24 July 2008 

This morning I'll quickly show you the extracurricular blog, Have Fun with English! 2, that I had with the same group of students in 2005-2007.

This blog is a two-way communication system between the teacher and the, or the students and other teachers, open 24/7/365. I write posts about things that I think will interest the students to generate comments from them and other teachers. In the case of this blog, the aim is to have the students reading and writing outside of the classroom in an even more informal way... and to free them from the limitations of the textbook.

I always start the post with a catchy image before writing the post, because 10-11 year-old students like images and color.

There are references to field trips they went on or to a special time of year such as Christmas. And there are podcasts/recordings of Happy Birthday or their physical description.

And there is a post about our Edublog online award for Best Teacher Blog 2006.

On the left frame, there are links to pages that may be interest to them, such as a Pronunciation Page: how to pronounce words they're learning using Portuguese sounds. I've used this strategy for several years and it works very well.

 And there are links to text, picture and audio dictionaries, as well as to their Art Gallery: the drawings they make for me.

And on the right frame there is a voiceboard to leave voice messages. It's very simple to use.

 The students find it a fun and motivating way to practice and learn more English.

My other "Have Fun with English!" blogs

Have Fun with English! (2003-2005)

Have Fun with English! 3 (2007-2008)