The countdown has begun: the last 100 days to the start of the FIFA2010 World Cup. How can we, English teachers, deal with this interesting and soon-to-be hottest topic?
In this post I’m presenting an idea of integrating the major football event in the English class in form of a (global) blog-project. The idea behind it draws upon Tourism Queensland campaign from last year, when they offered the job of an island ranger. There was an incredible buzz on the web around this amazing job with its duties, which resembled more of a paid vacation: living in the best hotels, doing tours, going swimming and diving, enjoying the Queensland lifestyle, writing engaging weekly posts and creating video/photo essays presenting the Islands to interested tourists. Correspondingly, the fictional job is now in South Africa, the FIFA 2010 World Cup host country, and the blog should attract visitors from all over the world.
Firstly, after contacting a partner classroom (ePals is a wonderful platform for teachers, pupils, but also parents, who are interested in global collaborations), you should establish a communication network for your groups. I’d recommend edmodo, a social network for education, where you can create and control groups. Within these groups pupils can exchange notes, links, files etc. Personally, I prefer this service to emailing, because it’s easy to use, it reminds a bit of facebook (your students are probably very comfortable with it), and, not least, because you can tag, organise and store a plethora of files for your groups. Moreover, you can use this microblogging service for immediate feedback using the mobile version you can upload to your iphone, ipod, etc. After creating your meta workspace you can begin the project following the guidelines provided in the project outline:
Our blog is called Posts from South Africa; stop by and tell us what you think about it.
What do you think, is there a place for this event in English classes? Do you have any other ideas related to this topic?
hello
I am an MA student of TEFL.nowadays I am working on the challenges that EFL/ESL teachers faced with when they use blog in their class, especially writing class.for doing this research I need to interview with teachers who use blog.
can you please mention some of the challenges that you face with when you use blog in your writing class? or mention disadvantages of using blog in EFL/ESL writing’s class.you can also mention problem regarding blogging that you faced with in other EFL/ESL class.
please send your response to my email.
nrgskamali@gmail.com
with the best regard
Hello Mr Bosoanca,
How are you !?
Our new English Class is good,but our old class was better ! 😉
We´re not so often in the Computer room as in your class 🙁
Hi Mr. Bosoanca..
how are you?
I’m fine^^ I have written a 1- in the english vera.. and i have a question .. Are you still at my school? i see you barely..
bye
Hi, Lukas. Well done! Congratulations for your VERA-score. Regarding your question, no, I’m not teaching at your school anymore. Have a nice weekend, and keep up the good work!
@blogbogi,
Hello Mr. Bosoanca.:)
Whats up ?;)
We are missing you in our
english class. :'(
This comment comes from
Melanie Jahn and Vanessa Int Veld.
Class 8c. 🙂
Love. ♥
@Melanie und Vanessa, Hello, you two! Nice to hear from you. I really hope you still enjoy learning English, even though I’m not there anymore. Keep up the good work, and meet you here, on my blog.
Mr Bosoanca