Stand Alone Instructional Resource design and form

StAIR Design & Form CEP 811

Created by: Jean-Claude Aura Date: February 2009

STAND-ALONE INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCE

DESIGN FORM

Project Title: Describing what people are wearing

Developer: Jean-Claude Aura

The project in a sentence…

In one sentence, what is this project about?

Students will learn how to describe what people are wearing.

Audience

Describe the relevant characteristics of the intended learners (e.g., grade level, special needs or

advanced).

This lesson is intended to false beginners. They need to have a bit of computer literacy in order

to go through the StAIR.

Instructional Objectives

What do you want the learner to learn? (Be sure to reference the subject matter as well as

appropriate curriculum standards.)

Students will be able to identify, pronounce and name the most common clothing items,

their colors and patterns.

Students will form phrases with clothing items along with their colors and patterns.

Students will be able to describe what people are wearing using the Present Continuous

form.

These objectives align with the IELTS standards whereby students are required to describe

events, places and people, both verbally and in writing. This StAIR is about describing people,

but the rule about adjective order applies to other topics.



Pedagogy

What are your instructional strategies? (Be sure to design and include at least two different

strategies, such as, but not limited to, inductive and deductive.) Briefly describe the flow of

interaction for the learner.

This StAIR encompasses 3 different strategies:

1. Deductive: This will be the case in the first part where students learn the different

clothing items, their colors and patterns. They see a picture and click to see what it is

(and possibly how it is pronounced: something I am planning to do if time allows)

2. Inductive: This strategy concerns the second part where students learn about the

formation of the Present Continuous. They see a couple of examples on what people are

wearing and then come up with the rule.

3. Scaffolding: This strategy will be necessary in the last part where students have to use

the Present Continuous to describe what people are wearing. At this stage, students may

be overwhelmed with too many things to remember: The formation of the Present

Continuous both in the singular and plural, the order of the adjectives, and the name of

each clothing item, its color and pattern. Students will be given incomplete sentences and

then choose the correct completion from the multiple choice answers. As they progress,

they will be given less support until they manage to form complete sentences all by

themselves describing what people are wearing.

Active Response

What will you ask the learner to do to demonstrate understanding?

In the first part, students will have to identify/name the clothing items, their colors and

patterns.

In the second part, students will have to complete sentences using the correct form of the

Present Continuous to describe what people are wearing.

In the third part, students will have to prove their understanding of the material by

composing complete sentences describing with complete accuracy what people are

wearing.



Feedback How will you give the learner feedback on the actions taken?

For correct answers, students will get a cheer, applause, or any other sound indicative of a

successful attempt.

For incorrect answers:

In the first part, students will have to keep trying until they get the right clothing item or

the color or the pattern. In the case where they have to make a phrase using the clothing

item, its color and pattern, they will be redirected to the slide that explains the order of

adjectives.

In the second part, students are redirected different slides that explain either the Present

Continuous formation or the singular and plural rules depending on the type of mistake

students make.

In the third part, things get a bit more complicated as students’ mistakes could fall under

these three types:

1. If they get the wrong vocabulary item, they will be redirected to the vocabulary

slides.

2. If they get the wrong form of the Present Continuous, they will be redirected to

the grammar slides.

3. If they the wrong adjective order, they will be redirected to the slide that

explains the order of adjectives.

Planning your StAIR

The StAIR is divided into 3 parts:

1. Part 1: Vocabulary: Colors, Clothes, Colored Clothes, Patterns, Colored Patterned Clothes

2. Part 2: Grammar: Present Continuous

3. Part 3: Comprehensive Test

This is the first page of the StAIR.



StAIR Report

1. What is the main objective of your StAIR, and how is it linked to your

curriculum standards?

The main objective here is to enable beginner students to describe what people are

wearing using patterns, colors, clothing items and the present continuous.

The curriculum states that “… students will be able to use English to a purposeful end … and

that students will be able to use English to convey meaning accurately…” This StAIR develops

students’ ability to use English meaningfully in real life situations

.

2. How is your StAIR designed?

The StAIR is very straightforward. It does the following sequentially:

1. It teaches 11 basic colors. (black, blue, brown, green, grey, orange, pink,

purple, red, white and yellow)

2. It tests on these 11 basic colors.

3. It teaches 19 clothing items. (belt, cap, coat, dress, hat, jacket, pullover, scarf,

shirt, shoes, shorts, skirt, socks, suit, tie, trousers, T-shirt and glasses – although the

last is an accessory)

4. It tests on these 19 clothing items.

5. It presents a variety of colored clothes.

6. It tests on this variety.

7. It teaches 6 patterns. (plain, spotted, checked, striped, flowery and patterned)

8. It tests on these 6 patterns.

9. It presents a variety of patterned colored clothes.

10. It tests on this variety.

11. It teaches the Present Continuous.

12. It tests on the Present Continuous.

13. Finally, it provides a Comprehensive Test that checks students’ understanding by

giving them multiple choice answers.



3. What instructional strategies are implemented in your StAIR?

My StAIR utilizes 3 different instructional strategies.

A. DEDUCTIVE STRATEGY

Basically, this strategy is used here to teach vocabulary. Students learn a few colors and take a

test on them. It’s very simple. They see the word, hear the word, then memorize the word. Here’s

a sample of what they get during the learning phase:

And this is a sample of what they get during the testing phase.

They also learn some clothing items and take a test on them.



The same applies to colored clothes, patterns, and patterned colored clothes.

B. INDUCTIVE STRATEGY

This strategy is used when teaching the order of adjectives. Students see examples of the

patterned colored clothes and then try to deduce the order in which they are used (pattern + color

+ clothing item). Here’s what they see at the learning stage:

In the last slide, they have to study the 4 slides about patterned colored clothes (here only 3 are

presented) and choose the correct answer in the question slide.



C. SCAFFOLDING STRATEGY

The entire StAIR is designed upon the scaffolding strategy. It starts gradually by presenting

colors and testing on colors, then clothes and testing on clothes, followed by colored clothes and

testing on colored clothes. After that, patterns are presented with a test on them, followed by a

rule regarding the order of adjectives presented in b. Later on, the Present Continuous is

introduced along with a mini test on it. The last stage is the Comprehensive Test, which

encompasses all the points tackled throughout the StAIR.

There’s a point to note, though. If students get the wrong answer in the Comprehensive

Test, they are not simply warned about their mistake. They are redirected to further

explanatory slides that give additional examples, as is the case with the colors and the

present continuous.



There are more re-teaching slides in the stair itself. These are just a few.

4. So what do you reckon are the strengths and weaknesses of your

StAIR?

As you can see from the design, the StAIR starts off with colors and gradually

increases the difficulty of the next activity. It doesn’t present more than one new point

at a time. I’ve tried it with very weak students, and they didn’t seem to face any

problems. Some had to go back to the explanation part, but that’s normal.

As for the weaknesses, there are none! I’m just kidding Just like with every technology-based

educational object, students must have minimal literacy in technology in order to

work independently. My StAIR requires students to know some basic concepts about

computers: where to locate the StAIR on the hard drive, how to unzip it, and where to

click on the StAIR so they proceed in the right direction. That’s all.

5. Is there any other comment you would like to add that would benefit

your StAIR users?

Yes. My StAIR targets users of multiple intelligences. Some people are more auditory

than visual, or both. That’s why I’ve added audio sounds to the StAIR in case users

would like to hear the word or expression, thus increasing their learning abilities.

However, users can always turn off the sound if they don’t like the recording, which

has my voice in it by the way.

Stand Alone Instructional Resource design and form

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