Liveworksheets to enhance EFL classes

 Liveworksheets is a website in which you can transform your traditional printable worksheets (doc, pdf, jpg) into interactive online exercises with self-correction. These are called "interactive worksheets". In this way, students are motivated to complete the worksheets online and send their answers to the teacher, which lets the teacher saves time, paper and money. 

Another advantage of using this site is that one can include sounds, videos, drag and drop exercises, join with arrows, multiple-choice and even speaking exercises. The variety of options helps the teacher cater for different skills and learning styles. 

How to use Liveworksheets

1. To start with, you can make your own interactive worksheets or you can use the ones shared by other teachers. In order to make your own worksheets, you first need to register.
   
   
   
2. After that, you click on 'Make Interactive Worksheets' and then on 'Get Started'
   
   
   
3. Then you have to upload a document you have already designed as the base for the worksheet (doc, pdf, jpg) and it will be converted into an image. 
   
   
   
   
4. The following step is drawing boxes on the worksheet and enter the right answers. There are also a few commands that you need to learn if you want to make other kind of exercises, like drag and drop, join with arrows, speaking exercises, etc. 
   
   
   
5. Afterwards, press on 'Save'. You may share it with other teachers or keep it private.
   
   
    
6. Enter a title for the worksheet. Press 'Save' and a link to the worksheet you have just created will appear. By copying and pasting that link on the online platform you may be using with your students, they can get access to it immediately and complete the worksheet. They can self-check their answers automatically or send them to you.
   
   
   
7. You can also register your students (they can also register themselves with your secret keycode) and assign them the workbooks. After that the students can open the workbooks with their username and password and do the exercises. You can check their work at any time, assign homework and add comments or notes. Students may optionally register their email to get notifications of their homework and teacher's comments.

In case of doubts, Liveworksheets does provide tutorials before starting. 

What Teachers Think about Liveworksheets

Teaching English can be facilitated by using this tool. It gives most drilling exercises a twist. For instance, one can design fill-in-the-blanks activities and true-or-false activities. A great idea, is to include variety: audios, pictures and words . In this way, not only are listening skills developed but also visual learners and the ones with learning disabilities will have a better time solving the exercises.

 

Teachers generally love this website as it is user-friendly and really helpful. Here are some of their comments about it:

• Christine Adams: "It will provide students with a chance to review a worksheet we did during the week, perhaps one they did not do well on the first time." What a great idea. You could do it with paper one time, and then digitally; to review with fresh eyes. For some people it might make all the difference. I, for example, love Sudoku, but can't do it on paper. It's too messy--all that rubbing out. Websudoku, by contrast is clean and clear. I'm sure for students still wrestling with writing, digital worksheets might make the concepts clear, free of the mechanical problems and slowdowns of handwriting."(Kelly,2018)
• Kelly: "Thank you again, Christine, for telling me about this! Cintia Costa commented that she tried it out immediately and loves it. I'm not sure where her comment went. By the way, I also love sudoku. I have "Absolutely Nasty Sudoku" books III and IV. I use a mechanical pencil with a very fine lead and a good white eraser for my tiny "possible" numbers. Also, sudoku is great for teaching modals of probability: It can't be a 9. It has to be a 2. The four might go here. "(Kelly,2018)
• Learning to Learn Languages with Cintia: "I can write it again, my friend! I loved these interactive worksheets. I used one with my students as a group in our smartboard a few days ago and the results were great! I am going to continue to use them. I also liked the fact it saves paper. :-)" (Kelly,2018)

Some drawbacks include the fact that there is a limit in the number of  private worksheets you can design and also, most activities you can create with this tool are still quite mechanical. 

Taking all of this into account, there is no doubt one can certainly profit from using Liveworksheets!

If you want to see a Lesson Plan using Liveworksheets, go to: 

https://sabrinasictple.blogspot.com/2021/05/a-lesson-plan-using-liveworksheets.html

References

Kelly ( 2018, January 28) Live Worksheets, a Cool New Tool. Retrieved May 3,2021,from https://joyofesl.blogspot.com/2018/01/live-worksheets-cool-new-tool.html