Attached is my pedagogical repertoire. I assumed a Japanese language lesson, but most of them are adaptable in many other languages as well. Some are from the class and others are from my experiences and variation of reading materials.
http://www.learner.org/libraries/tfl/chinese/fu/analyze.html
Students write self-selected keywords from previous class on the blackboard in Chinese. The class beginning ritual is to review the previous lessons, practice the Chinese characters, and build learners autonomy. In groups (level-based), one student says the keyword and other students write it down. Practice the pronunciation and hand motion for the characters. When finished writing themselves, students exchange the sheet and check each other’s writing.
Level 2: Being able to explain general situation: describe restaurant location.
Level 3: Learned food vocabulary: describe restaurant review.
Level 4: Finished classical romantic poem unit and moving towards modern ones. They are supposed to explain the history behind the poem and recite as a group.
Level 2/3 students mixed in a small group and explain each other their project in turn (help each other for pronunciations and new words), while level 4 students went to a different room to practice their skit.
Level 4 students explain about traditional poems, which uses some directions. The level 2-3 students don’t understand everything the fellow students are saying; yet they are able to identify some directional keywords. Teacher chose authentic materials not only with directional words but also enough repetition. The students took turns to recite the poem with emotions.
New reading for a poem. First students individually & silently read, then read aloud while helping each other for pronunciation. Watch video of the song with the poem. The music represents the Yellow River, the important cultural representation for Chinese culture and central theme for the poem.
The class was combined with level 2-4 students, very possible situation in less-taught language class at K-12 schools. In the video I found some situations where lover level students learning from upper levels, but also upper level students learn from lower level students by being reminded of keywords pronunciation and meanings. The teacher was very creative to make connections through each level, so the curriculum design is very important (as well as class management).
As for the usage of poems, I thought it’s a great idea in a language classes because poems usually use simple tense and short sentences. In Chinese, there are some differences between traditional poems and modern poems. In Japanese, we could also use Haiku or Tanka, as well as variety of poems. The students paid attention because it was the fellow students (themselves in a couple years later) who recite the poem and explain about the history behind it. Reciting also emphasized the distinct rhythm in Chinese poems.
http://www.learner.org/libraries/tfl/japanese/dyer/analyze.html
Two students stand up and say Japanese greeting in front of the class. Class follows. Teacher explains about the day’s agenda to let the students know the flow of the lesson as well as to remind the teacher herself where she is at.
2. Role play
The teacher explains daily routines and daily activities with gestures, catching students’ attention. Repeat more than once when introducing the words.
Students move their body around with teacher’s lead. While saying aloud what they are doing in target language, students act as if they are doing the movement. (e.g. Okimasu = I wake up)
Teacher instructs how the game goes. Make sure that it’s different from Karuta (probably something students are used to do). The teacher says the daily routine, while students in pair place the picture cards in the order. The order is natural so that students can guess with logic as well (1. Wake up, 2. Change, 3. Eat breakfast…).
Informative assessment. Very similar to the card game, but this time it’s individual and not in the natural order (1. Sleep, 2. Eat lunch, 3. Go to school…). Teacher found that some students still struggle with listening although they understand with gestures.
Show pictures and student say the words one by one until they become comfortable. Then as a whole group, a pair of students shows the picture to the class and say the words (e.g. Nemasu = I sleep). Students repeat the words and gestures.
Place a clock per picture on the table. Students in pair will ask each other what time they wake up, study, go to bed, etc. using the clock. This combines the daily routine words with (previously-learned) time expression. The students rotate so that when teacher says ‘next’ they will have a new pair and a new picture to work with.
As homework, students draw a personal film with six different daily routines and time. In pair, they explain what they do in what time. In class, student volunteers to explain what their partner’s daily routines are to everyone. The students are responsible not only knowing and speaking what their routines are to the partner, but also listening the partner’s in order to introduce it to the class later.
Show different set of picture cards. Students judge if the picture is taken place in Japan, US, or both. Teacher has a Venn diagram on the board and put the picture on Japan-side, US-side, or the common. After explaining with example, teacher calls up some students who previously volunteered to do charades in front of the class. Teacher shows the picture only to one pair of students (it’s better to do in pair than individual so that students won’t feel pressured) and then the pair acts out the daily routine on the card. The rest of the class guess what the daily routine is and tell if it’s in Japan/US/both by raising the national flag(s).
Ending greeting. (And they sing a Japanese song as whole class.)
In regard to Total Physical Response (TPR), this lesson was full of activities using the students’ physical movements. I could not tell if this was the first lesson that they learned about the daily routine words, but the teacher made it easy by using gestures and acting out the daily routines. There were many small activities throughout the lesson with whole class, in pair, and individual, where students can act out the daily routine while saying the words aloud. I found that this repetition with different style is very important in TPR.
Aside from TPR, it was interesting to see some students in class were Japanese bilingual, or at least they seemed to be speaking Japanese at home. The teacher acknowledged that they were helping other students during the activities. Another thing is that towards the end of the video, one student commented that Americans also sleep on the floor in sleeping bags at sleepovers, even though the teacher put ‘I sleep on the floor’ on Japanese side. It reminded me to be careful to tell something is ‘Japanese’ and something is ‘American’ since there are so many exceptions. For example, some schools in Japan students don’t change their shoes and just come in with their ‘outside shoes.’ Generalization is somewhat inevitable and useful, but has to be done with careful word choices.
One thing that I wondered about TPR is when the students start learning to write/read. All the activities in class were focused on listening and speaking. Students draw the daily routine and time, but they never wrote it down as sentences. I understand that when a baby learns his/her first language, they don’t learn the characters. However, I wonder when is the appropriate time (and level) that the foreign language teacher introduces writing/reading, especially in non-roman character languages.
At the pedagogical trade fair, I introduced a game Envelope of Keywords (I misspelled on the board… Envelope needed an E at the end). When this was first introduced in the class in a video with Japanese ESL learners, I was really excited. This activity captured the idea of learner autonomy as it allows the students to decide which words are important to them. It is very different from what we usually see in a language class: teacher or textbook would tell the students which words they have to learn.
It also let them reflect (whether it consciously or subconsciously) which words/concepts they understood better. By allowing the student to put back the keyword if s/he is not sure to explain it, s/he can self-assess and/or challenge oneself (when they are not sure if they can explain but try anyway) in a less-stressful environment.
Actually, this activity was partially used in my Principal & Practices for International Education Management class; first when we were learning many words about immigration issues for international students, and then towards the end of the course when we were summarizing what we learned so far. Although both times the professor (Dr. Katherine Punteney) prepared the keywords in the envelopes, it still enhanced the learners’ autonomy by allowing us self-assess. One of the main reason I chose this activity for my poster was because this can be used in many subjects: ESL, foreign languages, or sheltered instruction in science, history, or anything.
I would like to note two things that I learned at the fair. Grace at CACS asked me how teacher guarantees the students learn new words, not just using easy words that they already knew. Quick answer that I came up with was when the teacher selects and prepares the reading materials, s/he can carefully choose the one with old and new keywords, and if necessary s/he can edit the materials based on the students’ needs. Or when instructing how to choose keywords, s/he can directly mention to pick at least 3 new words in the unit, for example. However, when I thought back later, I came to wonder how much of these teacher-controls are necessary, especially under learner autonomy context. It probably depends on how much the class is used to the learner autonomy style class environment. If the teacher is comfortable letting the students to pick whatever they think is important, s/he might find it beneficial to know even if the students only chose the words they learned in previous units. If teacher judges that the students need more practice on learner autonomy, then s/he can give more instructions what kind of words they should pick in order to assure that learning aspect.
Another thing to note to myself is that the teacher could probably bring more variety if they ask one group to pick verb, another group for noun, and another for proverb (or idioms). When demonstrating the game at the fair, I realized that it is easier (and almost necessary) to identify the keyword is noun or verb, concept or physical thing. Like at the beginning of charade, first they should know what they are trying to explain. Then the idea came up that there could be a ‘noun-only’ envelope or ‘verb/adverb-mix’ envelope. Through planning, I was only thinking to have the variety at one time; at one game the teacher can let the students focus on new nouns, then another time to focus on verbs. However, if the material has enough vocabulary for having such a variety, it would be worth trying.
—–(how the activity works)—–
*I could not upload the recording file as it was too heavy. When I learn how to compress under 10MB, I will add it…
Group Activities: Let’s Make Squares
Lessons learned/Reflection:
This group activity requires students to communicate in the TL and understand basic instructions. They must do more than just point since students cannot move other students’ pieces. Teamwork!
Teacher could also introduce colors, shapes, and/or numbers. To expand this activity, the teach could require a scout to observe other groups shapes and report back to their own team and the team must replicate what the scout saw.
For beginners this is a good activity for reviewing/learning shapes and colors but for advanced learners it is still a good activity for teambuilding and breaking the ice.
Posted by Ayako, Brieanna, Kathy, Minh
Brieanna Mele, Kelly Donovan, Andrew Sansone, Sarah Coons, Willow Barnosky, Danna Agha, Dee Doucette, Ayako Yamada
Instruction giving for this activity could include number of strategies to communicate the activity’s objectives to students. Demonstrating the basic framework by miming would be effective. As an alternative, using a strong student to help demonstrate- or even having the class as a whole pose questions with the teacher acting in the students’ role could both work. The kinesthetic aspects of the activity lends it to whole class interaction and conversation/debate. The teacher may want to specify that students should use L2 exclusively when presenting their reasoning to the class, but (depending on student level and fluency) allow some utilization of L1 when internally debating group reasoning.
One way in which this activity would be useful for young language learners would be to have the instructor say a phrase, such as “How are you?”, and then have each letter represent an answer. Students must stand in the area which best represents the answer to the question, for example: (A) I’m good, (B) It’s raining, (C) Chicken, (D) Tomorrow is Tuesday.
Another great way this activity would be useful for young learners is to have the instructor manipulate the questions as the weeks go on and the student’s understanding and knowledge becomes more extensive. So, let’s say the first week involves only vocabulary revolving around a certain topic. The next week might involve more that same topic but at a deeper, more advanced level.
For grammar lessons, each letter can represent one conjugation of the verb. Students must then decide which is the right answer.
Rhyming/phonemic awareness: teacher reads four words and students identify which doesn’t belong
Q/A response/sentences: teacher provides four answers related (fruits : grape, banana, apple, mango) students then go to whichever they like, and ask each other questions and respond (do you like bananas? yes i like bananas). OR students can see how many sentences they can come up with using the vocabulary term they chose.