by Liu Cao, English Language Centre, School of Languages, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
Have you been bothered by the limited time or opportunities to recap group speaking tasks? Padlet is a website that teachers can easily use to collaborate with students. In this speaking activity, I will demonstrate how Padlet can facilitate online/onsite group discussions to build a better rapport among students and teachers.
The aims of this activity are that students will be able to check their understanding and receive peer and teacher feedback after a group speaking activity “Knowing your friends” by posting and commenting on Padlet.
Activity length
10 minutes
or less
Technology used
Padlet-Wall
Format
Course area
Speaking & Writing
Level
All
Target skill(s)
Teaching output skills that involve group discussions. An icebreaker speaking activity will be used as an example.
Set-ups
Before Padlet Reviewing activity:
Divide your students into groups of 3-4. Your students have just finished a 10-15 min speaking activity “Knowing your friend” by following the instructions on your PPT. Remind them to finish the “Discussion” task which will be used in the Padlet activity.
Procedure
Step 1: Creating a new Padlet page:
1. Log into your Padlet account
2. Make a Padlet in your dashboard, choose “Wall” format and name it as “Speaking Review-Find Your Friends”. You may choose to put instructions under “Description”.
3. You are welcome to change the appearance including the wallpaper, color scheme and font of the page as you wish. The software provides plenty of options.
4. Set posting rules for the page.
a. Turn off “Attribution” button, which allows your students to post anonymously.
b. Turn on “Comments” to allow other students to write their guesses.
c. Turn on “Like” to allow students to “like” others’ posts.
d. Turn on “Filter Profanity” if needed.
5. Click “Save” on the top right.
Step 2: Sharing the Padlet page
1. Click “Share” on the right tool bar and click the “CHANGE PRIVACY” button.
2. Set privacy status to “Secret”, which can allow your students to access the page with a shared link or QR code without logging in.
3. Change “Visitor permission” to “Can write”, allowing students to add posts or comments on this page.
4. “Copy the link to the clipboard” or “Get QR code”. Paste the link and the QR code to your PPT with instructions of the task.
5. Your students will be able to access the page by clicking the link or scanning the QR code with their phones using apps like WeChat.
Step 3: Running the activity procedures during class
1. After the students have finished the discussion in the “Knowing your friend” activity, show instructions for accessing Padlet on PPT.
2. Ask each student to upload a picture with 3 clues about themselves. The picture and clues should be related to the information they just discussed with their group members. They will later guess which posts belong to their group members based on the information they collected in the previous discussion.
3. Remind students not to reveal their group identity inside their posts, such as group/members’ names, or members’ selfies.
4. After writing their own post about themselves, all students should look for their team members’ posts based on the knowledge they have collected about their new friends during the speaking activity. They can guess the post owner by leaving their team member’s name or group name inside the comment box. If they enjoy a post from another group, they can click the heart-shaped button to like the post.
5. It is recommended that the teacher write the first post as a model.
6. After quickly skimming all the posts, the teacher can choose a group that has the most likes or comments to introduce their members to the class as a final recap of the speaking activity. If time permits, more than one group can present.
Caveats and alternatives
In order to make sure the posts are as fun as possible, it is important to guide students to talk about more about “interesting facts” about themselves in this activity.
Remake the Padlet page
The page can be saved to your dashboard and easily duplicated for a new group of students if you are teaching multiple classes.
Turn on the “Remakes” button in “Settings” and click the “Remakes” button on the right toolbar.
Then choose what you want to copy to the new page. You can also make changes to the title and descriptions based on your needs.
If it is for a new group of students, you don’t have to “Copy posts” but remember to “Copy people and privacy” and “Copy authorship” to allow the group to access the new page.
Copy the post to another Padlet page
It is also possible to duplicate your “modeling post” to the new page. Click the “three dots” button on the top right of the post you want to duplicate. Then choose “Duplicate the post” inside the list. Then on the right-side menu, you will be able to choose which Padlet page you want to copy this post to.
The remaking and duplicating techniques will save you a lot of time when teaching multiple groups, or when you want to reuse previous activities.
Reflection
Padlet provides an accessible and attractive platform for students to collaborate and share. When there is limited teaching time to provide sharing opportunities for all students, Padlet can engage all students with just a smart phone. It also allows students to share with visual images or information in other formats, which is similar to social media. Students can easily make sense of the discussion and feel motivated to communicate and share. It is also helpful for teachers to get familiar with students and build a better classroom rapport.
Similar Padlet recap activities can be also used for discussion topics like “Favourite Holiday”, “Favourite Food” or other topics that can be demonstrated with images. Writing tasks can also use Padlet as a reviewing or sharing platform to allow wider engagement.
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