Mailvu - do things differently

 

So what is Mailvu???

Generally Mailvu is a tool that allow us to record video messages for us to share with our family, friends or else anyone else that we wish through email. Plus you can easily create and send the video with just a couple of simple steps without having any complicated stuff to worry about. How cool is that. it is simple, fast and easy. Click HERE to go straight to Mailvu!

The steps of using Mailvu >>>>

1) Click the record button on the right hand side and start recording. (max 10 min)

2)You can also click on the play button to preview what have you recorded just now before you can actually send it to anyone.

3)After you have already satisfied with your message, click the send button and enter the necessary details such as the receiver email address and yours as well.

4)Now your task is finished and the receiver will get your message in an instant and could also reply back to you in the same way through Mailvu.

So what can you do with Mailvu in the class?

1) Speaking activity = The teachers could ask the student to make a a short message at home using Mailvu to promote an object that he or she would love the others to buy and send it to them. This will give the opportunity for the students to practice using the language and to improve their speaking skill as well. Plus,  a connected classroom can be established as through this activity, students will not only be learning on how to use the language at school but also learning and practising using the language at home with a specific purpose.

other topic/activity :
--Draw a timeline and share stories on why the dates or the year are important to them. Is it meaningful or full with painful memories.

--Share their interest, talents or hobbies such as cooking, playing, climbing rocks, etc...

2)Listening activity :
-- The teachers or the students can use the tool and record themselves to give the listening input for the class to hear later.  Thus, the students are going to be more excited and motivated to listen to someone that they know rather than a stranger doing it.

3)Writing activity:
Teachers could send videos of them speaking a certain topic to the student at home and they need to summarize what they have understood as well as they own comments about it.

Why i like this tool?

• Its free 

• The steps of using it is simple, fast, and easy.

• It encourage the students to speak as well as improving their skills by practicing a number of times while doing the recording.

• Allows connected classroom becomes a reality. This happens when it create a chance for the students to link what they have learned in class and still using it at home with a solid purpose.

• The tool itself is fun to experiment on and the students will feel more motivated to learn in the classroom.

• Plus, it gives a refreshing new way of learning or even as a homework where students can now change The words they used to express through writing to become more alive and real to see. Its interesting for them and even make the students become more engage with the lesson.

Limitations >>>

• The video is only limited for 10 min 

• We can only share our video messages through email 

• There is not direct chat box for the receiver or anyone else to comment or reply.

• As it is a free version, no code is given for us to embed our video in our website.

• The receiver can't actually download the video and can only watch it through email.

• There is no pause button and we need to record everything in just one go.

Other options >>>

  KEEK

As an alternative, KEEK is also a website that have the same functions as what Mailvu does and it can offers a code for us to embed our video in our websites. Therefore if you would like to share your video publicly in your blog, you can use KEEK instead of Mailvu. Unfortunately there are some drawbacks of using KEEK as it only allows us to record a 30 sec video rather than Mailvu who offers a 10 min video. Clik here to try KEEK yourself!!

 

elllo english ~learn english naturally!!

Bored with just pen and paper?

Interested of trying a  new style of listening activity?

Excited to improve your English language skill?

HELLLO ENGLISH is the answer!!!

What is it about?

Elllo English is another cool website that is specially design to help learners to improve their listening skills in a way that is more visually interesting and fun to do even if they are doing it alone.

It is wonderful site that contains nearly thousands of listening activities that covers a range of different topic all around the world for the learners to choose based on their interest.

Plus, it is a tool that caters different kinds of level suitable for students age 13 to 16 years old to learn and improve themselves moving from the beginner to an advance level.
 
Apart from that, the most cool thing about this website is that almost all the listening activities are being supported with interesting mutimedias, cartoon animation, downloadable mp3 files, vocab task, language notes and MANY MORE for FREE!!...How interesting is that???

How to use this tool?? 

1)The activities in Elllo English has been categorized and designed into 5 different section which is views,mixer,scenes,news and game. You can choose which section that you prefer and all the topics that is related to the section will appear for you to choose depending on your level and interest of your student. You can also use the search column to find your desired topic instantly.

2) After that, you can start doing the listening activity by listening to the audio/ slide show presentation before answering the question provided at the right hand side.

Listen to audio/ slide show

The activities

3) You can also enrich your vocabulary by going through the the language notes provided in the transcription.

 

Language notes: meaning and how to use it 

 4)There is also an activity using videos of real people speaking about the topic. There's even a subtitle to it. Check out the picture below!

How might this tool works brilliantly in a language classroom ?

• Excellent for a listening activity as individual or pair work that can develop their listening skills to a new level.

• Creating a new fresh atmosphere of language learning for the students to keep the student to feel motivated.

• The activities are developed from different kinds of topic accross culture for the learners to choose based on their interest making the activity more fun and exciting.

• Different accents is being used as a medium to exposed the learners with different style of language used spoken from the people around the globe.

• The materials are authentic where the language and topic used is something that we can hear outside of the classroom.

• It comes with a printable version and free mp3 files suitable for classes with limited amount of computer facilities.

• Promotes autonomous learning- students can improve their skills by themselves at home independently

• Include a chance to improve a variety of language skills such as reading, listening and vocabulary.

Some limitations of this tool.

• The slideshow provided is sometime unrelevant and confusing to students without proper explations by teachers.

• Some of the old activities are not included with downloadable mp3 files.

• The questions are limited 

• The topics under each section is sometimes questionable and unrelated.

Listen & Write >> Improve listening skills through audios and videos

LISTEN & WRITE

This website is specially designed  to help learners to improve their listening capabilities of the English language through the help of  some multimedias. In simple, it basically provides a free system that provides thousands of videos and audios for us to choose throughout our learning process. Plus, some of the audios provided are related from the latest news all around the world. So learners would not only be polishing their listening skills but also increasing thier knowledge about what is happening around the world. It also comes with different levels of difficulity (lvl 2-26) which could accommodate various level of secondary school students age 13 to 17 years old.

In order to start the activity, learners should begin by selecting the level they want to challenge themselves with and choose a topic that interest them from the news options available in that level.

Then, they need to select which mode that they prefer to do in the process.

After that, learners can start listening and try to dictate as many words as possible untill all the words are correct. Interestingly, the listening part is devided into several parts and we can choose to listen to the content as many times as we want untill all the words are correct.There is also a hint button to help use in certain time or we could easily change to different mode according to our learning rate.

Using audio only:

Why this website is very reliable for teachers or students to use:

• Apart from being completely free, this websites offers a lot of topics for the learners to choose from starting from the latest news updates or even to the knowledgble one. This will somehow generate the students interest to polish thier own skill by choosing a topic that they like.
• It also promote students to become autonomous where it is an activity that engage students to continue in their learning process and improving thier skills without any help from the teachers or anyone else.
• In fact, by listening to the speakers, students could be more familiar with different accents by different people and also learn on how to pronounce certain words correctly.
• Visual aid also provide some kind of support for the learners while they are listening by making it more real and fun to do.

Some of the limitations while using this website:

• only suitable for working individuality and not as a group. May be difficult for schools who have limited access to computers or even the internet.
• Some of the clips are easy although it is categorized as some of the difficult ones.
• students might be unfamiliar with some of the speakers's accent

Fancy trying it for yourself?? click HERE!

Lyrics Training > where listening becomes more alive

Listening skill is one of the important features that is a must for language learners to have a complete understanding of the target language. This is why I would like to reccomend  this site called the LYRICS TRAINING that makes listening activities one step ahead of traditional learning full with fun and excitement.
It is an easy and fun method to learn and improve your foreign languages skills through  music videos and lyrics of your favorite songs.

So basically, lyrics training is a website that allows us to listen to thousands of songs along with the lyrics available in the internet as a way to improve our listening skills. In simple, the listeners need to complete the lyrics as they are listening to the songs. Although it may sounds and look as normal as what the teachers normally used with the students in class, Lyrics Training is more to a modern way of practising listening skills with some extra new features that excites people in doing it. Furthermore, the best part of this activity is that it is specially made to accomodate  different level of learners in terms of listening abilities where learners could choose wheather they want it to be suitable for beginners, intermediate or even expert. The more advance level you choose the more complicated it will get.

It is an easy tool where we could start practising our listening skills by just picking on one song and the level that we wish to test ourselves. Amazingly, the most cool part in this website is that the music will stop from one line to the other one as we type in the missing words. We could also listen to the same line again and again if we missed any part of it.  Moreover, the most interesting thing in this activity is that you will get a score at the end of the song depending on the time you get to finish with the task and you could even compare yourselves with users from different countries. How great is that!!!

**Some things that I like about this site are:

• It's free, so we could use it as many times as we want.
• Full with up to date songs to choose from where it could boost up the students interest to keep on testing their listening abilities using songs that they like.
• Fun and motivate learners to learn by themselves at home without any teacher guidelines.
• It also provides score in the end as a type of feedback for the learners to keep challeging themselves and improve thier current ability.
• This activity does not only concern about the learners listening ability but also thier spelling capabilities of writing the correct words.
• Students will also get to learn new vocabularies and  how to pronounce words correctly as it should.

**Some things that I don't like about this site are:

•  Some of the videoclips may not be suitable to be shown in class as it might offend certain people.
• Students might be out of control and choose inappropriate songs unsuitable for their age.
• The learners might not be able to predict words that they have never heard before such as slangs or dialects that the singers used.
• Certain schools might have limited computers and internet acces. 

That's all I have to say for this site but personally, I would like everyone to try it for yourself by clicking HERE and experience this new form of excitement of making learning language more fun and alive!!!