M-learning: using mobile phones on English lessons. Использование мобильных телефонов на уроках английского
материал по английскому языку по теме

I would like to describe one of my favorite activities using mobile phones that I often do with my teenagers while teaching English.

I got the idea of mobile phone usage in ESL from Macmillan Webinars that took place in November 2011.

http://www.macmillanenglish.com/BlankTemplate.aspx?id=54884

It was a special session from Lindsay Clandfield that focused on the mlearning. I found this technique very useful, interesting and modern. Therefore I started to use it at my lessons.

Nowadays almost all the students have their own mobile phones and they’re often busy with them even during lesson’s time. Therefore I decided to do some activities using mobile phones instead of just forbid their usage (actually I consider it silly and useless to forbid something without a reasonable explanation and giving other options instead). I strongly believe that using modern technical sources such as a camera, Internet, mobile phones and others give the creative teacher a chance to explore his/her students into English widely at home and in the classroom.

Activity “Close objects”

The task aims to review “Home” vocabulary; to practice question, negative and positive sentences; to explore students into English outside classroom and to personalize the topic. It’s suitable for a mini-group (6-8 persons) but could be adapted for a big class by dividing the learners into mini-groups. It’s good for any teenager form and any language level. In case if some students don’t have their own mobile phones they can agree with the peer and use his/her or ones of their parents.

I ask my students to make 5 photos (using their mobile phones cameras) of the objects they have at home (form the taken vocabulary of course!) with close view, so they need to put their camera very close to the subject and make a photo of a part of the subject.

Next lesson they show the photos they have done (I connect their mobile phones to the class computer and show the photos on the computer) and other peers guess: “Is it a clock?” or “I think it’s a clock” or “To my mind it’s a clock” etc. The person who made this photo answers: “Yes/no” or “Yes, it is / no it is not” or “Yes, you are right” / No, you are mistaken”. Then we complete the task till all the photos (of every student) will be guessed.

All of my students like this activity and participate actively in making photos and guessing photos of their peers as well.  They are always encouraged to ask questions for being the first in guessing. This activity brings realia into the lesson that stimulates students to use English in their real life.

Sometimes I prize the student who was the most active in the activity by giving him a “Winner” title or something like that. What else I do to pay my students attention to the activity is to let them vote for the best photos or the best photographer. Such techniques increase learners’ motivation and self-evaluation that are definitely crucial while learning English.

This activity could be adapted for other topics such as “Places in the city”, “School objects”, “Clothes” etc. For example while learning topic “Family”, ask the students to make a photo of each family member and let other peers guess who is in the photo, or just describe the person or talk about him/her. The only thing for teacher to keep in his mind is that it’s better to use just the words have been taught at the previous lessons not to confuse other students in the classroom.