Effective Educational Services For Students With Special Learning Needs
15 million school age children in the US have learning problems that public and private schools can’t solve. There are 72,000 special education students in LAUSD, alone. Every day these students sit unhappily in class, losing hope of ever realizing their dreams. Students are living in pain and shame. They are not learning to be successful students.
Their parents are frustrated in their attempts to find suitable education for their child. They’ve tried working through the public schools. They have hired tutors. Parents are calling for real solutions.
In order to thrive, these students need special educational methods that address their unique profile of strengths and needs. But even more importantly, these children require a new mindset of success.
Educational therapy offers help and hope to children and adults with learning challenges such as ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and learning disabilities. Educational therapy is an appropriate and highly successful approach to helping students of all ages achieve their maximum potential.
Educational therapists use state of the art educational programs and methods that have been proven to teach students with learning problems the skills they require to be successful. Educational therapy shows students how to overcome their learning problems and lead successful lives.
All throughout the school years, foundations for future success are laid down. Not only are students learning essential skills such as reading, they are also learning to value education. But most importantly, they are learning to believe that they are successful students!
When students experience repeated frustration and failure, they develop self-doubt along with dislike or distrust of educational experiences. These negative views influence how much students can learn, at every level from elementary school through college!
Special needs students experience three major problems with learning:
Teachers and tutors use the same methods for every child. Children are unique and each learns in his or her own way. Teachers and tutors usually do not understand how to modify their approach to address different learning styles.
Teachers and tutors only teach subject matter. Students who experience repeated academic failure lack the underlying foundational skills to be successful students. They often don’t know the best study methods, how to manage their time, or what the real secrets are to academic success.
Teachers and tutors do not address the root cause of continued academic failure—learned helplessness. When students experience failure after failure, they develop a mindset that they are “stupid” and “can’t learn.” They give up on ever being a good student! But, when students believe they can succeed, they begin to try. When they believe they can learn, they begin to study. When they believe they can have impressive futures, they make powerful choices. Students have the right to believe in their innate intelligence and skill!
Educational therapists generally begin their professional careers in special education, child development or counseling. The Association of Educational Therapists is the national professional organization that sets the training standards for educational therapists. There are three levels of membership in the Association of Educational Therapists: Associate Professional (introductory level), Professional (experienced), Board Certified (seasoned).
According to the Association of Educational Therapists: “Regardless of previous background, all Professional members of the Association of Educational Therapists (AET) have met rigorous professional requirements in the academic areas of elementary and/or secondary education, child development, educational assessment, learning theory, learning disabilities, and principles of educational therapy. All members have a B.A. degree and are required to hold a Masters Degree or equivalent in post-BA course work. They have completed at least 1500 supervised direct service hours, and are required to complete 40 clock hours of Continuing Education every two years.
To become a Board Certified Educational Therapist (BCET)®, a member must meet the following additional requirements: Masters Degree (required); one year membership in AET at the Professional level; 1000 hours of professional practice; formal written Case Study evaluated and passed by the AET Certification Board; a written examination that demonstrates professional expertise in educational therapy.”
To locate an educational therapist near you or obtain more information about educational therapy, visit the Association of Educational Therapists website.
About the Author
Dr. Kari Miller is a Board Certified Educational Therapist and Director of the Center for Empowered Learning, Educational Therapy in Los Angeles. She began her career almost twenty-five years ago as a special education resource teacher. She has worked with students in a vast array of capacities, including special education teacher and educational therapist. Dr. Miller has a PhD in Educational Psychology and Mathematical Statistics, a master’s degree in Learning Disabilities, Gifted Education and Educational Diagnosis, and a bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education and Behavior Disorders.
To contact Dr. Miller
Email: klmiller555@sbcglobal.net
Website: www.empoweredlearning.info
Phone: 310-280-9813
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Senin, 04 Januari 2010
How to Teach ESL Reading
How to Teach ESL Reading
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When considering how to teach ESL reading skills to second language learners, the most important concept to convey is that reading, like writing, is a process. Strong readers don't just sit down with a text, read it once, and completely understand it. Whether readers are aware of it or not, they employ techniques like pre-reading and making predictions to connect the particular text they are presently reading with texts they have read before. For ESL students, scaffolding this process into distinct steps is an effective way to build reading comprehension.
Pre-reading
Getting ready to read is one of the most important parts of the reading process. Situating the text in terms of its genre and audience can help ESL students approach reading with a critical mindset. Before reading the assignment, ask students to think about the following questions to encourage them to construct a context for the reading:
• Where did the material come from? Is it an excerpt from a book, a magazine, an online article, or a journal? Knowing where the material being read comes from tells a great deal about how the piece of writing may be arranged and what its purpose is. An editorial is intended to persuade readers to believe what the author believes, whereas an article from a scholarly journal is typically written to inform.
• Who wrote the article? Do you know anything about the author? What other types of materials has he/she written? How could you find out more about the writer? Knowledge of who the author of the material is allows ESL students to enter into the conversation as active participants in the rhetorical process and not passive observers.
• What is the title of the piece? Can you determine what the topic of the issue that will be discussed is from the title? What else has been written about this topic? What do you already know about the issue at hand? Having ESL students relate to readings through their existing knowledge system will inspire a more personal interaction between the reader and the text.
• Who are the intended readers? What does the writer know or assume about his/her audience? How does the author address this audience? Who might have a strong opinion about the topic the reading addresses? An understanding of audience allows ESL students a chance to better understand how writing functions to persuade, influence, entertain, or inform.
Make Predictions
Instructors will assist student comprehension by constructing questions about the reading for students to answer before they read the assigned text for the first time. Doing this helps students make predictions about the text and encourages critical interaction when they read. For example, if the students will be reading an article on animal rights, you may ask questions that help provide a background on the issue.
1. How many groups of people can you think of that have strong feelings about animals?
2. What are the feelings of these groups towards animals? How are they similar? How are they different?
3. What might cause someone to change how they feel about animals?
4. Judging by the title, what do you think the purpose of this article is?
5. The article first appeared in People magazine? Who do you think the audience is?
Introduce Vocabulary
ESL students often struggle to understand new words and phrases. Reading exercises are an ideal way for these students to expand their working vocabularies. Instructors should create a vocabulary list of important or challenging words from the reading to hand out. Students can look up the words in a dictionary and write down the definitions. This exercise encourages ESL students to both learn the meanings of new words and phrases and to apply those meanings to the understanding of the assigned text.
First Reading
Have the students read through the text one time. Their main purpose during the first reading is to achieve a working understanding of the text. After they finish reading, have them answer questions that connect the earlier steps of the reading process with their working understanding of the text.
1. Did any of your predictions about the text based on the title turn out to be true?
2. What, if anything, surprised you?
3. What is the author's purpose or argument? Is he/she trying to persuade, inform, describe, etc?
4. What kinds of support are provided by the author to make his/her case?
5. Does the author want the readers to take an action of any kind?
Re-Reading
After developing a working understanding of the text, students should look for the author's claims and assertions and determine if s/he backs them up effectively. Also, look for stylistic choices the author makes and analyze them for their effectiveness.
• Highlight the major points of the writing. Note the thesis statement (the paper's main point) and the other major claims the author makes.
• Highlight the evidence and supporting information the author provides in a different color than you used to mark the major points.
• Mark up the text! Ask questions and write comments in the margins.
• What is the style of the article? Formal? Informal? Funny? Scholarly? Is it effective?
Final Thoughts
The above process of how to teach ESL reading skills can be extended in many different directions depending on the purpose of the assignment, the level of the student population, etc. Students could summarize the reading or respond to it by extending an aspect of the reading they found interesting. Instructors could also assign short answer questions that further encourage critical thinking or use the exercise as a starting point for a larger writing assignment.
http://www.yourdictionary.com/esl/How-to-Teach-ESL-Reading.html
retrieved on Thursday, December 17, 2009-12-17
www.chesapeakesportpilot.com/pages/articles/mentorlanglessons.pdf {sumber listening)
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Teach English in Madrid - Excellent Madrid BLC CELTA courses Recognised teacher training courses www.british-blc.com
Editing English _ ESL-EFL - ~:~ Knowledgeable Editors ~:~ Fast - Low Rates - Professional www.WordSharp.net
LangLab Software - A multimedia platform for teaching all four language skills--for less! www.elanglab.com
When considering how to teach ESL reading skills to second language learners, the most important concept to convey is that reading, like writing, is a process. Strong readers don't just sit down with a text, read it once, and completely understand it. Whether readers are aware of it or not, they employ techniques like pre-reading and making predictions to connect the particular text they are presently reading with texts they have read before. For ESL students, scaffolding this process into distinct steps is an effective way to build reading comprehension.
Pre-reading
Getting ready to read is one of the most important parts of the reading process. Situating the text in terms of its genre and audience can help ESL students approach reading with a critical mindset. Before reading the assignment, ask students to think about the following questions to encourage them to construct a context for the reading:
• Where did the material come from? Is it an excerpt from a book, a magazine, an online article, or a journal? Knowing where the material being read comes from tells a great deal about how the piece of writing may be arranged and what its purpose is. An editorial is intended to persuade readers to believe what the author believes, whereas an article from a scholarly journal is typically written to inform.
• Who wrote the article? Do you know anything about the author? What other types of materials has he/she written? How could you find out more about the writer? Knowledge of who the author of the material is allows ESL students to enter into the conversation as active participants in the rhetorical process and not passive observers.
• What is the title of the piece? Can you determine what the topic of the issue that will be discussed is from the title? What else has been written about this topic? What do you already know about the issue at hand? Having ESL students relate to readings through their existing knowledge system will inspire a more personal interaction between the reader and the text.
• Who are the intended readers? What does the writer know or assume about his/her audience? How does the author address this audience? Who might have a strong opinion about the topic the reading addresses? An understanding of audience allows ESL students a chance to better understand how writing functions to persuade, influence, entertain, or inform.
Make Predictions
Instructors will assist student comprehension by constructing questions about the reading for students to answer before they read the assigned text for the first time. Doing this helps students make predictions about the text and encourages critical interaction when they read. For example, if the students will be reading an article on animal rights, you may ask questions that help provide a background on the issue.
1. How many groups of people can you think of that have strong feelings about animals?
2. What are the feelings of these groups towards animals? How are they similar? How are they different?
3. What might cause someone to change how they feel about animals?
4. Judging by the title, what do you think the purpose of this article is?
5. The article first appeared in People magazine? Who do you think the audience is?
Introduce Vocabulary
ESL students often struggle to understand new words and phrases. Reading exercises are an ideal way for these students to expand their working vocabularies. Instructors should create a vocabulary list of important or challenging words from the reading to hand out. Students can look up the words in a dictionary and write down the definitions. This exercise encourages ESL students to both learn the meanings of new words and phrases and to apply those meanings to the understanding of the assigned text.
First Reading
Have the students read through the text one time. Their main purpose during the first reading is to achieve a working understanding of the text. After they finish reading, have them answer questions that connect the earlier steps of the reading process with their working understanding of the text.
1. Did any of your predictions about the text based on the title turn out to be true?
2. What, if anything, surprised you?
3. What is the author's purpose or argument? Is he/she trying to persuade, inform, describe, etc?
4. What kinds of support are provided by the author to make his/her case?
5. Does the author want the readers to take an action of any kind?
Re-Reading
After developing a working understanding of the text, students should look for the author's claims and assertions and determine if s/he backs them up effectively. Also, look for stylistic choices the author makes and analyze them for their effectiveness.
• Highlight the major points of the writing. Note the thesis statement (the paper's main point) and the other major claims the author makes.
• Highlight the evidence and supporting information the author provides in a different color than you used to mark the major points.
• Mark up the text! Ask questions and write comments in the margins.
• What is the style of the article? Formal? Informal? Funny? Scholarly? Is it effective?
Final Thoughts
The above process of how to teach ESL reading skills can be extended in many different directions depending on the purpose of the assignment, the level of the student population, etc. Students could summarize the reading or respond to it by extending an aspect of the reading they found interesting. Instructors could also assign short answer questions that further encourage critical thinking or use the exercise as a starting point for a larger writing assignment.
http://www.yourdictionary.com/esl/How-to-Teach-ESL-Reading.html
retrieved on Thursday, December 17, 2009-12-17
www.chesapeakesportpilot.com/pages/articles/mentorlanglessons.pdf {sumber listening)
Storytelling in the EFL Speaking Classroom
Storytelling in the EFL Speaking Classroom
Xu Jianing
Suzhou Industrial Park Institute of Vocational Technology (Jiangsu Province, China)
jianing61 {at} yahoo.com.cn
Introduction
As English becomes increasingly important in various fields such as business, finance, industry and education, most Chinese students hope they can speak English fluently. However, from my observations and many EFL teachers' descriptions of their oral English classrooms, a considerable number of students are not responding actively in speaking exercises. How to motivate the students in EFL speaking classrooms has long been our concern. First of all, it is necessary to find out the main factors affecting their participation.
What Factors Are Discouraging the Students?
The Students Are Nervous and Afraid of Making Mistakes.
In China, to get high scores in the Higher Education Exam is nearly the only goal of the high school students. For some reason, there is no oral English test in the Higher Education Exam; thus speaking skills are often neglected. More over, since there are usually over 50 students in each class, the students have little chance to practice speaking in class. This leads to the result that the speaking skills of most students are comparatively lower than other skills such as listening, reading and grammar.
Secondly, the fear of "losing face" prevents the students from speaking English (Zhu, 2003). Face is still of great importance to most Chinese. On the one hand, it motivates people to work hard to win face; on the other, people tend to conceal their mistakes and weaknesses for fear of losing face. For many English learners, they believe if they make mistakes or fail to find suitable words to express themselves, they will lose face. To protect themselves from being laughed at, they are reluctant to speak English. So there is the vicious circle: the less they speak, the less they improve their speaking skills, and the more they are afraid of speaking.
The Topics Are Not Interesting.
The dominating oral English teaching materials in China focus on situational or/and communicative function (Chen 2004), aiming to enable students to cope, in the target language, with typical situations in school and work environments as well as in ordinary life. When "practical" is the prime principle, what the learners do most in the speaking classroom is to make dialogues according to the given situations or topics. However, students often complain that they have been repeatedly asked to introduce their families or schools; talk about their hobbies or majors; make dialogues on topics such as job interviews, meeting visitors or shopping. These "practical" topics and situations provide little space for the students to imagine and create; therefore, dialogues on these situational topics are hard to develop in depth and width. People tend to lose interest in what they learn if they find they make little progress.
Another problem with this kind of topic-based speaking training is you can't expect all the listeners to be interested in your hobby or major. Moreover, the other students in the classroom are talking about similar things, which could hardly offer anything new to each other. Consequently, the audiences in the speaking classroom are not very attentive and the speakers just make a perfunctory effort instead of getting involved, not even to mention enjoying it. To many of them, the job is just a job.
The Classroom Atmosphere Is Not Encouraging.
The effect of classroom atmosphere on language learning, especially an oral class, is obvious and immediate. A free and light-hearted atmosphere promotes communications, while a nervous and stiff atmosphere builds invisible obstacles in communications. Dialogues about daily life and routine work lack variation, do not sound enchanting, and are unlikely to create an animated classroom atmosphere.
Feedback of the Listeners Is Not Supportive.
According to my observations in speaking classes, apart from the factors mentioned above, the listeners' feedback also has a strong influence on the performance of the speakers. Very often, at the beginning of the performance, the speakers are confident and active when doing some dialogues or role play exercises. However, when the audience loses interest in the speakers, begin to talk to each other or just do whatever else instead of listening attentatively to the speakers, the speakers tend to, consciously or unconsciously, speed up or cut down their words, trying to flee back to their own seats as quickly as they can (students are often asked to present in the front of the classroom and face the class in order to build better communications since there are usually 40 to 50 students in each class). Even the slightest indifference or impatience indicated by the audience can be immediately felt by the speakers, which, in turn, greatly inhibits their passion to communicate. Of course, teachers can force the audiences to listen to the speakers but it is of no use blaming them. The most effective way is to offer the audiences something different and interesting!
Why Stories?
As we all know, stories have always played a significant role in children's growth. Stories not only help in stimulating children's imagination and understanding of the world, but also in developing children's language ability and appreciating literature (Aiex, 1988; Cooper, 1989; Koki, 1998; Zobairi & Gulley, 1989). It is just as Wright wrote, "Stories which rely so much on words, offer a major and constant source of language experience for children" (Wright, 1995).
The primary reason to recommend storytelling in the EFL speaking classroom is that stories are motivating and immensely interesting, can best attract listeners and promote communication. "The excitement and drama of storytelling provide a context that holds students' attention." (Cooter, 1991; Bla, 1998).
Secondly, stories are an enormous language treasure. For hundreds of years, thousands of stories have been created and passed down. Many old stories are regarded as the models of language and treasures of the culture, from which learners at various language levels and age groups can find suitable stories to read and tell. It would be a waste and pity if they are neglected in the course of EFL/ESL. In addition, stories are easily accessible; storybooks can be found in bookstores and borrowed from libraries or friends. Today, the most convenient and quickest way to find stories is from the Internet. “Storytelling …… costs nothing, is enjoyable, and can be used anywhere and at any time” (Zabel, 1991).
Thirdly, the lively atmosphere and real life environment created by stories encourages the students to talk and discuss with each other. When telling and listening to a story, the learners will easily be plunged into the plots and the scene and forget about themselves, which will, to a great degree, relieve their nervousness. Colon-vila (1997) also commented that storytelling helps EFL learners become more self-confident to express themselves spontaneously and creatively. However, teachers have not been zealous to use it in the classroom (Alvey, 1977).
Some students say that they have no time to meet with their partners and practice dialogues when they fail to do it well. Though sometimes it is just an excuse, nevertheless, storytelling helps solve the problem: partners are not indispensable to practice storytelling though it is better to have an audience.
To Whom to Use Stories?
Stories are often connected with children. In fact, they are not only loyal listeners; they also like to tell stories. The language classroom is just the place for children to share stories and show their language abilities. In China, there are various kinds of storytelling competitions in kindergartens and schools, attracting many children to participate. As long as the teacher gives proper instruction, children would be very pleased to learn storytelling in English. Besides, many stories can be adopted into short plays and children enjoy performing.
It should also be pointed out that stories are not only for children. There are many stories for EFL learners of different levels and ages. I have tried using stories in college English classrooms and found that even the poorest storyteller can be the center of attention.
How to Use Stories?
The following are just a few examples of using stories in the EFL speaking classroom arranged in the order of difficulty. At first, if the students are not confident in their speaking skills, it is recommended that the students be given enough time to prepare. As the students build their confidence and the classroom language environment becomes more free and active, the teacher could gradually increase the difficulty and make the game more versatile. To motivate and encourage the students, points and prizes are granted to good tellers and groups each time.
Warming Up
The students listen to some stories downloaded from the Internet and repeat as they listen. This gives them an opportunity to improve their pronunciation, stress and intonation. They are offered three stories each time and required to practice the one they like best. A competition is held every two weeks. When every student has learned to tell three to five stories naturally and expressively, they feel much more confident in telling stories in English than before.
Activity 1
Divide the students into groups and each group prepares a story. Each member of the group tells two to three sentences and the next one continues until the end of the story. The length of the story could gradually increase from two or three minutes to four or five minutes. Before the lesson, the students could divide their tasks in advance and practice their own parts. They could also be given a few minutes to practice in class the whole story if necessary. The teacher moves among the groups and chooses two or three groups to present their stories before the class. Because the students have enough time to prepare and they are working together, this helps them build confidence and create a lively and brisk atmosphere.
Activity 2
Ask each student to prepare a story (about two minutes long) in advance. Divide the students into groups with four to five members in each group and ask them to tell his/her story in the group. The best storytellers in each group win ten points and compete for the best storyteller of the class. The winner wins another ten points for each member of his/her group and the second best wins eight points and so on. Since the performance of each representative is connected to the score of everyone, the students will be greatly involved in the whole process and listen to the stories attentatively, which will in turn promote the performance of the storytellers.
To avoid the few best storytellers dominating the activity, the best storytellers will be arranged in the same group next time. They will have to work harder in order to win again. This will make the winners stronger and at the same time, increase the opportunities of others and promote the whole class participation.
Activity 3
Divide the students into four to five groups and each group is given an opening of a story and asked to finish the story in about 20 minutes. Then select one student from each group to tell their story in the class and the best one wins 10 points for their group.
To get everyone fully involved and avoid the liability that each group just asks their best storyteller to do the job, the storytellers are selected by drawing lots instead of being chosen by themselves. This also helps enliven the atmosphere of the classroom. So each group must work together to make the story as interesting as they can. An alternative way is to ask each member of the group to tell a part of the story and make a whole.
Activity 4
Ask each group to hand in an incomplete story and redistribute them among the groups. Give the students 20 minutes to read their stories and finish them. After each group presents their story, compare it with the original one. The most interesting one and the one closest to the original win.
Activity 5
The teacher gives the first sentence to the class and then each student adds one more sentence to make a whole story impromptu. Because there is no preparation and no body has any idea about what the next person will say and where the story is going, there are often lots of fun and surprises in the game.
This game is suitable to the classes with no more than 20 students. If there are too many students, the students will wait too long to make his/her sentence, which is likely to make the game sluggish; also, the students may not hear each other clearly and this will reduce the success of the game.
In the process of using stories, the teacher could, in different cases, choose to encourage the students to rewrite the stories, using their own language or ask them to keep the original language as much as they can. The former way encourages the students to understand the stories and adds their own characteristics to the stories and the latter prompts them to learn to use new words and expressions. Besides, pictures, movies and other materials would also be great help in storytelling. After a few months, the students’ speaking ability can be improved to considerable degree.
Conclusion
There are many ways to use stories in the oral English classroom. It is also advised to encourage the students to find more interesting stories and create different ways to use them. Besides, in the course of looking for, rewriting and completing stories, their reading, writing and imagination can be further developed; teamwork and friendship will become stronger by working in groups. So let stories be a member of your oral English class!
References
* Aiex, N. K. (1998). Storytelling : Its wide-Ranging Impact in the Classroom. [ED: 299 574]. Alvey, R.G. (1974). The Historical Development of Organized Storytelling to Children in the United States. Phd Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
* Chen, Xiaohua. (2004). Sun Yatsen University Forum, Vol.24 No.5
* Colon-vila, L. (1997). Storytelling in the ESL Classroom. Teaching K-8, 58-59.
* Cooter, 1991 in Adventures with Words, Black, 1998.
* Cooper, P. (1989). Using storytelling to teach oral communication competencies K-12. Paper presents in the Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication. Association (75#, San Francisco, CA). [ED: 314 798]
* Koki, Stan. (1998). Storytelling: the heart and soul of education. [ED: 426 398].
* Wright, A. (1995). Storytelling with children. Oxford University Press.
* Zable, M.K. (1991). Storytelling, Myths, and Folk Tales: Strategies for Multicultural Inclusion. Preventing School Failure, v36, nl, 32-34.
* Zobairi, N. & Gulley, B. (1989). The told tale: Oral storytelling and the young children. [ED: 319 517]
* Zhu, Hua. (2003). Journal of Liaoning Educational Administration Institute, Vol.20 No.9
Xu Jianing
Suzhou Industrial Park Institute of Vocational Technology (Jiangsu Province, China)
jianing61 {at} yahoo.com.cn
Introduction
As English becomes increasingly important in various fields such as business, finance, industry and education, most Chinese students hope they can speak English fluently. However, from my observations and many EFL teachers' descriptions of their oral English classrooms, a considerable number of students are not responding actively in speaking exercises. How to motivate the students in EFL speaking classrooms has long been our concern. First of all, it is necessary to find out the main factors affecting their participation.
What Factors Are Discouraging the Students?
The Students Are Nervous and Afraid of Making Mistakes.
In China, to get high scores in the Higher Education Exam is nearly the only goal of the high school students. For some reason, there is no oral English test in the Higher Education Exam; thus speaking skills are often neglected. More over, since there are usually over 50 students in each class, the students have little chance to practice speaking in class. This leads to the result that the speaking skills of most students are comparatively lower than other skills such as listening, reading and grammar.
Secondly, the fear of "losing face" prevents the students from speaking English (Zhu, 2003). Face is still of great importance to most Chinese. On the one hand, it motivates people to work hard to win face; on the other, people tend to conceal their mistakes and weaknesses for fear of losing face. For many English learners, they believe if they make mistakes or fail to find suitable words to express themselves, they will lose face. To protect themselves from being laughed at, they are reluctant to speak English. So there is the vicious circle: the less they speak, the less they improve their speaking skills, and the more they are afraid of speaking.
The Topics Are Not Interesting.
The dominating oral English teaching materials in China focus on situational or/and communicative function (Chen 2004), aiming to enable students to cope, in the target language, with typical situations in school and work environments as well as in ordinary life. When "practical" is the prime principle, what the learners do most in the speaking classroom is to make dialogues according to the given situations or topics. However, students often complain that they have been repeatedly asked to introduce their families or schools; talk about their hobbies or majors; make dialogues on topics such as job interviews, meeting visitors or shopping. These "practical" topics and situations provide little space for the students to imagine and create; therefore, dialogues on these situational topics are hard to develop in depth and width. People tend to lose interest in what they learn if they find they make little progress.
Another problem with this kind of topic-based speaking training is you can't expect all the listeners to be interested in your hobby or major. Moreover, the other students in the classroom are talking about similar things, which could hardly offer anything new to each other. Consequently, the audiences in the speaking classroom are not very attentive and the speakers just make a perfunctory effort instead of getting involved, not even to mention enjoying it. To many of them, the job is just a job.
The Classroom Atmosphere Is Not Encouraging.
The effect of classroom atmosphere on language learning, especially an oral class, is obvious and immediate. A free and light-hearted atmosphere promotes communications, while a nervous and stiff atmosphere builds invisible obstacles in communications. Dialogues about daily life and routine work lack variation, do not sound enchanting, and are unlikely to create an animated classroom atmosphere.
Feedback of the Listeners Is Not Supportive.
According to my observations in speaking classes, apart from the factors mentioned above, the listeners' feedback also has a strong influence on the performance of the speakers. Very often, at the beginning of the performance, the speakers are confident and active when doing some dialogues or role play exercises. However, when the audience loses interest in the speakers, begin to talk to each other or just do whatever else instead of listening attentatively to the speakers, the speakers tend to, consciously or unconsciously, speed up or cut down their words, trying to flee back to their own seats as quickly as they can (students are often asked to present in the front of the classroom and face the class in order to build better communications since there are usually 40 to 50 students in each class). Even the slightest indifference or impatience indicated by the audience can be immediately felt by the speakers, which, in turn, greatly inhibits their passion to communicate. Of course, teachers can force the audiences to listen to the speakers but it is of no use blaming them. The most effective way is to offer the audiences something different and interesting!
Why Stories?
As we all know, stories have always played a significant role in children's growth. Stories not only help in stimulating children's imagination and understanding of the world, but also in developing children's language ability and appreciating literature (Aiex, 1988; Cooper, 1989; Koki, 1998; Zobairi & Gulley, 1989). It is just as Wright wrote, "Stories which rely so much on words, offer a major and constant source of language experience for children" (Wright, 1995).
The primary reason to recommend storytelling in the EFL speaking classroom is that stories are motivating and immensely interesting, can best attract listeners and promote communication. "The excitement and drama of storytelling provide a context that holds students' attention." (Cooter, 1991; Bla, 1998).
Secondly, stories are an enormous language treasure. For hundreds of years, thousands of stories have been created and passed down. Many old stories are regarded as the models of language and treasures of the culture, from which learners at various language levels and age groups can find suitable stories to read and tell. It would be a waste and pity if they are neglected in the course of EFL/ESL. In addition, stories are easily accessible; storybooks can be found in bookstores and borrowed from libraries or friends. Today, the most convenient and quickest way to find stories is from the Internet. “Storytelling …… costs nothing, is enjoyable, and can be used anywhere and at any time” (Zabel, 1991).
Thirdly, the lively atmosphere and real life environment created by stories encourages the students to talk and discuss with each other. When telling and listening to a story, the learners will easily be plunged into the plots and the scene and forget about themselves, which will, to a great degree, relieve their nervousness. Colon-vila (1997) also commented that storytelling helps EFL learners become more self-confident to express themselves spontaneously and creatively. However, teachers have not been zealous to use it in the classroom (Alvey, 1977).
Some students say that they have no time to meet with their partners and practice dialogues when they fail to do it well. Though sometimes it is just an excuse, nevertheless, storytelling helps solve the problem: partners are not indispensable to practice storytelling though it is better to have an audience.
To Whom to Use Stories?
Stories are often connected with children. In fact, they are not only loyal listeners; they also like to tell stories. The language classroom is just the place for children to share stories and show their language abilities. In China, there are various kinds of storytelling competitions in kindergartens and schools, attracting many children to participate. As long as the teacher gives proper instruction, children would be very pleased to learn storytelling in English. Besides, many stories can be adopted into short plays and children enjoy performing.
It should also be pointed out that stories are not only for children. There are many stories for EFL learners of different levels and ages. I have tried using stories in college English classrooms and found that even the poorest storyteller can be the center of attention.
How to Use Stories?
The following are just a few examples of using stories in the EFL speaking classroom arranged in the order of difficulty. At first, if the students are not confident in their speaking skills, it is recommended that the students be given enough time to prepare. As the students build their confidence and the classroom language environment becomes more free and active, the teacher could gradually increase the difficulty and make the game more versatile. To motivate and encourage the students, points and prizes are granted to good tellers and groups each time.
Warming Up
The students listen to some stories downloaded from the Internet and repeat as they listen. This gives them an opportunity to improve their pronunciation, stress and intonation. They are offered three stories each time and required to practice the one they like best. A competition is held every two weeks. When every student has learned to tell three to five stories naturally and expressively, they feel much more confident in telling stories in English than before.
Activity 1
Divide the students into groups and each group prepares a story. Each member of the group tells two to three sentences and the next one continues until the end of the story. The length of the story could gradually increase from two or three minutes to four or five minutes. Before the lesson, the students could divide their tasks in advance and practice their own parts. They could also be given a few minutes to practice in class the whole story if necessary. The teacher moves among the groups and chooses two or three groups to present their stories before the class. Because the students have enough time to prepare and they are working together, this helps them build confidence and create a lively and brisk atmosphere.
Activity 2
Ask each student to prepare a story (about two minutes long) in advance. Divide the students into groups with four to five members in each group and ask them to tell his/her story in the group. The best storytellers in each group win ten points and compete for the best storyteller of the class. The winner wins another ten points for each member of his/her group and the second best wins eight points and so on. Since the performance of each representative is connected to the score of everyone, the students will be greatly involved in the whole process and listen to the stories attentatively, which will in turn promote the performance of the storytellers.
To avoid the few best storytellers dominating the activity, the best storytellers will be arranged in the same group next time. They will have to work harder in order to win again. This will make the winners stronger and at the same time, increase the opportunities of others and promote the whole class participation.
Activity 3
Divide the students into four to five groups and each group is given an opening of a story and asked to finish the story in about 20 minutes. Then select one student from each group to tell their story in the class and the best one wins 10 points for their group.
To get everyone fully involved and avoid the liability that each group just asks their best storyteller to do the job, the storytellers are selected by drawing lots instead of being chosen by themselves. This also helps enliven the atmosphere of the classroom. So each group must work together to make the story as interesting as they can. An alternative way is to ask each member of the group to tell a part of the story and make a whole.
Activity 4
Ask each group to hand in an incomplete story and redistribute them among the groups. Give the students 20 minutes to read their stories and finish them. After each group presents their story, compare it with the original one. The most interesting one and the one closest to the original win.
Activity 5
The teacher gives the first sentence to the class and then each student adds one more sentence to make a whole story impromptu. Because there is no preparation and no body has any idea about what the next person will say and where the story is going, there are often lots of fun and surprises in the game.
This game is suitable to the classes with no more than 20 students. If there are too many students, the students will wait too long to make his/her sentence, which is likely to make the game sluggish; also, the students may not hear each other clearly and this will reduce the success of the game.
In the process of using stories, the teacher could, in different cases, choose to encourage the students to rewrite the stories, using their own language or ask them to keep the original language as much as they can. The former way encourages the students to understand the stories and adds their own characteristics to the stories and the latter prompts them to learn to use new words and expressions. Besides, pictures, movies and other materials would also be great help in storytelling. After a few months, the students’ speaking ability can be improved to considerable degree.
Conclusion
There are many ways to use stories in the oral English classroom. It is also advised to encourage the students to find more interesting stories and create different ways to use them. Besides, in the course of looking for, rewriting and completing stories, their reading, writing and imagination can be further developed; teamwork and friendship will become stronger by working in groups. So let stories be a member of your oral English class!
References
* Aiex, N. K. (1998). Storytelling : Its wide-Ranging Impact in the Classroom. [ED: 299 574]. Alvey, R.G. (1974). The Historical Development of Organized Storytelling to Children in the United States. Phd Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
* Chen, Xiaohua. (2004). Sun Yatsen University Forum, Vol.24 No.5
* Colon-vila, L. (1997). Storytelling in the ESL Classroom. Teaching K-8, 58-59.
* Cooter, 1991 in Adventures with Words, Black, 1998.
* Cooper, P. (1989). Using storytelling to teach oral communication competencies K-12. Paper presents in the Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication. Association (75#, San Francisco, CA). [ED: 314 798]
* Koki, Stan. (1998). Storytelling: the heart and soul of education. [ED: 426 398].
* Wright, A. (1995). Storytelling with children. Oxford University Press.
* Zable, M.K. (1991). Storytelling, Myths, and Folk Tales: Strategies for Multicultural Inclusion. Preventing School Failure, v36, nl, 32-34.
* Zobairi, N. & Gulley, B. (1989). The told tale: Oral storytelling and the young children. [ED: 319 517]
* Zhu, Hua. (2003). Journal of Liaoning Educational Administration Institute, Vol.20 No.9
A Task-Based Approach to Entrance Exam Essay Question Preparation
A Task-Based Approach to Entrance Exam Essay Question Preparation
Peter Hourdequin
pfh2116(at)columbia.edu
Shizuoka Gakuen High School (Shizuoka, Japan)
Introduction
In the Japanese private high school where I teach--as in most high schools throughout Japan-- third year students spend a lot of their time preparing for University entrance exams. In English classes, the 'grammar-translation' method is still used quite extensively by classroom teachers to train students for the type of questions they will see on the National Center Test, and on private and public college entrance exams. But in addition to grammar and reading comprehension questions, many of the top public and private universities now include short essay writing sections on their tests, in which students have to respond to a Japanese or English prompt with an English essay.
Task-based learning theory makes a common sense distinction between two types of tasks: target tasks, and pedagogical tasks. Target tasks are those real world tasks which the student hopes to actually perform some day (such as a job interview, for example), and pedagogical tasks are classroom activities which give the student
opportunities for practice of the skills involved in the target task. Here, I would like to use this task-based framework to briefly explore the short essay section of Japanese university entrance exams as a target task, and consider pedagogical tasks (classroom activities) which can help EFL students succeed on exam day.
Though 'teaching to a test' may seem unappealing to some instructors, essay test question preparation can also be framed in task-based terms, whereby a student's answering an entrance exam essay question on testing day is seen as the "target task" for which various "pedagogic tasks" are developed in order to facilitate success. Such a framing opens the door to various strategies that can help students gain competence and confidence for answering entrance exam essay questions while at the same time providing valuable learning opportunities.
The Nature of the Tests
A look at university entrance exam past papers reveals several very challenging aspects to the tests themselves which frequently confound student test-takers. First and foremost among these challenges is time. Most tests are ninety to one hundred and twenty minutes in length and include complex grammar and reading comprehension questions in addition to one essay question based upon a Japanese or English prompt. This means that by the time many students reach the essay question portion of the test, they may only have a short time remaining to understand the essay question, organize their thoughts, and compose an intelligible response. Furthermore, test questions almost always impose word limits for students. This means that students must, within fifteen to twenty minutes, be able to produce an essay which is not only well-written, but also extremely concise.
A final challenge for students is topic complexity. Many of the essay question prompt students to opine on complex societal problems, write about strange hypothetical situations, or interpret pictures or cartoons. For students who have not yet developed good critical thinking skills and familiarity with English rhetorical style, never mind linguistic skills, such tasks are difficult to impossible.
Classroom Strategies
The aforementioned challenges can, however, be approached many months--if not years--before exam day through various pedagogical tasks which will help students gradually gain competence and confidence. Several Japanese books consolidate representative samples of exam questions and help students develop strategies and key vocabulary. Books like this, or the actual past papers themselves are the best sources for entrance exam questions to use for practice in the classroom.
Get Students Used to the Ticking Clock
One strategy for dealing with the issue of time pressure is to challenge students to write under time constraints early and often. Time limited free writing, brainstorming, as well as essay writing tasks themselves help students become comfortable with the challenge of a ticking clock. In the classroom though students can be given significant preparation time or various forms of input before they are compelled to write on a given topic, thus diminishing the stress associated with writing on a topic one has never even thought through before.
Deal with Word Limits
In addition to time constraints, word limits also constrain students and provide additional stress at test time. The instructions of most tests stipulate word count ranges or limits within which student essays are expected to write their answers. Many tests even ask students to count the words in their essays and record the number on their answer sheets. The word count limits and ranges vary significantly by university and question type, but as a rule short answer questions generally ask for answers as short as 20 - 30 word, whereas long answer questions can require anywhere from 40 to 200 words. The best strategy for contending with word limits is simply to get students used to the look, feel, and common structures of typical essays at various lengths. Students become good at counting words by line, but this time is probably better spent on planning, composition, and editing.
Build Familiarity with the Question Forms
As I mentioned above, different universities typically require essay question answers on different topics and of varying lengths. The good news though is that universities seem to stay fairly consistent on this from year to year. Thus, if a teacher becomes familiar with the strata(s) of university to which students in a given class are applying, he or she can structure and sequence tasks according to the types of questions which students might see on test day.
A broad look at the various questions which universities use also reveals certain large thematic categories which teachers can use as focus points for preparing their students. Example of some of the main categories are: agree / disagree questions, opinion response to a text, reaction and/or interpretation of a cartoon, hypothetical questions, and questions about future plans. Some types of questions, such as these last two, clearly seek to elicit responses whereby students demonstrate their facility with discrete grammatical areas such as the subjunctive mood, or future aspect. Teachers can thus focus on relevant grammatical structures, offer model paragraphs, and explicitly teach students about which types of grammatical forms are likely to be necessary in response to certain types of writing prompts. I generally integrate the skill of becoming aware of such characteristics into my lessons, thus training students to have a good eye for what grammatical patterns a given question might be trying to elicit.
Some exam questions seem to have less discrete grammatical focus, and instead call for students to display vocabulary competence by offering opinions on various topics. Once a teacher identifies the key vocabularies which these questions draw from, he or she can add vocabulary exercises to class time, or assign vocabulary learning for homework before specific writing assignments.
Develop Test-taking Skills
Once students are familiar with the various types of questions which are common on university entrance exams, teachers can help them develop test-taking skills and strategies for attacking these questions. Essay question prompts are given in both Japanese and English, but either way, students need to be able to quickly recognize the key points which they must write about. Simple exercises in which students underline key words in sample questions can help students ensure that they address the entire scope of the prompt in their essay. This type of exercise too can be done under imposed time constraints, thus helping students to improve their scanning and skimming techniques.
Students can also be encouraged to practice quick brainstorming and outlining activities with which they can make thumbnail sketches of their essays before they start writing. Of course, such strategies will only work for students who have some extra time when they begin their essays. Given this, another important component to teach students about is time management. Students should consider their own test-taking styles, strengths, and weaknesses, and decide accordingly when during their test to work on the writing section. The writing sections of university entrance exams in Japan almost always come at the end of the test, but that does not mean students have to work in the prescribed order.
Develop Critical Thinking Skills
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of teaching Japanese high school students English essay writing is helping them develop critical thinking skills vis-Ã -vis western style rhetorical conventions. In Japan, there is a specific format of essay writing which is typically taught to students in their high school Japanese lessons (it is taught, but not often practiced). The style differs from the common western five paragraph essay, and so, following this form, students may produce writing which is somewhat more elliptical in nature than what is common in standard Western discourse. This could perhaps be thought of as an example of what linguists call 'interference'--whereby L1 knowledge is transferred to the L2, but here it is seen taking place on the narrative level (rather than, or in addition to the lexical and sentence levels). And though it would be presumptuous (and perhaps imperialistic) to teach students that such a form is unacceptable for English essay writing, it is nevertheless prudent to teach and expose students to more linear essay forms which address the university entrance exam prompts efficiently (efficiency is at a premium). In doing this, teachers need to remember though, that students may have had few opportunities to develop and exercise critical thinking skills in their other classes. Teachers may thus see deficiencies in students' abilities to think about problems critically. This can be true even among student who have a strong grasp of English grammar, who might be able to excel on multiple choice questions, and even translation problems. Still, various exercises can be used to help students develop critical thinking skills while simultaneously working on linguistic competencies.
Other critical thinking activities might include group brainstorms, listing the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ of ideas and positions, listing ‘for’ and ‘against’ arguments, mapping processes, and recognizing true/false or logical and illogical statements based upon conjunction use (students in Japan, for example, frequently confuse "so" and "because"). In all of these activities, I find that I need to constantly switch between focusing on proper phrase construction, sentence construction, and paragraph construction and ordering.
Provide Rich Input for Students to Engage With
One of the most obvious things teachers can do to help students develop good writing is to expose them to well-written sample essays. The type of short essays writing required on university entrance exams may differ significantly from the type of writing students see in their text books, so just increasing students familiarity with sample answers goes a long way and seems to have considerable influence on their writing. Short sample essays can be presented in dictation form while students listen for missing words or phrases as they read through the text. Students seem to benefit from aural as well as textual input as a means of engaging different learning styles, and also perhaps activating different cognitive faculties for processing language.
Providing outlines of sample paragraphs based upon their structures also seems to help students to conceptualize various essay forms and become familiar with common time order words and other rhetorical devices. Once students gain some familiarity with these forms, they can of course be asked to make or fill-in structure outlines on their own. Also, word puzzles whereby students arrange sentences into logical order are fun group activity that focus students on essay structures and forms. Later, this can even be done at the word--rather than sentence--level.
Conclusion
In the article, I have chosen to focus mainly on the broad issues associated with helping students to prepare for entrance exam questions, and the practices which I have found to be most effective. I have mainly discussed issues related to form and content, and have not focused on the sentence-level grammar and vocabulary problems that many students encounter. This is because I generally communicate these issues directly to students in written form when I correct the essay assignments which they submit regularly (based on past paper university entrance exam questions). Related to this though, I have sometimes consolidated malformed sentences and/or essays and presented them in class (anonymously) to students to correct themselves or in groups. Since different students in the same class often make the same writing errors, this has a positive effect in raising awareness of errors and thinking through solutions collectively. Several exam preparation text books also focus on common errors by providing example for students to correct themselves. Such texts can be used in advance of writing assignments in order to raise student consciousness about common errors before they are even made.
Here, I have tried to explain my perspective on how university entrance exam essay questions can be used as target tasks within a task-based teaching framework. Though the context of my observations relates to the particulars of the Japanese entrance exam system, it is my hope that some of the essay writing related pedagogical tasks which I have discussed will have broader application.
Peter Hourdequin
pfh2116(at)columbia.edu
Shizuoka Gakuen High School (Shizuoka, Japan)
Introduction
In the Japanese private high school where I teach--as in most high schools throughout Japan-- third year students spend a lot of their time preparing for University entrance exams. In English classes, the 'grammar-translation' method is still used quite extensively by classroom teachers to train students for the type of questions they will see on the National Center Test, and on private and public college entrance exams. But in addition to grammar and reading comprehension questions, many of the top public and private universities now include short essay writing sections on their tests, in which students have to respond to a Japanese or English prompt with an English essay.
Task-based learning theory makes a common sense distinction between two types of tasks: target tasks, and pedagogical tasks. Target tasks are those real world tasks which the student hopes to actually perform some day (such as a job interview, for example), and pedagogical tasks are classroom activities which give the student
opportunities for practice of the skills involved in the target task. Here, I would like to use this task-based framework to briefly explore the short essay section of Japanese university entrance exams as a target task, and consider pedagogical tasks (classroom activities) which can help EFL students succeed on exam day.
Though 'teaching to a test' may seem unappealing to some instructors, essay test question preparation can also be framed in task-based terms, whereby a student's answering an entrance exam essay question on testing day is seen as the "target task" for which various "pedagogic tasks" are developed in order to facilitate success. Such a framing opens the door to various strategies that can help students gain competence and confidence for answering entrance exam essay questions while at the same time providing valuable learning opportunities.
The Nature of the Tests
A look at university entrance exam past papers reveals several very challenging aspects to the tests themselves which frequently confound student test-takers. First and foremost among these challenges is time. Most tests are ninety to one hundred and twenty minutes in length and include complex grammar and reading comprehension questions in addition to one essay question based upon a Japanese or English prompt. This means that by the time many students reach the essay question portion of the test, they may only have a short time remaining to understand the essay question, organize their thoughts, and compose an intelligible response. Furthermore, test questions almost always impose word limits for students. This means that students must, within fifteen to twenty minutes, be able to produce an essay which is not only well-written, but also extremely concise.
A final challenge for students is topic complexity. Many of the essay question prompt students to opine on complex societal problems, write about strange hypothetical situations, or interpret pictures or cartoons. For students who have not yet developed good critical thinking skills and familiarity with English rhetorical style, never mind linguistic skills, such tasks are difficult to impossible.
Classroom Strategies
The aforementioned challenges can, however, be approached many months--if not years--before exam day through various pedagogical tasks which will help students gradually gain competence and confidence. Several Japanese books consolidate representative samples of exam questions and help students develop strategies and key vocabulary. Books like this, or the actual past papers themselves are the best sources for entrance exam questions to use for practice in the classroom.
Get Students Used to the Ticking Clock
One strategy for dealing with the issue of time pressure is to challenge students to write under time constraints early and often. Time limited free writing, brainstorming, as well as essay writing tasks themselves help students become comfortable with the challenge of a ticking clock. In the classroom though students can be given significant preparation time or various forms of input before they are compelled to write on a given topic, thus diminishing the stress associated with writing on a topic one has never even thought through before.
Deal with Word Limits
In addition to time constraints, word limits also constrain students and provide additional stress at test time. The instructions of most tests stipulate word count ranges or limits within which student essays are expected to write their answers. Many tests even ask students to count the words in their essays and record the number on their answer sheets. The word count limits and ranges vary significantly by university and question type, but as a rule short answer questions generally ask for answers as short as 20 - 30 word, whereas long answer questions can require anywhere from 40 to 200 words. The best strategy for contending with word limits is simply to get students used to the look, feel, and common structures of typical essays at various lengths. Students become good at counting words by line, but this time is probably better spent on planning, composition, and editing.
Build Familiarity with the Question Forms
As I mentioned above, different universities typically require essay question answers on different topics and of varying lengths. The good news though is that universities seem to stay fairly consistent on this from year to year. Thus, if a teacher becomes familiar with the strata(s) of university to which students in a given class are applying, he or she can structure and sequence tasks according to the types of questions which students might see on test day.
A broad look at the various questions which universities use also reveals certain large thematic categories which teachers can use as focus points for preparing their students. Example of some of the main categories are: agree / disagree questions, opinion response to a text, reaction and/or interpretation of a cartoon, hypothetical questions, and questions about future plans. Some types of questions, such as these last two, clearly seek to elicit responses whereby students demonstrate their facility with discrete grammatical areas such as the subjunctive mood, or future aspect. Teachers can thus focus on relevant grammatical structures, offer model paragraphs, and explicitly teach students about which types of grammatical forms are likely to be necessary in response to certain types of writing prompts. I generally integrate the skill of becoming aware of such characteristics into my lessons, thus training students to have a good eye for what grammatical patterns a given question might be trying to elicit.
Some exam questions seem to have less discrete grammatical focus, and instead call for students to display vocabulary competence by offering opinions on various topics. Once a teacher identifies the key vocabularies which these questions draw from, he or she can add vocabulary exercises to class time, or assign vocabulary learning for homework before specific writing assignments.
Develop Test-taking Skills
Once students are familiar with the various types of questions which are common on university entrance exams, teachers can help them develop test-taking skills and strategies for attacking these questions. Essay question prompts are given in both Japanese and English, but either way, students need to be able to quickly recognize the key points which they must write about. Simple exercises in which students underline key words in sample questions can help students ensure that they address the entire scope of the prompt in their essay. This type of exercise too can be done under imposed time constraints, thus helping students to improve their scanning and skimming techniques.
Students can also be encouraged to practice quick brainstorming and outlining activities with which they can make thumbnail sketches of their essays before they start writing. Of course, such strategies will only work for students who have some extra time when they begin their essays. Given this, another important component to teach students about is time management. Students should consider their own test-taking styles, strengths, and weaknesses, and decide accordingly when during their test to work on the writing section. The writing sections of university entrance exams in Japan almost always come at the end of the test, but that does not mean students have to work in the prescribed order.
Develop Critical Thinking Skills
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of teaching Japanese high school students English essay writing is helping them develop critical thinking skills vis-Ã -vis western style rhetorical conventions. In Japan, there is a specific format of essay writing which is typically taught to students in their high school Japanese lessons (it is taught, but not often practiced). The style differs from the common western five paragraph essay, and so, following this form, students may produce writing which is somewhat more elliptical in nature than what is common in standard Western discourse. This could perhaps be thought of as an example of what linguists call 'interference'--whereby L1 knowledge is transferred to the L2, but here it is seen taking place on the narrative level (rather than, or in addition to the lexical and sentence levels). And though it would be presumptuous (and perhaps imperialistic) to teach students that such a form is unacceptable for English essay writing, it is nevertheless prudent to teach and expose students to more linear essay forms which address the university entrance exam prompts efficiently (efficiency is at a premium). In doing this, teachers need to remember though, that students may have had few opportunities to develop and exercise critical thinking skills in their other classes. Teachers may thus see deficiencies in students' abilities to think about problems critically. This can be true even among student who have a strong grasp of English grammar, who might be able to excel on multiple choice questions, and even translation problems. Still, various exercises can be used to help students develop critical thinking skills while simultaneously working on linguistic competencies.
Other critical thinking activities might include group brainstorms, listing the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ of ideas and positions, listing ‘for’ and ‘against’ arguments, mapping processes, and recognizing true/false or logical and illogical statements based upon conjunction use (students in Japan, for example, frequently confuse "so" and "because"). In all of these activities, I find that I need to constantly switch between focusing on proper phrase construction, sentence construction, and paragraph construction and ordering.
Provide Rich Input for Students to Engage With
One of the most obvious things teachers can do to help students develop good writing is to expose them to well-written sample essays. The type of short essays writing required on university entrance exams may differ significantly from the type of writing students see in their text books, so just increasing students familiarity with sample answers goes a long way and seems to have considerable influence on their writing. Short sample essays can be presented in dictation form while students listen for missing words or phrases as they read through the text. Students seem to benefit from aural as well as textual input as a means of engaging different learning styles, and also perhaps activating different cognitive faculties for processing language.
Providing outlines of sample paragraphs based upon their structures also seems to help students to conceptualize various essay forms and become familiar with common time order words and other rhetorical devices. Once students gain some familiarity with these forms, they can of course be asked to make or fill-in structure outlines on their own. Also, word puzzles whereby students arrange sentences into logical order are fun group activity that focus students on essay structures and forms. Later, this can even be done at the word--rather than sentence--level.
Conclusion
In the article, I have chosen to focus mainly on the broad issues associated with helping students to prepare for entrance exam questions, and the practices which I have found to be most effective. I have mainly discussed issues related to form and content, and have not focused on the sentence-level grammar and vocabulary problems that many students encounter. This is because I generally communicate these issues directly to students in written form when I correct the essay assignments which they submit regularly (based on past paper university entrance exam questions). Related to this though, I have sometimes consolidated malformed sentences and/or essays and presented them in class (anonymously) to students to correct themselves or in groups. Since different students in the same class often make the same writing errors, this has a positive effect in raising awareness of errors and thinking through solutions collectively. Several exam preparation text books also focus on common errors by providing example for students to correct themselves. Such texts can be used in advance of writing assignments in order to raise student consciousness about common errors before they are even made.
Here, I have tried to explain my perspective on how university entrance exam essay questions can be used as target tasks within a task-based teaching framework. Though the context of my observations relates to the particulars of the Japanese entrance exam system, it is my hope that some of the essay writing related pedagogical tasks which I have discussed will have broader application.
Support for Deaf Students in ESL/EFL Conversation Classes
Support for Deaf Students in ESL/EFL Conversation Classes
Steve T. Fukuda
steve(at)ias.tokushima-u.ac.jp
The University of Tokushima (Tokushima, Japan)
As more and more deaf students are enrolling in universities many feel it necessary for support in foreign language classes. Unfortunately, only a few are actually being supported. This paper was written to express the experience of having a deaf student in an English conversation class and the introduction of different methods to facilitate his learning. I hope it serves as a basic guide to assist language instructors with the same experience.
Introduction
The minute I got word of having a deaf student enroll in my conversation class, I was challenged. I did not want to give the student an alternative assignment instead of coming to class. I decided to do what any instructor would do. I decided to look into other cases of instructing a deaf student in an English conversation course in Japan. To my surprise, I could not find any material on past experiences written on the field of TEFL. Therefore, I had to broaden the search to deaf education. Luckily, we were introduced to hundreds of books and papers. Unluckily, none focused on teaching a foreign language conversation course. I feel many instructors have had or will have this experience, and a paper with concrete information amassed together would help in many ways.
Conversation Classes at University
Many deaf students are enrolling in high schools and universities making it relevant to keep similar goals1. There are no concrete and specific goals pertaining to the English education curriculum for deaf students. The general education guidelines for the deaf students by the Ministry of Education (hereafter MEXT) state that students with disabilities should be educated to improve or overcome difficulties with proper knowledge, skill, attitudes, and understanding to live in society able to make the right judgments depending on individual status. English should be taught with the same goals2. The goals of English education, as stated by MEXT, are to expand international understanding and achieve higher academic standards.
Communicative Language Teaching (hereafter CLT) is at the pinnacle of language education in many Japanese universities. The focus of MEXT is on the implementation of a program to improve communicative skills of the students after years of complaints about high-level reading and test-taking skills. Many universities have introduced a technique of CLT in compulsory English language courses in their curriculum. The minute goals of each university may differ, but the greater part is to gain communicative competence.
In the CLT classroom, instructors try to give students a chance to use English in real-life situation. Another aspect we see in many classrooms is the integration of the four language skills. Most classes are student-centered with activities in which the students interact in pairs, groups, or a class as a whole. The teacher, basically, acts as a facilitator, aside from the former instructions of grammar or pronunciation when necessary. Focusing the goal of communicative competence, most teaching is centralized on getting used to listening and speaking.
Basic Methods of Communication
There are several ways to communicate with a deaf student. Used frequently is writing, sign language, lip or speech reading, writing the letters in the air or the palm, and gestures. Unfortunately, not all deaf students know how to lip read or recognize speech. Despite the advanced technology, hearing aids only make sounds louder. A hearing aid can help make sounds louder, but cannot process or distinguish words3.
A more concrete definition of the different styles of communication is in need. Interlocutors conveying information in the form of writing is said to be the most accurate form of communication, as long as the communicators have a pencil and paper handy. Sign Language is convenient unlike the time-consuming writing; however, both must be educated in the same sign language being used. That is to say, a person uses only American Sign Language might find it hard to communicate with a person who only knows Japanese Sign Language. Lip or speech reading was a focus in education of the deaf students in the past, but recently most students are not taught these methods. Writing letters in the air or on the palm is a familiar sight; keeping in mind, which way to write (facing the receiver or the sender), speed, and legibility. These are often used only for a few moments, and then disregarded because of the ambiguity as in lip or speech reading. Finally, gestures seem to be a good way of communicating. Unfortunately, some people are shy and cannot make big and exaggerated movements resulting in ambiguous movement. All forms of communication have its advantages and disadvantages. Choosing the appropriate form depends on the situation.
Support through Note-taking
Many universities have implemented a ‘volunteer’ note-taker system. This is usually an untrained student or faculty member. Note-taking is different from simply taking notes in class. Writing speed is one-fifth that of speech (an average person can speak 350-400wpm compared to the 70wpm of writing) 4. The process of-- listening carefully-comprehend-get the gist-choose a form of writing-convey the information clearly-- is a complicated matter. Even a PC note-taker can only type 120-180wpm on average. The note-taker cannot simply just write everything the instructor says. They have to summarize it without changing its intended meaning. These notes are not the kind to be looked at later, but to understand what is going on at the moment. In other words, the note-taker gives pieces of information and the deaf student has to piece it all together like a jigsaw puzzle5.
Note-Taker in Conversation Classes
Do not be relieved just because there is a note-taker. Communication and understanding is the key. We don’t mean for an instructor to change the whole syllabus because of a note-taker. The instructor should bear in mind that the note-taker is there for the instructor and not for the student. There is no need to translate anything you say into the first language.
It would be more polite to speak directly to the student instead of the note-taker. Signing or note-taking between the deaf student and the note-taker may be distracting at first, but the class should get used to it after two or three classes. It is important for the note-taker not to give their opinion when translating or when speaking in place of the deaf student. The note-taker should sit in between the student and the chalkboard, so the deaf student can see the instructor, note-taker, and the chalkboard simultaneously. Note-takers should not be used as proctors for tests and quizzes. Finally, you should always thank the note-taker after class, most are not experts in the target language of the class, but have helped in uncountable ways.
Other Teaching Strategies for Instructing Deaf Students
We shall try to list the things instructors should be aware of with or without support. The biggest problem an instructor will face is probably the difficulty in conveying a message. Exaggerated facial expression, gestures and other body language will facilitate comprehension. Before talking, it is important to get the attention of the student, and to communicate face to face with the student. Usually a tap on the shoulder or a waving hand should do the trick. Keep in mind those phrases such as “Okay, class.” or “Listen up.” to get attention will not help.
Visual aids are the student’s primary means of receiving information. It can be in the form of drawings, flashcards, or a list with numbers for commands that you use a lot. These visual aids and the blackboard need to be legible, especially for assignments, due dates, exam dates, changes in class schedule, special events, etc. When a student has a question, request, or a problem, have them write it down and give it to you for written feedback. Providing an outline and instructions (other than the course outline that is given in the first class) of each lesson and activity in advance to give the student is very helpful.
A great deal of communication with a deaf student will be in the form of writing. First of all it is a good idea to break up long sentences, not using difficult vocabulary, pronouns, and abbreviations. You should also use simple conjunctions. When introducing difficult vocabulary, its meaning in parenthesis would aid comprehension. If other students are laughing at a joke, the deaf student might feel left out so we have to try and explain it in detail. Though varying culturally, the student should be allowed to point especially in discussions and conversation activities.
Many instructors are determined to finish the well thought out lesson plan, and start to pick up the pace when time is getting short. We should avoid this, for it will just cause confusion not only to the deaf student, but every student in the classroom. It would also help if the instructor does not pace around the classroom when giving explanations or instructions. When speaking to the class as a whole, it is best to stand where the deaf student can get a visual of you and the note taker in the same frame. It would be a good idea to point out or to the person who is speaking, instead of just calling out names.
To sum up we have included the list below to show the general considerations and strategies when instructing a deaf student. Keep in mind the more important idea of how we convey the information.
* Before talking get the attention of the student; i.e. a tap on the shoulder
* Use visual aids whenever possible; i.e. flashcards, pictures, etc
* Do not talk when writing or pacing the room
* Provide an course outline before the first day of class
* Provide outlines of each class and instructions for each activity
* Learn the first language signs for emergencies
* Consider seating the student in the front of the class and the note taker in between the instructor and the student
* Always keep a pen and paper ready for written conversations
* Do not let the student feel left out; i.e. jokes, digressions, skits, role-play, etc.
* Get feedback after every lesson to improve support
* Lesson will take longer than planned; rushing will only cause more confusion
* Use over exaggerated gestures, facial expression, lip movement, and talk slowly
Our Conversation Class
We all have to be prepared to accept a deaf student, and not just assign an alternative assignment. A further question instructors might have is on class content. Basically, where students had listening practice, the text would be in written form focusing on the reading and writing skills of the deaf student (i.e. speed reading to get used to real-time movie subtitles). ‘Not secluding’ the deaf student was another focus. Especially in oriental cultures in which an importance of being part of the group is emphasized, we tried to create a family atmosphere. This is connected with our goal of improving communication skill making the class more comprehensible for every student. Focusing on conveying the message seemed as though the students had forgotten the fact that they were using a foreign language and concentrated on how to convey the message (an aspect of in set conversation activities which is often overlooked).
I hope this gives insight to many instructors who are aiming to support deaf students in their foreign language classes.
Footnotes
1. Nakanishi. 2001. The Hearing-Impaired and English Education Mitomo Publishing
2. Nakanishi. ibid
3. Ochii. 1994. Educational Issues of the Deaf and Mute. Hearing-Impaired Magazine Vol. 1. January from, http://www1.normanet.ne.jp/~ww100114/library/li-01.htm.
4. Yoshikawa, Oota, Hirota, & Shiraishi. 2001. Introduction to Note Taking in Universities. Ningensya
5. Yoshikawa. ibid
References
* Ministry of Education. Hearing-Impaired Education, from, http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/tokubetu/004/002.htm
* Streng, A. H., Kretschmer, R. R. Jr., Kretschmer, L.W. (1978) Language, Learning, & Deafness Theory, Application, and Classroom Management Grune & Stratton 15-128
* Strategies for Teaching Students with Hearing Impairments from, http://www.as.wvu.edu/~scidis/hearing.html
Steve T. Fukuda
steve(at)ias.tokushima-u.ac.jp
The University of Tokushima (Tokushima, Japan)
As more and more deaf students are enrolling in universities many feel it necessary for support in foreign language classes. Unfortunately, only a few are actually being supported. This paper was written to express the experience of having a deaf student in an English conversation class and the introduction of different methods to facilitate his learning. I hope it serves as a basic guide to assist language instructors with the same experience.
Introduction
The minute I got word of having a deaf student enroll in my conversation class, I was challenged. I did not want to give the student an alternative assignment instead of coming to class. I decided to do what any instructor would do. I decided to look into other cases of instructing a deaf student in an English conversation course in Japan. To my surprise, I could not find any material on past experiences written on the field of TEFL. Therefore, I had to broaden the search to deaf education. Luckily, we were introduced to hundreds of books and papers. Unluckily, none focused on teaching a foreign language conversation course. I feel many instructors have had or will have this experience, and a paper with concrete information amassed together would help in many ways.
Conversation Classes at University
Many deaf students are enrolling in high schools and universities making it relevant to keep similar goals1. There are no concrete and specific goals pertaining to the English education curriculum for deaf students. The general education guidelines for the deaf students by the Ministry of Education (hereafter MEXT) state that students with disabilities should be educated to improve or overcome difficulties with proper knowledge, skill, attitudes, and understanding to live in society able to make the right judgments depending on individual status. English should be taught with the same goals2. The goals of English education, as stated by MEXT, are to expand international understanding and achieve higher academic standards.
Communicative Language Teaching (hereafter CLT) is at the pinnacle of language education in many Japanese universities. The focus of MEXT is on the implementation of a program to improve communicative skills of the students after years of complaints about high-level reading and test-taking skills. Many universities have introduced a technique of CLT in compulsory English language courses in their curriculum. The minute goals of each university may differ, but the greater part is to gain communicative competence.
In the CLT classroom, instructors try to give students a chance to use English in real-life situation. Another aspect we see in many classrooms is the integration of the four language skills. Most classes are student-centered with activities in which the students interact in pairs, groups, or a class as a whole. The teacher, basically, acts as a facilitator, aside from the former instructions of grammar or pronunciation when necessary. Focusing the goal of communicative competence, most teaching is centralized on getting used to listening and speaking.
Basic Methods of Communication
There are several ways to communicate with a deaf student. Used frequently is writing, sign language, lip or speech reading, writing the letters in the air or the palm, and gestures. Unfortunately, not all deaf students know how to lip read or recognize speech. Despite the advanced technology, hearing aids only make sounds louder. A hearing aid can help make sounds louder, but cannot process or distinguish words3.
A more concrete definition of the different styles of communication is in need. Interlocutors conveying information in the form of writing is said to be the most accurate form of communication, as long as the communicators have a pencil and paper handy. Sign Language is convenient unlike the time-consuming writing; however, both must be educated in the same sign language being used. That is to say, a person uses only American Sign Language might find it hard to communicate with a person who only knows Japanese Sign Language. Lip or speech reading was a focus in education of the deaf students in the past, but recently most students are not taught these methods. Writing letters in the air or on the palm is a familiar sight; keeping in mind, which way to write (facing the receiver or the sender), speed, and legibility. These are often used only for a few moments, and then disregarded because of the ambiguity as in lip or speech reading. Finally, gestures seem to be a good way of communicating. Unfortunately, some people are shy and cannot make big and exaggerated movements resulting in ambiguous movement. All forms of communication have its advantages and disadvantages. Choosing the appropriate form depends on the situation.
Support through Note-taking
Many universities have implemented a ‘volunteer’ note-taker system. This is usually an untrained student or faculty member. Note-taking is different from simply taking notes in class. Writing speed is one-fifth that of speech (an average person can speak 350-400wpm compared to the 70wpm of writing) 4. The process of-- listening carefully-comprehend-get the gist-choose a form of writing-convey the information clearly-- is a complicated matter. Even a PC note-taker can only type 120-180wpm on average. The note-taker cannot simply just write everything the instructor says. They have to summarize it without changing its intended meaning. These notes are not the kind to be looked at later, but to understand what is going on at the moment. In other words, the note-taker gives pieces of information and the deaf student has to piece it all together like a jigsaw puzzle5.
Note-Taker in Conversation Classes
Do not be relieved just because there is a note-taker. Communication and understanding is the key. We don’t mean for an instructor to change the whole syllabus because of a note-taker. The instructor should bear in mind that the note-taker is there for the instructor and not for the student. There is no need to translate anything you say into the first language.
It would be more polite to speak directly to the student instead of the note-taker. Signing or note-taking between the deaf student and the note-taker may be distracting at first, but the class should get used to it after two or three classes. It is important for the note-taker not to give their opinion when translating or when speaking in place of the deaf student. The note-taker should sit in between the student and the chalkboard, so the deaf student can see the instructor, note-taker, and the chalkboard simultaneously. Note-takers should not be used as proctors for tests and quizzes. Finally, you should always thank the note-taker after class, most are not experts in the target language of the class, but have helped in uncountable ways.
Other Teaching Strategies for Instructing Deaf Students
We shall try to list the things instructors should be aware of with or without support. The biggest problem an instructor will face is probably the difficulty in conveying a message. Exaggerated facial expression, gestures and other body language will facilitate comprehension. Before talking, it is important to get the attention of the student, and to communicate face to face with the student. Usually a tap on the shoulder or a waving hand should do the trick. Keep in mind those phrases such as “Okay, class.” or “Listen up.” to get attention will not help.
Visual aids are the student’s primary means of receiving information. It can be in the form of drawings, flashcards, or a list with numbers for commands that you use a lot. These visual aids and the blackboard need to be legible, especially for assignments, due dates, exam dates, changes in class schedule, special events, etc. When a student has a question, request, or a problem, have them write it down and give it to you for written feedback. Providing an outline and instructions (other than the course outline that is given in the first class) of each lesson and activity in advance to give the student is very helpful.
A great deal of communication with a deaf student will be in the form of writing. First of all it is a good idea to break up long sentences, not using difficult vocabulary, pronouns, and abbreviations. You should also use simple conjunctions. When introducing difficult vocabulary, its meaning in parenthesis would aid comprehension. If other students are laughing at a joke, the deaf student might feel left out so we have to try and explain it in detail. Though varying culturally, the student should be allowed to point especially in discussions and conversation activities.
Many instructors are determined to finish the well thought out lesson plan, and start to pick up the pace when time is getting short. We should avoid this, for it will just cause confusion not only to the deaf student, but every student in the classroom. It would also help if the instructor does not pace around the classroom when giving explanations or instructions. When speaking to the class as a whole, it is best to stand where the deaf student can get a visual of you and the note taker in the same frame. It would be a good idea to point out or to the person who is speaking, instead of just calling out names.
To sum up we have included the list below to show the general considerations and strategies when instructing a deaf student. Keep in mind the more important idea of how we convey the information.
* Before talking get the attention of the student; i.e. a tap on the shoulder
* Use visual aids whenever possible; i.e. flashcards, pictures, etc
* Do not talk when writing or pacing the room
* Provide an course outline before the first day of class
* Provide outlines of each class and instructions for each activity
* Learn the first language signs for emergencies
* Consider seating the student in the front of the class and the note taker in between the instructor and the student
* Always keep a pen and paper ready for written conversations
* Do not let the student feel left out; i.e. jokes, digressions, skits, role-play, etc.
* Get feedback after every lesson to improve support
* Lesson will take longer than planned; rushing will only cause more confusion
* Use over exaggerated gestures, facial expression, lip movement, and talk slowly
Our Conversation Class
We all have to be prepared to accept a deaf student, and not just assign an alternative assignment. A further question instructors might have is on class content. Basically, where students had listening practice, the text would be in written form focusing on the reading and writing skills of the deaf student (i.e. speed reading to get used to real-time movie subtitles). ‘Not secluding’ the deaf student was another focus. Especially in oriental cultures in which an importance of being part of the group is emphasized, we tried to create a family atmosphere. This is connected with our goal of improving communication skill making the class more comprehensible for every student. Focusing on conveying the message seemed as though the students had forgotten the fact that they were using a foreign language and concentrated on how to convey the message (an aspect of in set conversation activities which is often overlooked).
I hope this gives insight to many instructors who are aiming to support deaf students in their foreign language classes.
Footnotes
1. Nakanishi. 2001. The Hearing-Impaired and English Education Mitomo Publishing
2. Nakanishi. ibid
3. Ochii. 1994. Educational Issues of the Deaf and Mute. Hearing-Impaired Magazine Vol. 1. January from, http://www1.normanet.ne.jp/~ww100114/library/li-01.htm.
4. Yoshikawa, Oota, Hirota, & Shiraishi. 2001. Introduction to Note Taking in Universities. Ningensya
5. Yoshikawa. ibid
References
* Ministry of Education. Hearing-Impaired Education, from, http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/tokubetu/004/002.htm
* Streng, A. H., Kretschmer, R. R. Jr., Kretschmer, L.W. (1978) Language, Learning, & Deafness Theory, Application, and Classroom Management Grune & Stratton 15-128
* Strategies for Teaching Students with Hearing Impairments from, http://www.as.wvu.edu/~scidis/hearing.html
Vocabulary Teaching: Effective Methodologies
Vocabulary Teaching: Effective Methodologies
Naveen Kumar Mehta
naveennmehta(at)yahoo.co.in
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (New Delhi, India)
Introduction
Vocabulary is the first and foremost important step in language acquisition. In a classroom where students are not finding themselves comfortable with L2, language learning can be made interactive and interesting with the introduction of appropriate vocabulary exercises. This paper is an attempt to study and explore the various methodologies that can be incorporated in the teaching of vocabulary items in a language classroom.
Background
Patterns of Difficulty in Vocabulary
Robert Lado ( 1955) talked about patterns of difficulty in vocabulary teaching. He highlighted key issues related to words, the native language factor and about patterns. He even analyzed Spanish, French and Mexican patterns of difficulty in their respective vocabulary items. He stated that while dealing with vocabulary one should take into account three important aspects of words - their form, their meaning and their distribution - and one should consider various kinds of classes of words in the function of the language. He said that the forms, meaning distribution and classification of words are different in different languages. He revealed that these differences might lead to vocabulary problems.
Vocabulary and Anatomy
Visnja Pavicic (2003) dealt with a way to improve students' abilities to explore, store and usage of vocabulary items. He determined the role of vocabulary teaching and how a teacher could help their learners. He laid emphasis on self initiated independent learning with strategies, in which formal practices, functional practices and memorizing could be included. He said that the teacher should create activities and tasks to help students to build their vocabulary and develop strategies to learn the vocabulary on their own.
Teaching Vocabulary in English Language: Effective Methodologies
It is noteworthy to mention here that vocabulary items are imparted mostly by translation: either a list of words with their translation at the beginning of the lesson or the translation of the content having new words or glossaries at the very end. This is an erroneous practice as it leads to a state of confusion for the learners. On the teaching skills of vocabulary items, Frisby (1957) commented that "While the teacher is not, himself, concerned with the actual selection of vocabulary for text book purposes since practically all the books we use are based on limited vocabularies, it is important that he/she (the teacher) should know the principles, which underlie vocabulary selection". Thus it signifies that a language teacher should be innovative and proficient in the application of methodologies pertaining to teaching vocabulary items in a classroom situation. Following are the main methodologies for teaching vocabulary items in an English language classroom.
Listening Carefully
Caeful listening to the words may be a good option in teaching vocabulary items in a heterogenic classroom. "Let the students hear the word in isolation and in a sentence. If the sounds of the word have been mastered, the students will hear it correctly with two or three repetitions." (Robert Lado: 121) Slow pronunciation without distortion will help. Breaking the word into parts and building up to the whole word will also be helpful.
Pronouncing the Word
Pronouncing the word enables the students to remember it longer and identify it more readily when they hear or see it.
Methods of Grasping the Meaning
The teacher should try to get the meaning to the class without using translation. This is not preferable on the ground that translation may or may not provide the meaning of the word accurately and precisely. It is advocated as it enables the class to go without grasping the meaning of a word that they have learned to pronounce rather than to depend upon the translation.
Key Strategies in Teaching Vocabulary
Some of the key strategies to unfold the information and meaning of a new word to a class are as follows:
Definitions
Definitions in the target language may be very handy if they are expressed in terms that are better known or more easily guessed than the word that is defined. In this direction teachers and students can refer to authentic and reliable dictionaries.
Self-defining Context
The context makes the situation clear, and this in turn illuminates the meaning of the new word. This practice saves time and develops an intensive reading habit and better understanding.
Antonyms
When one member of a pair of opposites is understood, the meaning of the other can be easily comprehended. This helps the student to understand the different shades of meanings of a word.
Synonyms
A synonym may be used to help the student to understand the different shades of meaning if the synonym is better known than the word being taught. Synonyms help to enrich a student's vocabulary bank and provide alternative words instantly.
Dramatization
This method can be practiced at ease. It can win the favour of the students as learners like dramatizations and can easily learn through them. Many situations can be dramatized or demonstrated.
Examples
* Sing [Sing a song]
* Open [Open a book]
* Close [Close the book]
Pictures and Drawings
Pictures of many types and colours can be used successfully to show the meaning of words and sentence. Handmade pictures can also be used as there is no need to be very artistic.
Examples
* into [Raj goes into the circle.]
* in [Rahman is in the circle.]
Drawings can be used to explain the meaning of things, actions, qualities, and relations. A line drawing of a head, for example, provides many useful nouns and verbs.
Realia
Real objects or models of real objects are very effective and meaningful in showing meanings but in handling of real objects, a teacher must be practical and should not be superfluous.
Series, Scales, Systems
The meaning of words such as the months of the year, the days of the week, the parts of the day, seasons of the year, ordinal numbers, cardinal numbers, etc. that form part of well-known series can be made clear by placing them in their natural order in the series.
Parts of Words
The parts of complex and compound words may be more common than the words themselves. Separating such words into their component parts generally elaborates the meaning.
Illustrative Sentences
Most words have a variety of restrictions on their use. Systematic descriptions of these restrictions and idiomatic uses would be laborious and not very effective in teaching. It is better to give appropriate examples that elucidate the range and variation of usage.
Practice from Meaning to Expression
This is controlled practice in which the class does not create new uses or new contexts but simply recalls the ones presented. There are many types of practices for this purpose. Pictures, realia, context, and dramatization can be used. Series and systems can also be used.
Reading the Word
Reading words aloud is also very beneficial. It makes a learner familiar with the word and also improves pronunciations of the learners.
Writing the Word
It will enable the class to write the new word while the auditory memory is fresh, even if the objective is only to read. Writing or copying the word from the blackboard will give the student a chance to understand the grammatical aspect of the word such as noun, verb, adverb, adjective etc.
Shift of Attention
Under this practice, the teacher provides a context by description or through reading which elicits the use of the word. The learners should be asked to pay attention to and develop an attitude or a point of view which he defends or attacks.
Strategy for Special Types of Words
Specific techniques or special combinations of the above techniques may be applicable for particular groups of words.
Words That Are Easy to Learn
It has been seen that the words that are similar in form and meaning to the first language are easy to understand and comprehend. They should be taught for listening and reading rather than for speaking and writing.
Words of Normal Difficulty
Words of normal difficulty are best taught in contextual realms, such as food, clothing, sports, work, and so on. There are advantages to using a connected context illustrating the words that are to be taught. Additional words can be taught as alternatives to those chosen in the connected context. Practice can be controlled in varying situations by changing a key word or phrase.
Difficult Words
Some words and sets of words are especially difficult to understand. They have to be taught as special problems with the strategy determined by the particular problem in each case.
Conclusion
An efficient language teacher can use selected vocabulary activities or can use integrated activities. All this depends upon ability and level of understanding and interest of the learners. There is no sure fire remedy or method to enhance vocabulary in a day or two. A student's vocabulary bank can be enriched on a gradual basis and one should always show keen interest and enthusiasm in finding, learning and understanding new words.
References
* A.W. Frisby (1957), "Teaching English", The English Language Book Society and Longmans Green and Co., p.98.
* Robert Lado (1964), "Language Teaching: A Scientific Approach", McGraw Hill: New York, p.121.
* Robert Lado (1955), "Patterns of difficulty in vocabulary" International Journal Language Learning, 6, p.23-41.
* Visnja Pavicic (2003), "Vocabulary and Autonomy"
Naveen Kumar Mehta
naveennmehta(at)yahoo.co.in
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (New Delhi, India)
Introduction
Vocabulary is the first and foremost important step in language acquisition. In a classroom where students are not finding themselves comfortable with L2, language learning can be made interactive and interesting with the introduction of appropriate vocabulary exercises. This paper is an attempt to study and explore the various methodologies that can be incorporated in the teaching of vocabulary items in a language classroom.
Background
Patterns of Difficulty in Vocabulary
Robert Lado ( 1955) talked about patterns of difficulty in vocabulary teaching. He highlighted key issues related to words, the native language factor and about patterns. He even analyzed Spanish, French and Mexican patterns of difficulty in their respective vocabulary items. He stated that while dealing with vocabulary one should take into account three important aspects of words - their form, their meaning and their distribution - and one should consider various kinds of classes of words in the function of the language. He said that the forms, meaning distribution and classification of words are different in different languages. He revealed that these differences might lead to vocabulary problems.
Vocabulary and Anatomy
Visnja Pavicic (2003) dealt with a way to improve students' abilities to explore, store and usage of vocabulary items. He determined the role of vocabulary teaching and how a teacher could help their learners. He laid emphasis on self initiated independent learning with strategies, in which formal practices, functional practices and memorizing could be included. He said that the teacher should create activities and tasks to help students to build their vocabulary and develop strategies to learn the vocabulary on their own.
Teaching Vocabulary in English Language: Effective Methodologies
It is noteworthy to mention here that vocabulary items are imparted mostly by translation: either a list of words with their translation at the beginning of the lesson or the translation of the content having new words or glossaries at the very end. This is an erroneous practice as it leads to a state of confusion for the learners. On the teaching skills of vocabulary items, Frisby (1957) commented that "While the teacher is not, himself, concerned with the actual selection of vocabulary for text book purposes since practically all the books we use are based on limited vocabularies, it is important that he/she (the teacher) should know the principles, which underlie vocabulary selection". Thus it signifies that a language teacher should be innovative and proficient in the application of methodologies pertaining to teaching vocabulary items in a classroom situation. Following are the main methodologies for teaching vocabulary items in an English language classroom.
Listening Carefully
Caeful listening to the words may be a good option in teaching vocabulary items in a heterogenic classroom. "Let the students hear the word in isolation and in a sentence. If the sounds of the word have been mastered, the students will hear it correctly with two or three repetitions." (Robert Lado: 121) Slow pronunciation without distortion will help. Breaking the word into parts and building up to the whole word will also be helpful.
Pronouncing the Word
Pronouncing the word enables the students to remember it longer and identify it more readily when they hear or see it.
Methods of Grasping the Meaning
The teacher should try to get the meaning to the class without using translation. This is not preferable on the ground that translation may or may not provide the meaning of the word accurately and precisely. It is advocated as it enables the class to go without grasping the meaning of a word that they have learned to pronounce rather than to depend upon the translation.
Key Strategies in Teaching Vocabulary
Some of the key strategies to unfold the information and meaning of a new word to a class are as follows:
Definitions
Definitions in the target language may be very handy if they are expressed in terms that are better known or more easily guessed than the word that is defined. In this direction teachers and students can refer to authentic and reliable dictionaries.
Self-defining Context
The context makes the situation clear, and this in turn illuminates the meaning of the new word. This practice saves time and develops an intensive reading habit and better understanding.
Antonyms
When one member of a pair of opposites is understood, the meaning of the other can be easily comprehended. This helps the student to understand the different shades of meanings of a word.
Synonyms
A synonym may be used to help the student to understand the different shades of meaning if the synonym is better known than the word being taught. Synonyms help to enrich a student's vocabulary bank and provide alternative words instantly.
Dramatization
This method can be practiced at ease. It can win the favour of the students as learners like dramatizations and can easily learn through them. Many situations can be dramatized or demonstrated.
Examples
* Sing [Sing a song]
* Open [Open a book]
* Close [Close the book]
Pictures and Drawings
Pictures of many types and colours can be used successfully to show the meaning of words and sentence. Handmade pictures can also be used as there is no need to be very artistic.
Examples
* into [Raj goes into the circle.]
* in [Rahman is in the circle.]
Drawings can be used to explain the meaning of things, actions, qualities, and relations. A line drawing of a head, for example, provides many useful nouns and verbs.
Realia
Real objects or models of real objects are very effective and meaningful in showing meanings but in handling of real objects, a teacher must be practical and should not be superfluous.
Series, Scales, Systems
The meaning of words such as the months of the year, the days of the week, the parts of the day, seasons of the year, ordinal numbers, cardinal numbers, etc. that form part of well-known series can be made clear by placing them in their natural order in the series.
Parts of Words
The parts of complex and compound words may be more common than the words themselves. Separating such words into their component parts generally elaborates the meaning.
Illustrative Sentences
Most words have a variety of restrictions on their use. Systematic descriptions of these restrictions and idiomatic uses would be laborious and not very effective in teaching. It is better to give appropriate examples that elucidate the range and variation of usage.
Practice from Meaning to Expression
This is controlled practice in which the class does not create new uses or new contexts but simply recalls the ones presented. There are many types of practices for this purpose. Pictures, realia, context, and dramatization can be used. Series and systems can also be used.
Reading the Word
Reading words aloud is also very beneficial. It makes a learner familiar with the word and also improves pronunciations of the learners.
Writing the Word
It will enable the class to write the new word while the auditory memory is fresh, even if the objective is only to read. Writing or copying the word from the blackboard will give the student a chance to understand the grammatical aspect of the word such as noun, verb, adverb, adjective etc.
Shift of Attention
Under this practice, the teacher provides a context by description or through reading which elicits the use of the word. The learners should be asked to pay attention to and develop an attitude or a point of view which he defends or attacks.
Strategy for Special Types of Words
Specific techniques or special combinations of the above techniques may be applicable for particular groups of words.
Words That Are Easy to Learn
It has been seen that the words that are similar in form and meaning to the first language are easy to understand and comprehend. They should be taught for listening and reading rather than for speaking and writing.
Words of Normal Difficulty
Words of normal difficulty are best taught in contextual realms, such as food, clothing, sports, work, and so on. There are advantages to using a connected context illustrating the words that are to be taught. Additional words can be taught as alternatives to those chosen in the connected context. Practice can be controlled in varying situations by changing a key word or phrase.
Difficult Words
Some words and sets of words are especially difficult to understand. They have to be taught as special problems with the strategy determined by the particular problem in each case.
Conclusion
An efficient language teacher can use selected vocabulary activities or can use integrated activities. All this depends upon ability and level of understanding and interest of the learners. There is no sure fire remedy or method to enhance vocabulary in a day or two. A student's vocabulary bank can be enriched on a gradual basis and one should always show keen interest and enthusiasm in finding, learning and understanding new words.
References
* A.W. Frisby (1957), "Teaching English", The English Language Book Society and Longmans Green and Co., p.98.
* Robert Lado (1964), "Language Teaching: A Scientific Approach", McGraw Hill: New York, p.121.
* Robert Lado (1955), "Patterns of difficulty in vocabulary" International Journal Language Learning, 6, p.23-41.
* Visnja Pavicic (2003), "Vocabulary and Autonomy"
Utilizing Film to Enhance Student Discussion of Sociocultural Issues
Utilizing Film to Enhance Student Discussion of Sociocultural Issues
Richard J. Sampson
richard[at]gpwu.ac.jp
Gunma Prefectural Women’s University (Gunma Prefecture, Japan)
This article introduces a technique for designing a university EFL/ESL course which utilizes film to enhance student discussion of sociocultural issues. The article gives some background into theory behind content-based learning. It then outlines a method for making a 15-week university EFL/ESL course in which students practice critical thinking skills in conducting tasks that will enable them to become more capable members of discussions in English about sociocultural issues of importance in not only cultures and societies different to their own, but also that which surrounds them.
Introduction
Whilst films often bring together a number of elements discussed as effective in increasing the motivation of EFL/ESL students, such as familiarizing learners with target culture, and making classes more interesting (Dornyei, 1998), teachers are often looking for new and different ways to make use of film in the classroom. The implementation of a course at the university level that involves the use of film ought to have a very clear idea of what aims or outcomes are to be for the learners, and not merely a time-filling exercise for everyone involved. The use of film for tasks such as focused listening (often to a variety of dialects or slang that students in EFL settings may not have recourse to encounter ordinarily), or for general comprehension purposes has been detailed elsewhere (see, for example, Hadley, 2001; Kusumarasdyati, 2004). People watch films not to gain listening ability, but, for instance, to be entertained, or to think about some topic or issue they are either interested in or would like to think about more deeply. Films, as short, encapsulated studies in human society, provide excellent starting points from which to build a content-based course promoting learners’ critical thinking and discussion skills, whilst bringing reflection through sociocultural comparison and contrast between their own society or culture and that of another country or countries.
Background
This paper introduces a course that has been developed at one women’s university in Japan. The course is based around a topical or content-based syllabus, using segments from a film to introduce sociocultural issues. The advantages of content-based second language learning have been variously noted (see, for example, the CARLA CoBaLTT website), and are in line with current constructivist conceptions of education that encourage cooperative learning and individual construction of meaning (Kaufman, 2004). Of particular import for the course detailed here are ideas that content-based learning addresses students’ needs, motivates them, allows for use of authentic material, and allows for more meaningful comprehension and use of linguistic form (Brinton, Snow & Wesche, 1989; Mohan, 1986). Students gain motivation through exploring the issues raised in the film, relating them to their everyday lives and the society around them, whilst finding contrasts with other societies and cultures. There is an almost coincidental, yet natural and meaningful expansion of vocabulary and linguistic form as students are exposed to tasks which enable them to more deeply consider the issues from a variety of angles, in line with (but not overtly conscious of) DeBono’s (1985) conception of focused thinking. There is a degree of learner negotiation as to the content, as the students are asked to consider what issues the film raises, and which they wish to pursue over the course of the semester.
Materials
This course makes use of a first and second film.
The first film provides the basis for the majority of classes, and as such should be something that both raises enough issues to be sustained for a semester, and is likely to retain students’ interest over the course of a number of weeks. This author has used Jim Sheridan’s In America for one course, and Richard Curtis’ Notting Hill for another. Whilst some may argue for selection of films that deal with more controversial problems or deeper global issues (Fukunaga, 1998), it must be remembered that the course detailed here is used to discuss sociocultural issues that may share similarities between the students’ culture and that displayed in the film – issues that the students can relate to, but maybe haven’t considered in detail. Consequently, teachers ought to select films that they feel will provide a valuable base for comparison and contrast between the society represented in the film and that which surrounds the students - the society in which they are studying English.
The second film is used as part of the final project, and needs to have some correspondence to the first film. For example, this author has used Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia for the In America course, and Richard Curtis’ Love Actually for the Notting Hill course. These films, whilst in many ways different to the first film, are similar in genre, and deal with many of the same issues, and consequently can be compared and contrasted by students in the final project.
The Fifteen-week Semester
Weeks 1-2: Viewing Film One
The first two weeks of the course involve a complete viewing of the first film with English subtitles. Students are given schema-instantiation tasks before each viewing, as well as viewing tasks (e.g. matching and distinguishing pictures, ordering, scanning for specific information at certain points, answering questions based on the input, and predicting tasks). They are also asked to consider what sociocultural issues are represented in the film – these will form the basis for the semester’s work, leading to a more student-negotiated curriculum, the likelihood that the issues will be of interest to the students in that class, and hopefully a belief from the outset by the students that their opinions are going to be valued.
Weeks 3-7: Issues / Language (Dialects)
From the third week, one issue per week is covered. For example, students in the In America class suggested topics such as immigration and multicultural society, societal and cultural ideas of success and failure, poverty, death in different cultures, relationships and friendships, personality, acting for others, and sociocultural ideas of family. On the other hand, in the Notting Hill class, issues such as celebrity, ideas of fame, status, sociocultural definitions and treatment of gender, norms, the media, friendships and stereotypes were suggested. The topics and issues that students will come up with will vary to some extent with each group of learners. During this first period of classes, students generally carry out some schema-building or instantiating task related to the issue-of-the-day in pairs, undertake a knowledge-building or knowledge-sharing task that provides scaffolding for deeper understanding of the issue in groups or through a mingling activity, and participate in a viewing task (such as a listening cloze) of a clip that expresses the issue. Drawing upon the scaffolding provided in the first part of the lesson, students discuss the issue as shown in the film in groups, with guiding questions to provide focus.
Finally, after a discussion of the issue as shown in the film, students are introduced to some differences in dialects (for example, between British/American English, or Irish/American/African English) – focusing not on accents but actual usage or phrasal differences. Students then work in pairs or small groups to produce a short skit that both uses the introduced language, and shows the issue discussed, before presenting their skits to other class members. It is hoped that this creative use of the introduced language will make both the issue and the language more personalized for students.
Week 8: Mid-term Project
During this class, as a kind of review of the first half of semester, students are asked to choose one of the issues from the previous classes, and make a two minute skit in groups that uses some introduced language. This provides students with the opportunity to review the issues discussed, negotiate to collectively choose one in which they are interested or would like to express through a skit, and use language creatively for the purpose of talking about or expressing an issue. Students then show their skits to other class members, who undertake a peer-grading exercise.
Weeks 9-12: Issues / Film Criticism / Critical analysis of Issues Raised in Film
The second half of the semester leads towards the final project. During classes, students are encouraged to continue thinking about sociocultural issues, but, as a replacement of the dialect-language element of the first half of semester, methods of critically discussing the film as well as its representation of the sociocultural issues raised are introduced and practiced. Schema, knowledge-building / sharing and viewing tasks are still undertaken, but more time is spent on focused discussion and consensus-making tasks related to film criticism and issue-representation. Furthermore, leading to comparing and contrasting tasks in the following weeks and as part of the final project, students use t-charts to compare and contrast characters in the films.
Weeks 13-14: Viewing Film Two
Students are introduced to the final project. Before viewing the second film, students are asked whether they want English or Japanese subtitles – as the focus for the final project is on the issues and the films, and not comprehension of the English in the films as such, students ought to be given the choice (see Kusumarasdyati, 2004, for a discussion) – the In America / Magnolia class chose Japanese subtitles. Whilst watching the second film, students use a focused worksheet to compare and contrast the two films, both as films, and also for their discussion and representation of sociocultural issues.
Week 15: Final Project (Live Discussion)
Students are randomly broken into groups of six prior to this class. Each group comes at a different time, and discusses together the two films for approximately 30 minutes. The discussion is entirely student-created – the idea is that the students should find their own way collectively in analyzing critically the two films and the issues portrayed. The teacher observes, taking notes about contributions from students and any points that may need feedback after the discussion.
The students are graded individually on factors of:
1. Contribution,
2. Discussion of topics and issues,
3. Comparison and contrast of movies,
4. Involvement of other students, and
5. Clarity of ideas.
As can be seen from the grading factors, rather than a focus on evaluation of language form, students are graded on their ability to communicate their ideas and create a discussion together. It is hoped that, through the opportunities the students have had for focused thinking and discussion throughout the semester, along with the language they have encountered, they will be able to create together a discussion that evolves in a natural way, wending their way through the issues and topics that they wish to bring up, or that they feel comfortable discussing. There will most likely be a great deal of spontaneous communicative negotiation in defining the boundaries of the conversation, and, as the topics they wish to discuss will vary from student to student, students will be pushed to use all of the communicative resources at their command to express their meaning clearly, and help the discussion take shape.
Conclusion
Film can provide the foundation for a series of classes that encourage students to develop their second language abilities whilst deepening their understanding and thinking about sociocultural issues through discussion. Students may find motivation through the issues, as well their developing ability to apply critical thinking skills to discuss issues that relate not only to cultures and societies foreign to their own, but indeed in many aspects to the society around them.
References
* Brinton, D., Snow, M. & Wesche, M. (1989). Content-based second language instruction. New York: Newbury House.
* CARLA (n.d.). Content-based second language instruction: What is it? Retrieved January 20, 2009 from the CARLA CoBaLLT website: www.carla.umn.edu/cobaltt/cbi.html
* DeBono, E. (1985). Six thinking hats: The power of focused thinking. NewYork: MICA Management Resources.
* Dornyei, Z. (1998). Motivation in second and foreign language learning. Language Teaching, 31, 117-135.
* Fukunaga, Y. (1998). Teaching global issues through English movies. Global Issues in Language Education, 30, 7-9.
* Hadley, A. (2001). Teaching language in context (3rd edn). Boston, USA: Thomson Heinle.
* Kaufman, D. (2004). Constructivist issues in language learning and teaching. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 303-319.
* Kusumarasdyati (2004). Listening, viewing and imagination: Movies in EFL classes. Retrieved December 28, 2008 from the Imaginative Education Research Group website: http://www.ierg.net/confs/2004/Proceedings/Kusumarasdyati.pdf
* Mohan, B. (1986). Language and content. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Richard J. Sampson
richard[at]gpwu.ac.jp
Gunma Prefectural Women’s University (Gunma Prefecture, Japan)
This article introduces a technique for designing a university EFL/ESL course which utilizes film to enhance student discussion of sociocultural issues. The article gives some background into theory behind content-based learning. It then outlines a method for making a 15-week university EFL/ESL course in which students practice critical thinking skills in conducting tasks that will enable them to become more capable members of discussions in English about sociocultural issues of importance in not only cultures and societies different to their own, but also that which surrounds them.
Introduction
Whilst films often bring together a number of elements discussed as effective in increasing the motivation of EFL/ESL students, such as familiarizing learners with target culture, and making classes more interesting (Dornyei, 1998), teachers are often looking for new and different ways to make use of film in the classroom. The implementation of a course at the university level that involves the use of film ought to have a very clear idea of what aims or outcomes are to be for the learners, and not merely a time-filling exercise for everyone involved. The use of film for tasks such as focused listening (often to a variety of dialects or slang that students in EFL settings may not have recourse to encounter ordinarily), or for general comprehension purposes has been detailed elsewhere (see, for example, Hadley, 2001; Kusumarasdyati, 2004). People watch films not to gain listening ability, but, for instance, to be entertained, or to think about some topic or issue they are either interested in or would like to think about more deeply. Films, as short, encapsulated studies in human society, provide excellent starting points from which to build a content-based course promoting learners’ critical thinking and discussion skills, whilst bringing reflection through sociocultural comparison and contrast between their own society or culture and that of another country or countries.
Background
This paper introduces a course that has been developed at one women’s university in Japan. The course is based around a topical or content-based syllabus, using segments from a film to introduce sociocultural issues. The advantages of content-based second language learning have been variously noted (see, for example, the CARLA CoBaLTT website), and are in line with current constructivist conceptions of education that encourage cooperative learning and individual construction of meaning (Kaufman, 2004). Of particular import for the course detailed here are ideas that content-based learning addresses students’ needs, motivates them, allows for use of authentic material, and allows for more meaningful comprehension and use of linguistic form (Brinton, Snow & Wesche, 1989; Mohan, 1986). Students gain motivation through exploring the issues raised in the film, relating them to their everyday lives and the society around them, whilst finding contrasts with other societies and cultures. There is an almost coincidental, yet natural and meaningful expansion of vocabulary and linguistic form as students are exposed to tasks which enable them to more deeply consider the issues from a variety of angles, in line with (but not overtly conscious of) DeBono’s (1985) conception of focused thinking. There is a degree of learner negotiation as to the content, as the students are asked to consider what issues the film raises, and which they wish to pursue over the course of the semester.
Materials
This course makes use of a first and second film.
The first film provides the basis for the majority of classes, and as such should be something that both raises enough issues to be sustained for a semester, and is likely to retain students’ interest over the course of a number of weeks. This author has used Jim Sheridan’s In America for one course, and Richard Curtis’ Notting Hill for another. Whilst some may argue for selection of films that deal with more controversial problems or deeper global issues (Fukunaga, 1998), it must be remembered that the course detailed here is used to discuss sociocultural issues that may share similarities between the students’ culture and that displayed in the film – issues that the students can relate to, but maybe haven’t considered in detail. Consequently, teachers ought to select films that they feel will provide a valuable base for comparison and contrast between the society represented in the film and that which surrounds the students - the society in which they are studying English.
The second film is used as part of the final project, and needs to have some correspondence to the first film. For example, this author has used Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia for the In America course, and Richard Curtis’ Love Actually for the Notting Hill course. These films, whilst in many ways different to the first film, are similar in genre, and deal with many of the same issues, and consequently can be compared and contrasted by students in the final project.
The Fifteen-week Semester
Weeks 1-2: Viewing Film One
The first two weeks of the course involve a complete viewing of the first film with English subtitles. Students are given schema-instantiation tasks before each viewing, as well as viewing tasks (e.g. matching and distinguishing pictures, ordering, scanning for specific information at certain points, answering questions based on the input, and predicting tasks). They are also asked to consider what sociocultural issues are represented in the film – these will form the basis for the semester’s work, leading to a more student-negotiated curriculum, the likelihood that the issues will be of interest to the students in that class, and hopefully a belief from the outset by the students that their opinions are going to be valued.
Weeks 3-7: Issues / Language (Dialects)
From the third week, one issue per week is covered. For example, students in the In America class suggested topics such as immigration and multicultural society, societal and cultural ideas of success and failure, poverty, death in different cultures, relationships and friendships, personality, acting for others, and sociocultural ideas of family. On the other hand, in the Notting Hill class, issues such as celebrity, ideas of fame, status, sociocultural definitions and treatment of gender, norms, the media, friendships and stereotypes were suggested. The topics and issues that students will come up with will vary to some extent with each group of learners. During this first period of classes, students generally carry out some schema-building or instantiating task related to the issue-of-the-day in pairs, undertake a knowledge-building or knowledge-sharing task that provides scaffolding for deeper understanding of the issue in groups or through a mingling activity, and participate in a viewing task (such as a listening cloze) of a clip that expresses the issue. Drawing upon the scaffolding provided in the first part of the lesson, students discuss the issue as shown in the film in groups, with guiding questions to provide focus.
Finally, after a discussion of the issue as shown in the film, students are introduced to some differences in dialects (for example, between British/American English, or Irish/American/African English) – focusing not on accents but actual usage or phrasal differences. Students then work in pairs or small groups to produce a short skit that both uses the introduced language, and shows the issue discussed, before presenting their skits to other class members. It is hoped that this creative use of the introduced language will make both the issue and the language more personalized for students.
Week 8: Mid-term Project
During this class, as a kind of review of the first half of semester, students are asked to choose one of the issues from the previous classes, and make a two minute skit in groups that uses some introduced language. This provides students with the opportunity to review the issues discussed, negotiate to collectively choose one in which they are interested or would like to express through a skit, and use language creatively for the purpose of talking about or expressing an issue. Students then show their skits to other class members, who undertake a peer-grading exercise.
Weeks 9-12: Issues / Film Criticism / Critical analysis of Issues Raised in Film
The second half of the semester leads towards the final project. During classes, students are encouraged to continue thinking about sociocultural issues, but, as a replacement of the dialect-language element of the first half of semester, methods of critically discussing the film as well as its representation of the sociocultural issues raised are introduced and practiced. Schema, knowledge-building / sharing and viewing tasks are still undertaken, but more time is spent on focused discussion and consensus-making tasks related to film criticism and issue-representation. Furthermore, leading to comparing and contrasting tasks in the following weeks and as part of the final project, students use t-charts to compare and contrast characters in the films.
Weeks 13-14: Viewing Film Two
Students are introduced to the final project. Before viewing the second film, students are asked whether they want English or Japanese subtitles – as the focus for the final project is on the issues and the films, and not comprehension of the English in the films as such, students ought to be given the choice (see Kusumarasdyati, 2004, for a discussion) – the In America / Magnolia class chose Japanese subtitles. Whilst watching the second film, students use a focused worksheet to compare and contrast the two films, both as films, and also for their discussion and representation of sociocultural issues.
Week 15: Final Project (Live Discussion)
Students are randomly broken into groups of six prior to this class. Each group comes at a different time, and discusses together the two films for approximately 30 minutes. The discussion is entirely student-created – the idea is that the students should find their own way collectively in analyzing critically the two films and the issues portrayed. The teacher observes, taking notes about contributions from students and any points that may need feedback after the discussion.
The students are graded individually on factors of:
1. Contribution,
2. Discussion of topics and issues,
3. Comparison and contrast of movies,
4. Involvement of other students, and
5. Clarity of ideas.
As can be seen from the grading factors, rather than a focus on evaluation of language form, students are graded on their ability to communicate their ideas and create a discussion together. It is hoped that, through the opportunities the students have had for focused thinking and discussion throughout the semester, along with the language they have encountered, they will be able to create together a discussion that evolves in a natural way, wending their way through the issues and topics that they wish to bring up, or that they feel comfortable discussing. There will most likely be a great deal of spontaneous communicative negotiation in defining the boundaries of the conversation, and, as the topics they wish to discuss will vary from student to student, students will be pushed to use all of the communicative resources at their command to express their meaning clearly, and help the discussion take shape.
Conclusion
Film can provide the foundation for a series of classes that encourage students to develop their second language abilities whilst deepening their understanding and thinking about sociocultural issues through discussion. Students may find motivation through the issues, as well their developing ability to apply critical thinking skills to discuss issues that relate not only to cultures and societies foreign to their own, but indeed in many aspects to the society around them.
References
* Brinton, D., Snow, M. & Wesche, M. (1989). Content-based second language instruction. New York: Newbury House.
* CARLA (n.d.). Content-based second language instruction: What is it? Retrieved January 20, 2009 from the CARLA CoBaLLT website: www.carla.umn.edu/cobaltt/cbi.html
* DeBono, E. (1985). Six thinking hats: The power of focused thinking. NewYork: MICA Management Resources.
* Dornyei, Z. (1998). Motivation in second and foreign language learning. Language Teaching, 31, 117-135.
* Fukunaga, Y. (1998). Teaching global issues through English movies. Global Issues in Language Education, 30, 7-9.
* Hadley, A. (2001). Teaching language in context (3rd edn). Boston, USA: Thomson Heinle.
* Kaufman, D. (2004). Constructivist issues in language learning and teaching. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 303-319.
* Kusumarasdyati (2004). Listening, viewing and imagination: Movies in EFL classes. Retrieved December 28, 2008 from the Imaginative Education Research Group website: http://www.ierg.net/confs/2004/Proceedings/Kusumarasdyati.pdf
* Mohan, B. (1986). Language and content. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Cloze, Listening and Debating in a Skills Lesson Colin Neary
Cloze, Listening and Debating in a Skills Lesson
Colin Neary
Madrid Adult Teaching Centre, British Council (Madrid, Spain)
colininmadrid (at) gmail.com
http://colininpadilla.netfirms.com
Introduction
Cloze tests as a testing device have been warmly welcomed by many teachers as an easy-to-mark, quick way to assess both students' grammar and vocabulary at the sentence, paragraph and whole text levels. However, many other teachers, and probably most students, regard them as frustratingly difficult, mechanically boring and far from the type of communicative activities they seek. The presence of these tests in many English-as-a-Foreign-Language examinations, such as those of the University of Cambridge, has meant that teachers often do cloze tests with their students in the belief that it is a regrettable necessity to be suffered through. This is especially the case with examination-preparation courses.
I hope to show that fun and interest can be engendered while doing cloze tests. I have used this technique successfully for many years with my students. In most cases those in my classes are adults at a post-First Certificate level and expecting to present themselves for the Cambridge Advanced Certificate within the academic year. However, the basic technique for using cloze tests as a learning activity rather than a testing activity is applicable at any level. More care would have to be exercised with the use of video at lower levels, but even here much can be done if the teacher is judicious in his choice of video.
A Way of Using Cloze-type Exercises in a Skills Class
Basically there are two ways of presenting such an exercise. The most common is for it to be part of the class textbook . Another is for the teacher to prepare his own examples. The latter is by far the most valuable and it is surprisingly easy to do. In both cases the basic framework for class delivery that I propose is the same. For clarity, I will put forward this basic framework which I use with all textbook-based cloze exercises before considering how it can lead on to the showing of real-life video followed by a class debate.
The Basic Framework of the Activity
The Warmer
First, the teacher sets up a warmer activity to introduce the theme of the cloze activity. For example, if the passage were about losing baggage at an airport, I might narrate an experience of mine while travelling and then get students in groups of three to talk about their experiences before reporting back to the class. There are many ways of introducing a topic known to teachers, so I will not elaborate further, other than to stress that a suitable warmer is an essential first step before doing cloze texts with foreign learners.
Stages in Presenting the Cloze Passage
1. Before the students have seen it, the teacher reads the entire text without gaps twice, at slightly below normal conversational speed, while students take notes on the content. These notes are for the students' immediate use and should be limited to keywords without grammatical concerns. This is excellent listening practice and an opportunity in taking notes in a useful and meaningful way. They are now familiar with the nature of the text and its general outline. This is an essential step in making the cloze done later in the class more intelligible and meaningful. Failure to do this in some way is, I suspect, the cause of much difficulty experienced by students with this type of exercise. In pairs, or triads, students compare what they believe they have heard from memory and their notes.
2. Students now look at the text in question. In pairs they read it, discussing to what extent they have heard correctly and the possible meaning of vocabulary unfamiliar to them. It should be stressed that at this stage that they must not attempt to complete the gaps.
3. When finished, as a whole class activity, the teacher goes over the text giving the students the opportunity to speculate on the meaning of the new lexis with him/her confirming or clarifying as required.
4. In groups of three or four, depending on class-size considerations, students should finally attempt to complete as many of the gaps as they can. Consulting the notes taken previously normally helps them in this. After a reasonable time, five or six minutes, or sooner, if they are beginning to get bogged down, or one group is nearing completion, the activity should be stopped. It is assumed that no more than fifteen items are missing from the text as a larger number leads to tedium and frustration.
5. Students form new groupings to compare answers, agree on changes, and complete unfinished items. This should take not more than five minutes. The size of the new groups will depend on the total number in the class: in a class of twenty with original groups of four, there will be five.
6. The following is an optional activity. I ask for their copies of the cloze text to be put away. I then read the text for a third and last time at a faster conversational pace. As students are by now familiar with it, they welcome the opportunity to familiarize themselves with listening to their teacher at full speed. While I am reading, they listen for the missing gapped items, which they may jot down if they wish. They are not allowed, however, to consult their texts to change items until the reading is finished.
7. Students, in pairs, make any final changes they deem necessary before calling their final decisions back to the teacher as a whole class activity.
Contextualizing the Cloze Test into a Skills Lesson
Using the Video
I am fortunate to work for an organization that has video within the classroom and an agreement with the British Broadcasting Corporation, on a fee-paying basis, to use some of their material for non-commercial educational purposes. This applies not only to the television news programmes but the corresponding items on their website. Many teachers will have similar rights and will adjust accordingly to their own personal situation. I imagine that many are able to use the CNN network or something similar, to try out similar activities.
I record a suitable item of interest from the BBC news channel. Many short suitable documentaries of three minutes or less are regularly incorporated into these broadcasts. I have found of particular use those which have a theme which lends itself to debate as explained below. Then, I take the corresponding article from the BBC website. The complete article consiting of not more then three-hundred-and-fifty words is then turned into a cloze test to be used as explained above.
Preparing the Cloze Test before Class
Many programs exist to prepare cloze tests. Personally, I am very indebted to the Hot Potatoes program, available freely as open-source for personal-teacher-use on the Internet. For those not familiar with it, this is a very sophisticated and useful tool for many on-line activities. However, it can be used for the purpose under discussion in a very simple and practical way. Use the program to convert the text into a cloze passage. This is explained clearly within the program Then save it as a printed text, not an html page, within a word-processor. You have the choice of either limiting yourself to producing the cloze text itself, or of preparing it with the cloze on one side and the full text on the back or on a separate sheet. The latter allows for the initial reading in stage one above to be extremely easy, and in stage seven students can consult the complete text rather than call back their answers. If both the cloze and the complete passage are placed on the same sheet, as I tend to do, students obviously have to be warned before giving out the paper in stage two, not to look at the back of the sheet until told to do so in stage seven. Words and collocations from the video which you wish to bring to students attention, can be placed on the same sheet following the complete text.Finally, print out sufficient copies for each student to have one.
Going Beyond the Framework
After going through the seven stages above with material prepared by myself I have found it very fruitful to go through the following further steps:
Viewing
8. Preteach the lexis from the video either on the whiteboard/blackboard or from the distributed sheets as explained above.
9. Show the video without stopping. Students have now been prepared sufficiently to understand the video with little difficulty. They appreciate being able to understand a documentary designed for native speakers with ease. The visual effect accompanied by sound intensifies the subject for them arousing greater interest. The cloze is seen as a way to achieving this interest and commitment not just by the teacher but most importantly by the learners themselves.
10. Show the video without stopping once more. This allows for assimilation after understanding. Optionally, the listeners may be tasked to prepare a question on what they hear or see for others to answer at the end of the viewing.
For those who have no access to video, aural passages from podcasts or similar could be substituted. Showing video is much preferable where possible.
The Debate
11. Present the theme of the debate taken from the printed and video materials. Divide the class according to the opinion chosen. For example, in a lesson I gave dealing with the possibilities presented by modern facial-imaging techniques, they were asked to make up their minds whether they thought the dangers of these techniques outweighed the advantages or not. Three decisions were allowed: for the motion, against it, or undecided. I then divided the undecided among the other two groups so that they were approximately equal making sure there was a reasonable distribution of stronger students. I have followed this procedure on many occasions without any unexpected difficulties.
12. The two groups are then separated, one group staying in the classroom and the other in a nearby empty classroom or passageway. They prepare the arguments for their case and consider the counter argument their opponents are likely to produce and what they should say in reply. One student is chosen, preferably by the learners themselves, to prepare a one minute presentation of their case and another, a one minute presentation of their perceived principle argument. A time limit for this preparation should be set. I have found some seven minutes to be reasonable.
13. Students come together in a parliament-type situation: two rows either side of the teacher's desk, each row consisting of one team, the top of each row being headed by the presenter with the proponent of the main argument at his /her side.
14. The teacher acts as the official "Parliamentary Speaker", presenting the motion, allowing for the four speakers to present their arguments in turn without interruption before throwing the debate open. I have invariably found that, with the students I have had, this has led to a lively and satisfying time.
Follow-up
A class like this typically lasts seventy-five minutes. This could be adjusted as necessary, by modifying the activities as seen fit. I give feedback after the break, which is short and to the point. First the students' achievements are stressed. Then a reasonable number of errors which I have noted during the discussion are mentioned and explained.
On occasions I have extended the theme into another class, getting students to summarize the video as a group-writing exercise, which each group then transfers to an acetate after finishing and inventing a suitable heading. Groups then exchange acetates, and prepare a presentation for the class on the strong and weak points of the other group's work. This gives them the chance to practise constructive criticism before an audience, apart from the various writing and error-correcting opportunities involved in such an exercise.
Colin Neary
Madrid Adult Teaching Centre, British Council (Madrid, Spain)
colininmadrid (at) gmail.com
http://colininpadilla.netfirms.com
Introduction
Cloze tests as a testing device have been warmly welcomed by many teachers as an easy-to-mark, quick way to assess both students' grammar and vocabulary at the sentence, paragraph and whole text levels. However, many other teachers, and probably most students, regard them as frustratingly difficult, mechanically boring and far from the type of communicative activities they seek. The presence of these tests in many English-as-a-Foreign-Language examinations, such as those of the University of Cambridge, has meant that teachers often do cloze tests with their students in the belief that it is a regrettable necessity to be suffered through. This is especially the case with examination-preparation courses.
I hope to show that fun and interest can be engendered while doing cloze tests. I have used this technique successfully for many years with my students. In most cases those in my classes are adults at a post-First Certificate level and expecting to present themselves for the Cambridge Advanced Certificate within the academic year. However, the basic technique for using cloze tests as a learning activity rather than a testing activity is applicable at any level. More care would have to be exercised with the use of video at lower levels, but even here much can be done if the teacher is judicious in his choice of video.
A Way of Using Cloze-type Exercises in a Skills Class
Basically there are two ways of presenting such an exercise. The most common is for it to be part of the class textbook . Another is for the teacher to prepare his own examples. The latter is by far the most valuable and it is surprisingly easy to do. In both cases the basic framework for class delivery that I propose is the same. For clarity, I will put forward this basic framework which I use with all textbook-based cloze exercises before considering how it can lead on to the showing of real-life video followed by a class debate.
The Basic Framework of the Activity
The Warmer
First, the teacher sets up a warmer activity to introduce the theme of the cloze activity. For example, if the passage were about losing baggage at an airport, I might narrate an experience of mine while travelling and then get students in groups of three to talk about their experiences before reporting back to the class. There are many ways of introducing a topic known to teachers, so I will not elaborate further, other than to stress that a suitable warmer is an essential first step before doing cloze texts with foreign learners.
Stages in Presenting the Cloze Passage
1. Before the students have seen it, the teacher reads the entire text without gaps twice, at slightly below normal conversational speed, while students take notes on the content. These notes are for the students' immediate use and should be limited to keywords without grammatical concerns. This is excellent listening practice and an opportunity in taking notes in a useful and meaningful way. They are now familiar with the nature of the text and its general outline. This is an essential step in making the cloze done later in the class more intelligible and meaningful. Failure to do this in some way is, I suspect, the cause of much difficulty experienced by students with this type of exercise. In pairs, or triads, students compare what they believe they have heard from memory and their notes.
2. Students now look at the text in question. In pairs they read it, discussing to what extent they have heard correctly and the possible meaning of vocabulary unfamiliar to them. It should be stressed that at this stage that they must not attempt to complete the gaps.
3. When finished, as a whole class activity, the teacher goes over the text giving the students the opportunity to speculate on the meaning of the new lexis with him/her confirming or clarifying as required.
4. In groups of three or four, depending on class-size considerations, students should finally attempt to complete as many of the gaps as they can. Consulting the notes taken previously normally helps them in this. After a reasonable time, five or six minutes, or sooner, if they are beginning to get bogged down, or one group is nearing completion, the activity should be stopped. It is assumed that no more than fifteen items are missing from the text as a larger number leads to tedium and frustration.
5. Students form new groupings to compare answers, agree on changes, and complete unfinished items. This should take not more than five minutes. The size of the new groups will depend on the total number in the class: in a class of twenty with original groups of four, there will be five.
6. The following is an optional activity. I ask for their copies of the cloze text to be put away. I then read the text for a third and last time at a faster conversational pace. As students are by now familiar with it, they welcome the opportunity to familiarize themselves with listening to their teacher at full speed. While I am reading, they listen for the missing gapped items, which they may jot down if they wish. They are not allowed, however, to consult their texts to change items until the reading is finished.
7. Students, in pairs, make any final changes they deem necessary before calling their final decisions back to the teacher as a whole class activity.
Contextualizing the Cloze Test into a Skills Lesson
Using the Video
I am fortunate to work for an organization that has video within the classroom and an agreement with the British Broadcasting Corporation, on a fee-paying basis, to use some of their material for non-commercial educational purposes. This applies not only to the television news programmes but the corresponding items on their website. Many teachers will have similar rights and will adjust accordingly to their own personal situation. I imagine that many are able to use the CNN network or something similar, to try out similar activities.
I record a suitable item of interest from the BBC news channel. Many short suitable documentaries of three minutes or less are regularly incorporated into these broadcasts. I have found of particular use those which have a theme which lends itself to debate as explained below. Then, I take the corresponding article from the BBC website. The complete article consiting of not more then three-hundred-and-fifty words is then turned into a cloze test to be used as explained above.
Preparing the Cloze Test before Class
Many programs exist to prepare cloze tests. Personally, I am very indebted to the Hot Potatoes program, available freely as open-source for personal-teacher-use on the Internet. For those not familiar with it, this is a very sophisticated and useful tool for many on-line activities. However, it can be used for the purpose under discussion in a very simple and practical way. Use the program to convert the text into a cloze passage. This is explained clearly within the program Then save it as a printed text, not an html page, within a word-processor. You have the choice of either limiting yourself to producing the cloze text itself, or of preparing it with the cloze on one side and the full text on the back or on a separate sheet. The latter allows for the initial reading in stage one above to be extremely easy, and in stage seven students can consult the complete text rather than call back their answers. If both the cloze and the complete passage are placed on the same sheet, as I tend to do, students obviously have to be warned before giving out the paper in stage two, not to look at the back of the sheet until told to do so in stage seven. Words and collocations from the video which you wish to bring to students attention, can be placed on the same sheet following the complete text.Finally, print out sufficient copies for each student to have one.
Going Beyond the Framework
After going through the seven stages above with material prepared by myself I have found it very fruitful to go through the following further steps:
Viewing
8. Preteach the lexis from the video either on the whiteboard/blackboard or from the distributed sheets as explained above.
9. Show the video without stopping. Students have now been prepared sufficiently to understand the video with little difficulty. They appreciate being able to understand a documentary designed for native speakers with ease. The visual effect accompanied by sound intensifies the subject for them arousing greater interest. The cloze is seen as a way to achieving this interest and commitment not just by the teacher but most importantly by the learners themselves.
10. Show the video without stopping once more. This allows for assimilation after understanding. Optionally, the listeners may be tasked to prepare a question on what they hear or see for others to answer at the end of the viewing.
For those who have no access to video, aural passages from podcasts or similar could be substituted. Showing video is much preferable where possible.
The Debate
11. Present the theme of the debate taken from the printed and video materials. Divide the class according to the opinion chosen. For example, in a lesson I gave dealing with the possibilities presented by modern facial-imaging techniques, they were asked to make up their minds whether they thought the dangers of these techniques outweighed the advantages or not. Three decisions were allowed: for the motion, against it, or undecided. I then divided the undecided among the other two groups so that they were approximately equal making sure there was a reasonable distribution of stronger students. I have followed this procedure on many occasions without any unexpected difficulties.
12. The two groups are then separated, one group staying in the classroom and the other in a nearby empty classroom or passageway. They prepare the arguments for their case and consider the counter argument their opponents are likely to produce and what they should say in reply. One student is chosen, preferably by the learners themselves, to prepare a one minute presentation of their case and another, a one minute presentation of their perceived principle argument. A time limit for this preparation should be set. I have found some seven minutes to be reasonable.
13. Students come together in a parliament-type situation: two rows either side of the teacher's desk, each row consisting of one team, the top of each row being headed by the presenter with the proponent of the main argument at his /her side.
14. The teacher acts as the official "Parliamentary Speaker", presenting the motion, allowing for the four speakers to present their arguments in turn without interruption before throwing the debate open. I have invariably found that, with the students I have had, this has led to a lively and satisfying time.
Follow-up
A class like this typically lasts seventy-five minutes. This could be adjusted as necessary, by modifying the activities as seen fit. I give feedback after the break, which is short and to the point. First the students' achievements are stressed. Then a reasonable number of errors which I have noted during the discussion are mentioned and explained.
On occasions I have extended the theme into another class, getting students to summarize the video as a group-writing exercise, which each group then transfers to an acetate after finishing and inventing a suitable heading. Groups then exchange acetates, and prepare a presentation for the class on the strong and weak points of the other group's work. This gives them the chance to practise constructive criticism before an audience, apart from the various writing and error-correcting opportunities involved in such an exercise.
Current Issue - Activities for ESL Students - Things for ESL Teachers - TESL/TEFL
Current Issue - Activities for ESL Students - Things for ESL Teachers - TESL/TEFL
The Internet TESL Journal
Five Steps to Creating an Effective Team-teaching Relationship
Yuan Yuan
findyuan(at)gmail.com
Kobe University (Kobe, Japan)
Introduction
In Japan, team teaching with a native English teacher and a Japanese teacher has become a common way of conducting EFL classes in high schools and junior high schools. However, not all team teaching relationships are as satisfactory as they could be. So, what is the best way to create a good team-teaching relationship between the Assistant Language Teachers (ALT) and Japanese teacher? Here are some ideas you can try.
Step 1: Exchange Emails
Contact the other to make sure both teaching partners understand the curriculum and the specific goal of the upcoming class. If you are a Japanese teacher, email the ALT at least a day before the class to describe the expected learning outcomes and the lesson plan. Leave the lesson plan flexible enough to incorporate any ideas the ALT may have. If you are an ALT, don’t hesitate to send an email first to ask information about the upcoming lesson. By exchanging ideas before the lesson, both of you are actively working to create a co-participant stance that will help foster a more satisfactory approach to cooperative class management.
Step 2: Talk for Five Minutes Before Class
As an ALT or a Japanese teacher, bring your ideas along with the lesson plan to school. Take five minutes to talk to each other before class. You can ask the following questions:
1. What are the students expected to achieve through today’s class?
2. What kinds of activities are they going to do? Are the materials suitable for today’s lesson?
3. What are the specific roles of each member of the teaching team?
If you are an ALT, you can offer your ideas to the Japanese teacher by using phrases such as:
1. I like your idea of doing a dialogue in class, but what do you think if...
2. I have brought some materials with me; I think they will help the students to acquire some expressions while playing these games.
There is no necessity to stay with the original plan if you come up with new ideas that sound more attractive. Five minutes is not a long time, but the talk creates a shared understanding of the class and can keep both of you on the same page.
Step 3: Display Your Trust
Trust the other’s ability in the class and display your trust in action. If you are the Japanese teacher, try to avoid giving requests directly, such as “Please read the paragraph” or, “Please ask the students questions”, because these can sound like direct orders, which might make the ALT feel like he or she is being treated as a CD player. Instead you can use implicit methods such as a gaze or body languages to invite the other to take the next action or you can just wait to offer your teaching partner a chance to take active actions. An experienced ALT will have the ability to judge when to commence an activity, and where to take action. If you really need to prompt the other teacher, try using phrases such as, “Jenny, would you like to say that in English for us?” or “Matthew, can we get you to show us how to make that sound?” This will help the ALT to feel like a valued member of the team. Framing your directions as requests or invitations will also provide the students with important pragmatic awareness.
If you work as an ALT, display your trust of the Japanese teacher through actively participating in the class. Don’t act as a robot waiting for orders. Observe the class to see where and what kind of action needs to be taken. Remember good cooperation is co-established through how you perform in the class.
Step 4: Make Small Talk
Between lessons, usually there is a ten-minute break. Of course you could choose to be by yourself during this time, but you can also use these ten minutes as a good opportunity to establish a closer rapport with your teaching partner.
Here are some topics you could use.
Talk about what is happening in the classes.
Class related topics contain at least two advantages. First, reflecting on the class can help you come up with ways to modify the lesson plan, as well as promote cooperation for the coming class. Second, talking about something you have in common can establish a sense of membership, which therefore creates better teamwork.
Talk about culture or language related topics.
As a native speaker of either English or Japanese, you might find that there are some interesting aspects of your teaching partner’s way of life that he or she can teach you about. For ALT’s, this can be an important way of getting to know about the world around you. For Japanese teachers, talking about the ALT’s home country can broaden your knowledge of English teaching cultures.
Talk about hobbies or interests.
Hobbies such as listening to music or watching movies can be used as resources in the classroom conversations. The more information you know about each other, the more resources you can apply to teaching.
Well-chosen topics will help establish a closer rapport with each other, and therefore it will foster a better atmosphere of cooperation. The more familiar you are with each other, the better and more effective the lesson will be.
Step 5: After Class, Write Your Reflections
After the class, take two minutes to write down your reflections about the lesson. It could be observations, thoughts or feelings; anything about the class. If you think the team-teaching didn’t go well, try to think about where you felt it needed work, or about when the other person seemed uncomfortable and why. Send emails to your teaching partner to discuss the class. Express your ideas honestly but politely. Respecting each other’s job and speaking from a team stance will contribute to the development of the team teaching as well as your own personal development as a language teacher. The last thing you need to do is to keep your mind open to any suggestions.
Conclusion
These five steps are practical tips. The most important thing is to remember that a good cooperation is co-established through interactions both in and out of the class. Displaying your position and being sensitive to that of your teaching partner will result in the establishment of an effective teaching team.
The Internet TESL Journal
Five Steps to Creating an Effective Team-teaching Relationship
Yuan Yuan
findyuan(at)gmail.com
Kobe University (Kobe, Japan)
Introduction
In Japan, team teaching with a native English teacher and a Japanese teacher has become a common way of conducting EFL classes in high schools and junior high schools. However, not all team teaching relationships are as satisfactory as they could be. So, what is the best way to create a good team-teaching relationship between the Assistant Language Teachers (ALT) and Japanese teacher? Here are some ideas you can try.
Step 1: Exchange Emails
Contact the other to make sure both teaching partners understand the curriculum and the specific goal of the upcoming class. If you are a Japanese teacher, email the ALT at least a day before the class to describe the expected learning outcomes and the lesson plan. Leave the lesson plan flexible enough to incorporate any ideas the ALT may have. If you are an ALT, don’t hesitate to send an email first to ask information about the upcoming lesson. By exchanging ideas before the lesson, both of you are actively working to create a co-participant stance that will help foster a more satisfactory approach to cooperative class management.
Step 2: Talk for Five Minutes Before Class
As an ALT or a Japanese teacher, bring your ideas along with the lesson plan to school. Take five minutes to talk to each other before class. You can ask the following questions:
1. What are the students expected to achieve through today’s class?
2. What kinds of activities are they going to do? Are the materials suitable for today’s lesson?
3. What are the specific roles of each member of the teaching team?
If you are an ALT, you can offer your ideas to the Japanese teacher by using phrases such as:
1. I like your idea of doing a dialogue in class, but what do you think if...
2. I have brought some materials with me; I think they will help the students to acquire some expressions while playing these games.
There is no necessity to stay with the original plan if you come up with new ideas that sound more attractive. Five minutes is not a long time, but the talk creates a shared understanding of the class and can keep both of you on the same page.
Step 3: Display Your Trust
Trust the other’s ability in the class and display your trust in action. If you are the Japanese teacher, try to avoid giving requests directly, such as “Please read the paragraph” or, “Please ask the students questions”, because these can sound like direct orders, which might make the ALT feel like he or she is being treated as a CD player. Instead you can use implicit methods such as a gaze or body languages to invite the other to take the next action or you can just wait to offer your teaching partner a chance to take active actions. An experienced ALT will have the ability to judge when to commence an activity, and where to take action. If you really need to prompt the other teacher, try using phrases such as, “Jenny, would you like to say that in English for us?” or “Matthew, can we get you to show us how to make that sound?” This will help the ALT to feel like a valued member of the team. Framing your directions as requests or invitations will also provide the students with important pragmatic awareness.
If you work as an ALT, display your trust of the Japanese teacher through actively participating in the class. Don’t act as a robot waiting for orders. Observe the class to see where and what kind of action needs to be taken. Remember good cooperation is co-established through how you perform in the class.
Step 4: Make Small Talk
Between lessons, usually there is a ten-minute break. Of course you could choose to be by yourself during this time, but you can also use these ten minutes as a good opportunity to establish a closer rapport with your teaching partner.
Here are some topics you could use.
Talk about what is happening in the classes.
Class related topics contain at least two advantages. First, reflecting on the class can help you come up with ways to modify the lesson plan, as well as promote cooperation for the coming class. Second, talking about something you have in common can establish a sense of membership, which therefore creates better teamwork.
Talk about culture or language related topics.
As a native speaker of either English or Japanese, you might find that there are some interesting aspects of your teaching partner’s way of life that he or she can teach you about. For ALT’s, this can be an important way of getting to know about the world around you. For Japanese teachers, talking about the ALT’s home country can broaden your knowledge of English teaching cultures.
Talk about hobbies or interests.
Hobbies such as listening to music or watching movies can be used as resources in the classroom conversations. The more information you know about each other, the more resources you can apply to teaching.
Well-chosen topics will help establish a closer rapport with each other, and therefore it will foster a better atmosphere of cooperation. The more familiar you are with each other, the better and more effective the lesson will be.
Step 5: After Class, Write Your Reflections
After the class, take two minutes to write down your reflections about the lesson. It could be observations, thoughts or feelings; anything about the class. If you think the team-teaching didn’t go well, try to think about where you felt it needed work, or about when the other person seemed uncomfortable and why. Send emails to your teaching partner to discuss the class. Express your ideas honestly but politely. Respecting each other’s job and speaking from a team stance will contribute to the development of the team teaching as well as your own personal development as a language teacher. The last thing you need to do is to keep your mind open to any suggestions.
Conclusion
These five steps are practical tips. The most important thing is to remember that a good cooperation is co-established through interactions both in and out of the class. Displaying your position and being sensitive to that of your teaching partner will result in the establishment of an effective teaching team.
Using Origami and Magic Tricks to Teach English
Using Origami and Magic Tricks to Teach English
Vichea In vin(at)indiana.edu
Indiana University Bloomington (Bloomington, Indiana, USA)
This article presents the pedagogical value of origami and magic tricks to English teachers. First, rationales for using origami and magic tricks to teach English are discussed. Second, some ideas of how origami activities and magic tricks can be incorporated in English teaching are illustrated. Third, free online resources of origami and magic materials are provided with description.
Introduction
The purpose of this article is to present the pedagogical value of origami and magic tricks to English teachers and provide teachers with ideas that lend spice to their teaching. Origami is an art of cutting and folding papers into different decorative or representative forms. Origami activities, often viewed as childlike and non-content activities, actually promote language learning among not only young but also adult learners (Ho, 2002). Meanwhile, the mysterious nature and spectacular outcome of magic tricks are certainly appealing to learners who are motivated by curiosity and the ability to impress others.
Nonetheless, origami and magic trick materials are usually not developed for language teaching purposes. Teachers need to alter and incorporate such materials to fit their teaching contexts or spend time to seek appropriate and ready-to-use materials. In this article, I offer some examples of how origami and magic trick materials can be incorporated in language teaching and useful resources of such materials that are appropriate for English teaching and learning.
Rationales
Learners’ success in folding an origami and performing a magic trick is basically attributed to their comprehension of the text that contains the folding and performing instruction. The value of this attribute is two-fold. First, the teacher can assess learners’ language learning by examining their visible outcome (i.e. final origami product and successful trick performance). Second, such activities readily lend themselves to task-based instruction. Task-based instruction emphasizes communication, negotiation of meaning, collaboration, and use of the language as a means to an end (Shrum & Glisan, 2005). While the end is the origami and trick outcome, the means is the process of engaging with the target language to comprehend the origami and trick instruction and negotiate meanings with teachers and other learners.
Origami and magic activities can be flexibly adapted for separate macro skills (i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing) or integrated skills which promote communicative language teaching and learning. For example, a series of pictures of how to fold a particular origami shape are shown to learners who then write an instruction in their own words or by incorporating key related words taught before this activity. To embrace a communicative method, teachers can group students according to what magic tricks their groups want to perform to the others and have them discuss with their group members how to execute the trick.
Origami and magic activities also address diverse needs of learners in the language classroom. Gardner (1993) posited that learners possessed multiple intelligences, but their intelligences were not equally developed both within an individual and between individuals. Some learners learn better when they do and create something, while some others need to discuss new information with others. In the same vein, Oxford (1990) proposed five key dimensions of language learning styles. To address this inevitable diversity in the classroom, the teacher needs to use activities that incorporate multiple intelligences and dimensions. Origami activities will open the class to different learning modes such as kinesthetic and visual auditory (Ho, 2002). Origami and magic tricks can be adopted as both cooperative and competitive activities.
Finally, origami and magic activities are certainly stimulating. Young learners are attracted to such shapes as lovely animals and toys, while adult learners may desire something less juvenile and more complex. Magic tricks are the love of learners who want to impress their friends and are curious about the mystery behind tricks.
Some Pedagogical Ideas
Origami
Basic origami materials needed for a language class include a visual (i.e. a series of pictures showing how to fold an origami) and written and verbal origami instruction. For low level or young learners, the teacher provides both the visual and instruction text to learners. The teacher can pre-teach difficult words before an origami activity by either explaining or demonstrating action of the difficult words. To explain the phrase "accordion fold", I would fold a paper into an accordion shape in front of my learners and invite them to follow to make sure that they understand. Select words with a focus to help learners comprehend the instruction text. Pre-teaching difficult words and the visual are scaffolds for low-level learners. To make an origami task challenging for higher level learners, the teacher can remove the visual, and ask the learners to develop the visual from the instruction text given in pairs or groups.
To focus on writing, the teacher provides a visual on which learners base their origami instruction writing. Different groups may have different visuals and produce different sets of instruction. Each group tries an origami instruction different from their own. The teacher can pre-teach key words.
When the learners are familiar with origami activities, the teacher can ask the learners to learn an origami folding from their families, relatives, or friends, and produce a set of instructions for other learners.
Magic Tricks
Last summer I introduced two card tricks to a class of mine. Due to complexity of the tricks and text, this lesson is for intermediate and upper intermediate learners. The instruction text for the tricks is in the appendix.
First, I pre-taught such words as “spade”, “club”, “diamond”, “heart”, “shuffle”, “cut”, “pick” by using a deck of cards. I wrote those words on the whiteboard. I showed different cards especially picture cards and called out their names. I also performed actions (i.e. shuffle) related to the verbs I was teaching. I checked their comprehension by showing some cards and performing some actions and asking some students to name the cards and provide the verbs for the actions.
I split the class into two groups. Each group held a secret of their trick. Each group received an instruction text of their trick. They discussed the trick and rehearsed the trick. I would facilitate any member who had difficulty. Discussion was effective with a group of 4 or 5 students. Then each member from one group was paired with a member from another group. One learner in the pair performed his or her trick while the other either paid attention or took note of steps taken by the trick performer. At the end, learners in each pair shared their secret behind their trick. Each learner wrote down the instruction they learned from his or her pair member. Their writing would be collected for assessment. The first card trick (see the appendix) even allowed learners to create and narrate their own story related to the trick to divert spectators’ attention from their secret.
Resources
Some free online resources of origami activities and magic tricks can be found in the following websites.
http://www.tammyyee.com/origami.html
Tammy Yee’s Origami Page provides numerous origami activities including textual instruction, visuals, and pages formatted with crease patterns ready to be printed. Each activity is assigned to a difficulty level. Origami projects are also organized into three categories: nature, holidays, and multicultural. Every month new origami projects are added into the database. Everything is free.
http://dev.origami.com/diagram.cfm
This is a huge origami database. The website has a search and a filter mechanism that filters origami models based on the difficulty level chosen. Many of its origami models are not suitable for young or low level learners. Its complexity may be appealing to adult and advanced learners. It is also free for all visitors, and the database keeps growing.
http://www.origamitube.com
http://www.videojug.com/
These sites contain videos of how to make origami shapes. For teachers who love incorporating short video clips into their instruction, these sites are their love. For the videojug.com, teachers need to type keyword origami to get a list of related videos. This site contains quality videos that are downloadable once you sign up as a member for free.
http://www.kidzone.ws/magic/index.htm
This website contains a dozen of free magic tricks for school children. Its easy trick instructions are suitable for English learners in many levels. Most tricks involve easy-to-find objects such as cards and coins. The instruction is usually short and thus stimulating.
http://kids.mysterynet.com/magic/
This site has several simple magic tricks with moderately long instruction but with simple words. There are also pictures to help illustrate the tricks.
http://www.cardtricksite.com/tricks.htm
This site has a wonderful collection of card tricks organized in neat categories. Teachers may find easy trick categories useful for their lessons, but other categories are also worth exploring.
References
* Gardner, H. (1993). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
* Ho, L. Y. (2005). Origami and the adult ESL learner. In T. Hull (Ed.), Origami3 (pp. 247-256). Wellesley, MA: A K Peters, Ltd.
* Oxford, R. L. (1990). Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
* Shrum J. L. & Glisan, E. W. (2005). Teacher's handbook: Contextualized language instruction (3rd ed.). Boston: Thomson Heinle.
Appendix
Card Trick 1
All card Jacks, Queens, Kings, and Aces are used in this trick. The cards are arranged in four columns based on a story. The order of each column should be a Jack, Queen, King, and Ace. Each column is collected and placed on one another to form a deck. The deck now is placed on a table. The audience is invited to cut the deck as many times as they want. Then cards are dealt in four piles so that each pile will have four cards. The effect is that all the four cards in each pile belong to the same kind (e.g. all Aces).
How does it work? The story is intended to distract the audience’s attention from the order of cards arranged in four columns. The story can be made up to match the interest of the audience. One excellent example is that one day four young men (four Jacks) had a party, but when the party became boring, they invited four young women (Queens) to join. As the party was still boring, they invited four older male friends who were outspoken (Kings) to join the party. However the party got loud and the neighbors called the police. Four police officers (Aces) came to the party and took the party goers to the police station in four cars. When narrating, first place Jacks in four different locations (Each Jack will be the first card of each column). Queens, Kings, and Aces are handled in the same way so that each column should contain in order a Jack, Queen, King and Ace. Pile the columns on one another to form a deck.
Ask the audience to cut the deck. No matter how many times the audience cut the deck on the table, the order of the cards should always be Jack, Queen, King, and Ace. When dealt into four piles, the cards will always go into their group: All Jacks, Queens, Kings, and Aces. Cutting the deck on the table, the audience has control on the deck and is not suspicious of the order of the cards believing that random cut will jeopardize the order, which contributes to amazement of the trick effect.
Card Trick 2
Two cards are picked out by the magician from a fan of cards. While picking out the cards, the magician looks at the audience's eyes as if he or she were reading the audience’s mind. In this example, the two cards to be chosen for the effect to happen are the Nine Spade and the Three Club. The two cards match in number with the top and bottom card in the deck, the top being Nine Club and the bottom being Three Heart in this example. This is the secret of the trick. The magician places the two cards face-up on the table. Then he or she places the rest of the deck card by card (from the top to bottom of the deck) on the table and tells the audience to stop him from doing this whenever the audience wants. When stopped, the magician places the Three Club face-up on top of the pile on the table and then places the deck in hand on that pile. The secret is that the Three Heart (the bottom card of the deck in hand) meets the Three Club. The magician then collects all the cards and places the cards one by one on the table once more. The audience is invited to stop him whenever the audience wants. When stopped, he places Nine Spade face-up on top of the pile on the table and then places the deck in hand on that pile. The secret is that the Nine Spade meets Nine Club. And then the magician hands the deck on the table to the audience who will shuffle or cut the deck. After that, the magician searches for the pairs, places the pairs on the table, and turn the cards face-up. To the audience’s amazement, the cards match with the two cards picked out in number.
Vichea In vin(at)indiana.edu
Indiana University Bloomington (Bloomington, Indiana, USA)
This article presents the pedagogical value of origami and magic tricks to English teachers. First, rationales for using origami and magic tricks to teach English are discussed. Second, some ideas of how origami activities and magic tricks can be incorporated in English teaching are illustrated. Third, free online resources of origami and magic materials are provided with description.
Introduction
The purpose of this article is to present the pedagogical value of origami and magic tricks to English teachers and provide teachers with ideas that lend spice to their teaching. Origami is an art of cutting and folding papers into different decorative or representative forms. Origami activities, often viewed as childlike and non-content activities, actually promote language learning among not only young but also adult learners (Ho, 2002). Meanwhile, the mysterious nature and spectacular outcome of magic tricks are certainly appealing to learners who are motivated by curiosity and the ability to impress others.
Nonetheless, origami and magic trick materials are usually not developed for language teaching purposes. Teachers need to alter and incorporate such materials to fit their teaching contexts or spend time to seek appropriate and ready-to-use materials. In this article, I offer some examples of how origami and magic trick materials can be incorporated in language teaching and useful resources of such materials that are appropriate for English teaching and learning.
Rationales
Learners’ success in folding an origami and performing a magic trick is basically attributed to their comprehension of the text that contains the folding and performing instruction. The value of this attribute is two-fold. First, the teacher can assess learners’ language learning by examining their visible outcome (i.e. final origami product and successful trick performance). Second, such activities readily lend themselves to task-based instruction. Task-based instruction emphasizes communication, negotiation of meaning, collaboration, and use of the language as a means to an end (Shrum & Glisan, 2005). While the end is the origami and trick outcome, the means is the process of engaging with the target language to comprehend the origami and trick instruction and negotiate meanings with teachers and other learners.
Origami and magic activities can be flexibly adapted for separate macro skills (i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing) or integrated skills which promote communicative language teaching and learning. For example, a series of pictures of how to fold a particular origami shape are shown to learners who then write an instruction in their own words or by incorporating key related words taught before this activity. To embrace a communicative method, teachers can group students according to what magic tricks their groups want to perform to the others and have them discuss with their group members how to execute the trick.
Origami and magic activities also address diverse needs of learners in the language classroom. Gardner (1993) posited that learners possessed multiple intelligences, but their intelligences were not equally developed both within an individual and between individuals. Some learners learn better when they do and create something, while some others need to discuss new information with others. In the same vein, Oxford (1990) proposed five key dimensions of language learning styles. To address this inevitable diversity in the classroom, the teacher needs to use activities that incorporate multiple intelligences and dimensions. Origami activities will open the class to different learning modes such as kinesthetic and visual auditory (Ho, 2002). Origami and magic tricks can be adopted as both cooperative and competitive activities.
Finally, origami and magic activities are certainly stimulating. Young learners are attracted to such shapes as lovely animals and toys, while adult learners may desire something less juvenile and more complex. Magic tricks are the love of learners who want to impress their friends and are curious about the mystery behind tricks.
Some Pedagogical Ideas
Origami
Basic origami materials needed for a language class include a visual (i.e. a series of pictures showing how to fold an origami) and written and verbal origami instruction. For low level or young learners, the teacher provides both the visual and instruction text to learners. The teacher can pre-teach difficult words before an origami activity by either explaining or demonstrating action of the difficult words. To explain the phrase "accordion fold", I would fold a paper into an accordion shape in front of my learners and invite them to follow to make sure that they understand. Select words with a focus to help learners comprehend the instruction text. Pre-teaching difficult words and the visual are scaffolds for low-level learners. To make an origami task challenging for higher level learners, the teacher can remove the visual, and ask the learners to develop the visual from the instruction text given in pairs or groups.
To focus on writing, the teacher provides a visual on which learners base their origami instruction writing. Different groups may have different visuals and produce different sets of instruction. Each group tries an origami instruction different from their own. The teacher can pre-teach key words.
When the learners are familiar with origami activities, the teacher can ask the learners to learn an origami folding from their families, relatives, or friends, and produce a set of instructions for other learners.
Magic Tricks
Last summer I introduced two card tricks to a class of mine. Due to complexity of the tricks and text, this lesson is for intermediate and upper intermediate learners. The instruction text for the tricks is in the appendix.
First, I pre-taught such words as “spade”, “club”, “diamond”, “heart”, “shuffle”, “cut”, “pick” by using a deck of cards. I wrote those words on the whiteboard. I showed different cards especially picture cards and called out their names. I also performed actions (i.e. shuffle) related to the verbs I was teaching. I checked their comprehension by showing some cards and performing some actions and asking some students to name the cards and provide the verbs for the actions.
I split the class into two groups. Each group held a secret of their trick. Each group received an instruction text of their trick. They discussed the trick and rehearsed the trick. I would facilitate any member who had difficulty. Discussion was effective with a group of 4 or 5 students. Then each member from one group was paired with a member from another group. One learner in the pair performed his or her trick while the other either paid attention or took note of steps taken by the trick performer. At the end, learners in each pair shared their secret behind their trick. Each learner wrote down the instruction they learned from his or her pair member. Their writing would be collected for assessment. The first card trick (see the appendix) even allowed learners to create and narrate their own story related to the trick to divert spectators’ attention from their secret.
Resources
Some free online resources of origami activities and magic tricks can be found in the following websites.
http://www.tammyyee.com/origami.html
Tammy Yee’s Origami Page provides numerous origami activities including textual instruction, visuals, and pages formatted with crease patterns ready to be printed. Each activity is assigned to a difficulty level. Origami projects are also organized into three categories: nature, holidays, and multicultural. Every month new origami projects are added into the database. Everything is free.
http://dev.origami.com/diagram.cfm
This is a huge origami database. The website has a search and a filter mechanism that filters origami models based on the difficulty level chosen. Many of its origami models are not suitable for young or low level learners. Its complexity may be appealing to adult and advanced learners. It is also free for all visitors, and the database keeps growing.
http://www.origamitube.com
http://www.videojug.com/
These sites contain videos of how to make origami shapes. For teachers who love incorporating short video clips into their instruction, these sites are their love. For the videojug.com, teachers need to type keyword origami to get a list of related videos. This site contains quality videos that are downloadable once you sign up as a member for free.
http://www.kidzone.ws/magic/index.htm
This website contains a dozen of free magic tricks for school children. Its easy trick instructions are suitable for English learners in many levels. Most tricks involve easy-to-find objects such as cards and coins. The instruction is usually short and thus stimulating.
http://kids.mysterynet.com/magic/
This site has several simple magic tricks with moderately long instruction but with simple words. There are also pictures to help illustrate the tricks.
http://www.cardtricksite.com/tricks.htm
This site has a wonderful collection of card tricks organized in neat categories. Teachers may find easy trick categories useful for their lessons, but other categories are also worth exploring.
References
* Gardner, H. (1993). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
* Ho, L. Y. (2005). Origami and the adult ESL learner. In T. Hull (Ed.), Origami3 (pp. 247-256). Wellesley, MA: A K Peters, Ltd.
* Oxford, R. L. (1990). Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
* Shrum J. L. & Glisan, E. W. (2005). Teacher's handbook: Contextualized language instruction (3rd ed.). Boston: Thomson Heinle.
Appendix
Card Trick 1
All card Jacks, Queens, Kings, and Aces are used in this trick. The cards are arranged in four columns based on a story. The order of each column should be a Jack, Queen, King, and Ace. Each column is collected and placed on one another to form a deck. The deck now is placed on a table. The audience is invited to cut the deck as many times as they want. Then cards are dealt in four piles so that each pile will have four cards. The effect is that all the four cards in each pile belong to the same kind (e.g. all Aces).
How does it work? The story is intended to distract the audience’s attention from the order of cards arranged in four columns. The story can be made up to match the interest of the audience. One excellent example is that one day four young men (four Jacks) had a party, but when the party became boring, they invited four young women (Queens) to join. As the party was still boring, they invited four older male friends who were outspoken (Kings) to join the party. However the party got loud and the neighbors called the police. Four police officers (Aces) came to the party and took the party goers to the police station in four cars. When narrating, first place Jacks in four different locations (Each Jack will be the first card of each column). Queens, Kings, and Aces are handled in the same way so that each column should contain in order a Jack, Queen, King and Ace. Pile the columns on one another to form a deck.
Ask the audience to cut the deck. No matter how many times the audience cut the deck on the table, the order of the cards should always be Jack, Queen, King, and Ace. When dealt into four piles, the cards will always go into their group: All Jacks, Queens, Kings, and Aces. Cutting the deck on the table, the audience has control on the deck and is not suspicious of the order of the cards believing that random cut will jeopardize the order, which contributes to amazement of the trick effect.
Card Trick 2
Two cards are picked out by the magician from a fan of cards. While picking out the cards, the magician looks at the audience's eyes as if he or she were reading the audience’s mind. In this example, the two cards to be chosen for the effect to happen are the Nine Spade and the Three Club. The two cards match in number with the top and bottom card in the deck, the top being Nine Club and the bottom being Three Heart in this example. This is the secret of the trick. The magician places the two cards face-up on the table. Then he or she places the rest of the deck card by card (from the top to bottom of the deck) on the table and tells the audience to stop him from doing this whenever the audience wants. When stopped, the magician places the Three Club face-up on top of the pile on the table and then places the deck in hand on that pile. The secret is that the Three Heart (the bottom card of the deck in hand) meets the Three Club. The magician then collects all the cards and places the cards one by one on the table once more. The audience is invited to stop him whenever the audience wants. When stopped, he places Nine Spade face-up on top of the pile on the table and then places the deck in hand on that pile. The secret is that the Nine Spade meets Nine Club. And then the magician hands the deck on the table to the audience who will shuffle or cut the deck. After that, the magician searches for the pairs, places the pairs on the table, and turn the cards face-up. To the audience’s amazement, the cards match with the two cards picked out in number.
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