USING TECHNOLOGY
Ten ways to start
using technology in
the classroom
Nicky Hockly offers a risk-free set of ideas.
1 Discuss it
First find out what your students think
about using technology to support their
English language learning. Ask them
what technology they have access
to, and what devices they regularly
use. Check whether they already use
technology to support their language
learning. For example, get them to
share any favourite language learning
websites, games or apps with the class.
You can also ask them if there are any
technologies or tools that they prefer not
to use in and outside the classroom!
2 Start simple:
topic photos
ilio
You can start integrating technology into
your classes with very simple activities.
For example, ask students to take two
or three photos on their mobile phone
v
related to a topic you are currently
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discussing in class. They should take
these photos after school. Ask them to
bring their phones with the photos to a
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subsequent class. Students share their
photos, and explain how each photo is
connected to the topic. This is an easy
activity to set up and carry out, and uses
technology that your students very likely
already own.
3 Podcasts
Recommend podcasts that your students
can listen to outside of class on their
mobile devices, in order to increase their
32 www.modernenglishteacher.com n Volume 26
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exposure to English. There are many
podcasts available for English language
an
learners of all levels. For example, the
BBC Learning English website includes
podcasts for intermediate learners like
ing
6-minute English. The British Council’s
Elementary Podcasts are aimed at
lower levels. Exam practice listening
sh
materials are available from sites like
Exam English and Flo-Joe. Remember to
get regular feedback from your students
li
about what podcasts they listen to, and
ub
how useful (or otherwise!) they find
them. If students in your class hear that
other students are regularly listening to
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podcasts, they may be motivated to try
it as well!
4 Podcast dictations
You can create regular podcast
dictations for your students, by using
the built-in recorder on your mobile
device or a free online recorder like
Vocaroo. Choose a short text from your
coursebook, record yourself reading it
slowly and clearly, and save it online.
Then ask your students to listen to the
recording for homework, as a dictation.
Do this every few weeks or once a
month. This is a simple and useful
way to get more mileage out of your
coursebook texts, and for students to
review language from class.
5 Wordclouds
Choose a suitable short text for your
learners, for example from Simple
ia
ed
English Wikipedia. Put the text into a
free tool like Wordle or Tagxedo, and
create a wordcloud. Give your students
a copy of the wordcloud, and ask them
to guess the topic. Then ask them to
write a number of sentences using
words in the cloud. Give them the
original text so that they can compare
whether their sentences about topic
are accurate in terms of the information
they include. Then put them in pairs
to review their use of grammar in the
sentences, and to correct those as
necessary.
6 Create comics
Ask your students to prepare a short
story in comic format, combining
images with text. They can use a
free comic creation tool like Pixton,
Toondoo or Make Beliefs Comix. Some
comic creation tools enable students
to combine text, image, audio and
video – for example dvolver, Tellegami
and Zimmer Twins. Remember to
give your students plenty of time in
class to prepare, correct and redraft
the language content for their stories
before they start using the comic tools!
7 Create multimedia
presentations
Apart from standard presentation
tools like PowerPoint, Keynote and
Google Slides, there are other free
presentation tools that allow students
to audio or video record themselves
n Issue 4

giving their presentation. Movenote,
Present.me and Screen-O-Matic all
allow your students to be visible in the
video recording as they talk through
their presentation. These tools can be
particularly useful for Business English
students who may need to give regular
presentations in English.
8 Fake websites
Information literacy is particularly
important in an age of fake news and
internet scams. Encourage your adult
students to explore fake websites, and
discuss how to spot whether a website is
fake or not. There are several examples
of fake websites here: http://www.philb.
com/fakesites.htm. For younger learners,
explore the All About Explorers website,
which contains fake biographies of real
explorers like Christopher Columbus.
This website was created by teachers
to help younger learners understand
the need to double-check their sources,
and it contains useful lesson ideas for
teachers.
500 ideas for
using technology
in the English
ilio
language
classroom
v
Pa
©
By Nicky Hockly
Series editor: John Hughes
RRP £29.95
ISBN: 978-1-911028-58-1
n Volume 26 n Issue 4 www.modernenglishteacher.com 33
USING TECHNOLOGY
Poll Everywhere. How can you use
9 Geography quiz live polls in the classroom? Create
Review countries with your low-level a poll to check your students’
students by playing an online map-based understanding of a new concept, or to
game. Geoquiz (must be played in the contribute vocabulary on a topic as a
Chrome browser) includes a series of brainstorming activity. Use live polls
placemarks that appear on a map one to conduct class surveys on topics like
after the other. Students have 60 seconds hobbies, favourite sports, favourite
in which to say or type the name of as foods etc, in real-time. Use live polls
many countries as possible. Another to elicit examples of certain language
game – Smarty Pins – works with Google areas, e.g. past tense verbs, phrasal
Maps to display a trivia question that verbs, etc. from your students.
ia
students have to answer by placing a
pin on the map. The trivia questions in
ed
Smarty Pins include the categories arts
and culture, science and geography,
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sports and games, entertainment, and
history and current events.
10 Live polls
Use a live online polling tool to
an
Nicky Hockly is Director of Pedagogy
get immediate feedback from your of The Consultants-E, and the author of
students during class. Live polls recently-published ETpedia Technology.
Discover more of Nicky’s ideas and tips
enable answers typed into students’
ing
for using technology in your teaching
mobile devices to be displayed in practice in ETpedia Technology.
real-time. Popular live polling tools
include Socrative, Mentimeter and
sh
ETpedia
li
TM
ub
Technology
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Technology is becoming an increasingly useful and
popular teaching tool. ETpedia Technology supports
both new and experienced teachers in expanding
their use of technology in the classroom.
Order at www.myetpedia.com/etpedia-
technology-book
Email: info@etprofessional.com
Tel: +44 (0)1273 434943