I believe every teacher notice that one or some students in your class never raise their hand to answer you question or give their opinions in class discussion. These students may be shy or are just not used to talking in front of people. So, how can we make them engaged in discussion or encourage them to express themselves? The website -TodaysMeet- might help you and your students!
How TodaysMeet Works?
TodaysMeet is an Internet space that allows you to create your own chat room by simply typing the name that you want to call your chat room and choose the time you need to use it. For example, I create a room named "Stay up late" for 8 hours, and click the blue button Create your Room.Please note when you type in the name of your room, you will see a link followed by a cross or a tick:
If you see a tick, this means it is a correct and available name for your room.
If you see a cross, it means the name is invalid. You may have to choose another name or leave no spaces between the words.
Choose the time you wish the room to last, and click the blue button Create your Room.
You will see your room is now available. Share the link of your room to your students,
and they can enter their name.
Click join, and you and they can start to talk! The number 117 and 140 mean how many words left you can type.
This is what messages in the room look like:
How TodaysMeet can help language learning?
Well, just like what I said at the beginning of the post, it can encourage students to "talk". I know it because I observed it myself in a class. I found some classmates who had seldom or even never given their opinions in class were quick to jot down lines of thoughts and soon there were several pages of "talks" on the screen. I believe the heat of the class discussion is the evidence that people might feel more comfortable to "talk" in such a more indirect way. But what is more fantastic, when the teacher spots a good ideas among the messages, s/he can encourage the student to explain his/her idea more clearly and eompletely and hence the student has the opportunity to speak. I believe this is something worth mentioned because sometimes the reason why students do not want to give their opinions in front of everybody is because they are not confident about whether their ideas are right or wrong. So if the teacher pays more attention to those who are shy or lack confidence about themselves, s/he can hence praise them and encourage them to express more.
Besides, by using TodaysMeet, both teachers and students can keep a record of their brilliant ideas or opinions, and everyone can therefore has a more vivid memory when they review the lessons.
TodaysMeet is good, but...
- When the class is big, the teacher may find it difficult to go through each message or cause constant interruptions when s/he checks them on the screen.
- To use TodaysMeet in class, students need a computer and the Internet connection must be available as well.
Do you have more ideas about how to use TodaysMeet in your teaching? :)
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