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Encouraging discovery and discussion with lower level students

Explore effective teaching techniques for lower-level students, emphasizing meaningful language use and genuine discoveries. Learn to avoid common pitfalls in material design and question types.

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Encouraging discovery and discussion with lower level students

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  1. Encouraging discovery and discussion with lower level students Danny Norrington-Davies Devon DOS Association July 2019

  2. What do we want from materials? • To be cognitively and affectively engaging • To give students opportunities for meaningful language use • Opportunities for feedback on their language use • To help students make genuine discoveries about language

  3. A common situation • “When teaching lower levels there may be fewer opportunities to improvise or engage in dialogic talk than with higher proficiency learners” (Richards, 2017)

  4. Why might this be the case? Other than level…. • Content based comprehension questions (CQs) • A focus on discrete items of grammar • Grammar practice activities

  5. Problems with CQs • They don’t engage students with the content • They are not particularly cognitively demanding (Freeman 2014; Mishan & Timmis 2015) • Answers are pre-chosen by the materials writer (Norrington-Davies, 2018) • They encourage a testing procedure (Swan and Walter 2017) • They can lead to text processing weaknesses (Davoudi & Sadeghi 2015) • They have little diagnostic value (Nation 2009)

  6. 4 question types (Freeman 2014) • Comprehension questions (CQs) • Language questions (LQs) • Evaluative questions (EQs) • Personal Response Questions (PRQs)

  7. Distribution of question types

  8. Distribution of question types

  9. Significance • 87% of questions are CQs “..the literature shows that the most frequent and dominant type of questioning strategy used in classrooms is display questions which address lower-level cognitive processes and have predictable answers” (Davoudi & Sadeghi 2015:86)

  10. Significance • Out of 88 texts, students evaluate or personally respond to only 28 (31%)

  11. A tale of 3 texts and 3 teachers Speakout Elementary (Pearson 2011)

  12. Hongxing’s lesson • Speakout Elementary (Pearson 2011)

  13. Questions in the course-book Speakout elementary (Pearson 2011)

  14. A personal response task ‘Would you like to be part of a family like this?’

  15. Student responses • Edima: Oh my god no! Too many people! • Jhonni: Is big table in the house for dinner, no? • Jhonni: (Mimes banging on the door) “I need the bathroom. I need the bathroom”

  16. Student responses • Maura: In my house in Chile is always 20 people. Brother, sister, nietos, cousins, friends. No problem. • Jose: I has 5 brothers and 3 sisters. Is nice because the friends for your brother are friends for you. And your old brothers always your home. It’s no boring. “We do this?” Your plans your brother plans.

  17. A practice activity Speakout elementary (Pearson 2011)

  18. Student responses • Jose: I has 5 brothers and 3 sisters. Is nice because the friends for your brother are friends for you. And your old brothers always your home. It’s no boring. “We do this?” Your plans your brother plans.

  19. Focusing on emerging language • Learners are more predisposed to notice language features relevant to the task they have performed (Johnson 1988 in Thornbury 1997) • Helps learners 'notice the gap' in their current stage of interlanguage. (Ellis 1995 in Thornbury 1997 )

  20. My lesson • Speakout Elementary (Pearson 2011)

  21. Comprehension questions

  22. A personal response question

  23. Student responses (9 minutes) • Edima: Well…. I don’t like that the bathroom is for everyone. It’s horrible! (Groans) I need my bathroom only for me. For 3 months? No. • Muhammad: I don’t like because…. people sit down the bus, some people sleep… and them (mimics snoring)

  24. An evaluative task (15 minutes)

  25. Student responses • Johnni: (Having children on the bus) is too much stress for other…. viajeros • Maura: Is more safe for her (single traveller) • Edima: The teenager want to be alone. Not alone with her mother. He want to be alone with her friends or her phone • Maura: Two friends is the best • Johnni: For me yes because my mother is very funny

  26. From rules to reasons • Why are we using ‘would’?

  27. From rules to reasons Edima: Gustaria Teacher: Yes. Yes. Can you explain? Edima: It’s the future that you like to do but (points to head)….. it’s in my mind. Johnni: Is opinion.

  28. Roy’s lesson Speakout elementary (Pearson 2011)

  29. Roy’s lesson

  30. Roy’s lesson

  31. Conclusion • Limit comprehension questions • Ask more evaluative questions and personal response questions • Work with what emerges from discussions • Explore language through tasks as well as texts

  32. Why work with learner language? • A combination of language-focused and meaning-focused learning leads to greater success for students than a focus on only one or the other (Spada 2015, Kang et al, 2018). • When learners become aware of a gap in their existing L2 performance which prevents them from expressing what they want to express, they are sensitized to attend to any input containing the forms they need (Ellis, 2016). • Encouraging and exploiting naturally occurring language enables learners to experiment, express their own meanings and find their voice (Illés & Akcan, 2016)

  33. Ways of working with learner language? • Explicit reformulation (live or delayed) • Recast • Teacher clarification/confirmation requests • Metalinguistic feedback • Elicitations (spoken, boarded or gestured prompts) • Extension • Interactional recast • Recalls • Sharing • Learner elicited

  34. Ways of working with learner language? • Explicit reformulation (live or delayed) • Recast • Teacher clarification/confirmation requests • Metalinguistic feedback • Elicitations (spoken, boarded or gestured prompts) • Extension • Interactional recast • Recalls • Sharing • Learner elicited

  35. Tips for working with learner language • Recording your classes and using the taxonomy to observe and categorise interventions. Consider wait time too. Can it be increased? • Recording classes and noting which intervention types lead to uptake. • Stimulated recall sessions. Discuss with a peer the similarities and differences between the ways you intervene and why you might do it. • Send your recordings to me

  36. Tips for working with learner language • Recording your learners doing tasks and listening for EL to explore in follow up lessons. • Use simple templates to record EL and potential reformulations

  37. Tips for working with learner language “(Recording myself) made me realise in my own teaching the importance of actively listening to students and responding to the content of what they were saying and not worrying about language. When I did respond, I found the language contained in these ‘interactional’ recasts was often more relevant and more appropriate for the students level” (Experienced teacher) “I couldn’t do it as quickly in the lesson I don’t think but it’s a good way to see that the students can say more than I think they can. It made me listen more and make notes more” (CELTA trainee week 2)

  38. Your turn

  39. danny.norrington-davies@kcl.ac.uk https://dannynorringtondavies.wordpress.com/workshops/

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