EDPUZZLE activity

 

ADVENTURE CAMP

In this link above you can access my EDPUZZLE edited video about Adventure Camp.

After carrying out this activity with my students in the 6th grade of Primary Education, now I can reflect on different aspects:

This video is an authentic material as there are native children in it, so we are approaching the students to the real language. The objective was that after some planned tasks (pre-while-post listening) my students feel closer to the foreign language by using a significative video for it. 

I have decided to use this video because it is adapted to the contents that we are working in class, about what we need to go on an adventure camp, and this topic is closely related to my students' world of interests. Therefore, there is a motivating factor in this choice. Also, it is well adapted to the level of my students, so they won't feel overwhelmed by the activity. 

The main objective of this activity was to develop my students' listening skills, but also to be able to combine them with speaking ones. Moreover, I wanted my students to have the highest level of autonomy during this activity, in which I have followed the next steps:

- As a pre-listening activity, with the whole group, we activated our previous knowledge by stating words related to adventure camp, that we thought were going to appear in the video. We took notes of these words in the interactive whiteboard to check if they were correct after watching the video. Then, my students tried to guess what the video was about, what was going to happen in it, taking into account its title. 

In this part of the class, my students had a very important role, as I was just a guide in the room to make sure they respect their turns to give ideas and to put some order in them. 

- As a while-listening activity, my students were in pairs. They used their personal laptops to watch the video and answer the questions in it. Therefore, this was the part they had the whole autonomy, being responsible students that take decisions together and are able to become to agreements. Some of them had doubts on how to handle the EDPUZZLE web, but they were solved immediately. Apart from this, this part of the class was developed without problems. 

- As a post-listening activity, we not only checked if the words we wrote in the pre-listening were correct; but also we developed listening skills by planning a different adventure for Jack and Alfie (the kids in the video). With the same pairs distribution, they needed to change plans for the protagonists of the video. Some of the examples were:

- Instead of climbing, Alfie is going to go swimming.

- Jack is going to take suncream and a towel (instead of a waterproof).

- The weather is going to be sunny and hot (instead of bad).

- Alfie isn't going to go to the adventure camp, he is going to visit a museum. 

This part of the activity also led my students to have autonomy to decide new plans for the kids, taking into consideration the information in the video. 

After all, this session was really motivating for my students, as they got to work in pairs and using their laptops. I would highlight the while-listening part, as they really enjoyed watching such an interactive video. Also, when we put on video in the class, but not an interactive one, the students may lose their attention to it very quickly. But, with this kind of video, in which the students need to answer questions, we are assuring they pay attention to it. It was a great experience of work that I will surely repeat with them and with other classes, as they have enjoyed a lot.

As it was a success in my case, I don't have any suggestions for improvement to be made.