Sonia Manzano López
English Language Skills for Professional Communication Purposes- Content Teaching in Bilingual Schools.
(By Francisco Gutierrez)
LESSON 1: THURSDAY, 9TH OCTOBER
Activity 1: Getting to know each other.
In pairs, we asked our partner different questions about their job, professional experience and international training. Then, we introduced our partner to the rest of the classroom. Why did we do this activity in this way instead of introducing ourselves directly? It is not the same to talk about you in front of 20 students, than make pairs and then talk about your partner. You are going to pay much more attention to your partner because you know that you have a clear objective to fulfill.
Activity 2: Back to the board.
One student sits back to the board, and the teacher writes the name of one of the classmates on the board. The rest of the class gives a clue about that person, so the student sitting back to the board has to guess who are we talking about. We can use this technique not only for learning students’ names but also to review previous knowledge or introduce a new activity taking into account students’ previous knowledge.
Activity 3: How well do you know your partners?
It is a great activity to practice oral interaction among students. They should write the name of all of their partners in the middle of the grid and ask their partner the question. It is an apropiate activity for the beginning of the school year, or it can be adapted to any subject. For instance, Science : Ask ____ to tell you something "smooth" .
Activity 4: RGT Technique. The best teacher.
RGT is a technique for eliciting and evaluating people's subjective experiences of interacting with technology, through the individual way they construe the meanings of members of the set of artifacts under investigations. It thus attempts to capture how users experience things, what the experience means for them, and covers both emotionally- based constructs (warm-cold) and more “rational” ones (professional-popular).
Using Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) we had to think about the two most and least effective teachers in our lives. Thinking about those teachers, we had to think and compare , so we are using HOTS (High Order Thinking Skills). We had to write the characteristics that those effective teachers had on some stickers notes and then, categorize them inot different criteria, so again, we were making our brain work using HOTS.
Activity 5: TEACHING COMPENTENCES
Compentence: The demonstrated ability to use knowledge, skills and personal, social and/or methodological abilities, in work or study situations and in professional and personal development. In the context of the European Qualifications Framework, competence is described in terms of responsibility and autonomy.
(European Commission, 2008)
1. KEY COMPETENCES. EUROPEAN UNION
2. BILINGUAL TEACHERS' COMPETENCES . EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK
3. TEACHING COMPETENCES. SPANISH EDUCATIONAL POLICY
4. TEACHERS' STANDARDS (UK)
Activity 1: Back to the board activity
Once again, we use this fantastic activity to revise and introduce new language and contents.
Activity 2: Teaching contents
In groups, we write what language and language skills we need to teach contents.
LESSON 2: FRIDAY, 10TH OCTOBER 2014
PPP- Presentation, Practice , Production.
ESA- Engage, Study and Activate.
TI-FO-SO- R: Tunning in, Finding out, Sourting out, Reflection
Activity 3: SWOT Analysis. ( Strenghs, Weakness, Opportunities, Threaths)
A SWOT analysis (alternatively SWOT matrix) is a structured planning method used to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats involved in a project or in a business venture. A SWOT analysis can be carried out for a product, place, industry or person. It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieve that objective.
In Spanish we call it DAFO ( debilidades, amenazas, Fortalezas y Oportunidades) . Today we have analysed our teaching practice with the SWOT matrix.
Activity 4: KWL Technique to check previous knowledge and find out our students interest
A KWL table, or KWL chart, is a graphical organizer designed to help in learning. The letters KWL are an acronym, for what students, in the course of a lesson, already know,want to know, and ultimately learn. A KWL table is typically divided into three columns titled Know, Want and Learned. The table comes in various forms as some have modified it to include or exclude information.
A teacher has many reasons for using KWLT charts in the classroom.
First, a KWL chart activates students' prior knowledge of the text or topic to be studied. By asking students what they already know, students are thinking about prior experiences or knowledge about the topic. Next, KWL charts set a purpose for the unit. Students are able to add their input to the topic by asking them what they want to know. Students then have a purpose for participating and engaging in the topic. Also, using a KWL chart allows students to expand their ideas beyond the text used in the classroom. By being aware of students' interests, the teacher has the ability to create projects and assignments that the students will enjoy. A KWL chart is a tool that can be used to drive instruction as well as guide student learning.
Activity 6: Analysing the language of Science
Activity 5: Pedagogical principal: Scaffolding
Scaffolding refers to a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process.
The term itself offers the relevant descriptive metaphor: teachers provide successive levels of temporary support that help students reach higher levels of comprehension and skill acquisition that they would not be able to achieve without assistance. Like physical scaffolding, the supportive strategies are incrementally removed when they are no longer needed, and the teacher gradually shifts more responsibility over the learning process to the student.
Scaffolding is widely considered to be an essential element of effective teaching, and all teachers—to a greater or lesser extent—almost certainly use various forms of instructional scaffolding in their teaching.
In addition, scaffolding is often used to bridge learning gaps—i.e., the difference between what students have learned and what they are expected to know and be able to do at a certain point in their education. For example, if students are not at the reading level required to understand a text being taught in a course, the teacher might use instructional scaffolding to incrementally improve their reading ability until they can read the required text independently and without assistance. One of the main goals of scaffolding is to reduce the negative emotions and self-perceptions that students may experience when they get frustrated, intimidated, or discouraged when attempting a difficult task without the assistance, direction, or understanding they need to complete it.
This is a very clear example of the use of scaffolding , using language to help students obtain the contents.
Interesting article about neuroscience and CLIL
High school science teacher Tyler DeWitt was ecstatic about a lesson plan on bacteria (how cool!) -- and devastated when his students hated it. The problem was the textbook: it was impossible to understand. He delivers a rousing call for science teachers to ditch the jargon and extreme precision, and instead make science sing through stories and demonstrations.
We started this activity matching some science words such as (global warming, solar system, carbone monoxide ). Each student was given a word and we should stand up and try to find our partner. Once, we all had our partner, we had to define those science terms and decide in what extend they were dangerous for the environment and which ones were necessary. We had to place our words in a graph, so in that way we where using HOTS to classify them in the correct place.
DOES PROPER SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGE ALLOW UNDERSTANDING?
Activities using CLIL
LESSON 3: WEDNESDAY, 15TH OCTOBER 2014
Activity 6: Interesting reading "The blame game" .
We were asked to read the following article for the following day.
Lexical Approach
The Lexical Approach was developed in the early 1990s and Michael Lewis published a book on the subject in 1993.
He argued that language consists not of vocabulary and structures (grammar structures), but of different kinds of lexical items that commonly occur in particular patterns or units. He referred to these units as 'prefabricated chunks'.
He categorised these chunks into four major sections:
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words (eg push, exit, fruit)
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collocations or word partners (eg an initial reaction, to assess the situation)
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institutionalised utterances or fixed expressions (eg I'll see what I can do; It'll probably never happen)
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sentence frames or heads (Considerable research has been done in recent years on the questions of...; At present; however, expert opinion remains divided; some experts believe...etc)
Corpus linguistics is an area that has strengthened the argument of the Lexical Approach. In the 1980s, data was collected from transcripts of real spoken English and entered into databases. The computer technology helped to identify patterns of how words are used together and how often they occur in language.
Despite this empirical evidence many attitudes towards the Lexical Approach are counter intuitive. The problem is that there is a belief in grammar rules providing 'correct language'. This correctness and the avoidance of making mistakes both go very deep into both teacher and learner expectations. In contrast, the lexical perspective encourages both learners and teachers to accept the ambiguity and
uncertainty that underlies language.
It is natural that students want to feel safe in the classroom, but we can help them move away from learned rules and formally accurate sentences. They can instead move towards slightly inaccurate sentences to communicate real meaning. The
importance of helping learners to live with insecurity is intrinsic to 'trying to say what
you really mean'.
For more information click here. To find some lexical approach classroom activities , click here
Activity 2: Maths activities
We should follow teacher's instructions to get a concrete number or to draw some shapes. We realized that solving word problems, following instructions, understanding and using mathematical vocabulary correctly — all of these skills require a language proficiency that sometimes exceeds our expectations. We tend to think of mathematics as a subject that does not require a strong command of language. In reality, however, mathematical reasoning and problem solving are closely linked to language and rely upon a firm understanding of basic math vocabulary (Dale & Cuevas, 1992; Jarret, 1999).
Why use maths in the language class?
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Students are familiar with simple Math, so they are dealing with a known quantity.
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We use math every day. We may not go on a vacation every day and we may not go to wor every day, but there is not one day which passess that we don't use Math is some form or other.
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Math is task-related. To use math you must think, you must calculate, you are using High Order Thinking Skills.
All these activities are very useful to practice and revise numbers,
shapes, superlatives, etc with our ESL learners.
In order to find some other activities to practice numbers,
counting and shapes in English click here, here and here.
Activity 3 : Instructions- Origami
From this activity I realised how important is to give clear and simple instructions to our students in order to obtain the results desired.
Benefits of the paired origami exercise
· Increase the audio attention of the person doing the Origami , because they were paying close attention to the instructions given to them.
· For the person giving the instructions, it focussed the language they used because it made them think carefully about their accuracy and clarity.
· The motivational force is great, without creating anxiety. In true Krashen-style, there was natural communication, not a meaningless exchange of phrases using language for the sake of practising set structures.
· The person doing the actual Origami also increases their visual attention. It has been shown that increasing visual and audio attention helps to increase the ability to selectively concentrate on important information that allows us to follow a conversation, training of increasing visual attention that can improve skills such as concentrating on important information. This is an essential skill in the process of learning.
· Such skills are essential when communicating in a language other than one’s mother tongue, so we should not only concentrate on the teaching of language but also on the skills that are required to be a good language user.
Origami for kids webpage(with videos and instructions in English)
Activity 1: Language for Science -How much water do we spend a day?-
We are giving 5 different pieces of paper (one to each group)
with information about water and how we spend water everyday.
Then, we had to make a pie chart representing the information
given,first on a piece of paper, and then on a paper plate.
TASK 1: BANK OF RESOURCES
Compile a compilation of resources including language of the subject, structures, activities, texts, etc.
Task 2: Instructions.
Design simple and clear instructions for a complex activity . Ana, Elena and I decided to work on instructions for arts and crafts activity. We chose to make a snowflake in order to apply our knowledge just when we come back to Spain for Christmas time.
Activity 4 : CLIL Subject specific vocabulary and Classroom Language
CLIL teachers and learners need knowledge of the language of their curricular subject. Learners need to know the content-obligatory language. This is the vocabulary grammatical structures and functional language for specific subjects. Learners require this language to be able to understand the subject and communicate ideas. For example, in geography learners need to know map vocabulary and how to interpret evidence shown on a map.
Learners also need to know the everyday, less formal language which is used in our subjects. They may already know how to use grammatical structures which they can produce when studying curricular subjects. Learners have usually learned this language in English lessons.
CLIL gives learners opportunities to develop linguistic abilities during lessons, and this includes acquisition of vocabulary and grammar. However, the focus of a CLIL lesson is on understanding subject content, not on grammatical structures. Research in CLIL classrooms shows that most teachers do not teach grammar during content teaching because content and language are integrated. As vocabulary and grammar are interdependent, it is useful to focus on them as chunks rather than separately.
