Sharing activities
People working in languages education share their activities for interactive whiteboards.
Shona Stables, Kilmarnock Academy
Shona Stables, recently appointed Principal Teacher in Kilmarnock Academy, shares this activity.
Jumbled-up letters
This jumbled-up letter activity works extremely well on a number of levels. This sample uses 'parts of the body' but it can be used for any vocabulary. There are also various ways the activity can be exploited.
After initial introduction and drilling of vocabulary using flashcards, the SMART Board pages can be flashed up on the screen with the simple question, 'Qu’est-ce que c’est?'. Those who can pick the word out from the jumbled-up letters can either call it out or put up their hand and wait to be asked. Depending on ability, it might be wise to have the list of vocabulary in front of the pupils.
A second stage to the activity is to split the class into two teams and ask for four, five or six volunteers from each team, depending on the number of vocabulary words. Each volunteer is timed with a stopwatch while they sort out the letters on the interactive board to spell the word correctly. The team which takes the least amount of time to spell their randomly chosen words correctly is the winner. The teacher can of course choose the words according to ability and also to make the game fair.
On an individual level, a prize can be offered for the pupil taking the least amount of time to spell correctly either a particularly difficult vocabulary word or a randomly chosen word.
This activity can also be used with irregular verbs and really develops spelling skills. When done in teams this game is highly motivating as the members of each team try to help the pupil who is at the SMART Board. This means the activity can be rather noisy but if spelling is improved I feel it is worthwhile, particularly with S1 and S2 classes.
Lynne Horn, Tobermory High School
Lynne is PT of the Language Faculty at Tobermory High School on the Isle of Mull in Argyll and Bute, and has this to say about interactive whiteboards:
Online games
One of the best uses of the interactive whiteboard has been at the start and end of lessons, when websites such as Quia, RealFrench and Zut have provided short games which are great ways of introducing or revising vocabulary.
Speed-spelling games, where you are given a word and need to tap the correct letters to spell it, can get very competitive, with one child at the board and the rest (helpfully?) shouting out which letters are needed to spell the word correctly. For online games involving pelmanism, I get the class to come out one at time (making a row move along one at a time until the whole class has been) - if the class moves quickly enough it can be done in five minutes, allowing the class to shake off the fidgets before we start.
Web-based projects
The interactive board also allows for good website-based projects. To teach a topic such as House and Home I use a Canadian real-estate site called Visitenet. Together we look at a few examples, using familiar vocabulary to pick out our house requirements (anything with 'piscine' is always popular). Using the 360-degree tours and photos we work out unfamiliar vocabulary. Pupils then take on the role of the real estate agent, going onto the site themselves and finding a house - it is then their turn to show us the house on the board, give us the tour and try and sell us their house. Pupils really enjoy the real aspect of this exercise and compete to find the most luxurious and expensive house.
Claudine Bellegarde-Deakin, Grange Academy
Claudine Bellegarde-Deakin teaches French in Grange Academy in East Ayrshire. This is what Claudine had to say.
Fun and games
'Shall we play on the SMART Board?' This introduction always guarantees immediate interest from the pupils. They are ready to engage because it is FUN.
For instance, for revision of vocabulary, we play 'snap' with S1 and S2. The cards reveal the words which must be matched with the corresponding pictures. This activity is timed and I use the competitiveness between boys and girls to boost the boys’ participation.
Reordering the different sentences of a transactional conversation, for example, helps a Foundation level S4 class to build up their own conversation in preparation for a speaking test.
Group work
More complex activities, such as 'Weather Forecast', need more preparation, often in group work: each group freely uses a map and weather symbols on the board, working on a given scenario and presents 'la Météo' in front of their peers.
Using the interactive whiteboard in little doses during lessons has been a great success. Vocabulary and grammar seem to be much more attractive and it allows me to cater for every pupil’s needs.
Pat Young, Educational Consultant
Pat Young, who recently gave up her principal teacher’s post to work as an educational consultant, was filmed last year for a Masterclass project showing good practice in the use of technology.
On the ICT in Education website, you can watch the video of Pat and her ex-pupils at Kilmarnock Academy revising vocabulary for colours and clothes, using digital video and interactive whiteboard exercises.
Here Pat explains step-by-step how to create the whiteboard activity used in the video:
- Even if your drawing skills are limited, four lines can represent a skirt. Use the black pen tool to draw a skirt outline and colour it in with a few strokes of the pen.
- You now have une jupe noire which you should write in black pen on the board. It is a good idea to use the red pen to highlight the 'e' on noire.
- If you tap on the skirt to select it, you can then choose another colour from the toolbar, provided you are still using the pen tool. Tapping on the colour of your choice will change the colour of the skirt.
- You should then write the appropriate sentence for that colour e.g. une jupe verte. I recommend that you write this sentence in green, again highlighting the extra ‘e’ on verte.
- Drag the words une jupe noire out of the way and drag une jupe verte to the green skirt.
- You can continue in this way, using other colours to illustrate adjective endings with feminine singular nouns. You can choose other items of clothing and work with them in the same way, changing their colour and writing the descriptive sentence appropriate to each one.
- Obviously, you may wish to start with masculine singular and in that case, un pantalon is an easy one for 'non artists' to draw, as is un chapeau.
- For the reluctant artist, I suggest des gants as an easily drawn example for masculine plural.
- A sketch of 2 simple socks, des chaussettes, allows you to demonstrate what happens to adjectives when they are used to describe feminine plural nouns.
- This same activity can be used with other nouns and adjectives, and the idea of 'colour-coding' words according to gender and type can make grammar easily accessible to a wide range of learners.
(The activity used in the video lesson to revise colours is from one of the superb range of CD-Roms by Eurotalk. These discs can be used very effectively with an interactive whiteboard. They provide many and varied opportunities for pupils to interact with the board and engage learners of various abilities and different learning styles.)
Please note: Even if you do not have access to an interactive whiteboard at the moment, on SMARTtech’s site you can download, free of charge, the SMART Board software which allows you to see for yourself the activities mentioned here and to try creating materials of your own.
Contributions from Shona Stables, Lynne Horn, Claudine Bellegarde-Deakin and Pat Young