dental
Voiced	ð	They	[ðei]

	Symbol	Word	Transcription	Place of articulation
Voiceless	S	Say	[sei]	Alveolar
Voiced	Z	Zoo	[zu:]

	Symbol	Word	Transcription	Place of articulation
Voiceless	ʃ	Ship	[ʃip]	Palato-alveolar
Voiced	ʒ	Measure	[məʒə]

	Symbol	Word	Transcription	Place of articulation
Voiceless	H	Half	[ha:f]	Glotal
Voiced

Labiodental

	Symbol	Word	Transcription	Place of articulation
Voiceless	F	Fine	[fain]
Voiced	V	Verb	[vɜ:b]	Labiodental