Using an ipod touch to teach English

I use my ipod touch as an aid to teaching English to small groups of private students. I find it very handy as a resource for:

  • Photos (personalisation). Old photos of me leading to conversation about childhood, etc.
  • Photos in the news downloaded from the web.
  • Photos on topics of interest to my students, eg. local history, art
  • Having a store of information and photos to be accessed when a topic arises
  • BBC podcasts for listening
  • The dictionary.com app
  • The Wikipedia app. A dump version accessible anywhere. Incredibly useful as a resource.
  • Stopwatch for games
  • Making notes – list of films I’ve seen this year, books as a prompt to conversation
  • Handy rules of thumb, downloaded, available always
  • As a way of encouraging students to download BBC podcasts by showing them how they work