CPD MEETING #5

Operacijo delno financira Evropska unija iz Evropskega socialnega sklada ter Ministrstvo za izobraževanje, znanost in šport. Operacija se izvaja v okviru Operativnega programa razvoja človeških virov v obdobju 2007-2013, razvojne prioritete: Razvoj človeških virov in vseživljenjsko učenje; prednostne usmeritve: Izboljšanje kakovosti in učinkovitosti sistemov

izobraževanja in usposabljanja.

Current Project Issues, CURRICULUM CONVERGENCES and STORY SLAM(s)

Zavod RS za šolstvo, March 11, 2014Katja Pavlič Škerjanc, katja.pavlic@zrss.si

Projekt OBOGATENO UČENJE TUJIH JEZIKOV 2013-15Enriched Foreign Language Learning PROJECT 2013-15

Foreign/EFLL Teachers‘ Monthy CPD Meeting

CPD Meeting AGENDA

Time Content Performers & Format

09:00 - 09:30

CURRENT PROJECT ISSUES:1. Bimonthly Status Reports2. Teaching Philosophy & Teaching

Portfolio3. Project E-Portfolio4. School Research Project

Katja Pavlič ŠkerjancForeign teachersPlenary presentation, Q&A, discussion

09.30 - 10.00 Curriculum convergences Katja Pavlič Škerjanc Plenary presentation

10.00 - 10.30 Why tell stories? Petra ZaložnikPlenary presentation

10:30 - 11.00 Coffee break  

11:00 - 11.15  11:15 - 12.00

StorySlam as an integrative language learning activity WORKSHOP 1: StorySlamming - Principles and rules

Katja Pavlič ŠkerjancIntroductory presentation

Foreign teachers Group work & presentation

12:00 - 13.30WORKSHOP 2: Foreign Teachers' Presentations

Samuel FarsureDemará IvaničPlenary presentations and discussion

CURRENT PROJECT ISSUES(30 min)

• Multitasking can reduce productivity by approximately 40-percent according to some researchers.

• Switching from one task to another makes it difficult to tune out distractions and can cause mental blocks that can slow down your progress.

Current Project Issues

1. Bimonthly Status Reports2. Teaching Philosophy & Teaching Portfolio3. Project E-Portfolio4. School Research Project

1. BIMONTHLY STATUS REPORTS

Submission dates:- Monday, March 31 ( January & February 2014), - Monday, May 19 ( March & April 2014)- Thursday, July 10 ( May & June 2014)

2014/15 Yearly/Annual Teaching Plan, Draft Submission date: August 31, 2014

Current Project Issues

2. Teaching Philosophy & Teaching Portfolio

Submission date:- Friday, April 18 (open issues to be further discussed at the April

meeting, i.e. on Tuesday, April 15)- NEI templates and supporting jaterials to be sent to FTs by the end

of March

Current Project Issues

3. Project E-Portfolio

4. School Research Project

To be discussed at the school PTs‘ meeting on March 18, 2014.

Any suggestions, tips, pointers?

To be discussed at the school PTs‘ meeting on March 18, 2014.

Any suggestions, tips, pointers?

CURRICULUM CONVERGENCES(15 min)

SCHOOL

LIFE

Definition of curriculum

• myriad of definitions - difficult to keep a clear focus on its essence

• etymological origin: Latin 'curriculum' refers to a 'course' or 'track' to be followed

• in the context of education, where learning is the central activity, the most obvious interpretation of the word curriculum is then to view it as a course or 'plan for learning'

Levels of curriculum

• system/society/nation/state (or macro) level

• school/institution (or meso) level

• classroom (or micro) level• individual/personal (or

nano) level.• Curriculum development at the

system level is usually of a 'generic' nature, while 'site-specific' approaches are more applicable for the remaining levels.

• The process of curriculum development can be seen as narrow (developing a curricular product) or broad (comprehensive and ongoing improvement).

Currriculum Perspectives, Jan van den Akker, University of Twente, The

Netherlands

Curriculum representations and analytical perspectives [Curriculum

typology]

INTENDED

Ideal

Vision (rationale or basic philosophy underlying a curriculum)

Formal/

Written

Intentions as specified in curriculum documents and/or materials

IMPLEMENTED

PerceivedCurriculum as interpreted by its users (especially teachers)

Operational

Actual process of teaching and learning (also: curriculum-in-action)

ATTAINEDExperiential

Learning experiences as perceived by learners

LearnedResulting learning outcomes of learners

Curriculum components

• One of the major challenges for curriculum improvement is creating balance and consistency between the various components of a curriculum.

Rationale Why are they learning?

Aims & Objectives Toward which goals are they learning?

Content What are they learning?

Learning activities How are they learning?

Teacher role How is the teacher facilitating learning?

Materials &

Resources

With what are they learning?

Grouping With whom are they learning?

Location Where are they learning?

Time When are they learning?

Assessment How far has learning progressed?

• The rationale (referring to overall principles or central mission of the plan) serves as major orientation point, and the nine other components are ideally linked to that rationale and preferably also consistent with each other.

• For each of the components many sub-questions are possible. Not only on substantive issues (what knowledge is of most worth for inclusion in teaching and learning), but, for example, also on 'organizational' aspects as:

o Grouping:o How are students allocated to various learning trajectories?o Are students learning individually, in small groups, or whole-class?

o Location:o Are students learning in class, in the library, at home, or elsewhere?o What are the social/physical characteristics of the learning

environment?o Time:

o How much time is available for various subject matter domains?o How much time can be spent on specific learning tasks?

Curriculum components

• The eternal curriculum question: What to include in the curriculum? (or even more difficult as well as urgent: What to exclude from it?)

• Search for a balance between three major sources or orientations for selection and priority setting:

 o Knowledge: What is the academic and cultural heritage that

seems essential for learning and future development? o Society: Which problems and issues seem relevant for inclusion

from the perspective of societal trends and needs? o Learner: which elements seem of vital importance for learning

from the personal and educational needs and interests of the learners themselves?

 • Answers to these questions usually constitute the rationale of a

curriculum.

Substantive choices

Convergences between languages (as subjects) as a contribution to quality

education (CoE) The chart below illustrates the different statuses of languages in school and the relations among them: the languages taught are first or second/foreign languages for learners; they are studied as a specific subject or serve as an instrument of learning in other subjects.

http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/langeduc/le_platformintro_EN.asp

• „We use categories (groupings of objects, concepts, ideas etc.) in all spheres of life in order to operate in the world. Without categories the world would present to us as ‘one great blooming, buzzing confusion’ (William James ,The Principles of Psychology, 189)

• Categories help us to divide the world up in order to understand and manage it. However, they are not fixed and universal but vary according to purpose; their appropriateness invariably depends on context. We know that the categories we use are for the most part context and culture bound.

• However, we tend to operate in the world as if categories are fixed and universal in order to bring order and stability. For that reason it is sometimes hard to make the imaginative leap necessary to see that the categories we use are determined culturally and may in some cases actually limit our thinking.

Convergences between languages, Mike Fleming, CoE

• In a research project described by Nisbett (Nisbett, R. The Geography of Thought,

2003) children were given three pictures of a cow, a chicken and some grass and asked to place two of them together.

• The researchers found that American children preferred to group the cow and chicken together but Chinese children were more likely to group the cow and grass. This is one of the many different research findings in Nisbett’s book indicating a tendency to see the world more in terms of objects (the West) or relationships (the East).

• In another example American mothers used twice as many object labels with their children (‘here is a car’) as Japanese mothers who engaged in more social routines of teaching politeness norms (‘give me the car – thank you’).

• A myriad of other research findings led the author to conclude that cognitive structures are not universal as is often thought but differ in different contexts due to contrasting ecologies (hence the title of the book The Geography of Thought).

Convergences between languages, Mike Fleming, CoE

It is easy to have our thinking unwittingly limited by the categories we use.

One way of looking at Languages in Education, Languages for Education is to start thinking about the categories we habitually use in two broad ways:• to see links and convergences that before have

not been sufficiently emphasised

and in other cases• to identify more refined categories where

before none were discerned.

 

Convergences between languages, Mike Fleming, CoE

Curriculum convergences for plurilingual and intercultural education,

Francis Goullier, CoEApart from the adoption of the CEFR scale of proficiency levels for all modern language teaching, a number of CoE initiatives help develop „curriculum convergences for plurilingual and intercultural education“: • adoption of a single syllabus for all modern languages; • development of a generic curriculum on which the syllabus for

each language is based; • grouping all language teaching in the same subject area (for

example, “language and communication”); • adoption of a common terminology for all language teaching; • development of training standards, especially for assessment

procedures, establishing principles common to all language teaching;

• recommendation of shared methodological approaches to create links between the languages learnt;

• inclusion in the syllabus for each language of cross-cutting skills to be developed, convergences to be utilised and cross-language transfer strategies to be taught (metalinguistic transfer, etc.)

Cross-Language Transfer, Jim Cummins, 2005

Depending on the sociolinguistic situation, FIVE TYPES OF TRANSFER are possible: 1. Transfer of conceptual elements (e.g.

understanding the concept of photosynthesis);

2. Transfer of metacognitive and metalinguistic strategies (e.g. strategies of visualizing, use of graphic organizers, mnemonic devices, vocabulary acquisition strategies, etc.);

3. Transfer of pragmatic aspects of language use (willingness to take risks in communication through L2, ability to use paralinguistic features such as gestures to aid communication, etc.);

4. Transfer of specific linguistic elements (e.g. knowledge of the meaning of photo- in photosynthesis);

5. Transfer of phonological awareness (the knowledge that words are composed of distinct sounds).

STORYSLAM AS A LANGUAGE LEARNING ACTIVITY(15 min)

March 19, World Storytelling Day

• World Storytelling Day is a global celebration of the art of oral storytelling. It is celebrated every year on the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere, the first day of autumn equinox in the southern.

• On World Storytelling Day, as many people as possible tell and listen to stories in as many languages and at as many places as possible, during the same day and night.

• Participants tell each other about their events in order to – share stories and inspiration, – learn from each other and – create international contacts.

“Stories have to be

told or they die, and

when they die, we

can't remember

who we are or why

we're here.”

Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

Telling stories …• increases students‘

willingness to communicate thoughts and feelings

• enhances listening skills

• increases oral proficiency

• encourages use of imagination and creativity

• encourages active participation

• encourages cooperation between students

• …

Performance techniquesTelling a story can captivate an audience…that is, with the right techniques and a little practice:

Remembering and retelling the plot:• map the plot as a memory technique• use story skeletons to help you remember the key events• think of the plot as a film or a series of connected images• tell yourself the story in your own words• create your own version of the story (adapt and improvise)• retell it numerous times until it feels like a storyPerformance skills. Remember to...• vary the volume, pitch and tempo of your voice (enunciate

clearly and exaggerate expression)• use your face, body and gestures (let your body speak)• make your body and face respond to the tale• have a clear focus and maintain concentration• maintain engaging eye contact with the audience/

individual listeners• create a charismatic presence (make the audience believe

in you)• use different, exaggerated character voices• use your space/ be dynamic• remember to pace yourself• always remember to regain your style as a narrator• use silence and pauses to add dramatic effect

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/storytelling-benefits-tips

March 19, 2015: EFLL project national/interschool STORYSLAM

Overall purpose and goals:

• enhance intra-project (and inter-school) mobility

• set up interschool project activities [not only at teacher, but also at student level]

• set up activities that promote [foreign] language learning, plurilingualsim & interculturality but also the EFLL project

School year 2013/14: design STORSLAM

organizational format establish ground rules &

judging procedures, define scoring criteria

select/define overarching theme(s)

prepare students at schools

organize school storytelling tournaments/ preselections

STORY SLAM

The GROUND RULEsa) your story needs to

be true and told without notes.

b) your story needs a beginning, middle and end.

c) your story needs to stay on theme.

d) your story should be 5 minutes or less.

What is a Story Slam Competition?

• It is a competition based on who tells the best story.

• It puts a dual emphasis on content and performance, encouraging storytellers to focus on what they're saying and how they're saying it.

• It is an exercise in crafting stories within a set time limit.

• Storytellers are judged by panels/judges who give numerical scores [?] (e.g. on a zero to 10 or one to 10 scale) based on the storyteller s' content and performance.

STORY SLAM

Who gets to participate?• Students wishing to

participate enter their names into a drawing on the evening of the event.

• Eight to ten students are selected based on the time allotted for the event.

• Pre-Selection criteria: • e.g. each class or teacher

may select their teller …• ???

What are the rules?

The basic rules (Example 2): • Each story must be of the

storyteller’s own construction. • Poetry is not encouraged -

unless the poem is original, 5 minutes long and tells a story.

• Each storyteller gets 5 minutes (plus a 1 minute grace period) to tell a story.

• If the storyteller goes over the 6 minute time, 1 full point will be deducted from the total score. A warning timer can be rung at 4 minutes.

• The storyteller may not use props, costumes or musical instruments.

.

• Working in groups of 3, discuss the activity, concentrating on its language learning values (advantages), organization (including the preparation of students) and scoring criteria.

• Decide on the ground rules and the necessary steps for the preparation of students.

• Prepare a brief plenary report.

Workshop Prompts

School Story Slams: Ground Rules and Scoring Criteria