Dracula: the blog

I'm sure we've all seen a Dracula movie, whether it be a cheesy Hammer House of Horror production or something more gory. What I didn't realise till I read Bram Stoker's book was that it is in the form of a series of letters and diary entries. An ur blog, in a sense. So here is a teaching idea about how to use the book in say an EFL/ESL lesson or indeed a English Literature class.

You'll need a copy of the book (download the audio book from here or the Gutenberg e-text from here) and access to an internet connection from which can blog.

The basic idea is that you take part of a chapter and turn into a modern day blog entry. This could include;

-updating the language to something that would sound more natural today.

-changing the context and refrences - e.g. Transylvania becomes .........

- adding more suspense, action etc.

In addition you could also get your students to move away from the written word and do the blog entry as a vlog, short movie clip, podcast etc. None of this requires anything more sophisticated than a microphone, cell/mobile phone with recording capability or a digital camera.

The sound recordings can be edited with Audacity. Podcasts can be posted via hosting services such as Podcast.com. Alternatively, a short film can be created from video clips with Window's Movie Maker (which comes as standard with every copy of Windows) or using photos and Photo Story 3.

Teaching through pop videos

OK. This teaching idea is particularly off the wall but I just think it might work given enough encouragement by the teacher. I've just seen Placebo's video for Running Up that Hill. It consists almost entirely of their fans lip syncing to the song and in a strange way, it is really effective. It got me thinking if maybe we could do something similar on our EFL/ESL classes.

Lesson plan

1 Ask students to write down five English language songs they have listened to recently.

2 Students then work in groups of four and choose three songs they all like.

3 The groups then get together and come up with a song that is acceptable to all the class. A time limit on discussion might help focus minds.

4 For the next lesson print out lyrics for the song and make sure you know where it is on Youtube or Radio Blog so you can post it on the class blog.

4 Hand out the lyrics and deal with any possible vocabulary issues. Ask student what the song might mean or if it has a message of some kind.

5 Show the Placebo video.



6 Ask them what they think of it (lyric can be found here).

7 Now explain to the students that they are going to make their own video using the song they chose. For the sake of practicality it might be best to divide the class into two/three groups and assign each group part of the song.

8 Students can use the use the song off the blog to lip sync to and can record themselves using mobile phones, digital camera, video cameras or web cams. They then give you the raw material and you use it to make a CD which each member of the the class uses to make their own version of the video using Windows Movie maker or imovie.

9 The class then posts their videos on their class blog and the class votes on the top three.

Student vlogging

I've been doing some video interviews with my students over the last week. The idea is that we then put them on their blogs (via YouTube). Usually, we both write a list of unusual questions that are going to be asked and then the students decides which ones they'll answer in the interview. We rehearse the interview once or twice and then record it.

Just remember to tell the student that we'll only post the video when they're absolutely happy with their performance. So here is Skywalker's interview.