Sunday, August 15, 2010

#5, 2010 : Bon Voyage - Teaching Online Forms to ESL and ALBE Students


Have some fun (with students or without!) creating your own first class boarding passes on Qantas, Air France and even the ill-fated PanAm International at Ticket-O-Matic: http://omatic.musicairport.com/

Teaching forms is a staple of nearly all ESL and Adult Basic Ed curricula ... but can be deadly boring for all involved. Just how many forms can students read and complete without going totally troppo? I have been using a few good sites like Ticket-O-Matic and the Flight Search pages of Air.Asia to introduce students to the most common features of the online genre. Nothing too complicated or overwhelming. Students seem to get a real kick out of producing a fun product to print off and take away. I have also been integrating listening and role plays into the picture via ipadio, having students working in pairs with their mobiles or home phones set on loudspeaker to "make inquiries" about flights between a client and travel agent. If you're interested in hearing a couple of examples have a sticky at some student phlog recordings at: http://dalepobega.blogspot.com/2010/08/up-up-and-away.html




For our ESL Frameworks Elective this semester all levels are doing Australian Government and this involves timely learning about elections and voting. I have been able to incorporate form basics by using the Australian Electoral Commission's Online Polling Place Locator which consists of a single input field, drop down box, check box and submit button http://www.ehoundplatform.com/Services/Map/AEC . This locator is also great little tool for teaching maps, location, directions and the like with students whose skills are very basic.




Now I'll settle back into my First Class seat and enjoy the (albeit, imaginary) trip to Hong Kong on Qantas! Bon Voyage!

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