Jan 13

Animoto Ideas

Classroom Activity
Animoto- a great tool for teachers and learners
You might have noticed, if you use Facebook or Instagram, that I've put out a couple of promos recently that are short videos with fast-paced changing pictures and text. You can see an example over on the right ⇒

I made these really quickly and easily with a video maker called Animoto and it is a fantastic tool for both teachers and learners. There is a pro version, but you can use it for free as long as you don't mind the Animoto logo in the bottom of your videos (this isn't a problem if you are using it for teaching). It's very intuitive to use - you just choose a template and add in words and images (from your computer or their stock) and the results are really nice.
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I can see lots of uses for this, especially if you are working online, but here are just two:

(1) Choose 5-10 items of vocabulary that you want to review or pre-teach lexis before class to practise when you are together? Make a video of the words and their definitions - or pictures - to help your learners to remember them. I've put an example on the left to show you. 

Even better, you could also get your learners to make these. Give them 3-5 words or phrases each and they can share their videos and use each others for review.
(2) Another idea is to give your learners a project based task to market a product. This could be something that already exists or you could tell them to imagine something new (e.g. A kind of soap). They can decide what the USP is - antibacterial/ kind to skin/ makes you irresistible etc and make an Animoto video to promote it. You could give them input on adjectives or functional language of persuasion. Maybe in class, get them to try to sell their products to each other in a role play situation?
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