USING A MAGIC COMBO TO CREATE AN ENGAGING TABOO GAME

Hi there!

As you all know, games are a great way to keep students engaged in the English class and I am sure you have all used Taboo in your lessons before. It is a classic!! A word game where one player tries to get their teammates to guess a word without using any of the forbidden words listed on the card. It’s a fun way to practice vocabulary, communication, and quick-thinking skills.

In this post, I would like to show you how I used ChatGPT and Canva to create some cards for a taboo game in English. It goes without saying that combining an artificial intelligence model and a graphic design platform will empower you as a teacher to create beautiful and professional-looking designs for various purposes. Do not hesitate to give this idea a try!

Step 1: Generate your taboo cards with ChatGPT.

I used ChatGPT to generate some taboo cards for the game. As you all know, ChatGPT can produce texts on any topic, so you can customize the cards according to your students’ level, interests and curriculum. How about that? You can also specify how many words you want on each card, and how many forbidden words you want to include. You may have a look at the whole conversation I had with ChatGPT to generate my customized cards and get a general idea of how to write an effective prompt. Just click here. (Yeah! You can also share your content via a link on ChatGPT!! Mind-blowing, isn´t it?)

Step 2: Design your taboo cards with Canva.

I used Canva to design the taboo cards with the texts generated by ChatGPT in the conversation above. Canva can make your cards look attractive and appealing! This time I searched for “taboo cards” in the template library and then copy-pasted the texts from ChatGPT to the cards, adjusting the size, position, and style of the texts and adding some background colours, borders and icons to make my cards more fun and lively. Have a look!

education_taboo by Paula Gómez Cernadas

As easy as pie, isn't it? Using ChatGPT together with other apps saves time and effort and has benefits for both: teachers and students. In this designing process, for example, you will not have to come up with the words and forbidden words themselves or write them down on paper or cards. You can simply use ChatGPT to generate the texts, and Canva to design the cards. Also, your students' motivation is driven by the colourful and attractive content that is relevant and interesting to them, as in this case, I connected the words with a listening comprehension activity we had previously done in class. 

I hope you find this idea of integrating AI in your class useful and inspiring, and that you try it out with your own students. Who knows? Next time I might even ask mine to create their own taboo cards! If you try this out, please let me know how it goes, and share your feedback and suggestions. Can you come up with any other ways of integrating ChatGPT and Canva? 

Happy teaching and learning! 😊

ITip OF MARCH: CLIPLINGO

I am not stalling work this time! March has just started and here is my new monthly ITip: Cliplingo. This site magically turns YouTube videos into language learning! You just simply watch and learn. There is no need to worry about which clip, when and how often, as Cliplingo takes good care of this for you.  In fact, they cater to every need thanks to a huge collection of language learning videos that have been organised into levels and topics. Extremely useful!

ITip of February: JOHNNY GRAMMAR'S WORD CHALLENGE

This quiz app allows English learners to test themselves against resident expert Johnny Grammar! This is a 60-minute quiz app that will challenge you to beat the clock and to answer as many spelling, grammar and vocabulary questions as you can in just one minute. 

Once you meet the challenge and complete all levels you will have the opportunity to get Supreme Badges... and who knows? You may even win the ultimate Johnny's Gold Badge!

Get the app on Google Play or the Apple Store and learn English having fun!

ITip of December

Voicepods is a service that makes it super simple for anyone to create realistic text to speech in 8 voices (male, female and different accents). It even allows you to take real control of what your voice will sound like, adding pauses, spelling out how great things are or creating emphasis. 

It is as easy as taking any written work and converting it to human-like audio. Using the handy voice control features will add the final touch!

I have already started using it in my classes. But it might also be a great tool for students to read-along and practice pronunciation and story telling. 

Give it a try! You´ll love it!

ITip of October

I'm afraid I´m getting old because I have totally forgotten whether I have already shared this wonderful site with you. Anyway, it's great, it can be fun and I love it so, here I am again posting it as the ITip for October: Vocaroo. It is a quick online voice recording app where you can record voice messages and, afterwards, share them with others via email, social media or a personal webpage. You can record and share messages online with no restrictions at all and it allows you to preview your own recording before sending it. 

I am encouraging my students to use it at home to share their recordings with me. So, I will soon post some of their works! 

DUOLINGO: APP OF THE YEAR

Duolingo is the world's most popular way to learn a language. It's 100% free and fun. You can practice online with duolingo.com or with the apps.

Duolingo is a language learning platform that includes 66 different language courses across 23 languages.

It has a gamified skill tree that users can progress through and a vocabulary section where the words learned can be practised. It makes language learning fun, enjoyable and very challenging!! That's why I´ve decided to include it in my ITip this month!

ITIP OF THE MONTH: ENGLISH PRACTICE

Hi everyone!!

As you can see on the right side of our blog, I´ve just updated the ITip of the month section!! A new month is coming over and May is already here, so it is time for a new ITip. 

This time I´ve chosen English Practice, an easy app you can download on your mobile to practise your English according to your level. The app includes simple quizzes, questions, lessons and flashcards to make you love English grammar!! It also includes and English Chat Room to make friends and practise your English at the same time!! Isn´t it awesome?? Let us know if you try!!