Morfo and the role of an audience

I want to be a L2 environment simulator

Last year I taught English in a friendly, small town family daycare in Hungary. From September to June I spent there 60 minutes a day,  30 minutes we use as a 'structured lessons' 4 times a week, the rest was my playtime: I engaged in the games played by these kids of 1,5-6, trying to communicate with them in English, which seemed more efficient to me than the lessons I attempted to cram with songs, rhymes, stories, games, flashcards and TPR.

Sometimes some little guys appeared who were fluent in English, they had been attending international kindergartens abroad or lived in an English-speaking country and there were always some kids who were exposed to communication in other languages.
For both kinds of children English was a means of communication, they had the experience of communicating in languages other that their mother tongue.

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In our linguistically homogeneous world I often wonder how I could enhance my little students' foreign language acquisition. Being a non-NEST creating real needs for them to communicate is not easy.  I just simply can't pretend I don't understand their Hungarian :))), so why should they bother with trying to tell me anything in English? They understand me and I'm in heaven when someone asks me to help in the bathroom with a "Barbi, come!" and they are usually generous enough to say "see you" when I leave.

Language awareness and learner autonomy in the cradle?

Since a workshop by Osváth Erika I've been thinking about to what extent and how awareness and learner autonomy can be a part of so little kids' learning experience.
I'd be satisfied if they somehow knew it is a 'secret code' in which other people in distant countries communicate.
One day one of the girls came to me excitedly explaining in Hungarian "Barbi! Only Andris and you speak english!" I was thriller! (Andris lives in the US anyway.) But how should I do this without Andris??



This phenomenon (students' comparative lack of exposure to authentic communication in English) is dragged along to later phases of formal education.

With school kids it's all easier, the Internet helps me a lot. Kids understand that there are lot of people in the world who live far away from here, speak different languages that we don't understand and they don't understand Hungarian either. On the Internet we have tools to show them all the distant places and the people who live there.  Kids can also be taught that lots of those people in the distant places share a common language, English. So apart from being a school subject it is a way to express yourself so that other people of the world can understand it.

That helps me a lot when I want to make them speak. YouTube is a magic word, they'd love to be on there, it is somewhat like being on TV. There are privacy issues however and parents are not always enthusiastic about their kid being 'on display' which I can partly understand.

The possibility of being presented to the world creates he magic that is enough to make these little fellows not only speak but work hard to record a video that is almost perfect.

Now there are easy to use and cool apps and websites that help you create fancy videos.

Mobile apps drive youngsters crazy anyway, one of these is Morfo.

Using the  app is a driving force, young learners are willing to do the most boring drills just to get the chance to use it.

Activity

Level: elementary
Language aim: vocabulary (parts of the face), speaking: (a short monologue)


1
The app
I showed  my student a video created with this app, I gave  him the tab, I asked him to try to figure out how it works. In no time he found the settings (screenshots)  As he enjoyed changing the sizes, width, etc. of the face. I grabbed the opportunity to explain him what is what, it had no real point as he was in picture but at least he heard and saw the  words at the same  time..... acquired some language, hopefully not in LOLcat  English.

2
The content and the procedure
I told him that the video we can make with the help of this app can be shared with the whole world. I gave him 5 options of what sort of videos he might make: a joke, an anecdote/story, a message, a poem, a warning.
He wanted a warning :). Then I gave him another couple of options he could choose from and it went on and on, finally we had the idea of the warning in the video below :)

Drill
I handwrote the text, he copied it in the iPad. (Gosh, how much they love typing on a touch screen!!)
It the meantime I scribbled a hasty close test.
While he was completing that I made it into a disappearing text at memorizenow.com.

After plenty of practice we recorded the video, he needed about three rounds for the perfect outcome.

Odds
We also made a paper and pencil activity to practise the parts of the face.
That can go into a picture dictation with any drawing app.

Follow up
I made my own message to the world.
It can be turned into a listening or dictation task, also a  "describe a person" activity.





It was fun and the boy was surprised that the lesson was over, he hadn't realized time passing by, real good flow ;)