Inha University 2011 Spring TESOL Program

Welcome to TESOL Activities Friday 7:55-9:15

The aim of this course is to sample a variety of activities that you can use in your English classes.

But before we begin sampling activities, we have to take a quick look at some terms that will be relevant for thinking about and discussing the activities we look at in this class.

Terms for Describing Activities The next slide will show some of the terms we will use to discuss activities. You should probably take notes because I am going to give you a quiz on this next week.

Important Terms (1) structure (2) function (3) content (4) skill (5) accuracy (6) fluency (7) scalability (8) adaptability (9) teacher-centered (10)learner-centered

We need to do this so that we can determine how our activities satisfy the goals of our curriculum.

Looking at the first four terms: What is the relationship between structure, function, content, and skills?

Structure Structure is basically the grammar associated with a language. If you are teaching passive voice today and present perfect tense tomorrow then you are teaching a structural syllabus.

Structure A structural syllabus is a syllabus that has a grammatical progression as its organizing feature.

Structure Other examples of structure include: present tense future tense past tense passive voice causatives comparatives superlatives conditionals adjective clauses noun clauses

Structure Language items you would see in a structural syllabus. Present continuous: subject +am/is/are+ verb+ing Passive voice: subject +am/is/are+ past participle.

Function Function is how a language is used in everyday situations.

Functions If you are teaching giving advice today and ordering food tomorrow, you are teaching a functional syllabus.

Functions Other examples of functions include: giving advice asking for directions telling stories about the past talking about rules requesting information

Example Function: Giving Advice If you were to teach a unit on giving advice, you might include the following items: I think you should... Why don't you... If I were you, I would... You'd better...

Content A content-based syllabus is one in which language is used to talk about things. Students are not explicitly studying the language but language learning occurs incidentally.

Content If you are teaching about dinosaurs today and volcanoes tomorrow you are teaching a content-based syllabus.

Content Some other examples of content-based lessons might include: movies clothes ancient history travel countries dating

Combining All Three It is possible to combine all three elements into a single unit. The next slide shows an article that combines all three: comparative adjectives (structure) comparison (function) changes in living standards (content)

Combined Elements Sample Korea has undergone many changes since the 1950s. In general, people are more educated and wealthier now. There are fewer people living in the country and not as much hunger and poverty. However, the cities are more polluted and the traffic is much more congested.

Task 1 Before we discuss anything else I’d like you to discuss with a partner and fill in the blanks for the proverb below: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day... ___________________________

Skills Skills are things that help students become more competent independent language learners. If you are teaching students how to identify a main idea or how to ask a clarification question you are teaching a skills-based syllabus.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish And you feed him for life. As language teachers, we don’t just want to teach a language. We also want to teach our students how to learn a language.

The Importance of Skills While we will discuss all forms of syllabi, we will pay particular attention to skills. One reason to teach skills is that they can be applied everywhere. Another reason to teach skills is that they help foster learner independence.

1.Negotiating Meaning (One type of skill)

Before we go into what negotiating meaning is, lets take a look at why we need to negotiate meaning. The cartoons in this slide and the next illustrate why we need to negotiate meaning with our students. In the cartoon the teacher says that the homework is due. In this example, what does due mean? Can you foresee any difficulties arising if this situation is in an ESL context?

Here, the student misunderstands what his teacher wants him to do. This is a failure of communication. Do homework today?

Do and Due are homophones (words that have the same pronunciation but different spelling). ESL students are likely to know the first homophone do, but not the latter homophone due.

Native speakers (who have acquired the structure of the language already would know that “is do” is not usually a valid construction grammatically. The base form of a verb usually cannot follow ‘is’.

For example: He is do the dishes. She is do her homework. The above examples would immediately seem strange to a native speaker.

And so, even if a native speaker had never heard the word ‘due’ before and didn’t know what ‘due’ meant, they would know that the teacher didn’t mean ‘do.’ And hence they would have a chance to clear up the miscommunication.

In fact, a native speaker may already be ‘aware’ that what is required in that construction is an adjective or preposition since “________ the homework” also precludes it being a noun.

A second language learner will not have the benefit of these structural filters to let them know when they have misunderstood. The construction “is do” may seem like a valid construction.

And so, Your homework is due today becomes: Your homework is do today.

Which in the mind of an ESL learners might simply mean: Do your homework today.

So what does this cartoon tell us? As teachers, there will be times when your students do not understand you when you are giving instructions in English.

What’s worse, there are times when they will not understand but they think they do understand.

If both student and teacher are passive in this interaction, the misunderstanding will not be cleared up: the boy will not hand in his homework on time. Teachers, therefore, must be active in their interactions. They must make sure the communication was understood.

And so both teachers and their students will need skills to clear up misunderstandings. Negotiating Meaning is just one example of a skill that teachers should actively teach.

Task 2 In the previous cartoon we saw an example of a failure of communication, which resulted in a student not handing his homework in. In partners discuss: (a)How could the teacher have avoided this? (b) How could the student have avoided this?

Here are some possible answers: Teacher Rephrase: “Your homework is due today. You have to hand it in by three o’clock this afternoon.” Comprehension Check: “You got that?” “So when do you have to hand in the homework.” Visual Reinforcement: Write on the blackboard. Send a written notice home. Student Rephrase: “So I hand it in tomorrow then.” Clarification Request: “I’m sorry. Did you say I have to do the homework tonight.”

So now we have some insight into what negotiating meaning is. It’s giving instruction to your students and then checking to make sure that they understood it! It is discussing the message until both teacher and student can agree on what was meant. This is known as coming to mutual comprehension.

We will look at discussion strategies/skills such as rephrasing, clarifying, and summarizing that will help us to avoid misunderstandings. When we clarify and rephrase we are negotiating the meaning of our message.

Negotiating meaning is an example of one skill. Being able to negotiate meaning is an important skill for someone who has to give instruction to others on a daily basis. It is something that you naturally do in your native language, but is not as natural in a second language.

Being able to communicate clearly and uncover misunderstandings is also a good skill for your students to have. This is one skill we should teach our students as well.

Word Skills Being able to discuss words is another valuable skill that students should have. Being able to define words, understand definitions, find rhymes, identify sounds, recognize letter patterns and ask for spellings are examples of word skills.

These word skills helps students get the information they need when they don’t understand. It helps them become independent learners.

Because the skills that we learn in this course are valuable for your students, we will look at activities we can use to teach these skills. (This is probably the best part of the course! We will look at really practical ways to teach English that can even be used for the large classes that you are likely to have to teach.)

Accuracy Accuracy refers to how grammatically precise a student is speaking. When we our activities focus on making error free speech, we are concerned with accuracy.

Fluency Fluency is how fast and natural a produces speech. Fluency is a measure of the flow of speech. Activities that try to get students to communicate at a rapid pace are fluency- based activities.

Scalability Scalability refers to how easy it is to use an activity for large or small groups. If an activity can be used with a class of 4 students or with a class of 30 students then it is scalable.

Adaptability Adaptability refers to the ease with which an activity can be adapted for use with low or high level groups (or mixed groups) of students.

The best activities are adaptable and scalable.

Teacher-centered Teacher centered activities are activities where the focus is on the teacher. Lectures and question-and-answer sessions are examples of teacher-centered activities.

Learner-centered Learner-centered activities are activities where the focus of the activity is on the student. Activities with a high degree of student participation such a group discussion are examples of learner-centered activities.

End here!