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AN OVERVIEW OF THE ACTIVITIES SET
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Sandy Lima
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Purpose of the activities set |
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About Hot Potatoes |
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How the activities relate to
the textbook |
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How the activities can be used |
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About feedback |
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Purpose of the activities
set |
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Welcome to my homepage and to this brief
overview of the set of activities created during the fall semester/2001
as part of AL 8660 Materials Design, Development and Publication course.
This set of activities was especially developed to serve as a supplement
to the IEP 0640 Structure and Composition course. The activities are divided
in two major groups: grammar and vocabulary. The textbook adopted in the
course, Looking Ahead 3 (Byleen, 1998), provides most of the grammar
and vocabulary content covered in the exercises. The creation of these computer
activities was made possible with the use of Hot Potatoes, a computer program.
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About Hot Potatoes |
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Hot Potatoes is a computer program, created
by the Research and Development team at the University of Victoria Humanities
Computing and Media Center (British Columbia, Canada). The program makes
the creation of interactive Web-based exercises an easy task. The questions,
data, feedback, answers, etc., are entered in the program and it creates
the Web pages, which can be posted in Web sites. Six different kinds of
activities can be created with Hot Potatoes: cloze, matching, multiple-choice,
crossword, mixing, and quiz. Although, the number of types of activities
is limited, the program allows for variation in presentation, format, links,
adding of pictures, graphics, and so on. Hot Potatoes is free of charge
for non-profit educational institutions or individuals, as long as they
place their work on an accessible Web server. Click
here if you want to know more about Hot Potatoes. |
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How the activities relate to the textbook
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The present set of activities is based on
the grammar and vocabulary of Looking Ahead 3, chapter 4, "Evaluation
- Food and Lifestyles". In the chapter, students learn how to make
an evaluation based on accepted criteria, and use a variety of types of
evidence to support the evaluation. The chapter theme focus on food and
lifestyles. There are three main readings, which focus on the eating habits
of three cultures or subcultures, the !Kung, American college students,
and Japanese. Most of the new vocabulary covered in the chapter is based
on these three readings, plus academic vocabulary. The grammar points involve
the use of numbers to show factual evidence, transition words and phrases,
comparisons, and passive sentences. Half of the activities in this set are
based directly or indirectly on the readings of chapter 4. The other half
is based on materials from the web, magazines, and books. However, all activities
deal with specific grammar and vocabulary covered in the chapter. |
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How the activities can be used
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The activities were primarily developed
to be used as individual work. However, some of them permit either pair
or group work. The crossword, for example, may be completed by two students
working together. They can sit by the same computer, exchanging ideas and
answers, or they can sit side by side on their own computers, in the computer
classroom, helping each other to complete the crossword.
The activities can be used in class, as a warm-up, complement to the lesson,
practice of new structures, or knowledge testing. They can also be used
as homework for reinforcement, or review.
Students are not supposed to consult the textbook when completing the exercises.
Some activities, especially the ones based on the readings of chapter 4,
may be considered too easy if the textbook is accessible. On the other hand,
activities based on extra materials do not require textbook support. In
fact, the activities themselves provide links to other useful websites,
inclusive a dictionary.
Students should be reminded that even though the exercises present a score,
they will not be used in terms of assessment. They can do the same activities
as many times as they want without risk of penalization. As you know your
students, I'm sure you are able to help reduce anxiety, and prevent frustration
in the writing classroom. |
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I advise you, teacher, to try the activities
before your students. Firstly, you should get used to the technicalities
and format of them, and the practice will enable you to achieve the necessary
background to help your students with any possible problems. Secondly, if
you have a clear idea about the activities you can make constructive comments
and/or suggestions. If you or your students would like to give me feedback,
feel free to contact me at sandymlima@yahoo.com.
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