Speaker: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Chris Vela Che: All right. So hello and welcome to using images, GIFs, Emojis, and Videos for Productive Practice. My name is Chris Vela Che, and with me, Kristi Reyes and Katrina Tamura will be presenting. We are from MiraCosta College in Oceanside. So welcome again. Before we begin, can you please chat and share in the chat your answers for these questions. What do you teach? Where? What is one way you use one of these to have students produce the language you are teaching them, so images, GIFS, emojis, or videos? So real quick here, share in the chat your answers.

Kristi Reyes: And you also see a poll so whichever one you want to do first, we're just curious. It seems like the majority of what a GIF is. So I'll give you about five more seconds to answer the poll question. And OK, I think everybody-- we only have one person who doesn't know, so that's good but you're going to learn a lot more about how you can use GIFs in just a moment.

Chris Vela Che: Awesome. Awesome. Very nice. Very interesting. Very good. So at the end of this presentation-- These are our objectives, at the end of this presentation, you will know ways to use online images, GIFs, and videos to have students produce orally and in writing the verb tenses, parts of speech, and other grammar structures they are learning and communicative activities to build students' fluency and accuracy. So we hope that we can spark some ideas today with the samples we will give you. You will also experience how to use these activities for front-loading vocabulary through previewing, predicting, and labeling activities, for scaffolding less than content, for class warm-ups, reviews, and exit activities, and for focused pronunciation and/or accent reduction activities.

So we have a lot of things to show you today, and let's begin. So the tools that we use, I teach a level one ESL class. And these are the tools I use a lot when I prepare my lessons, I use GIPHY. I don't know if you guys are familiar with that. GIPHY is a website, it's free. You can find a tons of GIFs in that website. I also use on screen if I make a small video. I usually take away the background-- yeah, the background image. And I make my own GIFs so I use on screen, I also use a lot of Google images, Snapchat for filters, and Adobe Spark.

Now my co-worker Katrina Tamura teaches an intermediate ESL level. And she uses buncee and Bitmoji. She will tell you a little bit about Buncee and Bitmoji. And Kristi Reyes, an advanced ESL instructor teaches her class with using these tools. So the Emoji Generator, Flipgrid, and YouTube. So let's talk a little bit about my class. So as I told you before, I teach a level one ESL class. And I use tons of images for communication, for prompting for students production. So I'm going to show you a few lessons and give you some ideas on how I apply these images and GIFs for my students' language production. So let's start with lesson number one, introduction.

So you can see, introduction, how do you explain introductions without even translating? So I usually have something in action. I use a lot of GIFs to illustrate action. So what do I want students to do introduce themselves. Hello. How are you or so. There is always a GIF on a title of what I'm teaching. So this is an example of the activity we do at the beginning of the semester, beginning of the class, what's your name. And I have my GIF here, which is a little personalized so they can see this GIF over and over, and then we can practice this throughout the semester. What's your name? What's your name? My name is-- My name is-- so repetition and they have the prompt there.

This is another question of introductions. What do you do? I am a teacher. I also give them help they need to write the sentence. Again, it's something that has been very successful in my class. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. So we go over this the beginning of the first two weeks of my class.

Instructions also very important for students to understand what they need to do. So again, I usually have my GIFs there, so introductions. So for example, this one, if you were my students what is the answer for this? What is the target language you want to say? So if you-- the answer is fill in. If you want to chat, I would like to see your answers. Can you guys chat the answers, but then you guys are my students and I'm going to show you a couple of slides with the pictures and the GIFs and I want you to type your answers. So this is fill in.

Next instruction, can you type your answer? What do you think the instruction of this GIF is? Scroll up, right? Scroll up so we have the picture, and then also the arrow. Pretty simple. Let's do another one here. This one is pretty easy to guess, right? So the instruction here is click, click. So you have an image to show what that means. Let's do another one here. What about this one? What is the instruction here? Underline, underline, right? So underline if you need to underline. So again, it's something easy to catch, easy-- there is not a lot of explanation you show and show me a picture and it's easy to understand.

Now this is a lesson of grammar. We do grammar in level one. So this is a lesson in present continuous. So I have a deck of slides with a lot of action verbs. For example, this one, he is brushing his teeth, right? So we go over that, oh, he is brushing his teeth. Or for example, this one. What is the action? What is he doing? What is he doing? Oh, he is coming his hair. So there is a bunch of ways that you can prompt students to produce that language, either with a GIF or-- and then help or just a GIF for them to think about it and then give you the answer.

Another thing we do is this sentences, like the arrow in the case past, I explain to them, hey, the arrow means that this sentence is in the past. So he drank coffee. He drank coffee. So we go over the action verb, so drink coffee, so past tense, drunk.

Another example of that is, again, past tense. And this one is I. And then what is this? What do you think this action or this verb mean? Paid, past tense, gas and power, right? So again, you have those key components for students to think about and then create their sentences.

You can also have them chat with you or put their answers in a chat or have them verbalize that.

And now, I recently add this. We were doing can for ability. So I don't know. They just laugh more than we did, something. But they get the idea, ability. Oh, he can play the guitar. He can cut meat. He can play the trombone. So again, you're showing them actions. And it's very simple for them to have the answers, if they have a visual aid.

This one was a grammar lesson for prepositions, so where is. So you can use either a GIF or just an image and change the location of the image. And you can prompt students to tell, hey, where is Aldo or where is Texas-- again, pictures or GIFs.

A lesson of phrasal verbs, as you guys can see, this is a phrasal verb. So what is the phrasal verb here? What is the action happening here? So jump over, so you illustrate what is jumping over. The cat jumped over the gate.

Another one with phrasal verbs are this one. This one is very simple. So we're looking at look up, look up. He looked up, illustrating that as well.

And another phrasal verb, what is that one? Look through, he looked through the window. Again, these GIFs can be found anywhere on the internet.

Another one, this is one of my favorite ones. It's a funny one, because it's perfect, looking around like you're lost, so look around. What is he doing? Well, he is looking around.

Now, let me show you a little bit of a reading. We do reading for my level 1 class. But we do reading words. So we've been working with consonant blends. So this one illustrate what crawl means. So a spider crawls. A snake crawls. Or a baby crawls, so crawl.

Let me give you another example here. When we do pronunciation and reading, I try to use as many images as possible so students know what to do, what to read, how to read a word.

So here is an example of a practice we do with the th, which is pretty hard for students to produce, so the T-H, bathtub. So you're giving them a visual aid, how would that T-H look like when they are making the sound bathtub.

Another lesson for my level 1 class is this diagraph, a chair. Again, you have the visual aid here. So they know how their mouth should look like when they produce the "ch" sound.

This one is compound words. We also learn compound words-- very easy, you can use emojis for that-- and then prompt students to tell you, well, you have a cup and then cake. What will be the compound word? Cupcake.

Now, for writing, for my level class, again, I use a lot of visual aids and GIFs, as you can see. This one is I like shopping, so shopping.

Next one, I prompt my students to do the same thing. But now, this, a hand pointing down, which they know because they use text-- they text families using emojis-- so this will be I don't like to iron. So they have fun with this. They all agree. We all don't like to iron. So it's a fun lesson.

Another one would be this one. So you can prompt, what do you think is the sentence? What is the statement here? So I love. I love.

Now, this could be a little difficult for some. But you can prompt them to give you clues as to what's happening in the GIF. I love dancing when I clean. It's a little more complex sentence. But they get it. I love dancing when I clean. So the next time you use the same activity, they go back and try to remember, oh, dancing when I clean.

Let's see. I also use a lot of emojis, like this ones, and prompt students to write a sentence, like he is from Brazil. She is from Mexico. She lives in Mexico, so different options for these types of pictures.

This one, they-- so we use the emojis to practice pronouns, so he, she, they. And you can use pretty much a lot of images, emojis, Google images, to prompt students to write sentences.

Another thing that we do is spell, working with their spelling, spelling their first name and their last name. So we practice with simple words, just easy words, for example, beach, B as in bear, E as in elephant, A as in apple, C as in car, H as in hat-- again, pretty fun activities with tons of pictures here.

For pronunciation practice, I have created a videos as well. This was made with Adobe Spark. And it's a very weird video. But they laugh. And they enjoy watching. This is a video of how to pronounce the V. I have a lot of students who have a problem pronouncing the letter V.

So let me show you real quick how that video is and then just for a couple of seconds here. I don't know if--

[video playback]

- Hello, students. Today--

[end playback]

Chris Vela Che: Sorry.

[video playback]

- --are going to practice the letter V.

Chris Vela Che: Now, I know it's pretty weird, but--

- --letter V.

Chris Vela Che: V. So I use Snapchat--

- Vase.

Chris Vela Che: --for this one, for the filter.

- Violin.

Chris Vela Che: And I know it's very strange.

- Violin.

Chris Vela Che: But again, I want them to see--

- Van.

Chris Vela Che: --the mouth, how they--

- Van.

Chris Vela Che: --need to be moving their lips--

- Vampire.

Chris Vela Che: --when they pronounce--

- Vampire.

Chris Vela Che: --the V.

- Vines.

Chris Vela Che: So let me close--

- Vines.

Chris Vela Che: --that one.

[end playback]

Chris Vela Che: This was made with Adobe Spark. And we had fun with it.

Next one is another video. And this one is a conversation making a doctor's appointment. I use filters. And the target vocabulary was runny nose, fever. So then they see the symptoms of the cold as they are listening to a conversation. Pretty strange, let me show you for a couple of seconds here.

[video playback]

- Hi, this is Chris Vela Che. [cough] I am sick. I need to make--

Chris Vela Che: Filters.

- --an appointment.

Chris Vela Che: Why not using them?

- I have a fever. And I'm dizzy. Yes. That's fine. Thank you.

[end playback]

Chris Vela Che: So that is for a conversation practice, making a doctor's appointment. And this one is using pictures to talk about--

[video playback]

- Welcome to this module in which you will be provided with an overview of the human body and the physiology of its various systems.

Chris Vela Che: Oh, I'm sorry. I think--

[end playback]

Chris Vela Che: --that is my YouTube. Sorry about that. All right. So this one is another conversation. And this one is talking about past activities, how was your weekend, what did you do. So I modeled this. And we write sentences about what my students did.

So let me show you here real quick. This was made with a TikTok account.

[video playback]

- My son and I went to the beach. We also walked at the Oceanside Pier.

Chris Vela Che: So there is pictures about each action.

- We went shopping. We drank a lot of iced tea.

[end playback]

Chris Vela Che: Very simple. There is nothing else other than-- and TikTok, it's pretty simple to use, user friendly.

So I think that is it for my portion of this presentation. Thank you very much for watching. Is there any questions that we need to address right now before my colleague, Katrina Tamura, begins?

Let's see. I think I saw a lot of chat here. And yes, awesome. So I'm going to give it up to Katrina Tamura. Thank you.

Katrina Tamura: OK. I'm just hoping I'm in the right slide here. Hi, my name is Katrina Tamura. And I am a colleague and friend. And Chris is also my mentor.

So I adore working with people like this who are so creative. And Chris, it's amazing what you do. And you are an inspiration.

So I want to show you my less engaging practices here using Buncee and Bitmoji. I use these with my low-intermediate students to-- I use Buncee to reinforce understanding of idioms, encourage student participation, and provide visual associations with new words and phrases.

And then I also use Bitmoji to personalize my delivery. And so if you are interested in a more in-depth review of Bitmoji, I did post a video here.

This is an entire presentation about Bitmoji. So when you get our slides, you can just click through and watch this, if you are really interested in it. And there are lots of teaching ideas in it.

But I'm going to go over this one right here. And this is from Buncee. And this is an example of an idiom that-- or a way I teach idioms in my class. And I, actually, was able to build this idiom using images that are in Buncee.

Buncee is a creation tool. It's also an online classroom. And you can use it to make daily message boards or slides or have students create projects on their own.

And this one, I wanted to explain which idiom do you think it is. You can type it into chat.

OK. If you said helicopter parent, you are correct. So I wanted to explain. A lot of people, like students, they don't really understand helicopter parent or what it means at first. But this gives a good visual.

And then I can also move the child around. Everywhere she goes, her parent is there. And I can also add in different characters. I can add in a father. So it could be a helicopter mom or a helicopter dad or a helicopter parent. You can just pick whichever images you would like and build the idiom that you are trying to explain.

Let me go back. And this one and this one, I was using Buncee to create a street scene to explain directions, prepositions of directions, prepositions of place. And of course, on its face, it's just a picture. But if I log in, if I edit, I'm able to actually move this car around my city.

So I'll ask students, how do you get from the community pool to the courthouse? And they will tell me to go straight into it, turn left, go one block past the Sunny Day Park, go across-- the courthouse is across the street from the Sunny Day Park-- stop on the right, stop on the left.

And I can also ask, where is the shoe store? Oh, the shoe store is kitty-corner to the parking lot.

So this element here, being able to build the street scene and then have movable parts, is very helpful, especially in the online environment when you're trying to teach things like prepositions of place, prepositions of direction. It's often very hard for students to get oriented and be able to really visualize what they're saying, what they're being asked, and what they're saying.

And to do this, I'm going to show you a blank board here. This is a plain slide. And what I did to create my scene was I clicked Add Your First Item. And I was looking for streets. So I type in streets to my search bar and Enter. And then it comes up with all these different street grids I can choose from.

So I picked a few of them. And I added them. And then I made them the size I wanted. And I put them in the places I wanted them.

And then I found I needed places. So I, again, added an item. So you go up here to the corner. And you add an item.

And I needed a car, so I typed in car. And I found lots of different types of cars. So I'll add the car. And now I can drive the car on the street.

Oops, I was looking for places, wasn't I? So let me see. I'll search for a place, so maybe a fireplace. No, that's not specific enough. I'm going to ask for a park.

So if I type in park, I'm going to get lots of different options. Here's my park. I want that one. So I can place my park wherever I want and then have my car go there and have students tell me where to go and how to get there.

And this can be a lot more complicated too. So I did another scene where I had this more complicated street grid, where I added street names. So students could say the police station is between Summer Lane and Gopher Lane. It is kitty-corner. Or the police station is kitty-corner to the pool. It is across from the school house.

And then I added in a bus this time. So the bus drives around the city as students tell me where to go and how to get there. And they can even ask each other.

So while I'm in Zoom, I can ask them, OK, so, Frances, why don't you ask Henry for directions to the grocery store? And the students will ask each other, how do I get from this place to this place? And then I manipulate the vehicle on the screen.

And if their responses are correct, then the bus or the car arrives at its destination. If not, other students will chime in and help with the directions. And eventually, we get to where we want to go.

So this, I think, has been very helpful. There's lots of ways you can use Buncee. Your students can also go ahead and create a board similar to this. And they would do that if you create a class. And so I'm going to show you how to do that.

So this is my Buncee teacher board, my Buncee account. I'm going to go ahead to my account. And I see all of my Buncees, my daily slides, that I have for my class. I have the daily check-in board where I tell them what we're going to do and when we're going to do it and also different pictures or discussion prompts I might have. And I have all of those logged in here.

But I wanted to show you how to create a class and then share a password with your students so they can then log in and create their own board. So you'd go up to Classes. And you'll create a new class. And you can call it anything. I'm going to call it OTAN Today

And I'm going to create it and you can see OTAN Today. I have this class. And I'm going to add a student.

So you can put their first name and last name. So I'm going to put OTAN Learner. Now you can create a username and password for each person in your class. But today, I'm going to create one. And I'm going to share it with you so that you can then go to Buncee, log in, and create a board.

So OTAN Learner, username, let's say OTAN Learner. We'll just name you OTAN Learner. And then we'll give you a password, Happy1.

So I need these things in order to create a student account. And then I'm going to add.

This is no cost to the student. The teacher, you can get a free account and try it for a month and then pay their fees after that, which is like $10 for a teacher account. But it's no cost to the student ever when you share a password with them.

So I'm going to save this. And I have my OTAN Learner. And I want to, maybe, give them the username and password for this course. So I'm going to select them, select this learner.

And I'm going to change the password. Let me see. I'm going to do a simple login, because a lot of our learners don't like complicated usernames or passwords. So I'm going to click two images. I'm going to say a butterfly and a ladybug. I'm going to save that. And I'm going to update. So that's now my learner's password.

And I'm going to, again, click this one and then download the login page. And here's a little card I can share or an image that I can share with my student, giving them their username and password.

So this is your username and password today. So take note of it so you can try this later on. Go to Buncee. And you can enter OTAN Learner. And your simple logon will be a butterfly and a ladybug, so OTAN Learner, butterfly, ladybug.

So when you go to the Buncee homepage, you'll just log in as a student. And so that is how you create that.

And let me see. I have some questions in here that I'm going to check to see if you-- all right. So the word ladybug or the image? The image. It'll actually show you an image of a ladybug. And it says, very simple. Yeah. And it is secure with just the username and the password. And it's easy to remember.

Now, remember, today, all of you are going to be using the same account. So you're going to see everybody else's boards in there. But usually, when you create one for each student, you can create a unique username. And you can use the same password for everyone, if you would like. You can apply the same password, the same images, to the entire class so everyone has the same visual login.

But you can create a unique username for each person. So let me see.

Speaker 4: Katrina, how long did it take for you to create that map?

Katrina Tamura: It takes a while. You have to play around with it. Let me exit this and show you a little bit more inside that one.

So I had to get each piece. I had to look for each item. So again, the community pool, I just thought of a place. And then I searched for it here. So I'd add an item. And I can use a web image or a Buncee animation-- animations are ones that move, little images that move-- or stickers or messages or emojis.

A lot of times I just search for just general. So I looked at pool. I just thought of places in the community. And it comes up with different images. For example, people, if I wanted to add people, just add people. And it'll give me a wide range of usable images.

I don't have to worry about copyright or anything like that, because it's within Buncee. It's all OK for me to use.

And I could also do-- if I wanted to search on the web, if I'm not finding the image I want-- I can search using Pixabay. And then Buncee credits Pixabay. There is a link connected to my board. So I don't even have to think about it.

But for example, if I wanted to add a pool from Pixabay, and it'll give me different images here that I could use. And I could just post them around.

My city planning took a little bit of manipulation and putting things in the right places. And of course, one day, I did the simple map. And then the next day, oops, no more, so we're going to do more. I went with a more complicated map.

All right. And let me see. Any more questions on that? Yeah, it is very convenient. Yeah. And one thing, you can add text in here. You can add video.

Students could actually make their own board and then create a video of themselves giving the directions or asking the questions, like how do you get from the pool to the courthouse, and then leave that image there, leave that video embedded into their Buncee board. They can add an audio file. They can add links. And you can add a YouTube channel.

All of those things are available right here. And it's available to both the teacher and the student.

The student can't manipulate my board. That's one thing. But they can create their own. Let's see.

And can you add a Bitmoji to the Buncee slide? Yes, I do that often when I'm creating my-- I'll show you how to do that, actually.

If you see up here on my toolbar, I have Bitmoji on my website browser. I'm going to show you how to do that soon. I can search for something, like where. Where are you? I'm lost.

I do this a lot. If we have a certain theme, then I'm going to, of course, look for that theme within Bitmoji and then post it.

So I just looked for it. I saved that Bitmoji to my computer. And now, I'm going to go to Add. And I'm going to upload, drag my Bitmoji to the file loader, and upload it. And now, it's here in my Buncee.

And somebody just asks, does that mean multiple students can use the same login simultaneously? They can. But like I was explaining, the privacy issue-- like today, I provided that for you. So you can go in. And you're going to create your own board. You're going to create a board yourself to try it out, to test it.

But then you're going to lose access to that after a few days. And then also, other people will be able to see your boards.

So for our students, that's not ideal. You don't want to give everyone the same username and password. For this situation, where we're just all colleagues, and we're exploring, and we're not going to-- I don't think anybody is going to be malicious and erase somebody else's Buncee board-- it's OK to do that. But for your students, I would keep it one username per student and then give them a login.

You can use the same login for everyone. That's fine.

So to create a new board, when you log in, you're going to see My Buncees. And yeah, let me make sure I'm sharing that. You'll see My Buncees. And you'll create a new board.

And then, again, you can start from scratch. Or you can pick from a bunch of templates. I never use the templates. But if you want to use a template, you can look through them and see if anything would be useful to you.

So I start from scratch. And then I can start adding the items. I can change the background. I can look through a set of backgrounds that are already available.

And then I can add text. I could say-- this is what you're going to be doing today-- I am Katrina. And I teach at MiraCosta College. I teach ESL. You can post things like that.

You could also post an image. You can upload your image. You can record a message for everyone. I don't know if I can do it right now. Let me see. It's probably not going to let me, because it's sharing Zoom. So let me see what that was, bandwidth issues, maybe. But I think it's more of it doesn't want me to-- I can't use Zoom and then also put my video in.

So I want you to try that. Explore in Buncee using that username and password I gave you. Remember, OTAN Learner and simple login. So your username is OTAN Learner, simple login, butterfly and ladybug. All right.

Going back to this one, let's see. Chat. How do you add more than one image? I'm trying and can't do it.

OK. Let me show you really quick about adding images. So you add. And if you're looking for, let's see, people, you're going to click on one person and then another. And do you see how they're both highlighted? They both have this blue.

If you don't see the blue around your selection, it means it's not selected yet. And then it says Add To.

I'm going to refresh. I was editing on two pages, sorry. So I'm going to try that again. So I'll add an image, people. And then I'll put person and another person and add.

So I have my two people here. You just have to make sure that each is selected and you see the blue highlighting around each item.

So let me go back into our presentation here and move on. Also in our slides, you can play this video here on this slide.

Let me see. It says reconnecting.

So you can watch the video and find out how to add items there.

Now, for Bitmojis, you're going to-- these are some of my Bitmojis. And I use them to personalize my syllabus and to add-- I add these into my Canvas course.

Oops, I'm signed out. Let me sign in. All right, good. I'm back. Let me go back. I'm sorry, doing a lot of things on there.

OK so my Bitmojis help me to personalize my teaching and also explain things, things I'm talking about, just like Chris does with hers, like when I'm talking about playing video games. Do you like to play video games? What kind of food do you like to eat? What are our goals for today? Do you like shopping? What annoying things do pets do? Do you believe in wearing masks? Welcome to class.

So these Bitmojis are really nice, because I just look for the general theme I'm thinking of and then find an image that will help support what I'm saying, what I'm asking students.

So if you want to add Bitmoji to your desktop, you can download the Bitmoji app on your phone and create your Bitmoji. So that's the first step. You have to create it. It's an app on your phone. You can't create it on your computer, on your desktop.

So download the app and create your Bitmoji-- you get to choose your hair color, your eye shape, what you wear-- and then use Chrome browser to search for Google extensions. Search for Bitmoji in the Chrome web store. Add the extension. Log in to Snapchat or Bitmoji.

Look for the Bitmoji icon on your toolbar. Search for the Bitmoji you want using key words or phrases. Save the image you want to your computer and then upload into your presentations.

You can upload these into emails. You can upload it from your phone. You can text you Bitmoji. I use them in Google Voice and just regular texting and emails, in my Google Slides, whatever I'm using. It's very convenient.

So some other examples would be for idioms or expressions. Bitmoji has some of them. I'll put in a word or a phrase. And then I'll get something like this, like angry.

Oh, look at this first one. It's an expression, right? I've had it up to here. I'm explaining to students that, when I've had it up to here, I'm angry. I'm fed up. I don't want to do this anymore. So it really gives a good image.

Or I'm really steamed. I'm really angry. She had steam coming out of her ears. What does that mean? Oh, she's angry. I can see by her face.

Lonely, right? I need a hug. She feels abandoned.

It really gives a good scene, even if I just put lonely or sad, something like that. Bitmoji will come up with something like this.

Cry me a river, right? What does that mean, cry me a river? Ah. Or she's crying. She was sobbing, so many tears, so many-- anyway, you get it.

There's lots of ways you could use that. Celebrations, current mood, she's flying. She's in seventh heaven, whatever it is.

She's running on empty. She's exhausted. OK. So those are several ways you could use Bitmoji.

And I'm going to turn this over to a far more interesting presenter, Kristi.

Kristi Reyes: OK, so pretty hard acts to follow there. This is what happens when you're not logged in for a while. So bear with me for one moment to get to the slides. There we go. Is this it?

Hope you're getting lots of great ideas.

So I teach more of an advanced level. And I can have them produce more language, really working with vocabulary, grammar, and so forth. So I'm going to share some of the things that I have had students do. And these all work in the online environment for remote instruction.

Have you ever heard of the site New York Times "What's Going On in This Picture?" If you can, type yes or no in the chat. Has anybody heard of that site? OK, good. Some of you, yes. Some of you, no.

So I discovered this site. And once you sign up for it, you get these emails. And they have all kinds of student writing prompts that are amazing. They have what's going on in this graph, which is great practice for our students to get that kind of literacy.

So when I discovered this site, I was thinking, oh, I love these pictures. They're so interesting. How can I use them?

So for the EL Civics unit, we are working on students needed to ask questions. So I wanted them to have confidence and skill in asking questions.

So I took some of the pictures from The New York Times "What's Going On in This Picture?" And you can see, they're very interesting and thought provoking.

And so I modeled. We were in Zoom. And I asked them, for every picture that I show you, I want you to type at least one question.

So I modeled what questions I may ask and elicited some questions that they may have about this picture. And then we went on with some of the other pictures. So you can just see that they're very interesting photos. Some of them are older.

And so students-- [clearing throat] excuse me-- they wrote their questions. I captured the chat. Excuse me, I have to cough for a second. [cough] And then we did some error correction the following day.

And if you ever do error correction, it's so interesting that students can always pick out their errors.

OK, great. Your agency is having a professional development. Ah, oh, let us know about that. Maybe we can bring them to our school too or have a regional or something.

So you can see, these are some of the questions that they wrote. And as we went through them, they were able to correct their own questions. It was really interesting.

So it was a little bit of a diagnostic for me, seeing what verb tenses they were using and what they could do. And then at the end, I showed them the caption. So each of these images have a caption that tells what the picture is all about so they could have their questions answered. So that was a great grammar activity.

I'm so sorry. I know. I did not put in these transitions. I'll see if I can fix that in a minute.

So they had a lot of fun with this. They really did. And it was a way to have a context for the grammar.

Let me try to change the transitions, if I can. [clicking] There we go. OK, that should be better. Thank you for letting me know.

During the summer, we worked on parts of speech and writing a lot. And so we went over adjective use. And I used these pictures.

This time, I put them in a shared Google slideshow. And I assigned one group to a different picture. And I gave them a time limit. And I said that they had to work together to write a description of one of the pictures. And they had to use as many adjectives as they could.

This was the winning team, right here. You can see that they wrote a really great description of this image. And they used 12 adjectives. So it helped them become more descriptive in their writing. So it was a really good practice leading into when they were going to write their own individual descriptive paragraphs.

Oh, it's still there. Let me see if I can fix that one more time. Transition, I thought I said none.

Chris Vela Che: I think you need to click on Apply To All Slides. Yeah.

Kristi Reyes: OK. I'm not seeing the None. Do you see the None? [clicking] Oh, I don't know. Sorry, guys.

Chris Vela Che: Click on the gray, yeah, box. Uh-huh. Click now uh-huh. Click on that gray box.

Kristi Reyes: But it's still that-- oh, gotcha, gotcha.

Chris Vela Che: Yeah, mm-hmm--

Kristi Reyes: Thank you.

Chris Vela Che: --and then apply.

Kristi Reyes: OK, thank you. All right. So hopefully, no more dizziness. Here we go.

In my advanced class, we do a lot of practice with idioms every now and then, because they're advanced. And in addition to the academic word list, I want them to learn some new expressions that they hear around them.

And so for this term-- this was also in the summer-- I made a playlist of a channel that has a lot of videos. There's one video per idiom. It's a great channel. And they had to watch the video outside of class time, write down with the idiom meant, and then write down the etymology, if it was given, and an example.

And so at the end of the class, after eight weeks, I wanted them to test their classmates. But instead of giving a traditional test, what I did is I created a shared Google slideshow. And I had the students work together to put in a picture that would help their classmates remember and quiz their classmates on the different idioms.

So I made up-- this was a sample. I can't believe this storm. Yes, it's-- if you know the answer to this idiom, if the rest of it, go ahead and type that in. It's-- what do you think?

Yes, it's raining cats and dogs, Audrey.

So here is another one. It's not hard. It's a? Anybody? Piece of cake, exactly.

And please don't-- and this idiom comes directly from boxing, actually. What does the trainer usually do?

[laughter] Don't hit your teacher. Please don't throw in the towel. Don't give up.

Here were some other students. I haven't seen you for a long time, but we meet each other here. What a? Small world. So obviously, they were able to come up with the idioms faster, because they had studied them over the eight weeks.

I like to use picture prompts to have students produce grammar, so the speaking and the writing. So this is one I've used at all different levels when reviewing present continuous. So we go over the form. And then I show them some pictures.

And in an on-ground classroom, they turn to a partner and tell the partner what they see in the picture, what the person-- or what is happening. And so this one, easy enough, he's eating a hamburger. But for my advanced students, I want them to produce a more descriptive sentence. So what would you say instead of he?

The man. The man wearing a helmet. The man wearing the helmet is eating what kind of hamburger? He's eating a gigantic, enormous hamburger.

Here are just a couple. I have several. But I just wanted to share it, because it's funny for them. And usually, there's a lot of laughing when they're doing this productive exercise.

So we could have them do dialogues, of course. But I wanted to spice it up and make it a little more interesting. And so I always tell them, this is me on the weekends if you're ever wondering what I'm doing on the weekends.

Some other grammar, in my class, we practice, every now and then, adverbs of agreement, because they're a little bit hard, so, too, either, neither. And so I have a lot of practice built in with a lot of retrieval where they're practicing that grammar.

But then I want them to use that. And at the same time, I use some lessons that help them learn and review comparative and superlative adjectives. So I have some images for that. And then I put those two together with a project where they describe a friend or family member.

So this was one pair of students. They interviewed each other. And they found out what their similarities and differences were. And they chose pictures. So you can see what they like, what they don't like, their goals, things that scare them, and so on. So they had to think of images and communicate.

So here's the comparative and superlative adjectives review. Oh, my goodness, she has very long fingernails. But wait, his are? And they could-- so we've gone over it before. But it's the retrieval practice to get them to produce.

His are longer. But hers are the longest. This is a hard job being a student. But his job is harder. But this one is the hardest, building or digging out mines or something.

This is a big house. Wow, that's bigger. And that one is the? And so they need help with a little prompting now and then to remember how to form the superlative.

So then these are pictures from hotels, actually in our area. I had a student whose family managed this one, downtown Carlsbad. And so that is a very-- and I tell exactly what the price is, because I asked the students who had been in my class. This is the Olympic hotel in Carlsbad, it's more expensive.

But I had a student who worked at La Costa Resort & Spa. And one time, there was a visitor. She was a princess from some Middle Eastern country. And she booked a whole floor of the resort. And it was $15,000 a night for the floor, so the most expensive.

Ugly dog, sweet dog but-- oh, uglier. Every year, there's an ugly dog contest. And this guy, he was the ugliest last year.

Ice cream, this ice cream's really good. This one's better. My personal favorite, this is the best.

Oof, this is a bad job. It is a real job, though. They test antiperspirants and deodorants. That one's worse, wouldn't you agree? And this is dangerous. It's the worst job of the three.

And then I talk about where students are from. So here we are in Southern California. Some of you are from Mexico. That can be far. But Joanna's is from Columbia. That's farther.

And then we have Vitalia, who's from Lithuania. She's from the farthest away country, right?

This is a little money. This is less. This is the least.

So I'm not saying these words like I am with you, but I'm just trying to go faster. So they're being prompted to do that. Then we talk about equal, so, oh, baby one is as cute as baby two, et cetera.

And then a lot of times what I do is have students then go into a shared slideshow. And they are assigned a few adjectives. And they have to create the images.