Monday, December 08, 2003
Who Am I: An Interactive Approach to Learning Adjectives
One student will get in front of the class and the teacher will put a piece of paper on the student’s back. This piece of paper will have the name of one of the other students in the class on it. The student will turn around so that everyone in the class can see whose name he or she has on his or her back.
The students will begin to give hints to the person so that he or she can guess whose name is on his or her back. The students must give adjectives to describe the person, e.g. “You are a short person. You like to smile a lot. You are funny. Et cetera.” The person with the hidden name has only one chance to guess who he or she is, and then he or she must pull the name from the back and check to see if they were correct.
This game can be made competitive by giving each contestant a point for guessing correctly whose name they have on their back. Also, it could become a team game, somewhat like charades, in which a group of students gives hints to another in order to earn points for an entire team.
The game works well as a vocabulary builder, because students can learn from each other by listening to the adjectives other students use to give hints to the student who doesn’t know whose name is on his or her back.
Rationale
∑ From the Interaction Hypothesis, this activity supports SLA by promoting interactive communication between the students, not simply from the teacher to the students. If the game is set up correctly, the teacher can remove him or herself completely and let the students run the game. The student who does not know whose name is on his or her back must negotiate the meaning of the words the students are giving him or her and come to a conclusion based on their linguistic input. All of the students have a shared goal in communicating the clandestine information, and they must use the target language to reach that goal.
∑ From Connectionism, the activity promotes SLA by leading students to associate the signifiers to the signifieds through a variety of means. Students see the orthographic representation of a person’s name, then connect that input to their memory, or the living image of that person in the classroom, then they hear the other students describe this person, and that language gets imprinted on their brain in a pattern tied up with facial recognition and all the other memories and cognitive patterns they associate with that particular person.
∑ From the Input Hypothesis, the activity promotes SLA by providing students an opportunity to discuss amongst themselves, in a collaborative, but less formal setting where the affective filter is lowered so that more linguistic input is allowed to be processed by the student’s brain. The students tend to be highly motivated for this activity so their affective filters are swung wide open.
One student will get in front of the class and the teacher will put a piece of paper on the student’s back. This piece of paper will have the name of one of the other students in the class on it. The student will turn around so that everyone in the class can see whose name he or she has on his or her back.
The students will begin to give hints to the person so that he or she can guess whose name is on his or her back. The students must give adjectives to describe the person, e.g. “You are a short person. You like to smile a lot. You are funny. Et cetera.” The person with the hidden name has only one chance to guess who he or she is, and then he or she must pull the name from the back and check to see if they were correct.
This game can be made competitive by giving each contestant a point for guessing correctly whose name they have on their back. Also, it could become a team game, somewhat like charades, in which a group of students gives hints to another in order to earn points for an entire team.
The game works well as a vocabulary builder, because students can learn from each other by listening to the adjectives other students use to give hints to the student who doesn’t know whose name is on his or her back.
Rationale
∑ From the Interaction Hypothesis, this activity supports SLA by promoting interactive communication between the students, not simply from the teacher to the students. If the game is set up correctly, the teacher can remove him or herself completely and let the students run the game. The student who does not know whose name is on his or her back must negotiate the meaning of the words the students are giving him or her and come to a conclusion based on their linguistic input. All of the students have a shared goal in communicating the clandestine information, and they must use the target language to reach that goal.
∑ From Connectionism, the activity promotes SLA by leading students to associate the signifiers to the signifieds through a variety of means. Students see the orthographic representation of a person’s name, then connect that input to their memory, or the living image of that person in the classroom, then they hear the other students describe this person, and that language gets imprinted on their brain in a pattern tied up with facial recognition and all the other memories and cognitive patterns they associate with that particular person.
∑ From the Input Hypothesis, the activity promotes SLA by providing students an opportunity to discuss amongst themselves, in a collaborative, but less formal setting where the affective filter is lowered so that more linguistic input is allowed to be processed by the student’s brain. The students tend to be highly motivated for this activity so their affective filters are swung wide open.
Going Shopping: An Information Gap Activity
In this exercise, the students will form partnerships in which one student will play the role of a store employee, and the other student will play the role of a shopper. Each shopper will be given a grocery list that gives him or her only general requirements, e.g. how many meat products they need, how many vegetables, and how many soft drinks. The shopping students will also have limits on the amount of money they can spend in their shopping outing.
The store employee will have a piece of paper listing the prices for each one of the items in the store. The student who is shopping must ask the store employee how much each item costs, then write this number down so they can figure out which combination of food items will allow them to meet their budget while still acquiring all the food they have on their grocery list. For example, a student may be required to ask, “How much is the beef?” or, “How much is the chicken,” and the store clerk will have to reply, “The chicken is three dollars a pound.” There should be at least four food items in each category so that students can find multiple combinations of foods that will meet their requirements.
Another layer of complexity may be added to this game by making it competitive. Pairs of students can compete against each other to see who can get all of the items on their grocery list first, without going over their money limit.
Rationale
∑ From the Interaction Hypothesis, this activity supports SLA by promoting interactive communication between the students, not simply from the teacher to the students. Students ask each other questions and negotiate meaning by manipulating the groceries and asking clarifying questions about their costs. The interactional nature of the activity allows for a freeform exchange between customer and clerk in which the order and content of dialogue are not predetermined.
∑ From Cognitive Theory, this activity supports SLA by moving students through the continuum of learning from controlled processing to automaticity. While it may not be expected that a student would achieve automaticity in using some language in the course of a single lesson, if a student repeats simple questions like, “How much does this cost?” often enough in the activity, the teacher may expect that he or she will be well on the way to automaticity for this phrase in the context of buying something. A teacher should teach the key phrases and vocabulary through modeling before the students begin the activity to build the foundation of activation patterns of memory nodes.
∑ From Connectionism, the activity promotes SLA by leading students to associate the signifiers to the signifieds through a variety of means. Students learn the food vocabulary by making visual associations between the sample food items and the words on their shopping list, and they manipulate the food items to that kinesthetic learning comes into play as well. Also, they hear the clerk or customer repeat the words so that auditory stimuli become a part of the exercise. Students learn to recognize the target language vocabulary through a variety of stimulus patterns.
∑ From the Input Hypothesis, the activity promotes SLA by providing students a true-to-life setting to discuss the images on the blackboard with each other, leading to a less formal setting where the affective filter is lowered so that more linguitic input is allowed to be processed by the student’s brain. Students are talking to each other, role playing with one partner, so the anxiety of the classroom is less powerful.
In this exercise, the students will form partnerships in which one student will play the role of a store employee, and the other student will play the role of a shopper. Each shopper will be given a grocery list that gives him or her only general requirements, e.g. how many meat products they need, how many vegetables, and how many soft drinks. The shopping students will also have limits on the amount of money they can spend in their shopping outing.
The store employee will have a piece of paper listing the prices for each one of the items in the store. The student who is shopping must ask the store employee how much each item costs, then write this number down so they can figure out which combination of food items will allow them to meet their budget while still acquiring all the food they have on their grocery list. For example, a student may be required to ask, “How much is the beef?” or, “How much is the chicken,” and the store clerk will have to reply, “The chicken is three dollars a pound.” There should be at least four food items in each category so that students can find multiple combinations of foods that will meet their requirements.
Another layer of complexity may be added to this game by making it competitive. Pairs of students can compete against each other to see who can get all of the items on their grocery list first, without going over their money limit.
Rationale
∑ From the Interaction Hypothesis, this activity supports SLA by promoting interactive communication between the students, not simply from the teacher to the students. Students ask each other questions and negotiate meaning by manipulating the groceries and asking clarifying questions about their costs. The interactional nature of the activity allows for a freeform exchange between customer and clerk in which the order and content of dialogue are not predetermined.
∑ From Cognitive Theory, this activity supports SLA by moving students through the continuum of learning from controlled processing to automaticity. While it may not be expected that a student would achieve automaticity in using some language in the course of a single lesson, if a student repeats simple questions like, “How much does this cost?” often enough in the activity, the teacher may expect that he or she will be well on the way to automaticity for this phrase in the context of buying something. A teacher should teach the key phrases and vocabulary through modeling before the students begin the activity to build the foundation of activation patterns of memory nodes.
∑ From Connectionism, the activity promotes SLA by leading students to associate the signifiers to the signifieds through a variety of means. Students learn the food vocabulary by making visual associations between the sample food items and the words on their shopping list, and they manipulate the food items to that kinesthetic learning comes into play as well. Also, they hear the clerk or customer repeat the words so that auditory stimuli become a part of the exercise. Students learn to recognize the target language vocabulary through a variety of stimulus patterns.
∑ From the Input Hypothesis, the activity promotes SLA by providing students a true-to-life setting to discuss the images on the blackboard with each other, leading to a less formal setting where the affective filter is lowered so that more linguitic input is allowed to be processed by the student’s brain. Students are talking to each other, role playing with one partner, so the anxiety of the classroom is less powerful.
Where and Who: A Picture-based Introduction to Questions
This activity is for low proficiency level language learners and is designed to teach them to construct Where and Who questions using objects and images that are interactive.
The teacher should draw a model town on the blackboard. The drawing can be simple and should include place-name vocabulary like “police station,” “post office,” “church,” “swimming pool,” et cetera. Each of these place names should be represented by a drawing on the blackboard.
The teacher should ask each student to draw a picture of themselves, or if the teacher would like to include profession vocabulary into the lesson, each student could draw a picture of a lawyer, a doctor, a fireperson, et cetera.
Each student should use tape to place their person in one of the locations on the blackboard. Then the teacher should go around the classroom and ask each student aquestion like, “Where is the lawyer?” and a student will look at the blackboard and state, “The lawyer is at the police station” or another response according to the location of the character in question.
After the teacher has gone around the room at least once, the students can rearrange the characters and the questioning can continue. After the students have the idea, the teacher can direct them to ask each other questions. A student will call on another student and ask a question about the characters on the board. Afterwards, the student who was called upon will choose another student to ask a different question.
When students are comfortable with the “Where is” line of questioning, the teacher can move on to the question of “Who is” by asking students, “Who is at the post office?” and having students give the correct reply of “The doctor and the lawyer are in the post office.”
Rationale
∑ From the Interaction Hypothesis, this activity supports SLA by promoting interactive communication between the students, not simply from the teacher to the students. Students create their own questions and must negotiate the meaning of the images on the blackboard through dialogue
∑ From Cognitive Theory, this activity supports SLA by moving students through the continuum of learning from controlled processing, developed through hearing the teacher repeat the question and listening to other students respond, to automatic processing after consistently practicing asking and answering the questions with the other students.
∑ From Connectionism, the activity promotes SLA by leading students to associate the signifiers to the signifieds through a variety of means. Students walk to the blackboard to place their character in a location, and this kinesthetic element of the lesson links with the visual and linguistic element to create multiple associations between the input of the lesson and the desired output the student will produce.
∑ From the Input Hypothesis, the activity promotes SLA by providing students an opportunity to discuss the images on the blackboard with each other, leading to a more informal setting where the affective filter is lowered so that more linguistic input is allowed to be processed by the student’s brain. Also, the activity moves from the learned language, recited at the beginning of the lesson, to a more acquired form of language produced when the students are allowed to speak to each other and produce their own language for describing and asking about the images they see.
This activity is for low proficiency level language learners and is designed to teach them to construct Where and Who questions using objects and images that are interactive.
The teacher should draw a model town on the blackboard. The drawing can be simple and should include place-name vocabulary like “police station,” “post office,” “church,” “swimming pool,” et cetera. Each of these place names should be represented by a drawing on the blackboard.
The teacher should ask each student to draw a picture of themselves, or if the teacher would like to include profession vocabulary into the lesson, each student could draw a picture of a lawyer, a doctor, a fireperson, et cetera.
Each student should use tape to place their person in one of the locations on the blackboard. Then the teacher should go around the classroom and ask each student aquestion like, “Where is the lawyer?” and a student will look at the blackboard and state, “The lawyer is at the police station” or another response according to the location of the character in question.
After the teacher has gone around the room at least once, the students can rearrange the characters and the questioning can continue. After the students have the idea, the teacher can direct them to ask each other questions. A student will call on another student and ask a question about the characters on the board. Afterwards, the student who was called upon will choose another student to ask a different question.
When students are comfortable with the “Where is” line of questioning, the teacher can move on to the question of “Who is” by asking students, “Who is at the post office?” and having students give the correct reply of “The doctor and the lawyer are in the post office.”
Rationale
∑ From the Interaction Hypothesis, this activity supports SLA by promoting interactive communication between the students, not simply from the teacher to the students. Students create their own questions and must negotiate the meaning of the images on the blackboard through dialogue
∑ From Cognitive Theory, this activity supports SLA by moving students through the continuum of learning from controlled processing, developed through hearing the teacher repeat the question and listening to other students respond, to automatic processing after consistently practicing asking and answering the questions with the other students.
∑ From Connectionism, the activity promotes SLA by leading students to associate the signifiers to the signifieds through a variety of means. Students walk to the blackboard to place their character in a location, and this kinesthetic element of the lesson links with the visual and linguistic element to create multiple associations between the input of the lesson and the desired output the student will produce.
∑ From the Input Hypothesis, the activity promotes SLA by providing students an opportunity to discuss the images on the blackboard with each other, leading to a more informal setting where the affective filter is lowered so that more linguistic input is allowed to be processed by the student’s brain. Also, the activity moves from the learned language, recited at the beginning of the lesson, to a more acquired form of language produced when the students are allowed to speak to each other and produce their own language for describing and asking about the images they see.
