by Elaine Gallagher

   The second language skill that humans develop is speaking.

Speaking is a human ability that is attained ONLY if the human has heard others speak. The more we hear others speak, and the greater the vocabulary of those who speak to us, the better we will be able to speak.

There have been cases of children who grew up without any human contact, and no speech to imitate, and were found, at about age 15, having absolutely no human speech. The unusual thing (that might be very interesting for you to research) is that these children, the few that scientists know about, NEVER were able to speak. It seems as if there is a window of opportunity, between birth and 15 or 16 years of age, during which humans can learn speech. If the window of opportunity is missed, speech cannot develop. Studies seem to support that if certain neurons are not used, they become dysfunctional. More research is being conducted in this area of language acquisition.

(BRAINWORK activity: Research these children that were found without human contact and without being able to speak.)

We know that listening ability is the base for oral language development. So, the more we listen, repeat, listen, and speak, the better we will be at it.

Now, in the 21st Century, there are many movements towards emphasizing oral language communications, with less emphasis on writing than in previous times. Gone from modern language teaching is the old-fashioned stress on grammar, structure, memorization, drill, translating sentences, and copying. With current teaching methods, fluency is more highly regarded than accuracy. Of course, the ultimate goal is accuracy and correct structures, but as students learn to speak, the emphasis is on fluency, smoothness, and the development of vocabulary, in order to communicate ideas.

In order to implement and support fluency, teachers MUST talk less and allow and encourage students to talk more! This includes both free speaking among each other, as well as organized activities where students speak. When students are doing free English speaking in class or recess, they do not need to be corrected so as not to break up the fluidity of their speech. When, however, they are having an organized lesson, the teacher can make corrections in both structure and pronunciation, using casual tact and patience so as not to pressure the student.

If a student should ask for a specific word or a way to pronounce a word in English, the teacher should provide it. For example, “How do you say “libro” in English?” The teacher should simply answer: “book”. Do NOT tell students to look it up in a dictionary because it will discourage them from peaking, and it is tedious. Plus, we want to encourage the students to use an English-English dictionary, using the teacher and texts as a resource for expansion of English vocabulary. This is the best method to get students who will think in English, which is the key to fluency.

Part of speaking, of course, is oral communication with others. An extension of oral communication is oral presentation so that others will hear what ideas we have to present. When we give oral presentations, there are things to note so we can do a good job. Using Power Point, Keynote, or Prezi will help students organize their presentations, keep ideas visible, and serve as guidelines to not have to memorize anything. Also helpful, instead of digital presentations, could be posters, mind maps completed on an i-Pad and projected on a screen, or real, tangible articles that students bring to class to show and describe as they talk.  Below are more ideas.

ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP AND ENHANCE SPEAKING

Activity 1

Role plays These are a form of pair-practice which gives students freedom to play, improvise, and create. These are useful as a way to practice not only language, but also culturally appropriate behavior.

Procedure:

1. Create situations and roles for students. You may want to base these on a dialogue or something else you have studied in class.
2. Pair students, give them the situation and their roles, and have them carry out the role play. While students should practice material they have studied, also encourage them to be creative and improvise.
3. One way to close is by having one or two pairs do their role play for the whole class. This serves primarily to give a sense of closure and need not go on long. (If each pair performs, too much time is taken and other students spend too long sitting and waiting. Listening to classmates stumble through dialogues is not very good listening practice.)
4. Another way to close is by asking a few students what the outcome of their role play was (was the invitation accepted? etc.). This is much quicker than having students perform, but still provides a sense of closure.

Tip: Encourage creativity. If students make an effort to entertain, role plays are more fun to do and much more fun to watch. Be realistic, however, about the fact that not all students will be great public performers.

Activity 2

Show and Tell This informal but engaging activity involves bringing pictures or other objects to class, showing them, and talking about them. Show and Tell is good for providing listening practice and arousing interest in a topic. It also serves as a good informal warm- up or as a break from “real” class.

 

Activity 3

Songs are great for making class a warmer, nicer place. For maximum value in language classes, you might first sing or play the song to get everyone interested, and then teach all or part of the words to the song by saying the words and having students repeat (and perhaps memorize) after you. You may not be able to teach all of the words this way, especially if the song is long, but try to have students learn as much as possible of the song by listening and speaking rather than just reading.
There are many CD’s with children’s songs available. Interestingly, many people who do not even know a language well, can sing songs (from rote memory) without their native language accent; therefore, singing can greatly help to develop excellent pronunciation skills.

Activity 4

Surveys involve asking the same few questions several times to different people, so they are a good way for students to repeatedly practice questions and answers in a format which encourages genuine communication. For lower level students, this is one of the easiest formats for relatively free communicative interaction.

Procedure:

1. Decide on a topic or list of questions. This activity works better when you are genuinely curious about the results of the survey, and students too.
2. Tell students what the purpose/topic of the survey is. Either lists the questions you want them to ask or give them a general topic and have them write down their own questions. If you want them to generate their own questions (either individually or in groups), give them time to do this. Variation: Have students work in groups to prepare questions, and then each member of the group asks the same questions. Later they can get back together to compare notes and report results.
3. Tell students how many classmates they are expected to survey, and approximately how long they have to do it in. Alternatively, assign a time limit for each short interview. 4. Have them conduct the survey. You may need to occasionally encourage them to move on to a new partner. You can either join in or wander and eavesdrop.
4. Close the activity by having a few students (or groups) report their findings.

Tip: Having students move around the class as they conduct their interviews makes things more lively and keeps everyone awake and involved.

Activity 5

Talks and Lectures are useful for helping students improve their listening and note-taking skills, especially for improving their ability to guess when listening to longer stretches of discourse in which it is not possible to catch every word; also it is useful for teaching culture. (Students are often especially interested in stories you tell about yourself, especially when supported with pictures or other visuals.)

Procedure:

1. Locate information and prepare the talk.
2. Tell students what you are going to talk about, and ask them to take notes. (Taking notes forces them to listen more carefully.) Participants may need some instruction on how to take notes.
3. Give the talk. If students’ listening skills are not strong, it is very easy to lose your audience, so keep an eye out for the glazed-over look that says your audience has been left behind.
4. After the talk there are a number of ways to check comprehension: ask questions; have students write a summary of your talk; give a short quiz; have students write (and ask) follow-up questions based on what you talked about; have students talk or write about corresponding aspects of their own culture; based on your talk, have students work in groups to list similarities and differences between Chinese culture and yours.

Tips:

1. Your country and culture are especially good topics, but other topics such as your experiences in China, language learning, etc. can also be useful.
2. You can make your talk easier to follow by first giving students a list of questions to listen for the answers, or by writing a simple outline of the talk on the blackboard. Also write down key new vocabulary words that you use.
3. Visual aids of any kind are very helpful.
4. For maximum benefit, try to pitch the talk so that students can follow much of what you are saying, but still have to guess some of the time.
5. You can make talks easier for students with lower listening levels to follow by first giving them clues in the form of questions to answer or outlines, forms, or graphs to fill in. The questions (outlines) help focus students’ listening, make it easier for students to anticipate and guess, and also enhance motivation and encourage active listening.

Activity 6

 

Teacher Interview A good speaking activity is having your students interview you “press conference” style about a topic, often after they have prepared questions in groups. This is good for speaking and listening practice, and for encouraging student initiative; it also helps students to get to know you and your culture better.

 

Procedure:

1. Be sure you are prepared for any questions students might ask on the topic.
2. Tell students that they are reporters interviewing you so that they can write a story for the local paper. Then give them the topic and some time to prepare questions related to the topic. This can be done individually, but it is often better for speaking practice to have them work in groups.
3. Have students conduct the interview like a press conference.
4. If you plan to require a written report, have students take notes. You may also want to put new vocabulary on the board.
5. To close, ask comprehension questions, or ask a few volunteers to tell you what they found most interesting or surprising about what they learned from the interview. Alternatively, you can ask each student to write a short report based on the interview. (For more suggestions on checking comprehension, see Talks and Lectures.)

Tip: To ensure that the process isn’t dominated by a few zealous students, one approach is allowing each group in turn to ask one question. This allows shyer students to get their questions asked by the group representative. If there is less need to protect shy students, another alternative is to simply require that everyone ask at least one question.

Activity 7

Total Physical Response (TPR) This is a “Simon Says” type of activity that we saw in the “Listening” article previously presented in THE ENGLISH CORNER.

“Simon Says” is a game in which the teacher gives students instructions, and they respond by doing what the teacher asks (rather than by speaking). Because students respond with action rather than speech, they can focus their attention more fully on listening to what the teacher says (rather than having at the same time to worry about constructing an oral response). This method is good for building listening skills, especially for students at lower levels, and can also be used to introduce or review vocabulary and even grammar structures.
 Once they play it for a few minutes, with the teacher giving the instructions, the teacher should select names from the students’ name cards, and let a student give the directions. He or she has a turn until the first person makes an error. Then the teacher selects another name, in this way, students get speaking experience, and they learn how to give directions with the goal being to “trick” the others into responding incorrectly, which takes some thinking skills, as well.

Procedure:

1. Before the activity, make a list of the instructions you wish to use. (Ex: “Open your books.” “Turn to page six.” Touch your nose with your friend’s pen.” etc.)
2. Conduct the activity in a game-like manner, repeating instructions and building for faster student responses.
3. If you want to make it more like a game, add the “Simon Says” element; i.e. tell students they should only carry out the instruction if you preface it by saying “Simon Says”.
4. When the students become the “teacher”, make sure they speak loudly enough for all to hear.

Tip:  This activity can be especially useful for teaching basic classroom instructions to students with very low listening skills.

Activity 8

True/False Listening: For this activity, prepare a number of short statements, some true and some false, and then present them to students as an informal “true/false” quiz. This activity is good for reviewing vocabulary and culture content from previous lessons while also providing listening practice.

Procedure:

1. Write up a set of statements for a short true/false quiz, drawing material (vocabulary, cultural information) from previous lessons. This is most fun if the statements are a little tricky without being mean. The more this seems like a game instead of a test, the better.
2. Ask students to listen to each statement, decide if it is true or false, and write down T or F on a numbered sheet. After the exercise, the answers can be checked as a group. Alternatively, just ask everyone to shout out the answer.

Activity 9

Interviews are especially good for intermediate or advanced oral skills classes because they allow in-depth exploration of a topic and provide students with practice in explaining opinions.

Procedure:

1. Decide what topic(s) you want students to interview each other on.
2. Give directions for the interviews. Students need to know the suggested topic and approximately how much time they will have. If you want students to write up their own list of questions, they will also need a few minutes to do this.
3. Pair students. Often it is good to find a way to pair students with someone other than the person sitting next to them (who they probably already know fairly well).
4. Have students carry out interviews. Once student A finishes interviewing student B, you can ask them to switch roles, or even switch partners. You may want to set a time limit, and call out when partners should switch roles.
5. To close, ask a few students to report some of the more interesting things they learned from their partner during the interview.

Tips:

1. Topics which involve opinions or information not shared by everyone in the class are best because they make interviews more genuinely communicative.
2. Role playing and interviews mix nicely; for example, one person might be a reporter and the other a famous person.

Activity 10

Cocktail Party is a free form of speaking practice in which students get out of their seats and converse with different partners in a style similar to that of a cocktail party.

Procedure:

1. Explain the basic “rules” of a cocktail party to students:

Rule #1: You should talk to more than one person rather than talking to the same person the whole time.

Rule #2: After talking with someone for a while, you must close your conversation and move on to someone else.
Also teach students a few lines for striking up conversations
(Ex: “It sure is hot today”), and for closing them (Ex: “Well, it’s been nice talking to you, but it’s getting late, and I need to get going.”).

2. Let students know whether or not you want them to practice specific material (from a model dialogue, for example), how long they have to talk, and how many people you expect them to talk to.
3. Turn students loose, and join in.
4. When time is up or enthusiasm runs thin, call everyone back to their seats. Close by asking a few students about their conversations. This is generally more fun — and other students will pay more attention — if you ask a specific question appropriate to the activity (Ex: “Tell me a little about the most interesting conversation you had.” “What new things did you learn?”) rather than having students summarize all their conversations.

Tip:

This format is relatively noisy, so consider the impact this chaos will have on nearby classes.

Activity 11

Make a Budget

This activity has the students working in pairs, a boy (man) and a girl (woman) working together. If you have an uneven number of boys/girls, it is OK, as they can pretend they are roommates.
The objective it to make a livable, sustainable budget for two people. The teacher can decide how much money the pair “earns”, quoting it in Euros, Mexican pesos, Brazilian reales, or US dollars.

Ideally, this activity spans over several days, or even a few weeks, with students having time to talk and decide their expenses and earnings based on newspapers from the city where they live…or where they propose to live.

Procedure:

1. Teacher must explain what a “budget” is….The teacher must circulate among the students as they work, to assure that they are speaking English as they work…and to help them with vocabulary words they may need to use.
2. Then over days or weeks, depending on how much time per day will be devoted to this project, students, guided by the teacher, do the following:

First: Students make a list, as a pair, of logical expenses they will need to live well. This is labeled as “IDEAL BUDGET #1”.

Second: Students add up the expenses from “Ideal Budget #1” to see how much the expenses total. A SAMPLE list of expenses that could be included follows these procedures.

Third: The students INCOME must be determined. This can be done by chance, or by planning.

CHANCE: The teacher has two bags with slips of paper inside. One bag is for one person of the pair, and the other bag is for the other person in the pair In one bag, each slip has a monthly salary amount written on it, from low salary amounts to rather high amounts. The second bag has slips with salaries, but, also, in the bag are slips that say: “unemployed”, or “stay-at-home Mom”, “college student”, or other designation. Each person in the pair draws from a different bag to provide a realistic balance of what actually happens in some households.

PLANNING: The students as a pair determine what their salary will be based on three things they need to establish: (1) How much education did they complete? (2) What is their career? (3) What are they earning? This should be based on newspaper job advertisements or Internet research.

ALL students who choose this route, MUST pretend they are in the first year of their job. This will prevent students from unrealistically saying that they are the “top boss at IBM, earning a million dollars a year!”

 

Fourth: Once students know their combined salaries, they will need to prepare a REALISTIC BUDGET #2, adjusting the sums from the IDEAL BUDGET to reflect the reality of their income. Each pair of students will have to discuss and decide which budgeted items need to be adjusted, either lower or higher.

3. Once the IDEAL BUDGET has been adjusted in order to prepare a REALISTIC BUDGET, students will share with the class , orally and visually, with written posters, or with transparencies, or Power Point, or on the board, a summary of what they learned in this project.
They should be prepared by the teacher on how to make summary statements, explaining what was the one, most important thing they learned from the project.

SAMPLE BUDGET:  TOPIC IDEAS TO BE INCLUDED

• rent or mortgage
• electricity
• water
• cable TV
• house repairs
• food
• household paper and cleaning products
• eating out in restaurants
• savings
• insurance: health
• car payments
• car maintenance: oil, tires
• miscellaneous expenses
• laundry (soap, bleach, dry cleaning)
• personal money for books, movies
• personal money for hair cuts or manicures
• property taxes
• cleaning service (home)
• clothing, and shoes
• medicines / vitamins
• doctors / dentists
• going out /movies vacations / travel
• gifts
• insurance: life insurance:
• car gasoline
• furniture replacement
• hobbies / sports

“Personal Money” includes beauty items (face and body creams, lipstick, makeup, cologne, perfume, etc.), and cleanliness items (shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, razors, special soaps, etc.).

Activity 12

Use puppets: By using puppets that you buy or make, or that students make, you can encourage speaking activities and role-play, even developing plays with various puppet characters. Developing conversation skills using puppets is very easy because students feel less self-conscious speaking through a puppet than by themselves.

Activity 13

Use pictures: Cut out pictures from magazines and paste them onto index cards. On the back of each card, you can write some vocabulary words that could be derived from the picture. Students can use the cards in pairs to stimulate discussion, with questions and answers, or giving an explanation of the picture to his/her partner. The words on the back can be used for support…or for the student to check AFTER a pair activity to see if he/she used many of the words. Example: a picture could be a mother holding a baby, kissing it on the cheek. Words on the back of the card could include: MOTHER, BABY, LOVE, KISS, AFFECTION, CARING, TENDERNESS, FACE, HEAD, EYES, MOUTH, PARENT, CHILD.

Activity 14

Role playing is an activity that can be very structured at the beginning, practiced as a large class group repeating after the teacher. Later, it can be an opportunity for free, flexible responses by the students as their language fluency and vocabulary grow. STRUCTURED EXAMPLE: (following a script the teacher provides and practices with the entire class first…)

1. Good afternoon. Can I help you?
2. Yes, I want to buy shoes for my child.
3. Hi, young lady. May I measure your feet?
4. She’s a bit shy, but, yes, please measure her feet.
5. OK. She seems to need a size 1.
6. Please show me some white shoes for her size.

UNSTRUCTURED, FREE CONVERSATION EXAMPLE: (invented as they speak with no prior script…)

1. Hi! Can I help you find something?
2. No, thanks. I’m just looking for now.
3. OK…Let me know if I can help you later.
4. Thanks, I will.
5. (Later) Did you find anything interesting?
6. Yes. Can you explain this computer game to me, please?

 

Activity 15

 

Pick a topic: The teacher will have strips of paper in a bag. The strips have various speaking topics written on each one. Students will draw a strip from the bag and speak on the topic. Topics can be simple, one-word topics to sentences, depending on the vocabulary level, ability, and experience of the students. Teacher can set the time to present, from one minute to 3 minutes. Since the audience can find this boring, only use this activity with 3 or 4 students each time. Also, if the talks are 3 minutes or more, give the audience a rating chart so they can participate by rating the speakers.

(SEE the ASSESSMENTS section which follows to obtain a sample PEER ASSESSMENT form.)

ASSESSMENTS for LISTENING AND SPEAKING

 

1. Comments about assessing students
2. What are we looking for? Once we decide, that is how we evaluate. Many school systems do NOT give grades to primary students. Instead, they use narrative explanations or lists of what they expect from a normal child at a specific grade level. They use three levels to assess the students’ progress:

Below expectations (Still developing skills in this area)

Meeting expectations (On target; good job)

Exceeding expectations (Over and beyond, excelling at all work, and using high level thinking skills)

2. The use of projects, in place of traditional exams, can help us see the various abilities of our students. (Multiple intelligences)
3. The use of alternative grading tools: RUBRICS. These allow a much fairer way to assess essays, projects, drawings, and other types of work that require a subjective, rather than objective, assessment.
4. Grade for both content and mechanics so that students can get credit for their entire work: ideas as well as technical details. This helps students pay better attention to their work, and allows them to see where they need to improve. Otherwise, they just see the bad grade and give up, not really knowing where they went wrong.
5. Grading/Assessing

Sometimes you may want to use a different way to evaluate or score your students’ work. Here is a list of several ways: points, words, or percentages. Feel free to use them as you want.
In this rubric, a score of ONE is the lowest and FIVE is the highest. Students should have access to the rubric before they have a speaking assessment so that they will be able to set their goals.

1. Sample Oral Presentations Assessment (for PEERS or Teachers)

Person Presenting:_____________________________________

Topic: ________________________________________________

Please rate each of the following criteria on a scale of 1 to 5:

(1 = needs much improvement       5 = excellent)

1. The presenter spoke clearly.
2. The presenter spoke at a good volume. (not too loud or soft)
3. The presenter spoke at a good pace. (not too fast or slow)
4. The presenter faced the audience.
5. The presenter appeared relaxed.
6. The presenter stood up straight.
7. The presenter used effective hand gestures.
8. The presenter made eye contact with me.
9. The introduction caught my attention.
10. The speaker held my interest for the whole talk.
11. The presenter provided some good examples.

 

12. The conclusion wrapped up the speech.

 

Comments / Specific Notes on Strengths and Areas to Improve:

 

 

Remember to give students many opportunities to speak English:  to each other, to you, and to speak to the class as a presenter. The more time students speak, the more practice they’ll have, and their fluency level will rise.

The next section (#3) in the BUILDING LANGUAGE SKILLS series will be IMPROVING READING SKILLS.

___________________________

by Elaine Gallagher

2,000 years ago, the Celtic (Keltic) people of the United Kingdom began the holiday we now know as Halloween. Every autumn, as days became colder and darker, the Celts made up a story to explain why winter came, and all the crops and flowers died. The Celts believed in a sun god who made the crops grow. But each year the sun god was attacked and held prisoner for six months by an evil power called Samhain, the “Lord of Darkness”, who brought the cold and darkness of winter days.

A New Year’s ceremony, to mark the weakening of the sun god and the triumph of Samhain, was held on October 31^st by the Celtic priests. The priests wore long, flowing white robes and met on hilltops to light bonfires. Sometimes they would hurl animals or prisoners into the fires as a sacrifice to please the cruel Lord of Darkness. The fire was strong, hot like the sun The priests believed that evil spirits would fear the fire. Then the priests thanked the sun god for the good harvest, and at midnight they asked Samhain to let brightness and warmth return to Earth.

The night of October 31^st was feared more than any other night of the year by the Celtics. They were sure that evil spirits lurked everywhere, so they started fires in their homes to keep evil spirits from coming inside. They believed that Samhain called dead people together and turned them into other forms, especially cats.

When much of Europe was conquered by the Romans, they gradually blended two Roman festivals, called Feralia and Pomona, with the Samhain festival. Feralia was a festival to honor the dead, and Pomona, was celebrated by the Romans spreading out apples and nuts to show their thanks for a good harvest. The Halloween custom of bobbing for apples comes from the Roman Pomona ceremonies. The Catholic Church contributed the name “Halloween” to all these traditions. November 1^st is All Saints’ Day, which honors all saints who died for their faith. The night before All Saints’ Day – October 31^st – was called “All Hallow’s Eve”, old English for All Holy Evening. Eventually, this name was contracted to “Hallowe’en.”

              

          Celebrations for Halloween

Halloween is celebrated in the USA now more than in Europe. Long before American children started trick-or-treating, people in Europe celebrated October 31^st as a day of ghosts and goblins.  Trick-or-treating has its roots in receiving food in return for praying for the donors’ dead ancestors.  When the Irish came to North America, Halloween became very popular. Children started playing pranks each year on October 31^st, blaming the pranks on evil goblins.

 

Superstitions and Halloween Customs

Costumes: People used to fear evil spirits, especially on Halloween. They hoped that by putting on masks and costumes, that evil spirits would leave them alone.

          Jack O’Lanterns: A legend from Ireland tells about, Jack, a stingy man who was ordered to wander the Earth after he died, searching for a resting place. Because of all his bad deeds, Jack was forbidden to enter heaven. The devil gave Jack a piece of burning coal, which he put into a turnip, making a lantern. Irish children used to carve smiling faces on hollowed out turnips. On Halloween night they put them on a window to scare away witches. When the Irish moved to North America, they brought their Halloween beliefs and customs with them. But instead of turnips, they carved pumpkins which were more common than turnips. The carved pumpkin became called a Jack O’Lantern in memory of the old legend.

Trick-Or-Treating: In Ireland hundreds of years ago, some people celebrated  Halloween night by putting on white robes and masks. Then they marched from farm to farm begging for food or money in the name of the old Druid, “Muck Olla.” In exchange for the treats, the  beggars offered wishes for good luck and prosperity. On All Souls’ Day, the poor begged for “soul cakes”, square buns with currents. In return for the soul cakes, the beggars prayed for any dead relatives of the person giving the cakes.

The custom gradually changed, and children started getting apples, buns, and money when they begged.  Later, when the Irish came to America, tricks were added to the begging for treats. Halloween pranksters took gates off hinges, soaped windows, rang doorbells and ran away, and then blamed everything on leprechauns.

Superstitions: People wanted to know what would happen to them in the future, and because Halloween was a time of witches and goblins, some superstitions were started.

1. If a cat sat next to you on Halloween, you would have good fortune. But if the cat jumped on your lap, you would enjoy fantastic luck.

2. A person would throw a stone into a fire to find out whether he could expect to live much longer. If the stone rolled away from the fire, the person would soon die.

3. Girls would throw a nut into a fire to find out whether their boyfriend loved them. If the nut burned, the love was still true. But if the nut burst, the boyfriend didn’t care anymore.

4. The Irish would cook up a dish in which they placed a ring, a thimble, a tiny doll, and a coin. If you got the ring, you would be married within a year. If you got the thimble, you’d never marry. If you found the doll in your serving, you would have children. And if you received the coin, great wealth would soon come to you.

5. You could make a wish come true by eating a crust of bread before going to bed on Halloween night.

 _____________________________________

 

By Elaine Gallagher, PhD

This begins a 4-part series on “Building Language Skills”.

We’ll begin by looking at Listening, the first language skill that humans acquire. This topic will be followed by three more articles about: Speaking, Reading, and Writing.

 

1. LISTENING

The first language skill that humans develop is listening.

LISTENING is considered to be a RECEPTIVE skill, something humans can do with little effort on their part. Someone speaks, or music is played, or a noise occurs…and the receiver hears it. That is why it’s called a receptive skill, because it is received by the person, not produced by the person.

Scientists and doctors now can prove that babies inside their mothers’ wombs respond to sounds such as soothing classical music, singing or humming by the mother, or loud noises. As a biological reality, listening occurs naturally by the baby even before birth. Once born, the baby responds to all kinds of sounds, and can sense the tone of voice by adults around him / her, such as calming, loud, or angry voices.

There are some studies suggesting that these early sounds can affect a baby’s emotional development and personality. There are many adults who believe that a new-born baby is just a baby, not understanding anything until months later, when he/she is able to respond to the spoken word.

Studies, however,  have shown that babies who are spoken to continuously from birth onward, as if they could speak themselves, develop speaking skills and vocabulary levels much higher than if they were just treated as “baby dolls”, incapable of understanding.

When applied to language learning, whether a first, second, or third language, there is a biological rule that must be kept in mind:

RECOGNITION PRECEDES PRODUCTION

What does that mean?

It means that babies, or even adults, learning any language will be able to recognize the meanings of many things before they can actually SPEAK the language.

If you say a baby’s name, he or she will recognize it, and respond in some manner, even before he/she can say a word. If you say to a small child, “Please bring me my book that’s over there on the table”, (pointing and gesturing as you speak), the child will go get the book, bring it to you, recognizing what you had wanted, even though he or she cannot yet speak in phrases, perhaps only able to say, “Mama” or “Daddy”.

It’s important to know three essential facts about developing listening skills:

1. The more a person is exposed to the spoken word (and to music with lyrics) the greater will be his/her listening vocabulary and speaking ability. Babies should be spoken to in the crib, from infancy onward, with a rich vocabulary, not in “baby-talk”.
2. Listening and hearing are two different skills. HEARING is a physical ability: sounds going to the ear, passively received in the hearer’s brain. LISTENING is an active mental skill, a thinking skill. Listening is for a specific purpose….. to answer: “What did he/she say? Why? What is the message? What does it mean? How should I respond?”
3. No language skill is taught or learned in isolation. SPEAKING cannot occur without having listened to someone speaking. Listening and speaking are so closely related that it is almost impossible to separate them, although educators and biology experts everywhere agree that hearing precedes listening, and listening precedes speaking.

Because of the three previous essential facts, we know that people learning a language (LL) must have months, maybe years, of listening before they can produce words themselves. There is no rush, nor should there be an urgency or pressure to speak.?As you know,  RECOGNITION PRECEDES PRODUCTION.

What we are emphasizing here is that listening ability depends on language INPUT. The more input, the more a LL hears, the more he/she will begin to understand, and the greater will be the development of listening skills.

The more someone listens to vocabulary, phrases, and sentences, the better listening ability the LL will have, and eventually, the better speaking ability the LL will develop.

Listening is the first skill that a child learns in his/her native language (L1). It is also the first skill a person learns in a second language (L2) or third language (L3). Language learning is very natural. Children in Europe learn three or more languages with little difficulty, being exposed to them from primary school or before, and beyond, so that by age of 18, they have acquired fluency in several languages.

DEVELOPING LISTENING SKILLS: SIX INGREDIENTS

1. “Comprehensible Input” (Krashen) means that the student must have a reason to use the language being learned. The INPUT is what is received and assimilated by the learner.

If the teacher says, “Let’s go outside for recess.” and does NOT translate to the student’s native language, the students will quickly learn what it means by watching the actions of other students or the teacher.

Studying a subject or topic in the language to be learned is the BEST way to master a second language. Learning subjects, such as science or geography in the target language, helps students to bring “comprehensible input” (Krashen) to the language process. Better input leads to better output by the student.

Long-term studies of over 35 years, by Dr. Virginia Collier have proven that of all the various methods used in bilingual education (early-exit, pull- out, transitional, total immersion, etc.), the one with the highest achievement level for language fluency, over time, is the DUAL BILINGUAL MODEL, (Dr. Virginia Collier) whereby students study subjects in a second language for half day, and different subjects in their first language a half a day.

Collier’s research of 35 years shows that students in dual bilingual programs, at the end of 12th grade, score higher on achievement tests than any other methods…surprisingly, even higher than students who did not study a second language!

Some psychologists and educators theorize that the process of acquiring a second language stimulates neuron connectors, making the brain more agile, and therefore, students perform better in some language tests. (Dr. Tomás Ortiz, Diamond, Hull, et al)    It is said that if you only know ONE language, you don’t REALLY know it. The process of learning a second language strengthens your knowledge of the first language, too.

2. Recognition precedes production. Humans are able to recognize spoken or written words, and know what they mean, before they have the words on the “tip of their tongues”, ready to retrieve at will. It takes a while, as many as eleven exposures over time, for a word to move from short term, recognition memory to long term, production memory. Practice and exposure are the keys to language acquisition.
3. “Learning” a language is a conscious effort to study, memorize, and to learn. It is NOT as effective as “acquisition”. “Acquisition” of a language occurs through exposure to input that is slightly above the learner’s current level of competence. It comes through games, sports, songs, subjects, conversations, and frequent contact with speakers of the target language.
4. The affective filter MUST be down so that the “input” can enter. Students must be relaxed and unthreatened.
5. Use lots of visual aids, and opportunities to speak, listen, and use the language. Learners need active tasks and opportunities to “pick up” the language.
6. Language should be natural, not artificial. Rote sentences, models, patterns to copy are not natural. Asking and answering questions about a movie, a sport, a book, or ordering food in a restaurant, or planning a vacation are examples of natural language use, even if the situation is a role play activity.

The following activities are in no special order. They can be used by children, adolescents, and adults to practice and to strengthen listening skills.

You can adapt any of the activities to reflect the vocabulary and the degree of difficulty that you want to reinforce. Be flexible. Be creative. Be enthusiastic! Keep the activities “fun” for your students. Don’t prolong them too much, or even the best activity can be boring. The key is that students should WANT to continue the activity when you are ready to stop it. Usually ten to fifteen minutes is enough time to keep the activity interesting but not tedious.

If students ask to continue the activity, firmly but politely tell them, “We’ll do it again another day. I am so glad you enjoyed it. Little by little you’ll be super-fluent in English! I am so proud of your enthusiasm!”

 

ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP AND ENHANCE LISTENING

Activity 1

Total Physical Response (TPR) is a well-known activity to practice the ability to listen and actively demonstrate the word(s) you hear. It’s not a new concept, but is as effective today as it was thirty years ago. It’s used mainly to teach vocabulary, and is especially useful with younger children as they need physical expression, and enjoy moving around. It also helps to develop their gross motor skills. You can ask your students, from children to adults, to do many movements, simple to complicated.

“Stand up.”? “Sit down.”? “Raise your hand.”? “Raise your left elbow.”? “Go to the chalkboard and write your first name.” “Stand by the door with your face to the door.”

The more language the students learn, the more you can?ask them to do. One advantage of TPR is that immediately the teacher wil l?be able to see if the students understand the instructions or not.?Another advantage is that if a few students do not understand the instructions, they can see what other students are doing.

Activity 2

Simon Says is another veteran activity that helps LL (Language Learners) practice their listening abilities and their speedy reaction to verbal instructions. In this game, the LL are supposed to perform the activity only IF the leader precedes the instruction with, “Simon says…”.

For example: ?“Simon says stand up”.?“Simon says run in place.”? “Simon says put your hands on your head.” “ Sit down.”

Those who sit down after this last statement, are “out” of the game because the leader did not first say, “Simon says…”?  The last one standing wins the game, and becomes the leader for the next round of “Simon Says”.

Activity 3

Listen and Color is a game to use when children are learning their colors and numbers. Give them a plain sheet of paper, and tell them to fold it in half, and then in half again. (Show them as you say this.)?    Have them number each section, 1 to 4. Again, show them your model.?   Then invent things for them to do, simple at first. As you do this activity on various occasions, you can add to the difficulty. When the students hold up the papers, the teacher can check immediately to see if the students understood the instructions.

For example:

“In rectangle one, draw 3 bananas. Color them yellow. Then hold them up so I can see them.”

“In rectangle two, draw 5 balloons. Color 3 red, and color 2 green. Then hold them up so I can see them.”

“In rectangle three, draw 7 balls. Color 2 blue. Color 2 orange. Color 3 green. Now hold them up for me to see them.”

“In rectangle four, draw one tree. Color the leaves green and the trunk brown. Then draw one bird in the sky above the tree. Color the bird blue.

Now hold up your drawing so I can see it.” “THANK YOU, students. You did a GREAT job!!”

Activity 4

Listen and Repeat is an activity with simple or advanced levels of words, phrases, or sentences to listen to….and to repeat in the same intonation and pitch as the teacher or the class model. Children are great imitators. Adult language learners, too, can learn to imitate and use the correct tone and rhythm of the words or phrases.

Do NOT translate.  The idea is simple repetition, with a tone, and pitch as the model. The teacher can use happiness, sadness, fear, anger…Any emotions can be exhibited simply by a change in the tone of voice. Students can learn this skill easily by imitation. They can identify an emotion by the tone of voice, not by the words. The words and spoken vocabulary will come later.

Even something simple, such as, “Sit down”, can be exhibited as an angry phrase, a happy one, a sad one, or a fearful one…depending on how it is voiced.

Examples:    “ Listen to the radio.” “ Go to bed.” “ Help your grandmother.”

Activity 5

Mime sentences is played by having the teacher or game leader take a sentence from an envelope, say it aloud, and ask a student or a group of students to act it out. The audience claps if they believe that the student(s) acted it out clearly. They do NOT clap if the student(s) did not clearly act out the sentence.?Examples:

I have a headache.  I’m hungry.?   What time is it??    My foot hurts.  I am so tired!?      Do you want to dance with me? I have a stomach ache. I ate too much.? I’m talking on my cell phone.? I love you.

Activity 6

Listen. Can you say it? is a game/practice activity where the teacher or a student, makes a sound, or says a word twice. The others in the class have to repeat.?Starting with short sounds, and then, moving onto more complicated words, the participants say exactly what they hear. The goal is to improve listening and repeating skills.

Examples:

Mmmmm ah,    ah oh,     oh cat,      cat elephant,       elephant me me,

hippo,  hippo hippopotamus,  hippopotamus see,  see super-duper,  super-duper

 

Activity 7

Elbows Up is a game where the teacher says a list of numbers or letters or words in a pattern or a series. When the teacher leaves out a word or something in the series, the students lift up their right elbow. That way, the teacher can see immediately which students recognized the missing item. This activity builds listening skills.

Another way to play the game is to recite a series and have the students identify what the series is.

Examples of series: (numbers in order) ?1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10? Say: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 (After “ 7 “, elbows should be up when students recognize that 6 was left out).

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L?(alphabet letters)? Say: A, B, C, D, E, G, H….. (After “ G “ elbows should go up when they recognize that F was left out.

SAMPLE SERIES…You choose which one to leave out.

1st letter is in alphabetical order: apple, ball, cat, dog, elephant, frog, giraffe, horse, igloo, jaguar, kangaroo, lion, mouse, nut, ostrich, pig, queen, rabbit, skunk, tree, umbrella, violin, wolf, xylophone, yellow, zebra.

Rhyming words (You can put in a word that does not rhyme.) book, look, cook, shook, rook,            cat, rat, fat, mat, at, sat, tat,            it, hit, mitt, bit, sit, fit

Activity 8

Red Light, Green Light is a game where the children have a red circle and a green circle, glued back to back on a popsicle stick. They hold up the stick with the RED side facing the teacher if the answer is NO…They show the GREEN side if the answer is YES.? The teacher will be able to tell if the students know the answer right off because of the response style. Plus, all students get to actively participate.

Sample questions:    Do most dogs have a tail??      Are whales and dolphins fish??         Do whales and dolphins live in water??        Do red and blue mixed together make purple? Is the sun a planet?   ?Is the sun a star?    Can cats talk?   Can cats meow?  Should you brush your teeth every morning and night? Is your mother a woman?   Do you eat breakfast at night?  When you meet people should you say “hello”?   Do you eat books? Do you write with a fork?

With older students, these questions could lead to discussion….to defend answers that are not usual. For example: DO CATS TALK?  This is worth arguing about,,,because “TALK” does not have to be human talk…..A meow could be “cat talk”….When kids have arguments about such things, encourage them. It indicates critical thinking…and can build English skills, too.

Activity 9

Stories should be read aloud to the students every day. Nothing builds listening vocabulary as stories do. Stories play a vital role in language development. Establish a story-telling routine, where you sit, perhaps in a rocking chair or a beanbag chair. The students should be relaxed and comfortable…on the floor, with pillows, or at their desk, relaxed. Lower the lights. Set the scene for pleasure.?The good thing about reading aloud to the students is that you can read the same story over and over again to them if it’s one they especially like. Students love the repetition and after time, they will even join in with you to say words from the story. STORY TELLING OR READING ALOUD IS NOT ONLY FOR YOUNG LEARNERS. EVEN TEENAGERS LOVE TO LISTEN.

This activity is for fun and pleasure! This is not to be taught as a lesson, or tested. Just relax, read, and let kids ENJOY!

“Fee, Fi , Fo Fum…I smell the blood of an Englishman,” says the Giant several times in “Jack and the Beanstalk”.?“I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down”, says the wolf repeatedly in the tale of “The Three Little Pigs”.

Students will join in as if they are part of the story chorus to repeat lines from the story. They love it, and when they do, the teacher knows that the students really are listening and getting involved in the story.

Do NOT make the grave error of translating the story or groups of words. The students NEED to have a reason to learn English. To comprehend is the reason.

Listening regularly to stories provides children with the opportunity to use their imagination, and to create pictures in their brains. They accept giants and witches, animals that talk, and people who can fly. Stories can help students to come to terms with their own feelings about an issue. They can learn to identify with story characters and the dilemmas they face.? Fact or fiction stories provide lessons to the listeners. The structure of many stories helps children when they eventually come to tell or write their own stories. The best and most creative writers are people who love to read! Learning to love to read occurs when adults read to kids from early childhood through to the teen age years!

Traditional fairy tales, such as “Little Red Riding Hood” and “The Three Little Pigs” are great stories to tell or to read for younger learners. . “The Secret Garden”, “Heidi”, “Sherlock Holmes”, and “Green Grass of Wyoming” are stories that interest older learners. These kinds of stories have clear structure, easy for five year olds to understand, or 15 year-olds to enjoy. They have repetition, so that children can see a pattern to various phrases. Fairy tales have interesting characters, with identifiable traits so students can get a feeling of what is right and what is wrong. They have a setting, and a series of events that lead on to other events. Consequences predictably follow some events, making the story a lesson of life. Stories can lead to drawings, sequencing, vocabulary growth, basic discussions, and to a love of stories, setting the base for eventual reading enjoyment.

Activity 10

Animal sounds is a game for pre-school children, where the teacher (or a student) makes the sound of an animal, and the class has to say the name of the animal. The reverse can also be played with the teacher saying the name of an animal, and the students make the animal’s sound.

horse…………………. a whinny             cat……………………. meow

pig…………………….oink, oink             dog……………………woof, woof or bow wow

cow …………………….moo moo           bird…………………….whistling or peep peep

turkey………………….gobble gobble    sheep…………baa baaa

Later, as vocabulary builds, you can use other things like a car, a train, a truck, an airplane, a bus, etc.

TEACHERS: You’ll be able to find many ideas for listening activities in the Internet or from your colleagues. Use listening activities frequently to develop a strong base for speaking.

________________________________________

NEXT:  PART 2: BUILDING SPEAKING SKILLS

 

by Elaine Gallagher 

The first celebration to honor Christopher Columbus took place in Barcelona, Spain, in 1493. Following his voyage across the Atlantic and back again, Columbus rode on a beautiful white horse at the head of a parade beside King Ferdinand. Because he failed to bring back gold and spices, however, there were no parades after Columbus’ second, third, and fourth voyages. In fact, nearly three hundred years went by before another big Columbus Day celebration took place on October 12, 1792 in New York and Maryland.

In Mexico and most other Latin American countries, this day is celebrated as the Dia de la Raza, Day of the Race, though some countries celebrate it under other names. In the 15^th century, Christopher Columbus thought he had found a new and shorter route to India, which was a trading partner of many countries in Europe. It took him eight years to convince Queen Isabella of Spain to finance his journey. He left with three small ships: La Niña, La Pinta, and La Santa Maria. And on October 12, 1492 he landed on an island in the Bahamas, thinking he was in India.

Archaeological finds have proven that America was discovered long before Columbus arrived, but he was the first one to establish real contact between the American continents and Europe. He claimed the new land in the name of the Spanish monarchy. Thirty years later in 1522, Mexico was conquered by Hernan Cortes and became a colony of Spain for the next 300 years. The Spanish conquistadores brought missionaries with them, and although Spain imposed its government and religion, the people of Mexico intermarried and many native traditions have survived.

Mexico today is a mixture of the Spanish and the indigenous. We call that new race and that new culture mestizo. And that is what we celebrate on October 12^th, Dia de la Raza. In the U.S.A. Columbus Day is often celebrated on the Monday closest to the 12^th in order to give a long weekend.

______________________

by Elaine Gallagher, Ph.D.

 

TEACHERS: This article summarizes the major points of English phonics. It’s a review for you on how children begin to learn to read in English.

 

BEGINNING ENGLISH PHONICS

Grades K – 3rd

 

INTRODUCTION

Phonics in any language is the system of sounds that letters make in order to produce a word.  Some languages, such as Spanish, are 100% phonetic. Each letter, including vowels and consonants, always have the same sound.  Once you learn the letters’ sounds, you can read and spell easily.

Other languages, such as English, do have a phonetic system, but there are many irregularities and exceptions. For that reason, English is often difficult to acquire for non-native speakers.  Beginning the acquisition of English in early childhood is the best way, of course, but at any age a language can be acquired, if taught using CLIL philosophy, interesting activities, and comprehensible input.

This article will look at English phonics, level by level, grades Kindergarten through grade three, helping teachers to present the English phonetic system smoothly, so that our students will be able to reproduce sounds as near-native-like as possible.

There are several steps to be taken based on brain studies and how children acquire a second language. While the order in which sounds should be taught, or which letters should be written is very controversial, all experts agree that LISTENING to the spoken language is MOST important.

Research does NOT support early writing. From the early 1970’s, beginning with Dr. Rudolph Flesch’s “Why Johnny Can’t Read”, to current researchers, such as Emilia Ferriero and Dr. Howard Friedman, a psychologist at the University of California, early writing (before age 6) is not recommended.  Period.

Prof Friedman said: “Most children under age six need lots of time to play, and to develop social skills, and to learn to control their impulses. An over-emphasis on formal classroom instruction – that is, studies instead of buddies, or staying-in writing instead of playing out-side – can have serious, negative effects that show up in 2nd or 3rd grades of primary.”

Sounds should be taught in groups, so that the children can see and hear a pattern. (cat, rat, fat, tat, mat).

While there are various approaches, each of them effective, I recommend teaching the short vowel sounds first. (because they confuse the most, and are the most important in changing the sounds in a word.). Then teach the long vowel sounds. It will seem so easy for the kids after they already learned the short vowels.

There are exceptions: 85% of words are phonetic; 15% are irregular. Therefore, some sight words need to be taught. These are words learned by visual memory, such as by using flashcards. An excellent list of these sight words is the 220 Dolch words. If you want a copy of the list, write, and I’ll send it. (juniorbarney1@yahoo.com)

Have children practice writing the same words they are learning phonetically, when they are 6 or 7 years or older.  It opens up another path to their brains. Don’t force younger children to write, which includes tracing. Oral production and letter recognition will be enough for younger children to develop phonics. Fine motor skills need to wait to be developed until students’ gross motor abilities have been well-developed, usually by age 6 or 7.

This has NOTHING to do with intelligence. Most 4 or 5 year-olds CAN be taught how to write, but shouldn’t be, because the negative effects may not be realized for 2 to 4 more years, with dyslexia, school phobia, “stomach aches”,  and the exhibition of other learning disabilities, which can affect 15% of children pushed at ages 3, 4, or 5 tears old to write. Do you want to risk your child’s future? Read Dr. Freidman’s research results which show kids can learn to write well, painlessly, if we just wait until they are 6 or 7 years of age.

HOW TO BEGIN

In Kindergarten, oral and listening skills need to be developed and emphasized, NOT writing and reading, which should come in first grade of primary, once children’s gross-motor skills are well-developed.

Fine-motor skills, such as writing with a pencil or pen, need to be developed slowly and gradually. Most countries that have high PISA scores, such as Canada, Finland, and many others, begin writing in 1st grade of primary, usually 6 or 7 years of age.

The following ideas are true for all grade levels, from Kindergarten through Grade 3 of primary.

• Read stories to children every day.
• Show pictures in the story and express what they are.
• Students listen. LISTENING is the first step in any good phonics program.
• Songs and rhymes that students repeat help develop the feel of the English language. Even if the children do not understand the words (“The Hokey Pokey”), they can repeat and enjoy the activity.
• Use picture flashcards so students will associate the picture with the word.
• Oral production must precede reading.
• Build a strong oral vocabulary, beginning with words that can be pictured.
• Activities in art or games, conducted 100% in English form a base for students to grasp the concept of another language.
• Phonics support your reading and spelling program.  Short, dynamic lessons, 10 -15 minutes a day will be enough to supplement whatever else you are doing in English.
• Use plenty of art material, coloring, painting, songs, dances, and games to support your reading program.

• Phonics should be taught separately from your text because the text often will present material, such as phrases, that are not phonetic, but which need to be    taught by memory. (Example: “What’s your name?”)

Brain studies show that children learn best with words in patterns,     phonetically arranged.  Remember, however, that students also need to         have a base of sight words that they can instantly identify by sight, which may not correspond to any phonics rule.

Excellent readers and spellers have a broad base of both phonics and sight words.

 

KINDERGARTEN (K 2, 3)

The lessons below can be easily adapted to any reading series.  I have kept it general on purpose, so that this phonics article will not need to be updated whenever you change texts. Remember: native English speakers had several years to hear the language before they spoke. Kindergarten is a place where students will listen 100% in English, where they will be encouraged to speak only in English, and where the recognition of sounds and words in English is constructing a base for first grade.

     The main objective in Kindergarten is to build up a large speaking vocabulary, based on the child’s self-confidence, which develops from play, collaboration with other kids, games, stories read-aloud by the teacher or other adults, and a wide variety of activities and field trips so that the students have something to talk about.

MATERIALS

An alphabet chart with large letters so all the children can see them easily.

Flashcards of pictures of the pre-primer words listed on the Dolch List (the first two columns.)

Picture words vocabulary.

 

PHONICS STEPS

Students learn to sing the alphabet song in English.

It may take one month before the children know the song by memory.  At the same time the children sing, the teacher should be pointing to the corresponding letters on an alphabet chart so that they can begin to sense that sounds and names of letters are shown by symbols (letters of the alphabet), even though we do NOT expect children to read them yet.

Read books and poems to the children every day, because they will hear rhymes and rhythms.

Encourage the children to repeat some the words after you as you read, especially the rhyming words or refrains.

Read nursery rhymes to the children. They do not need to know what

the words mean.  They are simply hearing the sounds, and then repeating them.

 

        Sing songs:

Mary Had a Little Lamb,

Ring Around the Rosy,

London Bridge,

The Farmer in the Dell,

Incey Wincey Spider,

Starlight, Star Bright, etc.

Have CD’s with many children’s songs in English. They can be obtained free on Internet.

You notice that in most Kindergarten texts, there is NO reading, only pictures.   Once they progress to having a general listening vocabulary, children listen to stories and point to pictures indicating that they understand the story sequence.

When you have story words that could be easily rhymed, teach the children to say the rhyming word.  If “hat” is a word in your story, have the students repeat words like: “hat, cat, rat, mat, fat”.

New directives from many countries’ SECRETARY OF EDUCATION advise that Kindergarten children, under age 6, should NOT be writing or reading until first grade of primary, so we need to be conscious of that so that we do not push the children.

Many studies indicate that 15% of children who have had their fine motor skills utilized at too young an age, before age 6, later have problems, exhibiting learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, because not enough attention had been given to gross motor control skills development, such as running, jumping, playing ball, walking on a balance beam, skipping, throwing balls, etc.

Topics for vocabulary development at Kindergarten level include words or topics that could be used with any book. These are all ORAL exercises, not written, although the teacher can have some words for students to see so that they learn that what is spoken can be written.

FIRST SEMESTER

Identifying yourself….I am Sara.  I am Miguel.

Counting 1-5, matching what they say with objects….Three books.

Identifying sizes…big, small, long/short.

Feelings: happy, sad, tired.

Shapes….round, square, triangle

Colors

House, furniture

Parts of the body, health

 

   SECOND SEMESTER

Identifying land vehicles: car, bus, train

Sea and sky vehicles: boat, airplane

Opposites: big, bigger, small, smaller

Insects: bugs, spiders

Living things: dinosaurs

Science: camping, night, day, sun. moon, stars, space

 

Remember: Recognition precedes production. Kindergarten should be a time where the students listen, repeat, follow instructions given in English, sing songs, point to objects, do artwork and physical activities, all in English.

You are building the base for first grade while children are in Kindergarten.  So use the time wisely!

 READ a story every day to the children!

 

FIRST GRADE

Vocabulary / spelling development

Students need to know a variety of items that are not all phonetic. Remember, only 85% of English words are phonetic.  The rest have to be memorized by frequent use and practice.

Practice these Dolch words over and over to build up a large speaking vocabulary. In the first grade book, colors, for example, are mentioned in first semester in the first list. Do not drop the colors vocabulary as you move on with new lists.  ALL words should be recycled over and over, until the students have accomplished to keep the words in long-term memory, as exemplified by the spontaneous use of the word in everyday conversation. This proves that the child has absorbed the words and can retrieve them to be used.

The sample unit topics below are typical of what students would need to learn in any text.  Major topics include:

 

FIRST SEMESTER

School and Friends

Who Am I?

My Lunch Box

My Family and I

 

SECOND SEMESTER

My Home

Things I Wear

Toys and Games

My Pets

 

FIRST GRADE

Phonics to be covered:

In first grade, children will learn short vowels a, e, i, o, u (animal, elephant, Indian, octopus, umbrella), consonant blends, and the words practiced.  There are lists and tapes to repeat, repeat, repeat!  The children need to learn how to hear and distinguish from among the various sounds.

You can have fun worksheets with pictures of many of the words for children to color.

You can have students look in magazines and cut out pictures of as many words as they can and paste them on posters.  You can have a poster for each vowel: one each for Aa, Ee, Ii, Oo, Uu with the children drawing or pasting pictures of words with the short vowel sounds.

 

Dolch Words

Make flash cards from your Dolch Words list appropriate for first grade (the 2 pre-primary lists for first semester of First Grade, and the first grade list for second semester.)

Have students learn these words from sight / memory as most of them are not phonetic.

These words can be your reading and spelling words.

 

SECOND GRADE

Dolch Words

Make flash cards from your Dolch Words list appropriate for second grade, using the second grade list.  Make sure you remember to use the color indicated for your flash cards.

Have students learn these words from memory as most of them are not phonetic.

Spread them out over the year. Do not try to cover all of them too quickly or you will frustrate the children. Divide them up by the number of weeks in the year, so you can pace yourself calmly.

These Dolch words can be your reading and spelling words.

 

Vocabulary / spelling development

Students need to know a variety of items that are not all phonetic.  Remember, only 85% of English words are phonetic.  The rest have to be memorized by frequent use and practice.

Practice these words over and over to build up a large speaking vocabulary. Greetings, for example, are mentioned in first semester. Do not drop the greetings vocabulary as you move on with new lists.  ALL words should be recycled over and over, until the students have accomplished to keep the words in long-term memory, as exemplified by the spontaneous use of the word in everyday conversation. This proves that the child has absorbed the words and can retrieve them to be used.

The units are typical of what students would need to learn in any text.  Major topics include:

FIRST SEMESTER

My Class

My Family

My Body

My Clothes

SECOND SEMESTER

My House

Animals

My Birthday

My Toys

Having Fun

 

*You’ll notice that second grade recycles some of the same vocabulary from first grade.  We are building on the child’s experiences, little by little. There is NO rush. The goal is to prepare students who LIKE to read. That doesn’t happen if students are pushed and rushed.

 

Phonics to be covered

In the second grade, children will review short vowel sounds learned in first grade.  They will work with long vowel sounds, saying them, repeating, learning to read words and to spell them.

There are lists and tapes to repeat, repeat, and repeat!  The children need to learn how to hear and distinguish among the sounds.

You can have interesting worksheets with pictures of many of the words for children to color.

You can have students look in magazines and cut out pictures of as many words as they can and paste them on posters.  You can have a poster for each vowel: one each for Aa, Ee, Ii, Oo, Uu with the children drawing or pasting pictures of words with the long vowel sounds.

 

     THIRD GRADE

Dolch Words

Make flash cards from your Dolch Words list appropriate for third grade, using the third grade list.  Make sure you remember to use the color indicated for your flash cards.

Have students learn these words from memory as most of them are not phonetic.

Spread them out over the year. Do not try to cover all of them too quickly or you will frustrate the children. Divide them up by the number of weeks in the year, so you can pace yourself calmly.

These Dolch words can be your reading and spelling words

 

Vocabulary / spelling development

Students need to know a variety of items that are not all phonetic.  Remember, only 85% of English words are phonetic.  The rest have to be memorized by frequent use and practice.

Practice these words over and over to build up a large speaking vocabulary. Playground, for example, is mentioned in first semester in the first list. Do not drop the playground vocabulary as you move on with new lists.  ALL words should be recycled over and over, until the students have accomplished to keep the words in long-term memory, as exemplified by the spontaneous use of the word in everyday conversation. This proves that the child has absorbed the words and can retrieve them to be used.

Once students have a strong speaking vocabulary, they’ll be able to have a large reading and writing vocabulary as well. The units are typical of what students would need to learn in any text.  Major topics include:

 

FIRST SEMESTER

My Class

On the Playground

Our House

My Community.

 

SECOND SEMESTER

Workers

My Day

Food

At the Zoo

Celebrations

 

Phonics to be covered

In the third grade, children will review vowel sounds learned in first and second grades, and they will continue. They will work with long vowel sounds, blends, two and three syllable words, and listen to the tapes and the words, saying them, repeating, learning to read them and to spell them.

There are lists and CD’s to listen-repeat, listen-repeat, and rlisten-epeat!  The children need to learn how to hear and distinguish among the sounds. You can have fun worksheets with pictures of many of the words for children to color.  You can have students look in magazines and cut out pictures of as many words as they can and paste them on posters.  You can have a poster for each vowel: one each for Aa, Ee, Ii, Oo, Uu with the children drawing or pasting pictures of words with vowel sounds they are practicing.

 

BEYOND THIRD GRADE

Dolch Words

During 4th, 5th, 6th grades, the students will master the Dolch words.  Once you are certain that the children KNOW the words, can read them, write them, spell them, define them or use them correctly in sentences, you will not need to practice them anymore, or the children will become bored.

Have a complete set of the Dolch word flashcards available so that you can easily practice 5 minutes a day until they know the words 100%.

NOTE: In place of flashcards, or in addition to flash cards, you can have the words written on an i-Pad or other digital device and project them for students to see.

 

Vocabulary / spelling development

Continue reading aloud to the children as they develop a love of literature when you read to them. Work on the spelling from their reading books.   By 4th, 5th, 6th grades, the spelling lists will be coming from a variety of topics: social studies, science, and reading books, as well as the area of mathematics, and current events.

 

Phonics to be covered

In 4th grade, the children can work with irregular spellings and rules, challenging the students to grow in their English ability. Remember, to pace the work so that the lessons of Step 5 are not too rushed, giving children the chance to absorb the material and learn the lessons well.

Making charts and flashcards for memory games, and practice activities will help to make phonics more interesting.

These phonics lessons should be practiced only 5 minutes a day: short and active!

In 5th and 6th grades, basic English phonics should be familiar to all students.

Your job, as a teacher, is to make certain that the children’s pronunciation is clear, smooth, and fluent.  Have students listen and repeat from the CD or computer, or from you if your accent is near perfect.

If your English accent is not native- like, use the tapes so that your students will be able to acquire excellent spoken English. Once they have excellent spoken English, it will be easier for them to write and express themselves well.

Keep up the great work, teachers, and help your students grow in phonics and their English ability.  If you play games, and use many creative activities frequently. Students will like English, and will reach the level of English we want them to have: understanding, speaking   with fluency, and writing clearly!

Students should be able to truthfully state: “We love to read!  We know sight words and phonics! So reading is easy for us! Thank you, teachers!”

 

LISTEN! TALK! READ! WRITE! SPELL!

Have fun with phonics and second language development!

———————————————————————–

By Elaine Gallagher

Here is a PAIR ACTIVITY for you to use with your students. Encourage oral (English!) participation as the students work with each other.

_________________________

1. TITLE: «CLASSIFICATION« ACTIVITY

     INTENDED FOR: PAIRS: Grades 3rd – 8th, depending on English and math levels

SUGGESTED TIME: 15 to 45 minutes, depending on the activity chosen.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Try to have the students work with these words using an iPad. Some of the activities can be done using an iPad. If you don’t have access, or if the words can’t be cut & pasted easily, no problem. PLAN B: Scan, copy, print, then, cut out the words of food items as shown below. Place the 54 food-words in an envelope. The same words can be used for various pair activities, as suggested below. I suggest one envelope of word-sets for every two students. (30 students = 15 envelopes)

(A) Arrange the words in any order you want. Then the teacher will ask each team to tell how they organized the words. Think outside the box…the more unusual way to organize the words, the better!

(B) Put the food words into alphabetical order. This could be a race with teacher writing the time of the first 5 pairs to complete the exercise.

(C) Prepare a menu for a home dinner, using some of these foods.

(D) Prepare a restaurant menu using these foods. Remember to put realistic prices. You can use drawings and/or magazine cut-outs to design an attractive menu.

(E) Using the restaurant menu, make a food order for 2 adults and 2 children, ages 8 and  14. Add up the total price. Then multiply by 8% to get the tax. Add the tax amount to the total order amount, to obtain the full cost of the meal for 4 people.        Remember to use realistic food prices.

 

(F) Design a grocery store floor plan.  Illustrate where you would place all these foods in the store, so that it is well-organized. You can make drawings and/ or use magazine cut-outs to decorate your floor plan.

 

(G) Make a Venn diagram (two overlapping circles). Write above one circle :»Foods I like.». The second circle should be labeled, «Foods my Pair-Partner likes.» The place/space where the two circles overlap, should be labeled, «Foods We Both Like».    Then divide the food words into these 3 categories.

 

(H) RESEARCH: Where did “VENN DIAGRAM” originate? How did they get the name “VENN”?  Who spread the idea of the Venn Diagram? Can you find other information about Venn diagrams? Can you think of how a world map could be used for this exercise? If so, provide a blank world map, and color-in the countries related to what you found in your research. Include a key on your map to explain.

_________________________________________________________

HADDOCK                        TROUT                            TUNA FISH

___________________________________________________________

CHICKEN                          LAMB                                  STEAK

___________________________________________________________

HAMBURGER                HOT DOG                            CORN

___________________________________________________________

MASHED

POTATOES                      FRENCH FRIES                 PEAS

___________________________________________________________

TOMATOES                         SPINACH                       BEETS

___________________________________________________________

LETTUCE                            ONIONS                           GARLIC

___________________________________________________________

OATMEAL                          CORN FLAKES              PINTO BEANS

___________________________________________________________

WHOLE WHEAT                 APPLES                          ORANGES

FLOUR

___________________________________________________________

STRAWBERRIES            WATERMELON               COOKIES

___________________________________________________________

CANDY                                 SPAGHETTI                      CHEESE

___________________________________________________________

HAM                                    BACON                               WATER

___________________________________________________________

MILK                                      SODA                           ASPARAGUS

___________________________________________________________

WHITE FLOUR                 WHITE RICE                     BROWN RICE

___________________________________________________________

EGGS                             ICE CREAM                           BANANA

___________________________________________________________

NUTS                         ORANGE JUICE                      BEEF SOUP

___________________________________________________________

PEANUT BUTTER            SOY BEANS                     SHRIMP

___________________________________________________________

PEACHES                       MUSHROOMS                    CRACKERS

___________________________________________________________

MACKEREL                     COFFEE                            APPLE PIE

___________________________________________________________

 

by Elaine Gallagher

             Sometimes we wonder what our students need to know, asking ourselves, as I frequently advise you, “Of all the things that COULD be taught, what MUST be taught?”   

        In English, survival is important….   oral survival ….What can your students say, spontaneously?    How can they handle themselves when they need to speak?  Listening and repeating is crucial….Oral production comes after recognition….so you’ll have to make sure that your students RECOGNIZE these words and phrases, and know how and when and why to use them.

With more and more listening and repeating, in casual, non-pressured atmosphere, your students will begin to speak spontaneously.

HOW SOON?  Obviously, the more time they have English class, and the more they listen the sooner they will recognize, and later speak spontaneously. Usually, in a school with ½ day of English, about 15 hours a week of English, students will get to A-1 level of the European Framework of Reference for Languages at the end of 2^nd grade of primary. Adults, of course, usually get to A-1 sooner.

If you’re not sure of the six levels of the CEFR, look in the BE Teacher Guide where the scale is explained.

Now. Let’s look at “SURVIVAL ENGLISH”. When it mentions “Words to Know”…this means that the student can first repeat it, then recognize it from a picture, a flashcard, or the real object, and finally, the student can spontaneously use the word in a sentence or in oral conversation.

=======================================

 SURVIVAL ENGLISH!

Each section gets gradually harder. Don’t move on until the kids are ready and comfortable. This is not a race.

1. VOCABULARY: A-1 when mastered

Students should be able to discuss and answer questions

such as:

• What’s your name?
• How many children are there? (1-20)
• this is / these are
• What’s this? It’s ……..
• The body
• Faces
• What color is it?
• My clothes

 

• WORDS TO KNOW: bicycle(s), bird(s), boys, cats, children, dogs, flags, girls, trees, basketball, football, rugby, volleyball, team

• MORE: bedroom, bathroom, dining room, kitchen, living room, bed, books, cards, computer, cupboard, rabbit, shelf, table

 

• MORE: arms, feet, fingers, hands, head, legs, tall, short, fat, thin, big, small, long. ears, eyes, hair, mouth, nose, dark, fair

 

• MORE: blue, brown, green, orange, pink, purple, red, yellow, black, white, box, crayons, paper, pen, ruler, scissors

 

 

• MORE: belt, blouse, dress, hat, jacket, shirt, skirt, socks, suit, tie, trousers, T-shirt

 

• What do you see in this picture? Student should be able to describe the picture, using some of the above-listed words.

 

 

 

2. VOCABULARY:             A-1 when mastered

 

• all colors covered in first list plus: grey; pets, bird, cage, rabbit, fish, beak, behind, in, on, under, tank, wall, flowers

 

• Pets

 

• Do you have a computer?

 

• WORDS: camera, comics, computer, pictures, rings, toys, video game, violin, behind, between, in, on , next to, in front of, under

 

• Days of the week

 

• WORDS / PHRASES: in the morning / afternoon, the weekend, go swimming, play tennis, visit grandparents, have a music lesson, paints, cleans, watches, does, goes, visits, plays, cooks

 

• Where do you live?

• WORDS: a flat, an apartment, cottage, house, city, town, village, garden, upstairs, downstairs, on the ground floor

 

• FAMILY: pretty, sister, brother, mother, father, twin sister / brother, grandmother, grandfather

 

• What time do you get up?

 

• WORDS / PHRASES: get up, go to bed, have lunch, do homework, watch TV, go to school, have breakfast, o’clock, half past, quarter past / to, in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening.

 

• FRIENDS: bike,  film, pizza, cinema, restaurant, swimming pool, tennis club, She plays hockey.

 

• MONTHS OF THE YEAR: all 12 months, Christmas, birthday, Easter, Mother’s Day,

 

• Ordinal numbers for dates:

1^st – 31^st

 

 

 

3 . VOCABULARY_____A-2 when mastered

 

What’s the weather like?  

warm, sunny, cloudy, absolutely, rainy

          What do you study?

art, biology, chemistry, multiplication

 

Free time:

music, homework, go out, play video games

 

Tell me about your town or city.

I live in……    historic city, crowded, quiet

 

What are they doing?

He’s …..brushing his teeth.

shopping, working,

watching TV. washing up, reading, eating

 

Best friends

short, blonde, friendly, straight, wear, strong

 

Work

What does your father do? He’s a lawyer.

 

Where’s your classroom?

It’s down the hall. go along, turn left / right

 

 

4. VOCABULARY___    A-2 when mastered

 

         Family matters:

using the future wit “going to”, describing people, possessives

 

Play time:

frequency, time expressions, every day, six o’clock

 

School’s out:

holidays, present / future, when, where, why, who

 

Sports:

likes and dislikes, present continuous, questions

 

Memorable meals:

food, cooking, talking about a meal

 

Future with going to

 

Nice work :

jobs, work,  quickly, well, occupations

 

Shop around:

describing ways of shopping, sequencing: first, next, after, finally

 

In class:

talking about the past, comparison / superlative

the best, the most difficult, easiest

 

 

 

5. VOCABULARY__________B-1 when mastered

            Friends

frequency, giving reasons, recently, a few days ago

 

Dream machines

probability, could, cheaper, faster, more popular

 

Cover to cover

books and films, narrating an event, describing a character, the funniest, the most enjoyable

 

A big bang        

festivals & special occasions, during, dates: 4^th of July, 31^st of December, 19^th of March,

16^th of September, the 7^th of September, etc.

 

Ordinal numbers:

fourth, twenty-first

 

        Watch it:

expressing opinions, I prefer

 

Going for gold

recent and indefinite past, for, since, ever, never

 

The world tomorrow

possibly, probably, is certain to, certainly,  definitely not

 

     Present time

describing events, sequencing, for my birthday, in December, on the 3^rd, for Christmas

 

 

6. VOCABULARY B-1 when mastered

          On the ball

badly, fast, hard, regularly, have to, must, need

 

Season tickets

in the winter, colder, the wettest, sunbathing, swimming, because, giving reasons

 

It’s history

describing past events, how much? how many?  Frequency

 

That’s rich

money, ability, skills; If I’m successful, I’ll be rich.

 

Gerunds:

good at + —ing: He is good at swimming.

 

What on Earth….?

opinions, describing, have to, must, need; If we ban cars, the air would be cleaner.

 

In great shape

health, have to, don’t have to, need, don’t need

 

         Wild dreams

describing animals, asking open-ended questions, much, many, more, less, few, little, less

 

       Followers of fashion

describing what people wear, shopping, expressing frequency, never, occasionally, often, unusually, always, conditionals

 

_________________________________________

Now a student is ready to expand vocabulary, to build fluency, to read with comprehension, to understand others, and to speak English smoothly.

_____________________

 

By Elaine Gallagher

Dear Readers, as promised in a previous ENGLISH CORNER column, we’ll now be presenting some ideas for “Best Practices” from Teacher: Julio Edgar Gerardo Martinez, from Colegio Multicultural UNN, Hermosillo, Sonora, MEXICO. Julio’s Best Practice Title is:  Beyond the Classroom, and the activities Julio uses are suitable for 5th and 6th grades, or even for middle school students.

In Vítoria, Brazil on August 22^nd, there was a 2^nd Annual Bilingual Conference, all day from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, at Darwin School, an UNO school. Even though the title was “Bilingual”, the conference actually was 100% in English.

The first part of the conference was set up like the “Ted Talks” on You-Tube, with six 15-minute “UNO Talks” by international speakers from Brazil, Israel, and the U.S.A.

Then, after a coffee-cake-and sandwich break, there were six exhibitions/talks, selected from various entries, exhibiting “Best Practices”. Four practices were personally-presented, and two were conducted by Skype and videos, one from UNOi Colombia and one from UNOi Mexico.

These six examples of great ideas for UNO teachers were each assigned to a different classroom, and conference participants rotated every 20 minutes, so they could see and participate in workshops with all six examples.

A delicious hot lunch was served in the school cafeteria, and after an hour, we returned to the main auditorium for a “Round Table Discussion”. The presenters from the “UNO Talks”, and the teachers from the Best Practices sessions were on the stage, to speak briefly and to answer questions from the audience.

Sharing of ideas to improve or enhance our teaching was the prime objective of the 2^nd annual bilingual conference. The objective was successfully reached.

Now let’s look at some of the technology ideas for 5^th and 6^th graders, as shared in Brazil by Teacher Julio Martinez (aka “Mr. G.” ) from Hermosillo.

 

Ideas for Best Practices

 

– Skype in the Classroom https://education.skype.com/

 

* Mystery Skype: Collaborate with other classes, no matter where they are.

Guess each others locations asking yes/no questions. Practice geography, asking questions, vocabulary etc! Share each others cultures, food, etc.

Or review any topic by playing games through Skype; example, if both classes are learning fractions, play a fractions game with each other. We have used Kahoot ( a game based digital learning platform) https://kahoot.it/

 

* Guest Speakers: Find guest speakers and invite them into your classroom. Authors, scientists, athletes and more! We have had a marine biologist stationed in Australia be a guest speaker. We were learning about oceans. The students were amazed!! We have also had one of the creators of one of our favorite App Toontastic as a guest speaker.

 

* Field Trips: Take a virtual field trip anywhere in the world. From Mount Everest’s base camp to the bottom of the ocean, these field trips offers you the chance to take your?class on an unforgettable virtual adventure. Partners? include museums, zoos and explorers that make extraordinary experiences free and available to classrooms anywhere in?the world.

 

– Toontastic App

My students use this App a lot to make stories using their BE a Speaker words. First we learn the new vocabulary. Then I have my students get into teams and brainstorm and organize their story. I use this worksheet to help them organize their ideas: http://www.launchpadtoys.com/edu/resources/StoryDesignWorksheet. pdf Then, as a team, they create a cartoon using all the features in this amazing app and using at least 10 of the 15 of the vocab words from that weeks lesson. Then they edit it and we present them all to the class!

 

– Experiments

A cool and fun way we learn topics seen in the BE a Scientist is to BE A SCIENTIST! Do as many experiments as you can related to the topics being learned. That way the students can visually see what they learned in class and get their hands dirty! There are tons of experiments online that students can do. We have done many. We did the volcano experiment when we were learning about Mt Vesuvius and Pompeii, the celery food coloring experiment, and many more!

 

– Plays

My students present a spring musical every year in April. We being rehearsing in December. We have some “acting classes” to help the students. Again I reinforce the importance of TEAMWORK for this play to be a success. We make stage props and make costumes. My students just LOVE it. We have presented The Wizard of Oz, Glee, Grease, and The Sound of Music.

 

– Comic Strips

Another activity I use with my students to practice the correct usage of their BE a Speaker words is making comic strips. Either digital with any app (there are many) or paper made. They love this activity. Again, I have them work in teams. They all work together to come up with the story using the vocab words. Then, THEY decide who does what! Illustrator, writer, etc. I have them be in the same team for two or three comic strips so they have the chance to have different roles. Illustrator, writer etc. Then they share them with the class.

 

– Projects, Projects, Projects!

We always do a project for the BE a Reader section. For example, in the first unit, we learned about being healthy. After reading the text and learning about how to live a healthy life and the risks of living an unhealthy life style my students researched how many calories, sugar, and fat popular snacks and drinks have (healthy and unhealthy snacks/drinks) . For example, they would look up how much sugar is in a can of coke and then they would put that amount in a ziplog bag and do the same for other drinks. Then they compared them. They visually saw the amount that sugar is used in each product. Then, they would present them to the class and invite other students from other classes to watch and inform them of the risks/consequences of being unhealthy and the benefits of living a healthy life. They did this not only for food but for exercise as well. Playing video games/ iPad vs playing an actual sport etc.

Another project my students have done is when the story of the BE a Reader was about a roller coaster experiment in a science class. So we read the story and discussed it. Then I had them get in to teams and make an actual roller coaster made of only construction paper and tape. They used a marble to try it out. They had a blast. Coming up with the name of the roller coaster and making the turns etc. We practiced TEAMWORK!!! After, we discussed the importance of working in teams means and why. All around learning!

Another project we do in our class in the UNO Project. We follow the Constructive Interaction steps every week to complete the project. For example, one we did was about organizations and governments. We were learning about the Founding Fathers of USA. My students got into teams and made up their own governments. Flag, currency, country, language, etc. It was quite interesting. Then, we also compared and contrasted the US and Mexican Revolution and Founding Fathers.

 

– Reading Novels

My students read at least two novels a year. Its part of their HW. They do the reading at HOME! Once in a while I read a chapter or two to them in the class. I have them read two chapters per week. And throughout the week we have quick reading comprehension activities pertaining to the chapter read. Questions, vocabulary, debates, compare/contrast, character analysis, summaries, etc. Then, at the end, they write a well detailed book report. They have the choice to present their book report as a PowerPoint presentation. NO MEMORIZATION OF SLIDES! They must explain it using his own words AIDED by the visuals in the PPT. We have read Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory by Roal Dahl and Number the Stars by Louis Lowry,

 

– Writing Journals

To practice writing and correct verb tense usage, I write a question on the board and students write an answer in paragraph form in their “Writing Journal”. I usually use the verb tense that they are learning in BE Literate. For example, if we are reviewing the past tense in BE Literate, then my question of the week would be: What is your favorite family vacation? I remind them that its an event that happened in the past and to remember to use the past tense. I guide them with an example. I answer the question orally to them adding intonation to: My favorite family vacation WAS when my family and I WENT to the Grand Canyon. I dont focus on the grammer too much! I want it to be natural, just like I learned English.

 

– Kinder Buddies

I pair up my class with a kindergaten class. Then, once in a while, my students go and read to the litte ones. Not only do they read to them but my students also help them with their work, listening to them read their montly kindergarten story and helping with pronounciation etc. My students also help with reinforcing topics learned in class. I especially have them focus on oral skills. Everything is spoken in English. For example, my students help the little ones with vocabulary. So instead of having them repeat the vocabulary word “cow”. My students encourage and model using sentences. Example: This is a cow. The cow is white and black. After a while, the little ones begin saying complete sentences instead of just the vocabulary word!

The important thing here is to make the little ones feel like they have a “buddy” in school. My students learn responsability, patience, tolerance and so many other things. Its a WIN WIN..

 

– Pen Pals

Another activity my students are part of is international pen Pals (digital). They write back and forth to each other through email. They Skype with each other once in a while.

 

– Vocabulary

Every week my students look up in the dictionary what part of speech the vocabulary words we see throughout the week (not only in BE a Speaker) are. This helps with learning how to use it correctly.

 

– Mental Math

I pair my students up and have THEM come up with the mental math problems and dictate it to their partner. Then they switch and repeat and check answers.

 

– Sing and Dance

My students love music and dancing. So one or twice a week we have dance offs using Nintendo Wii Just Dance game. We also have Kareoke Fridays. At first they are shy, but once I do it, they do it too.

_____________________________

 

by Elaine Gallagher

Hello Readers, as some of you may know, I’ve been in Brazil the past month, working with UNO teachers, coaches, and editors.  As much as I’ve been sharing, I’ve also been learning from others.

Today I’d like to show you an interesting writing / speaking activity I saw at an UNO English conference in Vítoria, Brazil. It was presented by two teachers in a series of  “Best Practices” workshops,  which involved various countries and topics.

(Next time, I’ll show you “Best Practices” by one of our Mexican teachers,  from Colegio Multicultural UNN, Hermosillo, Sonora: Teacher: Julio Edgar Gerardo Martinez)

From Teachers Josimare Machado and Flávia Santana, who work at Pequeno Príncipe School in Teófilo Otoni, MG  Brazil, we learned how they get their 9^th grade  students talking about various topics, centered around a project called: BUILDING YOUR IDENTITY. This idea can be used with students from 5^th grade through high school, depending on the English ability of the students.

First, the teacher needs to build interest in the topic and develop vocabulary by brainstorming, mind mapping, or using other graphic organizers, so students can see and hear words that might be useful to them in the description of their identities.

Once students have oral fluency about the topic, they are ready to write. Here, below, is an outline of the autobiography poem.  When it’s completed, it should look attractively organized and balanced, with one word in the first line, and one word in the last line. Lines 2 – 9 vary in length, but basically, the poem’s shape will de diamond-like. By adding drawings, pictures from magazines, or photographs, this poem could be an attractive gift for parents or grandparents.

 

BUILDING YOUR IDENTITY

How to write an  autobiography poem

Think about the past few years of your life….or, think about your whole life. Come up with some ideas of important or interesting things for your autobiography poem.

When you have an autobiography poem that represents you, edit and finalize it, so that you have something written for every line… ideas that represent YOU. Keep each step (1 – 10) to only one line so the poem will look attractive and not too wordy.

Follow the steps below to form your autobiography poem. When you have it as you like it, copy it neatly, and provide drawings or photos or pictures to show some ideas from your poem.

LINE 1: Write your first name.

LINE 2: List three or four adjectives that describe you.

LINE 3: Write some important relationships you have had in your life (“daughter of…” “friend of..” …”sister of..”).

LINE 4: List two or three things, people, or ideas that you love.

LINE 5: List three feelings you have experienced.

LINE 6: List three fears you have experienced.

LINE 7: Write some of your accomplishments. (“who won…”, “who performed…”, “who learned…”

LINE 8: Write two or three things you want to see happen or you want to experience.

LINE 9: List the town, city, state, or area of your residence.

LINE 10: Write your last name.

——————————————————————————

How does it look? Are you proud of yourself?

 

By Elaine Gallagher

Use of VERBS in your activities (Bloom is gone, but not forgotten!)

Have you thought about how to make your classes more inquiry-based, more challenging, leading students to critical thinking? Don’t forget the power of using Bloom’s taxonomy when planning your lessons.

Simply by changing the verb in your instructions to your students, can raise or lower the critical thinking expectations. It’s a much lower mental task to ask students to «List ten fruits/vegetables», than to ask them to «Create a week’s healthy menu using ten fruits/vegetables.».

Dr. Benjamin Bloom, in 1956, as Editor of «Effective School Research», designed a graphic showing six levels at which humans develop cognitively. The two lowest levels  (know and comprehend) are basic to all learning, but depend, mainly, on memorization and rote practice, what Bloom called, «Learning for School».

BELOW: Updated chart of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Thought

 

EXPLANATION: From the lowest level of cognitive thought to the highest:

KNOW:

Facts that are memorized, drilled, and remembered because much practice.

Examples: reciting the alphabet, counting, a formula: A = H x W

 

UNDERSTAND / COMPREHEND:

Understanding what was memorized….Counting to 10 is to know, memorization.

Recognizing the number eight when 8 fingers are shown, is comprehension.

 

APPLY:  

Using the material learned (knowledge + comprehension) by solving problems, writing a sentence or paragraph, illustrating, etc.

 

ANALYZE:

Taking something apart to analyze it: a story, a character, a math problem, a news    event, separating things into categories, etc.

 

EVALUATE / ASSESS:

Making a judgment: the best story read, the best character, the most complete paragraph, the most interesting movie, etc.

 

CREATE / SYNTHESIZE:

Putting things together: combining words to make sentences or a paragraph; seeing patterns in things, creating something new from older things, etc.

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To enhance your lessons, to challenge your students, to raise the critical thinking levels of your students, simply change the verbs in your lessons or instructions, and automatically your students’ levels of performance will change in response to the verb you used.

Verbs at the level of «KNOW» will not elicit or need such a high level of cognition to perform as verbs on the list of ANALYZE» or «CREATE».

TEACHERS:

Vary the verbs in lessons to challenge your students and to build critical thinking experiences.  See below.

1.Know	2. Understand	3. Apply
list name identify show define recognize recall orally statepoint at…	summarize explain translateinterpret describe compare paraphrase differentiate demonstrate visualize find more information about restate	solve illustrate calculate use interpret relate manipulate apply classify modify put into practice

 

4. Analize	5. Evaluate	6. Create
analyze organize deduce choose contrast compare distinguish	choose/why? estimate judge defend criticize justifyprove debate evaluate	design hypothesize support schematize write report discuss plan devise create

You can put your ideas into actions, teachers, by thinking of activities to support the academic content you’re teaching. Then, use verbs at various levels of the taxonomy. Over time, use all six levels so that your students are exposed to different levels of cognitive thought. This will enhance and develop their critical thinking ability.

Here, below,  are some sample question-stems and activities for each of the six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

 

KNOW:

Facts that are memorized, drilled, and remembered because much practice.

Examples: reciting the alphabet, counting, a formula: A = H x W

 

SAMPLE QUESTION-STEMS

• What happened after…..?
• How many…..?
• Who was it that….?
• Can you name the …?
• Describe what happened at…
• Who spoke to…?
• Can you tell me why..?
• Find the meaning of…?
• What is …? Which is true or false…?

 

POTENTIAL ACTIVITIES

• List the story’s main events
• Make a timeline of events.
• Make a facts chart.
• List any pieces of information you can remember.
• Recite a poem.
• List all the animals in the story.
• Make a chart showing…
• Make an acrostic.

 

UNDERSTAND / COMPREHEND:

Understanding what was memorized….Counting to 10 is to know, memorization.

Recognizing the number eight when 8 fingers are shown, is comprehension.

 

SAMPLE QUESTION-STEMS

• Can you write in your own words…?
• Write a brief outline…
• What do you think could have happened next…?
• Who do you think…?
• What was the main idea?
• Who was the main character?
• Can you distinguish between…?
• What differences exist between…?
• Can you provide an example of what you mean by…?
• Can you provide a definition for…?

 

POTENTIAL ACTIVITIES

• Cut out or draw pictures to show a particular event.
• Illustrate the main idea.
• Make a cartoon strip showing the sequence of events.
• Write and perform a play based on the story.
• Make a coloring book.
• Retell the story in your own words.
• Paint a picture of some aspect of the story you like.
• Write a summary of the events.
• Prepare a flow chart to illustrate the sequence of events.

 

APPLY:  

Using the material learned (knowledge + comprehension) by solving problems, writing a sentence or paragraph, illustrating, etc.

 

SAMPLE QUESTION-STEMS

• Do you know another instance where…?
• Could this have happened in…?
• Can you group by characteristics such as…?
• What factors would you change if…?
• From the information given, develop a set of instruction about?
• Would this information be useful if you had a….?

 

POTENTIAL ACTIVITIES

• Construct a model to demonstrate how it will work.
• Make a diorama to illustrate an important event.
• Compose a book about…
• Make a scrapbook about the areas of study.
• Make a paper-mache map showing information about an event.
• Make a puzzle game using ideas from the study area.
• Make a clay model of…
• Paint a mural.
• Design a market strategy for your product.
• Design an ethnic costume.

 

ANALYZE:

Taking something apart to analyze it: a story, a character, a math problem, a news    event, separating things into categories, etc.

 

SAMPLE QUESTION-STEMS

• Which event could not have happened if…?
• If…happened, what might the ending have been?
• How was this similar to…?
• What do you see as other possible outcomes?
• Why did …. changes occur?
• Can you compare your…with that presented in…?
• What must have happened when…?
• How is ……similar to….?
• What are some of the problems of…?
• Can you distinguish between…?
• What was the turning point in the story?
• What was the problem with….?
• What were some of the motives behind….?

 

POTENTIAL ACTIVITIES

• Design a questionnaire to gather information.
• Make a flow chart to show critical stages.
• Write a commercial for a new/familiar product.
• Review a work of art in terms of form, color, and texture.
• Construct a graph to illustrate selected information.
• Construct a jigsaw puzzle.
• Analyze a family tree showing relationships.
• Write a biography about a person being studied.
• Arrange a party and record/list the steps you took.

 

EVALUATE / ASSESS:

Making a judgment: the best story read, the best character, the most complete paragraph, the most interesting movie, etc.

 

SAMPLE QUESTION-STEMS

• Is there a better solution to…?
• Judge the value of…
• Defend your position about…
• Do you think…is a good or bad thing? Explain.
• How would you have handled…?
• What changes to…would you recommend? Why?
• Do you believe…?
• Are you a ….person? Why?
• How would you feel if…
• How effective are…?
• What do you think about…?

 

POTENTIAL ACTIVITIES

• Prepare a list of criteria to judge a …show.  Indicate priority and ratings.
• Conduct a debate about an area of special interest.
• Make a booklet about 5 rules you value
• Form a panel to discuss a topic.  State criteria
• Write a letter to…advising changes needed.
• Prepare arguments to present your view about….

                                              

CREATE / SYNTHESIZE:

Putting things together: combining words to make sentences or a paragraph; seeing patterns in things, creating something new from older things, etc.

 

SAMPLE QUESTION-STEMS

• Can you design a ….to….?
• What is the possible solution to…?
• What would happen if…?
• If you had access to all resources, how would you deal with…”
• How would you devise your own way to….?
• How many ways can you…?
• Can you create new and unusual uses for …?
• Can you develop a proposal that would…?
• How would you compose a song about…?
• Can you write a new recipe for a tasty dish?

 

POTENTIAL ACTIVITIES

• Invent a machine to do a specific task.
• Design a building.
• Create a new product.  Give it a name and plan a marketing campaign.
• Write about your feelings in relation to….
• Write a TV show, play puppet show, role play, song, or pantomime about…
• Design a record, book, or magazine cover for …
• Devise a way to…
• Create a language code.
• Sell an idea to a billionaire.
• Compose a rhythm or put new words to a known melody.

 

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Now you’re prepared to put your IDEAS INTO ACTIONS.

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