Learning Through Failure

Reflect O Take a few moments to write down your answers to the following questions: O What was your reaction to the video? O What do you think we can take from the video and use in our English teaching? O Why do you think I showed you this video?

Discuss O With a partner or small group, discuss your answers to the previous questions. O Have you ever had a teacher who taught in a similar way? Discuss.

Teaching “outside the box” O Experiential teaching O Teaching through real life experience O Task Based Learning (TBL) or Project Based Learning (PBL) O Have your students do something

Examples of “Experiential” Teaching O Have students organize a class or school activity (PBL) O Students can present or share about something they have learned in the TL O Have students go out into the TL community (this is easier in an ESL setting, but may be possible in an EFL setting too) and gather information or complete specific tasks

Learning Through Mistakes O Many students are afraid to be wrong O By making the classroom a place that is comfortable, you can help ease some of this anxiety O Encourage students to learn from errors

“Every day a native speaker hears sentences that he has never heard before ; nevertheless he understands them. Similarly he says sentences he has never heard or said before ; nevertheless he is understood. The grammars, both in his own mind and in the linguist's analysis, that account for this, must enable him not only to understand and reproduce familiar sentences, but also to understand and produce new ones” (Cook, 1970).

“As far as second language teaching is concerned, it seems that, if the learner is to be able to use language creatively in a similar way to a native speaker, he must be able to produce and understand sentences he has never previously encountered. It is unlikely that this ability can be acquired by teaching techniques that make use of habit formation and stimulus response association ” (Cook, 1970)

Creative Language Use O Create  Fail  Learn as opposed to listening  learning by heart  generalizing  producing (this does not work so well!) O Allow students to use language creatively – this will result in errors that students can learn from! O Teach through reflection

But making mistakes is the scariest part of learning a language… O Good anxiety vs. bad anxiety O Ideas for helping students deal with this anxiety?

Think About It… O Think of a time that you made a mistake (particularly when using English, or another language) – what did you learn from that experience?

Lesson Planning When do I use all of these technologies and materials?

Traditional Lesson Planning O Present O Practice O Produce

Organizing a PPP Lesson O Warm-up – get students thinking in the TL; review past topics O Present – teacher presents new information (can be through lecture, discovery activities, etc.) O Practice – this is a good place for a controlled practice of the target language topic O Produce – production is more like free practice – let the students use the language and get a feel for it

Warm Ups O Games O Discussions O Review activities O Everyday conversation – ask students how they’ve been since you last saw them O Music, podcasts, videos, etc.

Presentation O This is where you will probably want to use your textbook and/or the board or projector O Provide clear examples and explanations O Discovery activities are also useful for grammar! (What is this again?)

Practice (usually form- focused) O Written: matching, fill in the blank, student generated examples, etc. (controlled writing practice) O Oral: repetition of new forms, oral fill in the blank, responses to audio cues, controlled pair activities (some information gap, guided conversation practice, etc.)

Production (more usage- focused) O Written : longer free-writing activities, short answer responses to questions that elicit the desired TL form O Oral : discussion on a topic intended to elicit desired TL form, less controlled conversation/group discussions ** Don’t forget the production part of the lesson! This is the important part!

What might be some problems with PPP lessons? O Ss might seem to master the TL structures but be unable to produce them later O Ss might overuse the target structure O Ss might not be able to do the production step if they are lacking the language resources necessary

Teaching with Content O Use authentic content to build your lessons O Read/watch/listen  discuss  then analyze forms or language usage O Example – the sample lesson from last week. We used authentic content and discussed and then could have focused on how present and past tense are used together in science reporting.

Back to TBL O The lesson in centered around completing a task and practicing language by doing this, rather than focusing on a specific TL structure.

Organizing a TBL Lesson O Pre-task – explain what Ss should do O Task – Ss work together to complete the task O Planning – Ss prepare a report of how their task was completed O Report – Ss report back to the rest of the class O Analysis – Highlight the language that was necessary to complete the task O Practice – Ss can then practice target language structures based upon their needs determined during the task

Example O Have students create a list of top ten news stories from the past week and put them in order of most to least important. O What kind of technology might you be able to have them use? O What kind of TL structure could you have students focus on after this task?

Brainstorm Some Tasks O In a small group, brainstorm some tasks that you might have students do to practice language. (Think about realistic situations that students could practice) O Come up with some tasks for beginner, intermediate, and advanced students. O Also think about what kinds of materials/technologies you might be able to use for these tasks.

For more about creative language… O Here is an article by the well-known linguist Vivian Cook: c/Writings/Papers/CreativeUse.htm c/Writings/Papers/CreativeUse.htm O It is very short and talks about creative language use!