Additional Info

• Name: Present your town!

• OVERVIEW

• Linguistic dimension

• CEFR Level: A2, B1
• Linguistic dimension - Skill(s): Writing; Reading; Speaking
• Duration: 4 to 5 * 50 minutes
• Target language: Any modern language

• ICT dimension

• ICT resources:

  Internet access; online dictionary with definitions; PC; google images; online dictionaries; Google; Wikipedia and/or other online encyclopedia; municipal websites; YouTube; blog site.

• ICT competences: To browse or search the Internet for specific information; To use word processing ICT tools; To use a blog-creating program or platform.

• Detailed description of the task

• Situation / theme(s): Travelblog on your own town for visiting students.
• Product requirements or prerequisites: Students must be acquainted with the vocabulary of the topic and be familiar with the use of a blog-creating website such as wordpress, tumblr or quora.
• I can...:
  • I can find general/specific information in simple everyday material such as advertisements, brochures, menus and timetables.
  • I can understand straightforward texts on subjects related to my fields of interest.
  • I can search one long or several short texts to locate specific information I need to help me complete a task.
  • I can follow or give a talk on a familiar topic or keep up a conversation on a fairly wide range of topics.
  • I can briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions, plans and actions.
• Product: A blog with pictures about one’s hometown.
• Product requirements or prerequisites:

  Students must be acquainted with the vocabulary of the topic and be familiar with the use of a blog-creating website such as wordpress, tumblr or quora.

• Process:
  • Introduce the assignment to the students during the first lessons. Make sure they know what they have to do and that they are aware of the evaluation criteria. Let them make groups and have them start thinking about the different topics they want to write about.
  • Give the students one or two lessons to do some research and find enough information to use for their own blog. Make sure that every student has a device to do their research, this can be a PC, laptop or tablet with a word processing ICT tool and internet access.
  • Then give the students two more lessons to turn their information into their own blog.
• Division of roles (optional): Group work
• Consolidating activities suggested or follow up plan:

  Students can be asked to give feedback to the blogs of their peers and answers the question they get about their own blog.

• Success factors or evaluation criteria:

  Students have done well if:

  • They have created a blog accompanied by pictures about their hometown using ICT resources and if they achieve the following criteria:
  • Content

  They have divided their topic/their town into relevant and interesting subtopics and the information given in their blog is clear and understandable.

  • Vocabulary
    They have used vocabulary and expressions connected to the topic.
  • Grammatical correctness
    They have used basic grammatical constructions and expressions correctly. Mistakes in complicated grammatical constructions are allowed;
  • Coherence
    They have given their blog a clear structure with each subtopic having a heading and the text being clearly divided into paragraphs. Mistakes in paragraphing is allowed as long as the text is coherent. They have been able to link sentences with fitting connectors and used conjunctions appropriate to their level.
  • Interaction
  • They are active within the small and larger groups, and share their ideas and accept other people’s opinions and criticism.
• Authors: Marija Dragutinovic & Nathalie van Kampen. If you wish to receive more information about the task or discuss its adaptation and implementation with its author, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

• Didactic added value of the task and other information

• Practical hints for teachers:

  Put students from the same town in one group. When there are four or more students living in the same town, divide them into groups of max four and give every one of these groups a different aspect of that town. When a student is from a different town, one which nobody else is from, he can join a group about the town the school is from to allow him to work in a group.

  Every group writes a blog on one town and produces just one blog, but every member of the group is responsible for a specific part of the blog. Let them divide their town into interesting sub-topics for their peers, such as things to do, restaurants to visit, everyday life (schools, supermarkets), which are suitable topics at A2 level. If you wish to differentiate in your class and you want to challenge students who can work at B1 level you might want them to research topics such as monuments, history etc.

  Get acquainted with the blogsite that works best for you: wordpress, tumblr and quora are widely used. It may be a good idea to use a blog site where users can comment on each other’s blogs (for classmates and yourself giving feedback), and which can be divided into themes as this gives structure to the blog project. A blogsite that offers these functions is tumblr.

• Additional methodological or didactic comments:

  Set precise deadlines to conclude the task.

  Be precise in setting the goals of the task and in explaining the evaluation criteria.

• Reasons why this task is a model of best practices:

  The task was created to develop language competences using ICT resources and to develop social competences by encouraging students to show part of their culture and life.

• Impact that it is expected to have on the teaching practices and attitudes:

  Engage teachers in the inclusive use of ICT in the language lesson.

  Encourage teachers to adopt TBLT and CEFR in their practice.

• Reasons why this task travels well:

  This task can be introduced in the travelling theme which is transversal to most national syllabuses and foreign language programmes.

• Rationale and/or theoretical underpinnings of the task: TBLT using CEFR common reference levels. A2/B1 task taking into account the public domain (according to CEFR definition of domains) - students are engaged in persuading others to visit their hometown.
• Preferencial target age group(s): Young learners and high school students