Speaking Activity

                                               ONE WORD DIALOGUE

As teachers we have to be aware of the importance of listening from the very first moment but ... what about speaking (and conversation)? The so called 'silent period' gives us an opportunity to relax and to postpone our pupils' oral production. Nevertheless, there are many possibilities to foster our pupils' oral production from the very first moment (as in Artigal's storytelling method). This is an example of the possibilities that roleplays offer to us in order to achieve this aim: One Word Dialogue


We write the dialogue below on the board

1. Ask the students to act it out in pairs. 
2. Then tell them to create their own, one-word dialogues. 
3. You will need to help the students with their intonation. 

Student A:Hello!
Student B:hi!

Student A: Worried?
Student B: No

Student A: Then?
Student B: Tired

Level: 1^st level of primary education.

We have chosen this activity for the 1^st level of primary because it promotes oral production and helps pupils overcome the silent period when learning a foreign language. This activity mostly develops two skills: speaking (productive) and listening (receptive).

Context: This activity is going to be developed in a Public Bilingual School situated in a wealthy neighborhood. Therefore, we assume that pupils should have acquired by then a certain grounding of the English Language.

Competences to be approach:  

·    Communicative and linguist competence. With this activity, learners will have to use the language with a communicative purpose. 

Contents:

Notions: vocabulary related to greetings (hello…) and moods (worried, tired…).

Functions: Presentation and expressing different moods.

Aims:

• Learners will acquire and use vocabulary related to greetings and moods.  
•  Learners will be able to comprehend and repeat the dialogue. 
• Learners will be able to understand and use non verbal language: facial expressions, mime, body movements.

Activities:

• Pre-activity: Introduce the new vocabulary using picture/word cards. The teacher will say out loud the different words that appear in the dialogue and pupils will have to listen and repeat. This first activity is controlled by the teacher and it will help pupils get familiar with the new vocabulary and also increase their confidence.
• While activity: Pupils will have to read and try to memorize the dialogue. The dialogue will be cut into pieces. Then, pupils will have to put it in order the dialogue. With this activity they will develop memory skills.
• Post-activity: Mime Role play in pairs. The teacher will give the pupils a role to act out and will tell to one of them they have lost their voice. The pupils without voice will have to use mime in order to be understood. It is a way of working The Total Physical Response.

Cater for diversity: 

Good classroom management is essential to cater for diversity since the organizing and running of our classroom efficiently and effectively will maximize opportunities for all students to learn.

On the other hand, as teachers we should take into account the theory of multiple intelligences proposed by Howard Gardner. We must be aware of the fact that our pupils learn in different ways. With the pre-activity we can cater for visual spatial and linguistic learners. The while- activity could take into account the logical-mathematical learners, because the dialogue is like a sequence that needs to have a logical order and the intrapersonal learners as the activity is done individually. Finally, with the post-activity we can cater for bodily-kinesthetic and the interpersonal learners.

Classroom Management:

The teacher’s role in the classroom:

Organizer, informer, controller, prompter, guide, corrector and assessor/evaluator.

On the other hand, the teacher should create a supportive learning environment. Students learn best when they feel accepted, enjoy positive relationships with their fellow students and teachers and they are active, visible members of the community.

Distribution of space and time:

• Pre-activity: the whole class will participate in this activity therefore a horseshoe arrangement will be used. Such an arrangement provides for each student equivalent visual access to most other students and the teacher. There is also more participation in classes arranged in this way.
• While-activity: This activity will be done individually using the same arrangement as before.
• Post-activity: This activity will be done using something similar to modular arrangement but in pairs.

All these activities will be done in a session (55’) 

Finally, a learner centered approach will be put into practice. This will require pupils to be active and responsible participants in their own learning.

Assessment for learning:

Different assessment tools will be used during the session. For example, pupils will be provided with some feedback after finishing each activity (pre, while and post).

The session will end using another assessment tool called: “thumbs up”. Pupils show thumbs up, sideways or down to indicate their current level of understanding:

·         Thumbs up: confident they have achieved what was expected.

·         Thumbs sideway: some way there, but some uncertainty.

·         Thumbs down: not achieved, confusion.

The Finland Phenomenon: Inside the World’s Most Surprising School System.

There is a country where students start school at a later age, take fewer classes.

There is a country where students enjoy a 3-months summer break spend less time in school per day.

There is a country where students have barely any homework, are rarely tested.

There is a country where teachers are respected professionals, quickly receive tenure.

There is a country where teachers are rarely evaluated.

There is a country where teachers earn average salaries, have a strong union.

There is a country where schools receive modest funding, develop their own curriculum.

There is a country where schools research & adopt new technologies.

There is a country where schools have no achievement gap and leave no child behind.

This country ranks at the top of the world by almost every measure.

Welcome to Finland, the country with the most amazing school system in the world.

Thus, begins this essential film in which Dr. Tony Wagner, a member of the Programme of Educational Innovation at Harvard, guides us for 60 minutes for the keys to Finnish education system, discovering what their characteristics, peculiarities and secrets of their success.

Using Graphic organizers

 www.edhelper.com/teachers/graphic_organizers.htm


www.worldhistoryteacher.org/student_forum/learning_tools.htm

http://pact.natomascharter.org/pact_files/user198/Graphic%20Organizers%20Presentation-%20Laur%20Bariel.pdf 

Graphic organizers can be used in the FL classroom in many different ways: to brainstorm, review a topic (if done in class, it allows children to be involved and to participate), plan a project (a working paper where pupils will add all they know about the topic), make a concept map, infer solutions to problems, …

Graphic organizers meet the need of the brain to find patterns and complete things. According to Tony Buzan (one of the leading psychologists worldwide on human brain function), it is important to use the information in a relevant and interesting way, linking the action of our senses with the power of association. Neurolinguistic Programming states that each person processes and stores information differently, we each have a primary representational system, the one which we use more often. Learning will be more effective if it involves the entire brain (through both hemispheres). Graphic organizers help pupils retain concepts. They cater for diversity, because it takes into account different learning styles.

Graphic Organizers can be used to promote Bloom’s Taxonomy. 

 

Bloom's Level	Purpose	Type of Graphic Organizer
Understanding and Remembering	Interpreting Exemplifying Summarising Inferring Paraphrasing Classifying Comparing Explaining Recognising Listing Describing Identifying Retrieving Naming Locating/Finding	Spider Maps: to describe item. Linear String: to describe a sequence of events, continuum, storyboard, cycle. Simple Flowchart: This is a simple concept linking to next concept. Simple Concept map: to describe item. Hierarchy Diagram: to classify items. Desktop Folder System: to organize collection and distribution of information.
Applying and Analysing	Comparing Organising Deconstructing Attributing Outlining Structuring Integrating Implementing Carrying out Using Executing Doing	Venn Diagram: to compare/contrast 2 or more concepts. Comparison Matrix: to compare/contrast 2 or more items. 6 Focusing questions: a simple map that is designed to ask 6 key questions: What, When, Where, Who, Why and How. The topic or concept is crucial.
Evaluating and Creating	Checking Hypothesising Critiquing Experimenting Judging Testing Detecting Monitoring Designing Constructing Planning Producing Inventing Devising Making Building	Thinking grids: to make decisions Fishbone Map: to analyse and evaluate cause and effect. Simple cause and effect Table Programming Flowchart IPO or Input-Processing-Output Diagram: to look at input into a system, the processing that occurs on that input and what the outputs from this processing are.

Graphic organizers are available and useful for all ages and all purposes (from very complex to very simple things). I think graphic organizers represent a powerful visual and spatial communication. We all know the power of symbols: the user can quickly interpret them. The graphic organizers assist pupils in arranging the “big picture” information, in order to increase their achievements. You can save a lot of information in one graphic organizer. It designs allows the addition of things at different moments and by many people, which fosters a cooperative learning.

It can be a tool for children who have difficulty with the traditional way of learning. e.g. Using concept maps can brainstorm new ideas and concepts and develop them in a fast and fun way.

Teachers and students can use graphic organizers to enhance the learning process in all subject areas, not just learning English as a FL. They can even use them in their daily life, being a tool that allows learning how to learn.

Another good aspect of graphic organizers is that they support Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences: visual pupils, pupils with spatial intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, linguistic intelligence.

Some examples:

Comparison Matrix

Fishbone Map/Diagram

Spider Map

Venn Diagram

Positive relationships

Seven Tips for Building Positive Relationships with English-Language Learners

 Positive relationships are the foundation of any successful classroom and particularly one that includes English-Language Learners (ELL). Teachers must learn about their students' experiences and backgrounds in order to connect them to new learning. Teachers also need to know what their students are interested in and what their goals are in order to create lessons which engage them and are relevant to their lives. When teachers get to know their students, they can make better decisions about the curriculum, instructional strategies, classroom management, assessment, pacing, and the list goes on.

Here are a few strategies that we use to build and maintain positive student-teacher relationships. 

1) Regular Check-Ins

The simplest way for teachers to get to know their students is by talking with them on a daily basis. This can easily be done by "checking in" with a few students each day, either before class, while they are working at their desks, or after class. Taking this time to ask students about their experiences, both inside and outside of school, helps to build a genuine relationship, one where the students feel that their teacher takes an interest in their lives. 

2) Reading Student Writing

Another simple way for teachers to learn about their students is by reading what students write. Sometimes they feel more comfortable sharing through writing, and a quick note from their teacher can mean a lot. There have been many times we have learned about our students' feelings, problems and successes by reading their weekly written reflections. 

3) Teachers Writing About the Classroom

Students can also read what the teacher has written, especially when this writing is about the class and about the students. In today's world, many teachers already blog and write about their teaching experiences. However, they may not take the extra step of sharing this writing with their students. This can be powerful on a number of levels, but in terms of relationship building, it shows students that the teacher thinks about them outside of the classroom. Taking a few minutes to write about the class (whether it is a simple reflection on how a lesson went, how a student demonstrated an exceptional insight, or sharing a few successes and challenges from the week) and then sharing this writing with the class can increase trust and respect between the teacher and the students.

When students feel that they "matter," their levels of motivation and achievement are more likely to increase. Joanne Yatvin explains this idea in the context of the "Hawthorne effect" -- the results of a well-known study of workers in a Michigan manufacturing plant where lights were dimmed so workers had a hard time seeing, and production actually increased. Yatvin argues that this study is often interpreted as illustrating "the fact that human subjects who know they are part of a scientific experiment may sabotage the study in their eagerness to make it succeed." However, she points out a deeper meaning which reflects the importance of students feeling valued in the classroom: "When people believe they are important in a project, anything works, and, conversely, when they don't believe they are important, nothing works." In other words, when students believe they are an important part of the educational process, then they will act like it! Having students see that teachers are writing about their insights and their successes publicly, whether on blogs or in emails to other teachers, is just one more way to show them they are an important. 

4) Teacher/Student Letter Exchange

A good way for teachers to introduce themselves is by writing a brief letter to the class during the first week. This letter can serve as a model for students to follow as they write back to the teacher. The teacher's letter could be simplified depending upon the level of the class, and the teacher could give beginning students sentence frames to scaffold their letter. (My name is _______. I am ______years old. I was born in _______.) This activity helps teachers learn more about their students and also provides a quick sample of each student's writing. It can be helpful to keep on hand copies of both the teacher letter and the instructions for the student letter to give new students as they enter the class later in the year. 

5) Weekly Reflections

One way for teachers to stay connected to students is by having them write a weekly reflection. This reflection could simply be a journal or responses to questions. The teacher can structure the journal prompt or questions as an invitation for students to share their feelings, concerns and questions about the class and about their lives outside the classroom. (What classroom activity did they like the best this week and why? What are their weekend plans?) Reading student reflections can help teachers "take the pulse" of the class -- which activities are being enjoyed, areas of confusion, pacing issues, etc. Teachers can immediately make adjustments, offer feedback, and address any concerns. Teachers also gain important information about what is going on in their students' lives, and can use this information as "talking points" when they speak one-on-one with students. These reflections can also function as a formative assessment. 

6) Evaluations

A teacher can build trust with students by asking them to anonymously "evaluate" his/her teaching and use the results to reflect on his/her practice. This could be done by distributing a quick survey or set of questions about class activities, the teacher's style, the pace of the class, etc. 

7) "Talking and Walking"

Having one-on-one conversations with students about their goals, interests, struggles, etc. can be difficult to do during class time. One way to quickly connect with students is to take a brief walk around the school campus. This five-minute conversation could take place before or after school, or even during a teacher's prep period (if they make prior arrangements with the student's teacher for that time). These talks can strengthen the teacher/student relationship and can also be helpful when getting to know new students or when dealing with students who are having behavior challenges.