If you've been following my Instagram lately, you've probably notice that I've been doing a lot of experimentation lately with a Makey Makey, a device that lets you turn anything that conducts electricity into a computer key. While browsing through their gallery of ideas for educators, I got excited about the idea of making a GIF by having students act out a language concept in front of a webcam, using a GIF-making app.
This guide involved making a circuit that is closed by stepping on a switch made of paper and foil. You don't need circuits or a Makey Makey, however, to make a GIF. You just need someone to click the mouse.
I was teaching the present unreal conditional to a group of pre-intermediate teens, and I saw this as the perfect opportunity to bring something abstract into the real (or digital) world. After teaching the grammar one day and checking the homework the next, I showed students two GIFs I had made, and asked them to guess the conditional sentence that they illustrated. (When I had my students make their own GIFs, I promised them I wouldn't share them on the Internet, because by nature they're silly and embarrassing. Of course I am keeping that promise. But here I am, sharing the silly ones I made. I hope I don't regret this!) Let's see if you can guess them:
After students laughed at this, I asked them to explain what they saw. The response was "flying." I asked: Am I going to fly? Am I going to travel? They replied, "No." I asked: Why not? The response: "Because you have no money."
The next screen had a prompt:
Real situation: Dani doesn't have money. She won't travel.
Unreal situation: If...
Then I elicited a sentence with if:
If Dani had money, she would travel.
They got it! (I should have added the answer to the slide--I assumed I would write it on the board, but we were in the maker space, and I was using a screen and not a white board.)
The next one needed even less guidance.
The next slide said:
Real situation: Dani doesn't have her phone. She won't take a picture.
Unreal situation: If...
This time the students barely needed the real situation spelled out, and they were quick to produce the conditional:
If Dani had her phone, she would take a picture.
I then showed the students the circuit switch I had made (We didn't have time to make our own in class. Their making moment was all about the GIF), and I let them test it. Again, you don't need circuits or anything fancy besides a webcam and Internet connection for this--just have someone click to make the camera start and stop.
We were a group of nine that night, and I let students choose their groups--groups of three. Their instructions were to choose one of the conditional sentences in the homework and act it out to make a GIF. I stationed myself at the webcam to help them film. I also gave a list of tasks for students to choose from if they found themselves waiting, before or after filming. Students practiced in their groups, using things they found in the maker space to add to their tableau.
Then, one at a time, they filmed it. Sometimes one take was enough, other times we tried it again. I tried to guess their conditional as they filmed it, and we discussed if it was clear, and if we should add or change anything. For one group, we decided to show both versions--the real and the unreal situation: If you were rude to your classmates, you would get sent to the principal's office. They had filmed only the real situation, where everyone was behaved and all was good, but it wasn't enough to guess the if. We discussed it, and they decided to add to the GIF (which is easy to do in the app), and acted out the same scene with students misbehaving (in a funny, overly-dramatic way, of course!)
I had set up a few activities for students to do while they were waiting, including trying out a different way to play an online game with a Makey Makey, playing and improving a pinball game made by kids in a workshop, or play a game we had been playing in class. Alternatively, with no tech involved, I think a great way for them to use time while waiting would be to play a board game using the grammar structure we were practicing.
I saved each GIF and uploaded it to my Google Drive, and we watched them in the following class, with the rest of the class trying to guess the conditional, looking at the previous homework exercises to find a sentence that fit what they saw. It was a fun activity all around, and the kids weren't as embarrassed as I thought they might be. Perhaps it was taking what would otherwise be a challenging grammar point with so many verb forms to remember and creating something funny out of it. Perhaps it was the community aspect of it, knowing that everyone would appear in a silly video.
GIFs can be used to practice other grammatical structures, such as the present continuous (They are dancing), past continuous + simple past (We were playing video games when the power went out), the past unreal conditional (If we had left earlier, we wouldn't have missed the plane) and past perfect + simple past (I had eaten dinner by the time my roommate came home). They could also be used to guess vocabulary terms, especially more abstract ones, or expressions with multiple words. (disgusting/disgusted, terrifying/terrified, freedom, wealth, wishy-washy, get along with)
Besides language skills, the process of making a GIF involved collaboration and problem-solving, as students figured out together how to represent ideas like getting sent to the principal's office, a failed test, or a soccer game. It also gave students the opportunity to imagine themselves in the place of the viewer, considering how to get the idea across. It wasn't competitive, but cooperative, and all for the purpose of (fun) communication.
Making a tableau doesn't require a circuit switch, or even a webcam. Why not make a simple tableau in the classroom, with no technology? The skills students use are the same. (Although the traditional tableau requires a scene with no movement--an extra challenge!) What kind of tableau would you make?
As the semester ends, I'll be taking a break from Maker Monday posts. I suppose my example conditional sentence is not quite true, as I will be traveling--first to visit family, and then to talk about the maker movement as a catalyst for English language learning in Curitiba at the BrazTESOL Southern Cone Conference. Will I see you there? Keep in touch on Instagram @danimakerelt, and check out my Pinterest boards (same user name), where I am organizing and sharing ideas that I get for teaching with a maker approach. Let's make makers together!
This guide involved making a circuit that is closed by stepping on a switch made of paper and foil. You don't need circuits or a Makey Makey, however, to make a GIF. You just need someone to click the mouse.
I was teaching the present unreal conditional to a group of pre-intermediate teens, and I saw this as the perfect opportunity to bring something abstract into the real (or digital) world. After teaching the grammar one day and checking the homework the next, I showed students two GIFs I had made, and asked them to guess the conditional sentence that they illustrated. (When I had my students make their own GIFs, I promised them I wouldn't share them on the Internet, because by nature they're silly and embarrassing. Of course I am keeping that promise. But here I am, sharing the silly ones I made. I hope I don't regret this!) Let's see if you can guess them:
After students laughed at this, I asked them to explain what they saw. The response was "flying." I asked: Am I going to fly? Am I going to travel? They replied, "No." I asked: Why not? The response: "Because you have no money."
The next screen had a prompt:
Real situation: Dani doesn't have money. She won't travel.
Unreal situation: If...
Then I elicited a sentence with if:
If Dani had money, she would travel.
They got it! (I should have added the answer to the slide--I assumed I would write it on the board, but we were in the maker space, and I was using a screen and not a white board.)
The next one needed even less guidance.
The next slide said:
Real situation: Dani doesn't have her phone. She won't take a picture.
Unreal situation: If...
This time the students barely needed the real situation spelled out, and they were quick to produce the conditional:
If Dani had her phone, she would take a picture.
I then showed the students the circuit switch I had made (We didn't have time to make our own in class. Their making moment was all about the GIF), and I let them test it. Again, you don't need circuits or anything fancy besides a webcam and Internet connection for this--just have someone click to make the camera start and stop.
We were a group of nine that night, and I let students choose their groups--groups of three. Their instructions were to choose one of the conditional sentences in the homework and act it out to make a GIF. I stationed myself at the webcam to help them film. I also gave a list of tasks for students to choose from if they found themselves waiting, before or after filming. Students practiced in their groups, using things they found in the maker space to add to their tableau.
Then, one at a time, they filmed it. Sometimes one take was enough, other times we tried it again. I tried to guess their conditional as they filmed it, and we discussed if it was clear, and if we should add or change anything. For one group, we decided to show both versions--the real and the unreal situation: If you were rude to your classmates, you would get sent to the principal's office. They had filmed only the real situation, where everyone was behaved and all was good, but it wasn't enough to guess the if. We discussed it, and they decided to add to the GIF (which is easy to do in the app), and acted out the same scene with students misbehaving (in a funny, overly-dramatic way, of course!)
I had set up a few activities for students to do while they were waiting, including trying out a different way to play an online game with a Makey Makey, playing and improving a pinball game made by kids in a workshop, or play a game we had been playing in class. Alternatively, with no tech involved, I think a great way for them to use time while waiting would be to play a board game using the grammar structure we were practicing.
I saved each GIF and uploaded it to my Google Drive, and we watched them in the following class, with the rest of the class trying to guess the conditional, looking at the previous homework exercises to find a sentence that fit what they saw. It was a fun activity all around, and the kids weren't as embarrassed as I thought they might be. Perhaps it was taking what would otherwise be a challenging grammar point with so many verb forms to remember and creating something funny out of it. Perhaps it was the community aspect of it, knowing that everyone would appear in a silly video.
GIFs can be used to practice other grammatical structures, such as the present continuous (They are dancing), past continuous + simple past (We were playing video games when the power went out), the past unreal conditional (If we had left earlier, we wouldn't have missed the plane) and past perfect + simple past (I had eaten dinner by the time my roommate came home). They could also be used to guess vocabulary terms, especially more abstract ones, or expressions with multiple words. (disgusting/disgusted, terrifying/terrified, freedom, wealth, wishy-washy, get along with)
Besides language skills, the process of making a GIF involved collaboration and problem-solving, as students figured out together how to represent ideas like getting sent to the principal's office, a failed test, or a soccer game. It also gave students the opportunity to imagine themselves in the place of the viewer, considering how to get the idea across. It wasn't competitive, but cooperative, and all for the purpose of (fun) communication.
Making a tableau doesn't require a circuit switch, or even a webcam. Why not make a simple tableau in the classroom, with no technology? The skills students use are the same. (Although the traditional tableau requires a scene with no movement--an extra challenge!) What kind of tableau would you make?
As the semester ends, I'll be taking a break from Maker Monday posts. I suppose my example conditional sentence is not quite true, as I will be traveling--first to visit family, and then to talk about the maker movement as a catalyst for English language learning in Curitiba at the BrazTESOL Southern Cone Conference. Will I see you there? Keep in touch on Instagram @danimakerelt, and check out my Pinterest boards (same user name), where I am organizing and sharing ideas that I get for teaching with a maker approach. Let's make makers together!
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