Welcome to my blog. I use it to share activities with my English students and with teachers in different training workshops. If you like what you see, why not leave a comment?
Introduction: Hello everyone and welcome to week 7. In today's class we will continue our study of strategies for Part 3 in the listening test, Conversations.
Task 1:British vs North American
Can you find the words that are pronounced differently between a British and General North American accent? Click the picture to make it full sized and then use the annotate function to mark the words.
Click to view the full sized image.
Task 2:Classify the Question Types
It's important to become familiar with the types of questions typically asked in this section of the exam. Click the link and find the tab for your group. Then read the questions and classify them.
Some questions in this section will ask you to make a inference or logical conclusions about something that was not directly stated. Click your group link below and follow the instructions.
Professional Practice I - Week 7 - Methodological Design
Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 7 of the Professional Practice I of the BA in English Teaching at ULACIT term IIIC 2022. In today's class we will continue looking at qualitative data collection techniques and enhance your study of TBLT by considering different task types.
Today's Goals:
Review best practices regarding common qualitative data collection techniques.
Experiment with classroom observation, notetaking, and analysis.
Analyze sample communicative task types and design one of your own.
Guiding Questions:
What techniques can I use to collect qualitative data for my research project?
What skills are needed to carry out effective classroom observation?
What are the features of a communicative task?
Warm Up: My Criteria
For our warm up activity you will propose your own criteria for a lazy rainy day, a great vacation, a perfect pizza, or any other non-academic product or experience. Be ready to share your essential criteria with the class. Consier the example below.
This week we will continue talking about data collection using observation and interviews. Click the group link and follow your teacher's instructions.
Now let's try doing some observation practice together. We will watch the first 10 minutes of a class observation of a group of 4th grade students in an English Language Arts class in the United States in which they are learning how to identify the main idea of a text. Keep in mind that this is a class for native English speakers.
Last week you participated in a Building Blocks workshop on the topic of lesson planning using task based language teaching. Today we are going to go into more detail about the topic of tasks, how we can classify them, and see plenty of examples.
Warm Up: Hell's Kitchen
Work with your partners to complete the task and assign the correct dishes to the customers. Don't make Gordon angry!
How would you describe the activity you just completed?
What did you have to do?
How did you interact?
What language did you use?
Two weeks ago you heard about Task Based Language Teaching but what do we mean by "task"?
Definition: In regular life, a task is...
Definition: In language teaching, a task is...
What are the characteristics of a communicative task? Well, Scott Thornbury says there are six characteristics that all communicative activities should fullfill. Let's see if you can match them.
Click to View Full Sized Image.
Theoretical Support for Tasks
Interaction based approaches accept that comprehensible input is a requirement for language acquisition and they go a step further by claiming that interaction among students that requires both listening and speaking is optimal. The Comprehensible Output hypothesis states the following.
Students learn when they notice a "gap" in their ability to express their ideas.
Students become aware of the gap when they try to say something and their partner does not understand.
Students then seek information that will help them close that gap and this makes them more attentive to features of the input they are exposed to.
The related Interaction Hypothesis highlights the connection between listening and speaking.
Input made more comprehensible through interaction adjustments.
Negative feedback indicates possible production errors.
Opportunities for pushed output, being required to try out new structures and phrases in a social context.
Opportunties for negotiation of meaning.
Communicative Tasks for Interaction
Communicative tasks are one of the primary strategies for encouraging meaningful interaction among students. All communicatives tasks involve some form of gap in order to require interaction.
Information Gap: Students have access to different sets of information and must communicate to share their information in order to accomplish the task.
Opinion Gap: Like the information gap task, in opinion gap activities students have access to different information but this time it is not information provided by the teacher. Instead, it is their own thoughts and opinions which they must share with their partners to negotiate some kind of agreement.
Reasoning Gap: In a reasoning gap task there is a problem to be solved and students need to communicate with each other to share their ideas in order to find a solution.
Creative Tasks: A final category that combines elements of Opinion Gap and Reasoning Gap tasks is to give students the task of engaging in creative thinking. Here are some examples.
Create a Product (Text/Media): Students create a story, dialogue, advertisement, image, etc.
Introduction: In today's class we begin our four week study of Part 7: Reading Comprehension. Complete the collaborative tasks below with your partners.
Warm Up: Poem Analysis
Work with your group members to read the following poem and complete these tasks.
Step 1: Read the poem with your partners. Each group member should read on stanza paying attention to the rhythm and rhyme. When you finish tell your partners what you think the poem is about. Then continue to the other tasks.
Eye have a spelling checker
It came with my pea sea
It clearly marks four my review
Miss steaks eye can knot sea
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it to say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee for two long
And eye can put the error write
It's rarely ever wrong
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
It's letter perfect all the weigh
My checker told me sew
Step 2: You probably noticed that the poem has many problems with homophones, or similar sounding words and phrases. What homophone errors can you identify? Can you find where these words should go?
So
Mistake (2x)
Or right
PC
Knows before
Straight away
Cannot see
Step 3: This poem is an example of irony. What is ironic about this poem?
Irony: Noun - Something that seems to be deliberately contrary to expectations and the result is often amusing or funny.
Step 4: CLICK HEREto read the "corrected" version of the poem. Did you find all of the mistakes? Did this help you better understand the poet's message?
Task 1: Text Type Matching
Go to your Anthology pg. 29 (CLICK HERE): Look at the sample texts. Write the names of the text types in your anthology using the list below.
General Correspondence
Notices
Articles
Graphical Texts
Advertisements
Forms
Instructions
Task 2: Common Text Types
In this task you will explore some sample text from the TOEIC. Click your group link below and follow the instructions in the document.
Take the following group quiz with your partners. All of the texts in the quiz are examples of business correspondence, a common text type in Part 7 of the TOEIC. The quiz has 20 questions but it was divided into two parts for your convenience. Be sure to skim the questions before you start reading.
Text Types: Business Correspondence 1 - CLICK HERE
Text Types: Business Correspondence 2 - CLICK HERE
Task 4: Book Practice
Complete the following practice exercises from your book (CLICK HERE).
Pg. 12 - Task A - Identify Sequence of Events
Pgs 13-14 Task A - Identify a Target Audience
TOEIC Speaking Pair Practice
Task 5: Think Fast Mini-Speech
This improvisation activity consists of 4 rounds. In each round you or your partner will give a 30 second speech about a specific topic. Try to mention as many reasons and details as you can in the time limit. Do not stop talking until the time is over.
1) What are three objects you never leave home without and why? 2) What is your favorite part of your house and why? 3) What is a holiday that you don't like very much and why? 4) What is something you have never done but have always wanted to try and why?
Task 6: Mini-Test
In this task you will play the video respond to three questions. The video includes the timer. Remember you have 15 seconds to respond to questions 1 and 2 and 30 seconds to respond to question 3. When you finish, discuss your responses with your partner and say what you did well and what you could improve. When you finish all the exercises, play the videos again and answer the questions you did not answer on the first round.
Student A
Student B
Student A
Student B
Task 7: Rapid Fire Improvisation
In this task your listening comprehension, thinking speed, and improvisational abilities will be tested. You will hear a rapid fire list of questions for which you will need to provide a 15 second response. You will hear a beep that signals when when to start and stop your responses. This will help you work on your improvisation skills which can come in handy in this section of the real test. Take turns answering the questions: Question 1 for Student A, Question 2 for Student B, Question 3 for Student A, etc. When you finish, play the video again and answer the questions you didn't answer in the first round.
Teaching and Assessing Listening - Week 7 - Approaches to Teaching Listening
Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 7 of the course Teaching and Assessing Listening for the master's in English teaching at ULACIT term IIICO 2022. In today's class we will review seven hypotheses based on the last several decades of research that have influenced current approaches to teaching listening.
Today's Goal:
Consider the implications of seven language acquisition hypotheses for listening instruction.
Identify teaching strategies to make input comprehensible and provide optimal emotional and cognitive conditions for acquisition.
Review and experiment with a series of interactive tasks to stimulate listening and speaking development.
Guiding Question:
What theoretically informed principles can support my approach to listening instruction?
How can I provide abundant quantities of engaging and comprehensible input?
What is the role of speaking in learning to listen in a second language?
Warm Up: What's the Phrase?
One of your partners will share the screen and sound. Click the three dots at the bottom of the slide and put the presentation in fullscreen. Then play the audio clips and try to identify the mystery phrases. When you finish, discuss the questions.
If the presentation is not displaying properly, CLICK HERE.
Topic 1: Approaches to Teaching Listening
Click your group link below and complete the instructions in the document to review the important ideas from your study guide.
The Affective Filter and Input hypotheses are two of the five hypotheses proposed by Stephen Krashen in his highly influential Monitor Model. His ideas have important implications regarding the teaching of recpetive skills like listening and reading. Click the group link below to explore these ideas in greater detail.
Interaction based approaches accept that comprehensible input is a requirement for language acquisition and they go a step further by claiming that interaction among students that requires both listening and speaking is optimal. The Comprehensible Output hypothesis states the following.
Students learn when they notice a "gap" in their ability to express their ideas.
Students become aware of the gap when they try to say something and their partner does not understand.
Students then seek information that will help them close that gap and this makes them more attentive to features of the input they are exposed to.
The related Interaction Hypothesis highlights the connection between listening and speaking.
Input made more comprehensible through interaction adjustments.
Negative feedback indicates possible production errors.
Opportunities for pushed output, being required to try out new structures and phrases in a social context.
Opportunties for negotiation of meaning.
Communicative Tasks for Interaction
Communicative tasks are one of the primary strategies for encouraging meaningful interaction among students. All communicatives tasks involve some form of gap in order to require interaction.
Information Gap: Students have access to different sets of information and must communicate to share their information in order to accomplish the task.
Opinion Gap: Like the information gap task, in opinion gap activities students have access to different information but this time it is not information provided by the teacher. Instead, it is their own thoughts and opinions which they must share with their partners to negotiate some kind of agreement.
Reasoning Gap: In a reasoning gap task there is a problem to be solved and students need to communicate with each other to share their ideas in order to find a solution.
Dictogloss is one of the techniques designed by Swain, one of the early promotors of interaction based approaches to SLA. It involves listening to a spoken text created by the teacher, taking notes individually, then working collaboratively with partners to reconstruct the text to produce a version that is as close as possible to the original. Let's try it out!
Culture and SLA - Week 7 - Second Culture Acquisition
Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 7 of the course Culture and Second Language Acquisition for the master's in English teaching at ULACIT term IIIC0 2022. This week we will discuss the question, can you acquire a second culture and think and see the world the way a member of that culture does?
Today's Goals:
Discuss appropriate culture learning goals for different contexts.
Articulate several core beliefs about how you see yourself as a cultural educator.
Explore the topics of cultural and linguistic relativity and discuss to what degree it is possible (or even necessary) to acquire a second culture.
Compare the cultural differences you explored in your film anlysis podcast.
Guiding Questions:
How can I articulate and classify the aims of culture learning?
How do I view myself as a cultural educator?
Is it possible to truly acquire a second culture as an adult?
What cultural practices and perspectives were in conflict in the film The Gods Must be Crazy?
Warm Up: Body Language
Click the group link below and follow the instructions in the document.
The reading for last week focused on the topic of culture learning outcomes; the different possible results of the culture learning process. Moran provides us with a useful way of classifying these outcomes which can help us choose a particular way of focusing our teaching efforts depending on our context. Let's review the what, how, and why of the six culture learning outcomes.
“To generalize … across all these culture learning outcomes, I would say that all intend that learners confront, comprehend, accept, and overcome cultural differences. This process involves an interplay of mind, body, heart, and self - or, in technical terms, cognition, behavior, affect, and identity. As part of mastering the language, learners need to change the way they think, act, feel, and perceive themselves and their roles if they are to function effectively and appropriately in the other culture (p. 119).”
The particular culture learning outcomes you seek for your students will inform the focus you give your lessons and the model of culture teaching you develop. Moran says, “the key distinction among [culture teaching]... models lies with differing notions of ‘overcoming’ cultural differences. These range from simply changing one’s mind or feelings about a given culture (culture-specific understanding) through recognizing how one’s own culture affects acceptance of other cultures (culture-general understanding), learning to communicate appropriately in a second language/culture (competence), integrating oneself into another language and culture (adaptation), developing a distinct sense of self (identity), to taking action to transform a culture based on one’s own beliefs (social change). Ultimately, the individual learner decides how to respond and develops skills as a culture learner (personal competence) (p. 119)."
Which of these outcomes resonate with you and the way you view yourself as a cultural educator?
What beliefs about culture form part of your learning philosophy that guides your approach to teaching? CLICK HEREto add to the culture teaching manifesto!
Topic 2: Second Culture Acquisition (SCA)
This article, although highly technical and challenging to read, presents us with some important questions to consider:
What is the goal(s) of cultural education?
What is involved in culture learning?
Is it truly possible to acquire a second culture as an adult?
“Although it may be possible for people to develop an intellectual understanding and tolerance of other cultures, a more interesting question, perhaps, is if, and to what extent, it is possible for people to become cognitively like members of other cultures; that is, can adults learn to construct and see the world through culturally different eyes (Lantolf, 2000, p. 29)?”
Click the group link below to review some of topics covered in your study guide. We will come back to the main room to discuss some of the more challenging parts of this article together.
So what? We read all that to find out that it is only kind of sort of possible to change your conceptual system a little bit under some very specific circumstances and those circumstances do not involve classroom learning?
Learners need to understand that cultures differ in their concepts.
Learning an L2 is not simply learning new words to express universal ideas.
There may not be a word in the L2 to express a concept from your C1 and vice versa.
ST: "Profe, how do you say pura vida in English?"
T: "You don't."
ST: "Yeah, but how would you say it though?"
T: "You wouldn't say it."
ST: "Yeah, I know you don't actually say pura vida. So what do you say instead?"
It may not be possible or even desirable to change your cultural conceptual system. After all, your C1 is an integral part of your identity. However, as a long-term English learner and educator, have you found that your way of thinking and being has been influenced by your language and culture learning experiences? How?
Task 3: Film Analysis
Take some time to share the ideas you explored in your film analysis paper. If you want, you can use the following prompts to guide your discussion.
Reactions: Film and Assignment
What did you think of the film? Why?
Do you have a favorite character or scene from the film?
How did you feel completing the analysis in the format of a podcast?
What was easy? What was challenging? Why?
Cultural Communities: Cultures in Conflict
What distinct cultural groups were represented in the film?
What are some of the primary differences between the groups in terms of their products, practices, and perspectives?
A lot of the film's humor is based on misunderstandings between the different cultural groups. What examples of misunderstandings can you identify?
Which dimensions from the Hofstede framework did you analyze?
Going Deeper: Thinking More about the Assignment
In this task you were asked to compare products, practices, and perspectives and describing two of Hofestede's dimensions, If you were the professor of this course, what additional or alternative ways of cultural analysis could you have added to this assignment?
Imagine you could propose an alternative film to watch for the cultural analysis podcast assignment. What films would you recommend and why? How are they rich in cultural content?
References:
Lantolf, J. (2000). Second Culture Acquisition: Cognitive Considerations. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Culture in Second Language Teaching and Learning (pp. 28-46). Cambridge University Press.
Moran, P. (2001). Teaching Culture: Perspectices in Practice. Heinle, Cengage Learning.
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