Festivals of Bangladesh, Podcast 2.

Listen to my podcast on the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSODnq5S2KM&feature=youtu.be

Appendix: 2 Podcast : 2

Eid

Hello I’m Fancy here, once again on fancycall.blogspot.com and you’re listening to my Podcast 2. Like the previous time, today also, I’m going to talk about another festival of Bangladesh. Can you guess it out? Whenever we talk about the festivals, especially the Muslims, the first festival that comes to our mind is Eid and we all wait for it to come and take lots of preparation. We make new clothes, ma, dadu, nanu make their special items, the salami, TV programs and lots of fun.

Eid is an Arabic word meaning festival. It is celebrated by the Muslims and this day is considered as a national holiday. There are two Eids celebrated by them. One is Eid-ul-Fitr and the other one is Eid-ul-Azha. In Muslim countries, Eid-ul-Fitr is celebrated in the month of Shawwal according to the Islamic calendar. Before Eid-ul-Fitr, in the month of Ramadan, the Muslims are required to avoid food or drink and keep fast from dawn to dusk. The well off rich gives Zakaat to the poor. The feast of Eid-ul-Fitr comes on the 1^st day of Shawwal after the month of fasting ends. The celebration lasts about three days. People wear new clothes, mothers make delicious food and in the evening, they visit their relatives’ house. Eid-ul-Azha is celebrated on the 10^th day of Zilhajj month. After the Eid-ul-Fitr people take preparation to perform their pilgrimage to Mecca. Animals like sheep, cow, goats, camels etc. are sacrificed by people after the Hajj. On this day, pilgrims reach Mina where they sacrifice animals. They not only eat meat but also distribute it to their neighbors, relatives and the poor and hungry.

Now, I would like to use my podcasts in my class to teach my students.

Festivals of Bangladesh, Podcast 1.

Listen to my podcast on the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHJSLCcV4J4&context=C32db769ADOEgsToPDskJsEbn5J1-cDLS4_p5ULBxR

Appendix: 1 Podcast : 1

My Topic : Festivals of Bangladesh

Target group - Grade 5, Age – 10/11 No. of students -75

Time - 45 minutes, Aim – to teach students through podcast

Skills – Listening, Reading and Writing

Materials – a computer, software like audacity to record. speakers and some worksheets

Pahela Baishakh

Hello I’m Fancy and you’re all welcome to my Podcast 1 on fancycall.blogspot.com. Today I’m going to talk about the festivals of Bangladesh which almost everybody knows about. Whenever we talk about the festivals, the first one that comes to our mind is Pahela Baishakh.

The first day of the Bangla year is Pahela Baishakh. It is celebrated every year in Bangladesh with traditional festivities across the country at the national level. The day is a public holiday. The celebration of Pahela Baishakh started from the reign of Emperor Akbar. In keeping with the age-old tradition, traders and shopkeepers open ‘halkhata’ (fresh account books) and offer sweets to their customers and clients. People greet each other saying “Shubho Novoborsho”. They wear traditional dresses. Different socio-cultural organizations draw up elaborate programs to celebrate the day. The day’s first program begins at dawn at Ramna Batamul by chhayanat, a leading cultural organization with the famous Tagore song “Esho he Baishakh”. They sing many other songs and people gather there to enjoy them. Radio and television air special programs on this occasion. The students and the teachers of Fine Art Institute of Dhaka University bring out a colourful procession from their premises at half past nine in the morning carrying festoons, banners, placards, posters wearing masks to welcome the Bangla New Year. People love to eat Panta, different types of delicious bhortas with ilish (hilsha) fry of course. On this day, we get them not only at home but also at restaurants. In many places we can see ‘mela’ or fair of handicrafts. It’s an exciting place as we get there different types of clay dolls, pottery, colourful churi (bangles), saree, nakshi pitha, naroo, kadma, murali and many more things. We also get our favorite mouth watering green mango chutney sold by the vendors on the streets. There are also rides like Nagordola, Merry-go-round etc. People from all walks of life come to visit the Fair. Then it becomes a ‘milon mela.’ Hope this year on 14^th April every one of us will celebrate the day wearing red and white dress. So let’s start to make a plan for it. But don’t go away. I’ll be back with another festival in my second Podcast.

Lesson Plan:

Topic: Festivals of Bangladesh. Grade: 5. Time: 45 minutes

Main Purpose: To enhance the listening skill, speaking skill and writing skill

Lesson Objectives

Skills: Listening, Speaking and Writing.

Grammar Structure: Present simple tense and Future Simple tense

Function: Describing the event in the present and future tense.

Vocabulary: reign, traditional, festivities, procession, banner, festoon, procession, handicrafts, celebration

A. (5 minutes)

Students will be asked if they know what festival is. Then after some discussion the podcast will be played.

B. (5 minutes)

The students will be asked to concentrate in listening to the topic as there will be some tasks after they finish listening to the podcast. The podcast may be played once, if requires.

C. (5 minutes)

Students will be given a worksheet with some blanks to fill up and tick the correct answer regarding the podcast topic from their memory.

D. (10 minutes)

Students will be asked to discuss in groups how to organize a program on Pahela Baishakh and arrange a mela at school.

E. (20 minutes)

Students will be asked to make greeting cards and a poster in groups asking for volunteers wanted. The poster might have something like the following in it.

Volunteers wanted

The Mela committee is looking for some volunteers who will be able to help in collecting funds and organizing the program on Pahela Baishakh and stalls.

F. A home work will be given individually to write a paragraph on ‘Pahela Baishakh that you have observed’

My purpose for creating the Blog and Podcast

Purpose of creating my blog:

I have created this blog to use it as a collaborative discussion space and as an extra-curricular extension of the classroom. Students can be encouraged to reflect in more depth, in writing, on themes discussed in the class. They can simply respond to blog posts and discuss topics through comments. It will also enable me to stay in touch with parents about what is going on in class. I can also get feedback or gather information through my blog.

But above all my main purpose of creating my own blog is for my ELT course ‘Computer Assisted Language Learning’. It is very interesting to me as well for my students. My own blog ‘Computer assisted language learning’ is an Edublog that makes it easy to organize groups by keeping everyone informed about my posts. It will provide extra reading practice for students and help to build a closer relationship between students in large classes.

Podcasting:

The term podcasting is very new to me and the idea of using a computer to create digital audio for speaking and listening tasks for students may seem difficult. But later I found it a bit easy – you can create podcasts in just a few minutes using a range of free websites and software. There are a huge number of podcasts freely available on the web that the students can listen to, but the focus of this article is on student- and teacher-created materials and activities.

Podcasting tools give students the opportunity to create audio texts that they can share with me or with each other or the online world. This act of creation gives students the opportunity to use language freely and creatively, and to listen to, self evaluate and improve their performance. It can enable me and my students to create mobile learning materials which they can access outside the classroom, at a place and time convenient to them.

PURPOSE OF MY PODCAST:

I’ve made up my audio podcast especially for my students. I’ll use it in my teaching. It will help me as a tool of my teaching technique. Motivating students to read can be quite challenging but I can increase the learning gains of reading activities by recording the texts as audio podcasts, so that students can hear an audio version alongside them. This can help them to hear the pronunciation of words they are reading. I can also ask students to record their own version of the text using podcasting tools. This is much more productive than reading aloud in class, as students can do it at home where it is less stressful and they have the chance to really listen to themselves, re-record and improve their own performance and develop their awareness of how they sound. I also get the chance to listen to the students without any classroom distractions.

My Topic of the podcast is “The Festivals of Bangladesh”. It will make people as well as my students know about my country, its festivals and culture. They will learn that how rich we are in our heritage and culture though it is a very small country. It will enable our young learners to learn about their own festivals and culture from their childhood.

I will use this podcast to enhance my students’ listening skill, reading skill and writing skill. For this I’ll give them fill in the gaps, tick the correct answer .For reading skill I’ll give them matching and for writing a similar unseen paragraph. Then I’ll check them and will give them a feedback.

Now a days many people especially the males are saying about the positive aspects of women liberty and establish that they are quite at their thoughts. But after going back home, most of them forget that and try to establish their authority. Isn't it an irony????????????????

CALL classroom

CALL Classroom

Hello I'm Nazmun and now I'm doing a course on CALL at Presidency University. My course instructors are Mr Shahriar and Mr Hassan. At first I found the subject very complicated but now I've found it interesting and useful. It will enable me to make my class interesting too. So any one wants to know about it , come and join us......... :)