Date

Challenges and opportunities in language teaching and learning 2. Selected skills, subskills and content areas

M2 MEEF Anglais

Shona WHYTE 15 October 2015

VMAN332

2. Skills, subskills, content areas

✤ listening, speaking

✤ vocabulary, grammar

✤ literature

Group work and presentations

✤ Why do we do this?

✤ What makes it work well?

✤ What makes it a waste of time?

Group work Presentations

When it doesn’t work …

When it works well …

Exploratory talk: Neil Mercer

✤ Professor of Education, Cambridge University

✤ primary/secondary school classroom interaction

✤ interthinking

group work is often a waste of time because children don’t know how to use talk to think and learn

collectively

Ground rules

✤ sample ground rules

✤ our ground rules for group work, discussion, presentations

Types of talk

DISPUTATIONAL TALK

where learners •are competitive

rather than cooperative

•don’t listen •stick to their own

point of view •make own

decisions

CUMULATIVE TALK

where learners

•share ideas •agree with each

other •do not critically

evaluate ideas

EXPLORATORY TALKwhere learners

•all actively participate •ask each other questions •share relevant

information •give reasons for views •constructively criticise•try to reach agreement

Further resources

✤ https://thinkingtogether.educ.cam.ac.uk/ (Mercer website)

✤ video research (Whyte blog post)

✤ exploratory talk (Barnes book chapter)

Group work - do’s and don’ts

✤ It works well when ….

✤ the group is organised

✤ if the task design actually requires group work

✤ when the learners are “on the same page” - they agree on the task objectives

✤ it’s fun/interesting for learners to participate in the group work

✤ It doesn’t work well when …

✤ when the learners are not interested in the topic/task

✤ when it’s difficult for group members to meet outside class and collaborate

✤ when the learners don’t like each other, don’t get along well

✤ the task only allows for one point of view

Presentation - do’s and don’ts

✤ It works well when ….

✤ the material presented is interesting

✤ the presentation task is complex

✤ when the audience can participate and contribute to the success of the talk

✤ the speaker can talk well (eye contact, charisma, language proficiency, presentation skills)

✤ It doesn’t work well when …

✤ the presenter reads from notes (recites a memorised text)

✤ when the speaker is monotonous

✤ when the structure of the talk is not (and you don’t know when it’s going to end)

✤ no-one cares about the topic - or finds a way to be interested …

Useful rules for discussion?

DEFINITELY NOT

✤ stick fingers in ears

✤ don’t just make up your mind and stick to it

DEFINITELY USEFUL

✤ all relevant information should be shared

✤ respect other people’s idea

✤ ask for reasons why

✤ trying to agree

✤ build on what other people have said

MAYBE?

✤ ask everyone in turn for their opinion?

✤ could have a leader - to organise (coordinator)

2. Skills, subskills, content areas

✤ listening, speaking

✤ vocabulary, grammar

✤ literature

a. Listening

✤ problems with communicative approach

✤ non-interventionist approach: listen, write, discussion before seeing transcript; open-ended teacher questions

✤ listening homework: technology barrier

b. Speaking

✤ fluency studies show that practicing on the same topic is beneficial

✤ evaluating speaking: when to give feedback?

✤ communicative strategies should also be addressed

c. Vocabulary

✤ Nation: goals? learning activities, deliberate study; evaluation

✤ Nation video: teaching vocabulary - 10 techniques for unknown words

✤ CER levels and word size? Tom Cobb

✤ vocabulary games: drawing, hot seat, popcorn

d. Grammar

✤ why we shouldn’t use grammar as the basis for designing lessons

✤ Larsen-Freeman: teaching and testing grammar - teaching/learning spiral

✤ presentation-practice-production (PPP), natural approach (Krashen)

✤ task-based and form-focused instruction? focus on formS v FoF_

e. Literature

✤ Scott Thornbury: unpack literary text like peeling back layers of an onion

✤ Valentina Morgana: CS Lewis example

✤ Christian Ludwig: Hunger Games example

✤ Literature page: eComma, FLLITE

For tomorrow

✤ aim for 15 minutes total, with audience participation

✤ talk about blog posts and teaching materials, not just articles

✤ think about the topic you want to work on, and the people you’d like to collaborate with

To do

✤ design a course component individually or in groups

✤ bring materials for discussion and feedback: 13, 20, 26 November; 11 December

✤ implement in class or observe implementation

✤ write a reflective paper (group, individual)