Updating English lessons in London 29 Oct - 4 Nov 2017

Upgrade Your Language Lessons course gave plenty of new ideas on how to implement ICT in language lessons. This one-week course organized by  Petri Ilmonen fromTrycamps Language School was an extremely interesting combination of apps and culture.  

On Monday, we started with individual native speaker meetings with Ms Tup Bertley, a teacher of English from a local boarding school. We had a nice discussion based on the slide show “Me, My Lessons & School” made in advance.  At noon we took a double decker, did some shopping in the Poundland for our afternoon welcome tea and had a nice lunch and a chat at a Chinese restaurant.

In the afternoon we met at the library close to our hotel and practiced how to use apps like Book creator, which could be useful for a portfolio or a blog, Kahoot and Quizziz ,which are ideal for revising vocabulary , the latter with some nice avatars and comments. Another tool was Plickers with its black cards useful for e.g. voting and collecting results with a tablet. To finish with we were given our subjects for our group work of  This is London iMovie –project.

On Tuesday morning, each of us presented a lesson plan where  ICT is used and had a pedagogical conversation. After lunch, we practiced making QR-codes and My Talking Avatar app. In the evening, we walked to a cozy pub and had a  delicious Indian meal. The walk was actually a bit scary as it was Halloween and it was not only children who were wearing skeleton masks and so. Couldn't resist a nice cup of tea. 

Wednesday was dedicated to   culture and making the iMovie. After taking the Tube to the Skygarden scycraper with the fantastic view over London in each direction, we shot the iMovie . Acting as BBC reporters our group of three presented the London Buses, Mr Winston Churchill and his wall rooms, and St. James’s park. The editing of the movie took place in pub, which was nice. After Italian dinner, the Michael Jackson musical was a perfect way of ending the day.  

On Thursday, after the full British breakfast, we had brief feedback sessions on pronunciation. In the afternoon, there was a “Practice what you wish” workshop and watching our movies in the program. We also learned how to make learning material out of YouTube videos with EDPuzzle app.  The cultural part of the day was a Curry night in an English pub.

Friday was all about culture and visiting the monument of the Great London Fire.   First, we were given a task on paper with questions like “Guess how many steps there are to the top of the monument”. Step 2 was to climb up and count the steps. Finally we were given certificates to prove we had been up there and where we could check the rest of our answers to questions like “Why do you think the monument was built? “.  Not to forget there is American English and American culture too, we had a farewell dinner at planet Hollywood in the afternoon. There was not much time left for buying souvenirs but we managed to find Primark department store and its nice Harry Potter shop-in-shop. 

To sum up, I can warmly recommend attending a course like this. A similar course will be organized in April 2018. For further information please visit https://www.trycamps.fi/teachers/courses/londonforadults/