Teaching English in a Secondary School !

Summary taken friom “Your Kids are Different and it’s Okay” by David Houle from htpp:/www.oprah.com/world7 Your-kids-Are-Different-and-Its-Okkay-David-Houle/

Digital society changes and it changes quickly!!!! What it was initially thought to be one way communication has changed into a conversational way of comunication.Very interesting article in

http://www.dreig.eu/caparazon/2010/04/21/formacio-competencies-digitals/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+caparazon+%28caparazon%29&utm_content=Google+International

You can visit the class blog at   http:// blocs.xtec.cat/3rdesoedublog2009

Working on this webquest the students will explore one of the six regions of the United States:

New England states, the Midd Atlantic states, the South, the Southwest
the Midwest and the West.
Each team must investigate the region’s landmarks, monuments or areas of interest, and create a  fifteen minutes oral presentation… to convince the other students in the class to go and tour this region for a week.

Each member of the team has to choose one of the following roles:
The leader: he/she will conduct team meetings and take final decisions…and conduct the final presentation.
The technician, responsible for the Power Point presentation…
Tha map organizer (create a map of the tour) photos or any other graphics searcher…
The word master, English, accuracy, vocabulary….or tour guide together with the leader.

The links:

* Regional Directory
* U.S. States
* Loney Planet travel guides
* Stately Knowledge
* United States Capitals Map
* Google Directory of the United States
* Explore the States
* U.S. Landmarks and Monuments Clip Art

*Wikitravel USA

*Official tourist webguide on USA

Timing:

Students have 3 class sessions to work together and a final session for the oral presentation.

Assessment / evaluation

Students’ evaluation sheet

Teacher’s evaluation list

There will be individual and group marks and they will depend on several aspects such as class work, attitude, quality of work, amount of work, oral presentation, other classmates evaluation, assitence…
Students must have in mind that NOT necessarily everyone in the group will get the same mark!!!!
And … remember this webquest mark will be as important as any written exam.

There is a lot of concern about the distractinos caused by the electronic devices in the classroom. We see that more and more students rely on their PCs to their entertainment, shopping, connecting with friends… We also see our kids are different