Book Image

Moodle 1.9 for Second Language Teaching

Book Image

Moodle 1.9 for Second Language Teaching

Overview of this book

That word Moodle keeps cropping up all over the place ñ it's in the newspapers, on other teachers' tongues, in more and more articles. Do you want to find out more about it yourself and learn how to create all sorts of fun and useful online language activities with it? Your search ends right here. This book demystifies Moodle and provides you with answers to your queries. It helps you create engaging online language learning activities using the Moodle platform. It has suggestions and fully working examples for adapting classroom activities to the Virtual Learning Environment. This book breaks down the core components of a typical language syllabus ñ speaking, pronunciation, listening, reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar, and assessment ñ and shows you how to use Moodle 1.9 to create complete, usable activities that practise them. Each chapter starts with activities that are easier to set up and progresses to more complex ones. Nevertheless, it's a recipe book so each activity is independent. We start off with a brief introduction to Moodle so that you're ready to deal with those specific syllabus topics, and conclude with building extended activities that combine all syllabus elements, making your course attractive and effective. Building activities based on the models in this book, you will develop the confidence to set up your own Moodle site with impressive results.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Moodle 1.9 for Second Language Teaching
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface
Index

Activity 4: Practicing grammar through dictation


Aim: Get students to listen out for grammar and transcribe it accurately

Moodle modules: Lesson or Wiki

Extra programs: NanoGong

Ease of setup: **

Dictations are an excellent way to get students to home in on grammar. There isn't a Dictation module in Moodle, but there are several alternatives which can be used effectively. We'll look at two variations. The first uses Lesson and helps us lead students through the dictation. The second uses a Wiki and encourages collaboration.

If you don't have the audio recorder, NanoGong, installed, you can follow the procedure for creating an audio player in Chapter 2, Getting Started with Moodle. Using NanoGong is a quicker way of setting up the activity.

Preparing for a dictation

First we need to choose a text that illustrates some grammar points that we want to practice with our students. Make sure it's an appropriate length. If possible, choose a text that will motivate the students because of its content,...