Podcast your favorite dish!

Hello everybody, my name is Sandra Mota and I have created a webquest where I explain step by step how to decide for a favorite dish, get its recipe, watch videos which help with vocabulary, pronunciation and pace, moreover of demos which show how to create a podcast.

Its learning objective is to motivate students to learn how to learn with the help of ICT tools which are engaging and offer a huge variety of possibilities in order to accomplish with their task of creating a podcast. In order to do so, they have to look for another classmate and in pairs decide about their favorite dishes. Then search for information about their ingredients and preparation through internet, books, magazines, their mums, etc. After that, with the help of a dictionary or an online device like google translator, for example, work on the pronunciation of what they are going to say. Finally they have to follow the facilitated instructions on how to create a podcast and then share it with their classmates and I.

To see how it looks and listen to a podcast where you will hear the Healthy Spaghetti Bolognese recipe by BBC Nutritionist from Honey we're killing the kids and performed by me, please click in the link below:

http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=231825

Let's Get Cooking!

Hi, I am Laura Parra and I have designed a writing activity in a wikispace. The main learning objective of that activity is that students learn how to write a recipe. In order to do this, not only will they have to remember some of the vocabulary they have worked on in previous lessons (such as to brown, to fry, to drain…), but they will also need to learn how to use some sequence adverbs (such as then, after that, finally, etc.) and how to structure a recipe. Thus, in order for students to learn these aspects so that they are able to write a good recipe, they will have to do some previous exercises (presented in the wikispace), which will act as scaffolding.

To begin with, in the first step of the wikispace, students will work in pairs to do a matching activity related to the vocabulary done in previous lessons so that they activate the words they will be exposed to in the following exercise. In the second step, students will have to work individually to do some exercises about a listening, which will act as a model for them to notice how to explain how a dish is prepared. They will be allowed to compare answers with a partner. In the third step, in order for students to become familiar with the use of some sequence adverbs that may be necessary to sequence the steps to be followed to prepare a dish when explaining how to cook it, students will work in pairs to complete a text with some of these adverbs. In the fourth step, students will be shown a video in which Mr. Bean is preparing a sandwich. To practice the use of the sequence adverbs in a more meaningful context and to have some practice on what will be done later, students will be expected to write the recipe for this sandwich. Firstly, individually, students will note down the uncommon steps that Mr. Bean follows to prepare his sandwich. Then, they will put things in common with a partner and will try to write the recipe for the sandwich. Finally, in the fifth step, students will work in pairs to write a recipe of their favourite dish. They will have to mention the ingredients, describe the process of making the dish trying to use the adverbs they have just seen in the previous exercises so that the steps to do the dish are much clearer, and show a picture of the dish. A model on how they have to do this task is provided.

To create the set of activities presented, I have used different technological tools. First of all, I have decided to use a wikispace to present the different activities. Secondly, in order to create the matching and cloze exercises, I have used the programme Hot Potatoes. Thirdly, I have created the listening by using Voki and Audacity. Since I realized that Voki provided the possibility of having your message be uttered by a “native speaker”, I used Voki to record what I wanted students to listen to, so that they could be exposed to a more native pronunciation. Then, I used Audacity to manipulate the record and add the music. Finally, in order to be able to collect all the recipes written by students and in order to have a space where students can see each others’ work, I have decided that they will be writing their recipes in a Padlet’s wall.

Click on the following link to see my wiki: Wiki – Let's Get Cooking!

The Cooking Space

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog! My name is Ariadna Santiago and I have created a blog related to the world of cooking. I have designed a reading activity since I want my students to improve this skill. The learning objective I want them to achieve is to be able to do a reading in an authentic way. By authentic I mean read a text in the same way they would do it in their L1; not paying attention to word by word but to the whole context of the text. In order to make the reading the most authentic as possible, I designed some activities that might resemble the way in which we read in our life. Another objective I want students to practice is to use authentic techniques such as skimming and scanning when reading.

To start with, the first activity students will have to do is watching a short video. This is a way to awake students’ curiosity. This exercise needs to be done individually. The next activity can be done in small groups, which it is related to the previous video. Students will have to guess what the connection between the video and the poster is; each group should come to a common agreement. Once they have a common idea, they will move on to the following activity which consists on watching the final part of the video presented before. Each group will check if their guesses are correct or not. These exercises are included in the pre-task section. Then, students will move on to the task itself. It consists of an authentic reading about the Spanish Omelette. They will have to read it twice. The teacher should advice them that they should read it carefully, paying attention to what they are reading because they will have to do some exercises related to this reading and they should not have the reading with them. Once they are done with the reading, they will do the post-task exercises. The first one consists of doing a crossword with words that appear in the reading. The objective of this activity is to activate students’ memory. The following activity is a reading comprehension exercise. Students will not only have to look for the correct answer but going beyond; they will also have to scan and skim information in the same way we do in our L1. In other words, they will have to do an authentic activity. Finally, as Ferran Adrià is presented in the reading, students will have to do a final oral presentation of him. An example on how students will have to create it is provided, but instead of being about Ferran Adrià it is about Jamie Oliver. This final project can be done in groups of 4-5 people.

To create the different activities I have used several technological tools. Firstly, I decided to create a blog where I could embed all the activities. For exercise 1 and 2, I used “Dvolver” since I wanted to create an appealing atmosphere before doing the reading. I took advantage of this app since it allows the creation of short videos in which you can add text and music. I thought it was an attractive way to introduce the reading. For activity 2, I used the applicaton "Glogster" in order to make visual the content of the reading. In other words, to make visual what the reading is about.For the task itself I used “Google Doc”. To create the quiz and the reading comprehension activities, I used the Hot Potatoes app. Finally, in order to create a model for the oral presentation, I used a “Prezzi”.

If you want to take a look at my blog, click here

Here are the exercices for Listening!

Hello, my name is Natalia Tur and here are the exercices for Listening. In this blog we are trying to make the students learn some ingredients and important words when cooking. In concrete, with these Listening activities, the aim is to make the students aware of some typical words and be able to translate them into their L1, and also, they can notice and learn some words related to the issue of cooking while they work on their listening skills. In order to do so, I have used Padlet, because it is a good tool to store a lot of resources such as videos, texts, pdf files, images, etc. On this tool, I have used Hotpotatoes: a JMatch in order to make the students translate some words into Spanish, and a JCloze in order to make them be attentive during the video and hear the most important words that are quite useful when cooking. These activities will be done in class, individually.

Created with Padlet