ESL Seminars - Preparation Guide for the Test of Spoken English and Some IELTS Material
SPOKEN EXPLANATIONS A TASK-BASED ESL...
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Transcript of SPOKEN EXPLANATIONS A TASK-BASED ESL...
SPOKEN EXPLANATIONS – A TASK-BASED ESL UNIT
Teaching Context
The unit is designed for a withdrawal ESL class which consists of 10 ESL students. All
students come from varying backgrounds. The first learner to be considered is Tara, a 10 year
old daughter of Serbian-speaking Australian migrants. She holds linguistic identities in two
cultures, because her primary education has been transferred between Serbia and Australia
and as a result she has had to ‘relearn’ both languages at different points in time. Our second
learner is Ben, a 10 year old Ghanese boy who has been a resident of Australia for 5 months.
While emotional sensitivity hinders much understanding of Ben’s background, he is clearly
literate in an indigenous language of Ghana and has received sporadic exposure to English
during his childhood (in and outside of school). Thus, the unit takes into account both of
these learners’ cognitive and affective needs,
Scope of the program
It is designed to complement a Stage 3 (year 5) English term which is focussing on the genre
of explanations, in the first term of the year. The ESL unit will take place during the first 6
weeks of the term, as the lesson may be spilt across days (in response to time constraints).
The oral interaction that is practiced and studied in the ESL unit works to support the
movement into more complex reading, writing, speaking and listening tasks in the
mainstream class work. It is aimed to ‘fill in’ the small gaps of linguistic knowledge so that
they can work more effectively in their year 5 classroom during the rest of the year.
Unit Objectives
Outcomes (English)
TS3.1: Communicates effectively
for a range of purposes and with a
variety of audiences to express well
developed, well organised ideas
dealing with more challenging
topics
TS3.2: Interacts productively and
with autonomy in pairs and groups
of various sizes and composition,
uses effective oral presentation
skills and strategies and listens
attentively.
Students will learn:
Use the correct present tense auxiliary verb ‘I
am’ and ‘He/she is’;
Listen to and create simple descriptions about a
person using this language item.
Acknowledge (critique) when they use fillers in
their own speech
Use the Question = Simple Answer + Extra
Information technique when describing
activities
Know the correct word order when making
statements
Describe people, places and things in rich detail
Use correct intonation when making statements
to support and convey meaning, by dropping
tone at the end of each sentence.
References:
Board of Studies NSW 2007, English K-6 Syllabus, Board of Studies NSW, Sydney.
Halliday, M 2004, ‘Three aspects of children’s language development: learning language,
learning through language, learning about language (1980)’ in J Webster (ed.), Language of
Early Childhood, Continuum, London.
Krashen, S, 1982, Principles and Practices in Second Language Acquisition, Penguin,
Oxford.
Nation, I & Newton, J 2009, Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking, Routledge, New
York.
Savignon, S 1993, ‘Communicative language teaching: state of the art’, in S Silberstein (ed.),
State of the art TESOL essays: Celebrating 25 years of the discipline, Teaching English to
Speakers of Other Languages, Alexandria, VA.
Describing People
Lesson One
Duration: 90 minutes
h
LESSON OBJECTIVES: Students will be able to… Use the correct present tense auxiliary verb „I am‟ and „He/she is‟;
Listen to and create simple descriptions about a person using this language item.
The learning activities of the first lesson aim to facilitate functional language, that is, the memorised item „I am‟ and „he/she is‟, which can then
be drawn upon in everyday interaction. Simultaneously, however, is the negotiation of language that is also meaningful and authentic. In order to
achieve these needs our activities have been sequenced to transition from an explicit “learning about language” task, also known as a „focus on
form‟, towards tasks that are deliberately constructed authentic scenarios („learning through language‟) that use this same language item
(Halliday 1980, p308). These sequenced learning activities have been designed to improve the learners‟ grammar skills and knowledge, because
both learners display a weakness in these areas. Specifically, Ben demonstrated, in his pre-assessment interview, that he cannot sufficiently
express the correct auxiliary verbs (and tense) in his personal explanation, as he confuses the possessive determiner „my‟ and the auxiliary verb
„I will‟. Thus, if we gradually introduce the past, present and future tense auxiliary verbs, through both explicit teaching and authentic
communicative task work, then students will find these phrases becoming increasingly accessible to them in their everyday language
experiences. Our specific focus has been the present tense verb as it connects to the larger English genre of „explanations‟ that is being explored
(simultaneously to this unit) in their regular classroom.
The lesson is well-planned as it presents an equal balance of the four „language learning strands‟ (Nation & Newton 2009). The first
strand considered is „language-focused learning‟ which involves the „deliberate learning‟ of the language item „I am‟ and „he/she is‟ (Nation &
Newton 2009). The Eckman, Bell and Nelson (1988, cited in Nations & Newton 2009) transformation exercise is used to teach the auxiliary
verbs „am‟ and „is‟, where the teacher leads students in transforming attributes into single statement sentences. Next, the listen and draw
technique involves familiarisation of the language item „he/she is‟ through listening and writing (drawing). Krashen (1982) emphasised this need
for „comprehensible input‟ (meaningful input), that is, learning through listening where the learner‟s attention is on the repeated use of „he is‟ as
a sentence starter. Then, students have the opportunity to use „he is‟ in their own speech. Find the difference involves learners making statements
based on pictures, as they take turns producing a sentence starting with „he is‟ in a game-like manner and then compare their descriptions
(Nation & Newton 2009). Finally, the engagement of the fluency strand help learners “to make the best use of what they already know”,
because the meaning-focused language produced in this task is stems directly from familiar content (personal) and familiar features („I am‟).
TEACHING AND LEARNING ACTIONS
Orientation 5 minutes
Focus the learners‟ attention on task by opening with a clear
orientation to the performance objectives: We will be able to use the
simple sentence starter „I am‟ or „He/she is‟ to create descriptions of
ourselves and others. Access prior knowledge and motivate learners
by talking about situations when we need to describe ourselves and
others, and the types of attributes we usually describe. E.g. „I am
wearing a blue jacket‟ and „I am a good soccer player‟.
Reflection 15 minutes
The main performance objectives of the lesson are consolidated in the
final fluency activity, where students have an opportunity to orally
demonstrate their ability to use simple descriptive sentences beginning
with „I am‟. The need to provide quick responses will challenge the
learners, and the need to perform orally for peers will extend their
learning, in comparison to the other activities of the lesson which
allows for much more individual construction.
CONTENT
STRAND
Language-
focused learning
LESSON ACTIVITIES
(a) Directly focus on the grammatical form of simple descriptions
by explaining the present tense auxiliary verb „I am‟ and „He/she
is‟. Have students complete a transformation exercise beginning
with these attributes:
(a) Tall
(b) Wearing a blue jacket
(c) A great soccer player
(d) Good at telling jokes
Students must transform these attributes into simple descriptive
statements by adding the present tense auxiliary verb to the
beginning of each sentence.
(a) I am tall.
He is tall.
(b) I am wearing a blue jacket.
She is wearing a blue jacket.
(c) I am a great soccer player.
She is a great soccer player.
(d) I am good at telling jokes.
He is good at telling jokes.
GROUP
STRUCTURE
Whole class
Individual
ASSESSMENT
Formative assessment:
The teacher observes
willingness and ability
to contribute to whole
class learning.
Summative
assessment: Student
workbooks are
collected and marked
for specific objective
„Adding the correct
language item at the
beginning of the
sentence‟. Note that
this does not include
spelling, handwriting
etc.
RESOURCES
Sentences in
workbook
Meaning-
focused input
Meaning-
focused output
Developing
fluency
(b) Complete a listen and draw activity where learners listen to
the description of a person and draw them. On a new piece of
paper students draw a large body of a person, and then listen to the
teacher‟s description and draw the features. Note that the aim is
not on the content words of the attributes (as there may be
language deficiencies); rather, use attributes that are already
familiar and focus on using simple sentences.
He is a tall person. He is wearing a plain t-shirt and a pair of
jeans. He is tired and is not happy. He is wearing a big hat on his
head. He is protected from the hot sun. Etc.
(c) Use a descriptions task where students find the difference
between a pair of pictures. When describing their picture students
must start their sentences with „he is‟.
Student A: He is wearing a blue shirt.
Student B: He is wearing a red shirt.
Student A: He is standing in a forest.
Student B: He is standing in a desert.
(d) Use a walk and talk to practice using „I am‟. On the board
have two questions for the students to ask each other. Each answer
must begin with „I am‟.
Q: How old are you?
A: I am 10 years old.
Q: Can you tell me something that you are really good at?
A: I am a really good soccer player.
Then they move two persons to the right and swap roles. Later in
the whole class a few learners tell what one of their partners told
them.
Individual
Pairs
Whole class
Summative
assessment: Student
workbooks are
collected and their
ability to follow
directions is recorded
as a written comment.
Formative assessment:
The teacher observes
students‟ ability to use
the language item in
informal interaction.
Written comments.
Drawing in
workbook
A copy of a
simple
description of
a person that
you have
written
beforehand.
A set of cards
per pair. See
appendix A.
Interesting conversations
Lesson Two
Duration: 90 minutes
LESSON OBJECTIVES: Students will be able to… Acknowledge (critique) when they use fillers in their own speech
Use the Question = Simple Answer + Extra Information technique when describing activities
Know the correct word order when making statements
The second lesson plan directly addresses the weakness of, firstly, pragmatics, and then, a second grammar skill. Ben and Tara both frequently
draw on language fillers (such as umm, „like‟, repetition of ideas) to „buy‟ valuable processing time in their oral interactions (Thornbury 2005).
By drawing attention to this common SLL technique students will be able to recognise the frequency of these different fillers in their own speech
and consciously act to avoid them. However, students will only be able to delete these fillers if they are taught, at the same time, replacement
language strategies to draw on as a substitute. The Question = Simple Answer + Extra Information technique will be relevant in this regard as
not only does it allow learners to elaborate on their thinking during their speech, but it also will connect to the „explanations‟ unit in their regular
class as they will be learning how to include extra information in their descriptions. The second grammar skill to be taught builds directly on the
performance objectives of lesson one. Students are learning grammar skills of simple present tense verbs, which in turn, is likely to help students
overcome their frequent „stumbling‟ of speech.
Following a similar pattern as outlined in the first lesson, the second lesson also presents an equal balance of the four „language learning
strands‟ (Nation & Newton 2009). The lesson opens with a useful output activity which allows students to record a short segment of
meaningful, authentic language based on a personal experience. The teacher uses deliberately constructed prompt questions to elicit this
dialogue. This recording is then used to drive the second strand, meaning-focussed output, as students are to listen back to their recording and
critique the specific language features that „buy‟ time in their conversation. Students will be focussing on their „ah‟s‟, „umms‟ and other
repetitious phrases and log this into a chart, We can then address this weakness through the explicit teaching of an effective interactional tool to
draw on in everyday conversations: Question = Simple Answer + Extra Information. This forms the language-focused goal of the lesson. Finally,
the lesson concludes with two extensive fluency activities, the first being a second taping of the part (a) recording, and the second being a „pass
and talk‟ activity. Both activities are designed to engage learners in meaningful, authentic output opportunities that reinforce the need for the Q =
SA + EI strategy.
TEACHING AND LEARNING ACTIONS
Orientation 5 minutes
Focus the learners‟ attention on task by opening with a clear
orientation to the performance objectives: Listen to your own speech
then learn how to make it more descriptive by giving an answer, and
some extra information. Let students access prior knowledge by
talking about what makes somebody interesting to listen to, which in
turn will motivate learners because we will help them understand how
they can speak in ways that are interesting to their audience.
Reflection 15 minutes
The skills that students learn through the explicit teaching of the
grammatical feature Q = SA = EI are consolidated when students re-
record their conversation. This ensures they have an opportunity to
actively engage in using the response technique. Furthermore, they are
then challenged by an extension activity where students must perform
under time constraints (they cannot practice their answer) and in front
of an audience (the whole class).
CONTENT
STRAND
Meaning-
focused output
Meaning-focus
input
Language-
focused learning
LESSON ACTIVITIES
(a) Students begin the best record activity by recording a short
segment of authentic informal conversation with the teacher. The
teacher asks the questions: „On the weekends, or after school, what
are some of the activities that you like to do?‟ And then, „Can you
explain what the rules are/what happens in it?‟
(b) Students listen back to their speech and fill in a chart that
tallies how many „fillers‟ they use.
(c) Directly focus on the grammatical technique of detailed
descriptions by explaining Question = Simple Answer + Extra
Information strategy. Have questions and responses set up and
highlight with yellow the „simple answer‟ and green the „extra
information‟.
Question: How are you today?
Answer: I am good, although I’m a bit tired from being at school
all day .
GROUP
STRUCTURE
Pair
Individual
Whole Class
ASSESSMENT
Summative
assessment: Teacher
keeps a record as
part of an assessment
portfolio.
Formative
assessment: The
teacher observes
willingness and
ability to contribute
to whole class
learning.
RESOURCES
Recording
device such as:
Computer
Portable
recorder.
A copy of
appendix B for
each student.
Fluency
Fluency
Question: What are you going to do this afternoon?
Answer: I am going to soccer practice. We have our semi-final
game this weekend.
(d) Using the tabled „filler‟ knowledge and the learnt Q = SA + EI
strategy, the learners now re-record the talk from part (a).
(e) Use the Pass and talk activity to reiterate the need to speak
with rich, detailed descriptions. In a circle have 5 picture cards
moving around the whole class. Each learner that has a card must
describe what is happening on it and add some extra information
that is describing some background or reasoning to the action. The
sentence can be written on the board as a form of scaffolding for
those who need it.
Individual
Whole Class
Summative
assessment: Teacher
keeps a record as
part of an assessment
portfolio.
Formative
assessment: The
teacher observes
students‟ ability to
use the language
strategy in informal
interaction. Written
comments.
Resources form
part (a) and (b).
A set of picture
cards. If these
aren‟t
available,
images from
familiar books
can be used.
Preparing a presentation
Lesson Three
Duration: 90 minutes
LESSON OBJECTIVES: Students will be able to… Describe people, places and things in rich detail
Use correct intonation when making statements to support and convey meaning, by dropping tone at the end of each sentence.
The final lesson plan is intended to synchronise each learning objective that has been introduced over the lessons of the unit. It draws obvious
links to the constructivist principles that guide the unit as a whole, that is, the tasks each “put the focus on the learner” (Savignon 1993, p40) by
continuously placing the learners in a role that ensures they develop and apply functional, communicate competence. Also, the premise of
„personal experience‟ that is used in the interview task is a deliberate response to the need to draw upon the sociocultural context of our learners
to help facilitate meaningful and authentic language based on their target needs.
The final lesson also effectively balances all four „language learning strands‟ (Nation & Newton 2009). The lesson begins with a focus on
meaning-focused input, as students watch and listen to an authentic language learning text. They hear rich descriptions and control of intonation
modelled in this language. The next task is the explicit teaching of correct intonation when making statements, as learners can utilise this
language tool to help support and convey meaning in their speech. The modelling of the video is further reinforced by the teacher also
controlling intonation, which serves to heighten the learning experience for the learners. The learners then move back into a student orientated
task whereby the language is controlled by pairs of students negotiating the structured questions of an interview. This serves as meaning-focused
input for the students. Students then transfer this knowledge using their knowledge from lesson one, as they are adding auxiliary verbs to the
beginning of each sentence to help structure the presentation. From this point onwards students are provided with the opportunity to develop
their fluency skills by repeatedly presenting their language task to multiple audiences that gradually increase in size, simultaneously increasing
the “pressure and encouragement to perform (Nation & Newton 2009, p9).
TEACHING AND LEARNING ACTIONS
Orientation 5 minutes
Focus the learners‟ attention on task by opening with a clear
orientation to the performance objectives: Describe people, places and
things in rich detail and use correct intonation to help support and
convey meaning. Motivate learners by using the „Bindi Irwin‟ video.
Reflection 15 minutes
The skills of the three lessons in their entirety are consolidated when
students present their final speech. This ensures they have an
opportunity to actively engage in using the set of oral explanation skills
they have developed over the unit.
CONTENT
STRAND
Meaning-
focused input
Language-
focused learning
Meaning-
focused output
LESSON ACTIVITIES
(a) Students watch and listen to YouTube video: „A day in the life
of Bindi Irwin. The film is played through once, transcripts are
handed out and then students are encouraged to follow along in the
transcript during the second viewing.
(b) The teacher draws direct attention to the intonation drop at the
end of each statement in the video. Use the activity delayed
repetition for each statement in the video, which can be
highlighted in the transcript. The teacher models the phrase in
front of the whole class (paying attention to correct use of
intonation), counts to three and then then class repeats it as a
group.
(c) In pairs, students interview each other with a of structured
questions displayed on the board. These are simple „getting to
know you‟ questions which only require personal experience to
answer. It is reiterated that students must answer the questions
GROUP
STRUCTURE
Whole class
Whole class
Pairs
ASSESSMENT
Formative
assessment: The
teacher observes
students‟ ability to
reproduce modelled
intonation. Written
comments.
RESOURCES
YouTube video
and transcript:
„A day in the
life of Bindi
Irwin.
with the Q = SA + EI response strategy.
(d) Turn the answers into statements that begin with the present
auxiliary verb „he/she is‟ on the worksheet.
(e) Practice this as a prepared talk using the pyramid procedure
to practice. Students present their statements about their partner in
a pair with the use of notes, then a small group, and then a
different small group. After three stages of practice there should be
minimal notes. Students then have the opportunity to present to the
whole class.
Individual
Pairs, small
groups, whole
class.
Summative
assessment: Final
presentation is
marked and
recorded.
See appendix
C.
Worksheet to
begin.
Appendix A
(Build Your Wild Self 2012)
Appendix B
How many times do you:
Say ‘umm’
Say ‘er’
Can’t think of the
right word
Say the wrong thing and start
again
Tally:
Appendix C
My Partner ____________
I would like everybody to meet ________________________.
S/he is ________________ years old. _________ enjoys ________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________.
S/he finds this fun because _________________________________________________________________-
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________.
Also, __________________________________________________________________________________