Friday, May 3, 2013

Activity 25- Tips for Tourists



Have you ever heard of Tellagami? This free app allows anyone to quickly create a short story that can be easily shared with friends and family. Basicaly, you need to choose the background image and a customizable 3D character . Then, add your own voice to your Tellagami story and it`s done. Simple like that! By, the way, students will beg you to work on a Tellagami project again! 
You can use Tellagami for several different purposes, but here a an idea for teachers who would like to practice the use of SHOULD for giving advice! 

Level: beginning
Language skills: writing and speaking
Grammar Topic: Using SHOULD to give advice
Device needed: a tablet 
Number of devices needed:  one per group
Internet connection: off (on if students need to search for an image)
App: Tellagami
Price: free
Operating System: iOS


Instructions:

Divide students into small groups and explain that they should make a "gami" (that is how a short story is called in Tellagami) giving advice to tourists visiting their hometown or any other city in their country (if students come from different countries, this is a great opportunity to learn about different cultures). Show them a sample and go over the main features in the app. Remind them that they can choose the city and what background image they are going to use. Ask them to write down their text before they record it (there is the option of typing in the text and using one of the native-like voices that come in the app- in this case, students would`t record their own voice). As a follow-up, students can watch each other`s stories, discuss the pieces of advice given and even vote for the nicest "gami".


Tip:
There are different ways the stories can be shared: they can be posted on Facebook, embedded on a blog or sent to an e-mail account. It is a great opportunity to show family and friends some of the projects being developed in class!

 Here are some of the "gamis" produced by my students:









Source: Vinicius Lemos
Picture credits: itunes.apple.com

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