I recently came across an activity on the mflresources forum (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mflresources/) suggested by Vincent Everett (http://languagesatnorthgate.wordpress.com/), and it got me thinking about exploiting images for language practice using TaskMagic3.
Vincent introduced his activity as "a bit of reading, dictionary work, colouring in and culture". The activity was aimed at getting students involved in a bit of independent learning. As Vincent says:
When you create a TaskMagic3 file, remember that, in most cases, you are creating lots of different exercises.
Similarly, when you see a link to download a TaskMagic3 file, remember that this one file provides access to lots of different games and exercises. It's not just one game or activity.
It's easy to forget this. I sometimes come across
In the most recent TaskMagic3 update, 5 new exercise formats have been added to the Mix & Gap component of TaskMagic, which now has a total of 23
At the bottom of this post you will find a link to download a free standalone TaskMagic program containing a unit of work in Spanish on ordering food and drink in a cafeteria. The level is ideal for older primary school children, but it will also work well with older children working at a fairly low level or in need of revision. There is a fairly wide range of difficulty within the various exercises in the unit.
The download contains 16 TaskMagic3 files, which are accessed via a simple menu screen.
One of the many improvements in TaskMagic3 is the fact that you can make exercises based on text on separate lines, such as poems, letters, songs, paragraphs etc., rather than just a continuous chunk of text.
The resources on this page are based on the poem Déjeuner du matin by Jacques Prévert. The same approach can be used for any poem, short story, nursery rhyme, song etc. You can even add a sound file to the interactive exercises.
The resources below were created using
In a previous post (see here), I discussed how it was possible to exploit a source text to generate a whole range of interactive exercises and worksheets based on the text itself, as well as on the lexical items within the text, and how this can be achieved in a matter of minutes using TaskMagic3.
This post will take a quick look at how short transactional or situational dialogues (or any short series of exchanges on any topic) can be exploited in a similar way, using the Dialogues component of TaskMagic3 as the starting point.
This post will take a quick look at a couple of extra ways of using the Find it! feature of Mix and Gap in TaskMagic.
The most usual (and easiest) way of using Find it! is as a simple "Find the French / German / Spanish" exercise, where you set prompts in English for
This post is all about exploiting the same source text to create a whole range of interactive exercises and worksheets that work on all sorts of levels - exercises based on the text itself as well as the vocabulary it contains. This is so easy to do with TaskMagic3. Just follow the procedure below: