February 8, 2016

Winter 2016 Week 3: Health

This week, you can start signing up students for Elective Classes in all hubs, from Citizenship to Rosetta Stone Workshops to a new "American Short Stories: Reading and Pronunciation" class at the Aguilar Library!
If you need help with the Elective Class Roster on Google Drive, the link below to a "Google Drive Cheat Sheet" might be useful.

If you have more questions, let us know or check with your Hub Manager.

GOOGLE HELP

Need a little clarity on Google Drive? Try reading this "cheat sheet" here: Google Drive Cheat Sheet


Here are some teaching ideas and links we liked:

LISTENING EXERCISES

Full disclosure here, these two videos/listening exercises are from our very own: 
Elizabeth's YouTube channel (English with Elizabeth)
They are simple cloze exercises about calling the doctor's office and following the prompts. If they might fit in with what you're doing, feel free to use them!

Doctor's Office #1

Doctor's Office #2


MANYTHINGS.ORG-HEALTH
The fantastic website manythings.org has a page of both text and listening exercises related to health here: Manythings.org-health that was gathered from the VOA Learning English site. And this activity "Listen and Read Along" also looks interesting and fits our theme: Listen and Read Along: Handwashing


BREAKING NEWS ENGLISH
Are you familiar with this site by Sean Banville? It has so much to offer, I could take a whole blog post just describing the site and nothing else. It offers activities in all four areas, broken down into levels. It evens provides handouts! Here is a huge list of its health-related materials: Breaking News English - Health


FLASH CARDS 

Here are some links to flashcards you could use while teaching the Health theme, brought to our attention from Josephine Lopez who teaches NRS 1/2 at the New Dorp library. The website is MES English. Thanks Jo! 

Body Parts

Health- Problems using "Have"

EDITORIAL CARTOON
Perhaps you would like to use this health-related political cartoon from the website englishblog.com. It has the Zika virus and the Rio Olympics as talking points.
 Zika Virus Cartoon 

Love cartoons?
Here's Elke's "mix and match" caption exercise with six New Yorker health cartoons for use in intermediate-advanced classes:
Right-click the image below to download or download it on the health wiki:
alc-health.wikispaces.com

TESOL-RELATED READING
If you would like to read a journal related to TESOL, may we suggest the Working Papers in TESOL and Applied Linguistics from Teachers College, Columbia University? The current issue, volume 15, #2 is here: Working Papers in TESOL and Applied Linguistics

DO YOU LOVE ME, SIRI?
Check out NYPL teacher Martin Molden's wonderful article on employing Apple's speech recognition program Siri to practice pronunciation:
(click the "attached document" link on his website, or download the PDF on the teacher wiki, alc-teachers.wikispaces.com)

Do you help your students use speech recognition software to practice English?
If you do, please share with us.
Here are a few links on this topic:

eltjam.com - Did Apple accidentally invent a cool language learning app?                         by Mike Boyle | 23 Sep, 2013 |

I’ve just upgraded my iPhone to the new iOS 7 operating system and discovered some amazing improvements to Siri, the virtual assistant that responds to your voice. The old Siri barely understood a word I said, but the all-new Siri understands my English perfectly. Not only that, it even perfectly comprehends my far-from-perfectMandarin Chinese.

So, what is the potential for the new Siri as a language learning app? How can it help learners of English?

Pronunciation is the most obvious area. What’s nice about using Siri is that the aim is intelligibility. Lots of our learners are hung up on getting a “native accent,” a goal which is totally unrealistic for adults. Siri puts the focus back where it should be: making yourself understood.

On the subject of accents, teachers from outside the U.S. will also be happy to know that Siri now speaks Australian, Canadian, and British English, male or female. (Go to Settings > General > Siri > Language to set this.) ... Click HERE to read more.

And a few practical tips to pass on to your students:

MLS inc - How to Use Sirito Learn English

Posted on July 31, 2015 by MLS Staff

iPhone users will be familiar with Siri, your voice-activated assistant. Here are a few ways in which Siri can help you on your quest to learn new language.

1) Make sure Siri speaks your target language

To do this, just go to Settings > General > Siri > Langauge and then choose English.

2) Practice your pronunciation

Siri will not follow your commands if she doesn’t understand you. This is a great way to asses your pronunciation. Start by practising some common phrases, like:

When is my next meeting?

Call Brian.

Find Disney movies.

Enable Wi-Fi.

Then move on to more complicated sentences, like:

Set an alarm for 5 minutes.

What’s the news for Toronto?

Set an alarm for 6:30 a.m.

How’s the weather this week?

As you continue to improve, you will find that Siri is able to understand your commands more and more.

If you want a real challenge, try having her complete math problems, like “What’s 5 x 22 ÷ 8 + 2462?” or solve riddles, like “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

3) Spelling

Activate Siri and ask, “How do you spell ______ ?” Siri will bring up a definition on your screen and spell the word for you.

4) Definitions

Activate Siri and say, “Define _____ .” Siri will read the definition out loud.

You can try this as you read through a difficult book. Every time you come to a tricky word, just have Siri define it. This is also a great way to see if you are pronouncing the word correctly.

If you’re more of a visual learner, you can always just say “Show me an image of _____ .”

5) Translation

Although Siri cannot translate out loud yet, she can certainly perform a search for you.

You can ask Siri, “How do you say ______ in French?” and she will be happy to link you to the appropriate translation.

6) Practice your listening

If you’re planning a trip to Canada, you can have Siri speak to you using Canadian English. In fact, you can choose from a number of dialects, including Australian, American, Indian and British.

To do this, go to Settings > General > Siri > Language 

Furthermore, if you feel like you’ve mastered Siri’s accent, you can switch to a male version. Just go to Settings > General > Siri > Voice Gender  

So, next time you are tempted to complain about “not having a native speaker to practise with” just remember, you may have one in your pocket.

What if your students don't have an iPhone?

Do you have experience with Android or Google speech recognition software?

PC Magazine - Cortana vs. Google Now vs. Siri: Which Voice Assistant Wins?

·       BY MICHAEL MUCHMORE

·       MAY 13, 2014

Can Windows Phone's Cortana compete with Android's Google Now and Apple's Siri as your mobile virtual assistant?

Talking to your smartphone has become part of the culture. No, I'm not talking about talking to someone on your smartphone—I'm talking about talking to the phone itself. It started with Siri, which was soon followed by Google Now. Cortana is about to join the party, the new digital assistant unveiled in the beta of Microsoft's Windows Phone 8.1 operating system in early April. Like Siri (but unlike Android's Google Now feature) Cortana has a "personality." … Click HERE to read more.

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Would you like to contribute something? A link, teaching tip, other? Any time!

Thank you, we really appreciate your feedback!

Next week me may have another teacher interview...

Have a great week!
Elizabeth & Elke

p.s.