Record Yourself Reading a Poem

Reading poetry can help your to develop your reading skills as well as your speaking and pronunciation skills. This can be especially useful if you record yourself and listen.

You can do this in a fun way using a simple free software program called Flipz TV. You just download the free program, install it on your computer and then you can record yourself and created an animated talking head to send to your friends or put on your website.

You can find a list of poems at the Poetry 180 website

Task:

• Go to: http://www.flipz.tv/ and go to 'Downoad' to download the free software.

• Install the software on your computer (PC only. Sorry MAC users)
  

• Find a suitable poem that you want to read from the Poetry 180 website and prctice saying the poem out load.

• Copy the text of the poem and use it to create your animated talking head like the one above.

• This video shows you how to record the audio FlipzTV Tutorial

• Listen to your peom once you have recorded it. You might want to try it 3 or even 4 times to get it right.

• When you are finished you can save the file to your computer and watch your talking head, like the one above.

If you post your poem to your blog, then be sure to send us a link.
You can use this tool for recordinbg other texts too. It doesn't just have to be a poem.

Hope you enjoy this activity and come back for more ESL EFL activities tomorrow.

Best

Nik Peachey

Using a Word Cloud to Remember Words and Texts

Reading is a great way to improve your vocabulary and develop your knowledge of the world, but if you want to remember what you have learned and keep your vocabulary active then here's an enjoyable activity you can do quite easily.

The activity uses a website called Wordle. This site takes the text from documents or webpages and makes them into word clouds (see below). You can then use those word clouds to help you remember the texts you read.
The word cloud above was made by adding the introduction from this page about Shakira from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakira

Task:

• Go to http://news.yahoo.com/ Yahoo News has a number of different topics to choose from and the articles are quite short so pick one that interests you
• Sport
• Entertainment
• Business
• Politics
• Technology

• Read the article, then copy the text.
• Then go to the Wordle site at: http://wordle.net/create and paste the text into the field. Then click the go button.

• Wordle will create a word cloud of your text. You can then change the colour and print the word cloud or save it to an online gallery.

• After you have printed your word cloud, look at the words and see how much of the article you can recall by looking at the cloud.
• Try to rewrite the article, or a summary of the article, from your memory using the words from the cloud. It doesn't have to be exactly the same, just try to use as many of the words from the cloud as you can.
• Here's an article about Angelina Jolie you can use as practice.
• First read this article: Angelina Jolie Movie Posters Banned in U.K.
• Now click on the word cloud below and see if you can write a summary of the article.

If you have enjoyed this activity then try making word clouds of other texts or study notes you read. Print the word clouds and keep them in a book or pin them to your walls.

Each time you look at one of the word clouds try to remember as much as you can about the text.

Good luck. Come back for more EFL ESL activities tomorrow.

Best

Nik Peachey

Take a Quiz Adventure Journey

Quizzes are a great way to improve your general knowledge as well as develop your knowledge of English question forms.


This quiz from the BBC's BiteSize website is an adventure quiz with 8 beautifully designed levels. The quiz tests your understanding of writing skills, maths, science and many other topics. Another interesting thing about the quiz is that you have to click parts of the image to find the questions.


Task:

• Go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/games/questionaut/pop.shtml and start the quiz. Here's a clue to get you tarted. Look at the picture below.

• As you answer questions correctly you will get fuel for your ballon which will help to take you to the next level

• There are 8 levels in total.
• Each one has a different desgn and topic and different things to discover.

I hope you enjoyed that activity. Let me know if you'd like to do similar activities to this or just find out more about the artist.

More EFL ESL activities tomorrow.

Best

Nik Peachey

Create an Online CV in English

The ability to speak English well and to use computers are definitely both big advantages when applying for a job, so why not highlight those advantages by creating an online English CV that allows you to show off your portfolio of English and ICT skills.


You can do this using a free website called Visual CV. Creating your online CV is also a good way to practice your English and think about the things that you would want to tell a potential employer.

Task:

• So the first thing you need to do is got to the http://www.visualcv.com website, take a look at the tour and then register for a free account.

• Once you have done this you can start to fill out information about yourself, add images, documents and videos.
• You can create a private CV that only specific people access, or you can have a public one that you can share thorugh social networks.
• You can choose the types of information your CV includes

When you create your public CV be sure not to include your home address or telephone number. Only give this information to potential employers.

Happy job hunting!

Hope you find this useful. Come back tomorrow for more EFL ESL learning activities.

Best

Nik Peachey