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The teacher tells a story and as the teacher talks she writes the verbs on the whiteboard, each verb on a new line.
The students retell the story, using the verbs as prompts. They can then write the story and compare their version with the original. In this way a skills flow is used. The students listen, then speak, then write, and lastly they compare and notice the language differences.
They help students to:
Watch this video to see verb story being used in a year 11 geography class
Teaching and learning sequence planning examples:
Primary level:
Secondary level:
4/3/2 is a useful technique for developing oral fluency. Learners give the same talk to three different learners with decreasing time to do it.
The learners work in pairs. Learner A talks to Learner B and has a time limit of four minutes to do this. B just listens and does not interrupt or question. When the four minutes are up, the teacher says, "Change partners". Learner A then moves to a new Learner B. The teacher says "Begin" and Learner A gives exactly the same talk to the new partner but this time has only three minutes. When the three minutes are up, the teacher says "Stop. Change partners." With a new partner, Learner A now has two minutes to talk. During the three deliveries of the same story, the B learners do not talk and each listens to three different people. When the A learners have given their talk three times, the B learners can now go through the same sequence, this time as speakers.
"Research on this activity shows that the learners' speed of speaking increased during the talks (as measured by the number of words per minute), the hesitations they make decrease (as measured by hesitations per 100 words), and surprisingly their grammatical errors in the repeated parts of the talk decrease and they tend to use several, more complex grammatical constructions in the last of the three talks than they did in the first talk" (Nation, 1989, p. 381).
These features of 4/3/2 develop spoken fluency:
The first time that learners use this technique they will need to recount something that happened to them. This is because the chronological order of the events will make it easier to recall and repeat because the time sequence provides a clear structure for the talk. Fluency development tasks need to involve language items that are already familiar to the learners, need to involve largely familiar content, and need to include some kind of encouragement to perform faster than usual.
Watch this video to see a year 5–6 social studies class using the 4-3-2 strategy
Teaching and learning sequence examples
A concept star is a type of graphic organiser that can be used as a pre-reading activity to encourage prediction skills and build vocabulary. It can be used effectively when students are reading a text beyond their ability to understand completely.
The teacher selects two or three paragraphs that contain an especially large amount of new vocabulary. Five categories are chosen for each of the points on the star. Students sort words from the paragraphs into these semantic categories using prior knowledge, context clues and prediction skills.This can be done first as an individual activity and then in pairs and/groups.
The benefits of a Concept Star * Encourages readers to be willing and accurate guessers and to tolerate ambiguity.* Can be used as a before and after activity with students revising their concept star after they have read the complete passage and had teacher/peer input.
The following videos show students using a concept star in the classroom
Primary level
Secondary level
Teaching and learning sequence examples:
The five Ws (what, when, where, why, who) plus an H (how) strategy can be used in a variety of ways. It is often used to help students summarise an article they read. It also helps them to organise their thinking and it can lead students to use a range of question types independently. It is also relevant to writing a newspaper article or a report.
The five 'W's (what, when, where, why, who) plus an 'H' (how) provide a strategy that is often used in news reporting in order to provide the audience with a quick overview of an event. It generally involves the following:
The benefits of Five Ws and an H
Developing higher order questions is a variation on the 5Ws and an H strategy in which students in small groups roll either one or two dice and form a question for their group to answer. On one cube write a question starter on each side. For example: How? Where? What? Why? When? Who? On the other cube write modal verbs such as: might, would, should, could, can, may, will. Using the teacher provided topic or text, students within each group take turns to roll the first dice and use the starters to form factual questions. Alternatively it can be made more difficult by requiring the students to roll both dice and to ask a question using both the question starter and the modal verb e.g. How could, who should.
Model this activity with the class first. Put the students into small groups. You will need to make 2 cubes for each group of students.
On one cube write a question starter on each side. For example: How? Where? What? Why? When? Who? On the other cube write modal verbs such as: might, would, should, could, can, may, will.
Using some of the brainstormed topics, students within each group take turns to roll the first dice and use the starters to form factual questions:
Students then roll the two dice and use the modal verbs to lift the level of the questions:
This video shows Five Ws and an H being used in a secondary classroom
Teaching and learning sequence planning examples
These strategies are useful for noticing correct grammar and for modelling texts. They are best used with key definitions or key ideas that are essential to the unit of work being studied.
Disappearing definition
Write an important piece of text or definition on the white board. The teacher reads the definition to the students. The students chorus the text back. The teacher rubs out every seventh word and a student reads out the text including the missing word. The teacher rubs out every seventh word and a student reads out the entire text. The teacher continues rubbing out until there is no text on the board. The students then write the text into their books from memory.
Note:
Watch the following video, where primary students use disappearing definition
This strategy can be used at the beginning of a topic to find out what students know. The table or grid has prompts that students need to change into questions to ask their peers. They do this by circulating around the class and writing information in the spaces. Students need to be encouraged to ask as many different people as they can. Finding out tables are an effective way of accessing students' prior knowledge on a topic. They also provide practice in forming questions. Once completed, the information can be used in another activity to build on prior knowledge.
The benefits of finding out tables:
In this video a year 13 economics class uses finding out tables
Role-play cards invite students to assume the role of a specific person or character and to react to a stimulus or prompt as that person. They provide English language learners opportunities to use language and content in a variety of situations. They can be used in subject areas to link learning to real life contexts.
The teacher first models language structures and builds vocabulary that students will need. English language learners will need to be given rehearsal time and/or a speaking frame. After the activity it is important to build in reflection time.
The benefits of role-play cards:
Watch this short video to see a year 13 economics class using role-play cards
Teaching and learning sequence planning example
This activity provides motivation for students to try new structures and vocabulary within a small group setting. It enables students to speak from another viewpoint, recall information, identify main points and prepares students for writing. While undertaking the tasks the students are more likely to notice their own language gaps and test their hypothesis and provide/receive feedback. The content should be material the students understand because they’ve already explored it in class. A Say It is usually positioned towards the end of a teaching and learning sequence. It may be used as a post-reading activity and the prompts based upon the text just read.
The teacher prepares a table/grid (usually 3 x 3, or 3 x 4) and writes one topic related prompt into each section of the table. Each prompt is usually asked from a different point-of-view. The prompts start with “You are …… say …” Each row and column in the table is labelled with a co-ordinate. (E.g. each column A, B, C …, and each row 1, 2, 3…).
Model the activity to the students. Put the students into groups of about six and choose one student to begin the Say It in each group. Allocate grid coordinates to that student (e.g. B3). The first student reads the text in the (B3) cell aloud and then carries out the short role play. They then choose someone from the group to go second and allocate a new set of coordinates (eg. A2) to that student. Students continue to play until all the cells have been role-played.
For example:
This video shows a year 11 geography class using a say it activity
Shared dictation helps students to practise speaking clearly. Teachers can use this strategy to revise recently learned vocabulary, structures and genre, or to focus student attention on something important such as an overview of the lesson.
The language of the dictated text needs to be familiar to the students. Each student has half of the text. The students sit back to back, or facing each other with their papers out of each other's sight. They read out their phrases in turn, starting with 'A' who reads out the first group of words to 'B'. 'B' then writes down what s/he has heard. Then 'B' says the next phrase to 'A' and so on. Students can spell out words only after they have tried to get the message across three times.
Sample texts:
The following video shows students taking part in shared dictation at primary level
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