Experience

Hi

Thanks Lee, some interesting ideas - we already have some games and similar but what we are looking at immedeately is showing basic concepts along the lines of I-You-He-She etc. It is very surprising but as yet, despite quite a lot of commercially available content, we haven't found anything suitable hence the 'home-build'.

regards

Graham

Hello Again,

Regarding using computers; you could perhaps create games for practising syntax. Word scramble games that offer less time to complete them as they progress through levels might be useful. Maybe pelmanism games would be simple for you to program. Ss might be required to match pictures with vocabulary, or identify adjective opposites. You could perhaps have interactive timelines, where the students move the actions on the timeline to represent the tense in a sentence.

Just a few ideas,

Lee.

Couldn't agree more - the only real way to learn and practise oral skills is by speaking with someone; what our computer aids will do is to help teach grammar.

Oral communication skills, that is.

I think that while the use of computers is good and encourages learners to be autonomous. Computer use in the classroom may not be effective in improving the students' communication skills. For listening tasks they might prove to be beneficial. The students could perhaps listen, while moving pictures of what they hear into a collection box, or re arrange word scrambles. Computers may also reduce writing apprehension. But for speaking, they really need to be speaking to each other with the teacher as a facilitator and monitor. Of course the first step is the right amount of comprehensible input. For this, I believe that human interaction is more appropriate, as the human can adapt instantly to what happens in the classroom, whereas programmed procedures cannot.

All the best with your project.

Lee.