The wonderful world of National Geographic
Do you want to learn English and find out something about our amazing world at the same time? If the answer is "yes" have a look at this website www.kids.nationalgeographic.com.
The only thing you need is a computer with an internet-connection. If you are going to use it together with all your students at the same time, a projector is also a good idea.
The site has got ten sections such as games (of course), videos, animals and pets, photos, countries etc. The students can probably learn some English by navigating any of the sections but the most useful for you as a teacher are videos, animals and pets, countries and fun stuff.
You can train listening comprehension in the video-section where you can choose from categories such as Science and Space, People and Places, Animals and Pets etc. You can find the subject Animals and Pets at many places in this website, but here it focuses on watching videos.
The next section is Animals and Pets and if you click on "All" you can choose from over a hundred species of animals categorized in mammals, birds, bugs etc. You can also read about different habitats like Arctic, Freshwater, Grassland and more. When you click on an animal, you can read about it, watch a short video and look at a map to find out where in the world it lives. You can even send an e-card to a friend with a nice picture of the animal. There are also suggestions on other species who live in the same kind of habitat, that you can click on to and read about.
Continuing our expedition you can read about many different countries if you click on Countries - All. If you are looking for a specific country, you can easily find it since they are sorted in alphabetical order or in continents. This section is built up in the same way as Animals and Pets, with texts, short videos, a map and with the possibility to send an e-card to a friend.
The last section that I will talk about is Fun stuff. Here you can find instructions on how to make some science experiments, creative ideas for crafts, recipes, contests etc. So if you want to do something funny together with your pupils at the end of the semester for example, you might get some inspiration here.
The only thing you need is a computer with an internet-connection. If you are going to use it together with all your students at the same time, a projector is also a good idea.
The site has got ten sections such as games (of course), videos, animals and pets, photos, countries etc. The students can probably learn some English by navigating any of the sections but the most useful for you as a teacher are videos, animals and pets, countries and fun stuff.
You can train listening comprehension in the video-section where you can choose from categories such as Science and Space, People and Places, Animals and Pets etc. You can find the subject Animals and Pets at many places in this website, but here it focuses on watching videos.
The next section is Animals and Pets and if you click on "All" you can choose from over a hundred species of animals categorized in mammals, birds, bugs etc. You can also read about different habitats like Arctic, Freshwater, Grassland and more. When you click on an animal, you can read about it, watch a short video and look at a map to find out where in the world it lives. You can even send an e-card to a friend with a nice picture of the animal. There are also suggestions on other species who live in the same kind of habitat, that you can click on to and read about.
Continuing our expedition you can read about many different countries if you click on Countries - All. If you are looking for a specific country, you can easily find it since they are sorted in alphabetical order or in continents. This section is built up in the same way as Animals and Pets, with texts, short videos, a map and with the possibility to send an e-card to a friend.
The last section that I will talk about is Fun stuff. Here you can find instructions on how to make some science experiments, creative ideas for crafts, recipes, contests etc. So if you want to do something funny together with your pupils at the end of the semester for example, you might get some inspiration here.
I think this is a good opportunity to work with English at the same time as another subject in a funny way. All these sections can be explored by individual students, but also in groups or together with the whole class.
As a kind of follow-up, there are quizzes for the students to test themselves in different subjects, for example geography quiz under the Game section. These are quite difficult, but clever students in year 5-6 can absolutely do them and enjoy it. As a teacher you can make small cards with different questions like "What did you enjoy most?", "Did you learn any new words, and what words in that case?", "Was there anything that you would like to know more about?". After each session, they have to answer one or two of these questions so that you can give some feed-back. A good idea is to let the students tell each other about it as well.
If you watch or read something together with the whole class, you can use it for communication and discussions with the students. You can for example give them questions to discuss in groups and then give the opinions in the class.
As you can see, there are many ways of using this web-site, and I'm sure that you can come up with some more. Good luck!
/Lina Sandberg
Thank you Lina for your link. I have watched it and it seems to be somtething for me. I have a second grade class and it is very useful to use it with them. They like animals a lot and there were very nice pictures there. I tried to watch the videos but it didnt work for me.Is it because of my computer? I ask someone to help me. I will use it in future! Thank you again!
ReplyDeleteSusanne