Tag Archives: Speaking

21st Century Skype-Pal Exchange

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​In Friday’s class Peter introduced project based learning tasks, skills and designing. He used a lot of problem solving and interpersonal skills to help us learn about project based learning on our own. He used three activities to help us understand different approaches and frameworks for designing project-based instruction.

The first activity had us working in groups to match various project related vocabulary to their definitions. There were approximately 20 phrases with paired definitions. Peter walked around to check in with groups and help with the pairings. He asked students to report some of the pairings after.

The next activity had us organizing small pieces of paper with brief descriptions of projects on them. We first organized them into 3 categories: unit projects, course long projects or both. Using the same project descriptions we worked together to reorganize them into four categories relating to the kind of community interaction that the project encourages: classroom, classroom and campus, classroom and local community, and classroom and the global community.

The final activity was a play on apples-to-apples. Each group was given 2 sets of cards. One with a description of the contexts that could have project based learning activities and the other with a description of projects that could potentially be applied to those contexts. There were also wild cards in this category which could only be used if the player made up a project. The game proceeded with each player submitting a project to the newly turned over context cards. We would vote on the best pair and the player that added that project card would get the cards.

Finally, Peter had us collaboratively create our own projects after looking at several example overviews of projects.
Below is the lesson that we created.

Skype-Pal

Annabelle, Gerri, and I wanted to create a project-based course that would be applicable to our future career goals. We all wanted to focus on EFL (teaching abroad). We all had experience teaching beginners but at different ages; we compromised and chose to focus on middle school.

We designed this project for classrooms that are in an area with limited access to native speakers of English and need to improve their speaking and listening fluency in a conversation course. We imagined co-planning between two countries where the only mutual language would be English, but the learner’s proficiency and ages were very similar. The conversation course would focus on cross-cultural relations and awareness.

This project is designed to be started a few weeks into the beginning of the semester where students are producing and memorizing basic sentences. The first week of the project would be to introduce the partner school and explain to the students that they will be receiving a “Skype-Pal” to practice conversation with. The first week prepares them for the Skyping interaction and activating the country/culture previous knowledge. The following weeks all follow the same format with slight variation in activities to reduce repetition while still maintaining scaffolding.

Mondays focus on reflecting on previous week’s Skype session and introducing new vocabulary for the given topic (Food, hobbies, holidays, family, around the house, around the school, etc.). Tuesdays will focus on reviewing vocabulary and introducing sentence structures/grammar patterns. Wednesdays will be “practice with a partner” day; getting the students used to producing the language. Thursdays will be “prep” days in which they think about the possible questions they will ask their Skype partners and make predictions about what will be the same and different between the two countries. Fridays will be dedicated to Skyping and note taking on their partner’s responses.

The semester ends with an oral presentation/introduction of their language partner using all the vocabulary and conversations learned over the term.

We hope this project will be helpful for other English teachers who are teaching conversation classes abroad! We think it can be highly adaptable for different levels and topic of conversation.

We felt that Peter’s lesson was a well scaffolded introduction to project based learning. The activities allowed us to see examples of different kinds of projects and understand the goals, times frames and settings that would be appropriate for those projects. We also felt the opportunity to practice curriculum and project planning was very useful for our own understanding of how to begin the project based learning process.
-Kelly, Annabelle, and Gerri

The Life Line Activity

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A. As an introductory student to student activity, students are placed into groups of 4 (2 from each class, at least 1 male in each group). Each student receives three sticky notes, and is asked to write three brief descriptions of  language learning or travel experiences, to include the month and date. The sticky notes are gathered chronologically to create a line, a circle, or an arrangement of their choice, to form a game board. Students took turns rolling a single die, and moved coins accordingly across the Life Line board. If a student landed on her own sticky note, the other three students could ask her one question each related to that event. If the student lands on another student’s note, she asks a question to that student, followed by the other two students. As events are discussed they are removed from the board. If all sticky notes are removed from the table before the end of the allotted time, students can ask follow up questions to those already made.

B. A distinct advantage is that, as an interactive activity, the students are able to build rapport amongst themselves (building classroom culture) by sharing details they would otherwise not share. Additionally, by encouraging them to share events related to use of the TL, students are implicitly reminded of why they choose to study a foreign language (read: motivation). The topic of conversation can be adjusted according to student proficiency and curricular themes. For example, beginner students could write events related to their morning routine. Additionally, vocabulary related to the activity’s theme (e.g., routine) can be pre-taught, in which case the activity functions as practice.

C. Beginning level learners can write letters of the alphabet and arrange them alphabetically, then roll the die and say a pre-taught word which begins with that letter when the

D&E. Intermediate learners can write sentences which employ grammatical tenses as review or practice. The teacher can prompt the writing tasks with three questions which reflect language/topics of relevance to course curricula.

F.  This activity seems very appropriate for advanced learners, as it can activate uninhibited speech fueled by students’ curiosity and concern for one another.

G. Language classes with different TL writing systems (e.g., Chinese as TL for native English speakers) can allocate more time to the writing portion of the task. An activity with a stronger focus on writing skill development for advanced learners could request of the students they write sentences embedded with blanks. Students then roll the dice and on the sticky pad write words/phrases in the blanks, similar to Adlibs.

Composed by: Gerri; Josiah; Kendall; Dylan

 

The Circle of Life

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Description of Game:

Played with 3-4 people. Each player receives three sticky notes on which they will write important events in their language/cross-cultural learning experiences. They will also include the date of the event on the sticky note. Players then arrange their sticky notes in a “circle of life” in chronological order (in a circle). Players then identify their token (in our case nickel, penny, dime, and earring) and roll a single dice to determine number of sticky notes to advance. If the player who rolled the dice, lands on their own sticky note the remaining players must all ask questions about the event and remove the sticky note from play. If the player lands on another participant’s sticky note they ask that player a question about their event (the sticky note stays in play until all members ask a question about that event). Players continue to roll the dice and play until all sticky notes are removed from play. Or until teacher deems the activity over.

Variations:

  1. If playing with beginner level students: have students write a vocabulary word on the sticky note (or provide sticky notes). Player landing on sticky note must ask a question using the vocabulary word. Example: player lands on “fruit”, and asks “Do you like fruit?”. Remove sticky note after it has been used twice.
  2. Add more or less sticky notes depending on vocabulary level.
  3. Provide a prompt guide to assist intermediate-low/intermediate-high students. (example: question stems, verbs in specific target tenses)
  4. Advanced students to increase writing skills should be required to write in complete sentences.

Reflection:

We believe this activity is really good for practicing speaking and listening skills. It is also a good way to get to know fellow students/become comfortable with partners. Applies grammar/sentence structures in a varied activity outside of the textbook and hopefully encourages creative thinking in responses. We like that it can be modified to a specific learning goal. This would be a good “emergency” lesson plan that can fit many goals. It is quick and easy and takes as long as you want it to. Each game will be different so the students won’t feel it is too repetitive.

 

 

 

Composed by:

Kelly Donovan

Catherine Purdy

Sally Coons

Joshua Bearden

On separating and integrating skills

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One of the current principles for language educators is that the four skills should be integrated as much as possible.  This will be a key guideline when we discuss unit planning in full detail (which will in the Curriculum Design course in the spring semester).  In the meantime, the posts here will be at least two-dimensional: that if students are to speak or write, we much know what they will do first (which might be to listen to or read something); and if students are to listen or read, we must include what they will do next, which will often involve speaking or writing.  The formulae are very simple:

X + Speak/Write;  Listen/read + Y.

Here are some simple examples: (1) in a common Co-operative Learning task called Think-Pair-Share, students in the early days of a new course might be directed to think of three specific L2 skills they want to develop through participating in this class (they may make notes if they wish); they then tell their partner (THINK + SPEAK); their partner listens carefully and passes the ideas to the rest of the group (LISTEN + SPEAK).  (2) The teacher removes  the title from a reading text; students skim the text and then work in pairs to write a good title (READ + SPEAK; DISCUSS + WRITE).  They then see the original title and must explain why their title is just as good (READ + SPEAK).  (3) Students study a graph or table of information and then write a paragraph summarizing the key information (PROCESS DATA + WRITE).

In other words, as we collect tasks and procedures related to particular skills, the specific skill will never be a single, free pedagogical molecule, but always linked to at least one other element.