Advancing Oral Proficiency in our World Language

Classrooms

July 14, 2010

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Taiwan Teacher Taiwan Teacher Professional Professional

Development SeriesDevelopment Series

Overview for Our Session

Review of the overarching concepts in our WL classrooms (30 min)

Exploration of reasons many learners fail to engage in lesson discussions (1 hr)

Potential impacts of daily unstructured discussion in K-12 classrooms

Thoughts on Integration of communicative language in lesson instruction (1 hr)

Effective partnering (30 min)

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Review of the overarching concepts in our WL classrooms

Let’s have a tea party!

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Overview for Our Session

Review of the overarching concepts in our WL classrooms (30 min)

Exploration of reasons many learners fail to engage in lesson discussions (1 hr)

Potential impacts of daily unstructured discussion in K-12 classrooms

Thoughts on Integration of communicative language in lesson instruction (1 hr)

Effective partnering (30 min)

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Active and Passive Learning

Students tend to be more actively involved in certain learning environments and more passive in others. In looking at your WL classroom, are your students active or passive?

What are the characteristics of a classroom learning environment that helps you to be a more active and confident student and one in which you tend to remain more passive?

www.learner.org

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Activity

Venn Diagram

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Passive Active

Overview for Our Session

Review of the overarching concepts in our WL classrooms (30 min)

Exploration of reasons many learners fail to engage in lesson discussions (1 hr)

Potential impacts of daily unstructured discussion in K-12 classrooms

Thoughts on Integration of communicative language in lesson instruction (1 hr)

Effective partnering (30 min)

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Learning Journal – response on active and passive learning

“I’m really active in my theater class. We discuss, act out things, talk, get our opinions out . . . I’m really into it, you know? . . . . . And well, the class where I think I’m sometimes passive is Spanish. I mean, I want to talk, but I don’t usually know how to say what I want to say. I know vocabulary, but it isn’t always what I need when I’m talking.. . Oh, we talk, but we repeat, and we answer questions, you know, but I’d really like to be able to discuss things and tell people what I think.” (Michelle)

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Overview for Our Session

Review of the overarching concepts in our WL classrooms (30 min)

Exploration of reasons many learners fail to engage in lesson discussions (1 hr)

Potential impacts of daily unstructured discussion in K-12 classrooms

Thoughts on Integration of communicative language in lesson instruction (1 hr)

Effective partnering (30 min)

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Learner Engagement – the # 1 first priority in active learning

Definition: To attract and maintain a learner’s interest and

active involvement in all lesson content and related tasks, with clearly articulated “evidence checks” of a concrete, productive response to instruction (i.e., some objective, behaviorally observable response to instruction)

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Expanding Students’ Oral Proficiency Opportunities in Class

***All students want to be able to speak & share ideas***Essential components to consider when building OP to

promote communicative competence: Vocabulary- words that students know, learns, uses Syntax- the way words are arranged to form sentences

or phrases Grammar – the rules according to which the words of a

language change their form and are combined into sentences

Register – the communicative style of language use of degree of formality reflected in word choice and grammar

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Some steps to Consider

Classroom discussion task – the beginning Teacher opens the “discussion” – “what do you

think about . . .” or “describe the character . . .” What is the student response? How many are

responding? Are they augmenting their knowledge base? If

so, how? If not, what is happening here? How can we change this pattern?

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Steps in Structuring Accountable Discussions in WL Classes

Establish a clear purpose - pose an open-ended contextualized task.

Build up the path - model an appropriate response with vocabulary/content/ grammar.

Monitor students’ speaking process and offer assistance as necessary

Pair to share responses using the assigned starter Synthesize contribution and establish connections to the

curricula.

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What is conscientiously planned and structured in scaffolded interactive

discussions?

EVERYTHING! The task – something that all students should be able to

complete Who? – assigned partner or group Time – relatively brief, highly focused Preparation – Prepared participation – model response,

think time, pre-teaching of targeted vocabulary, rehearsal with partner

Academic language use – linguistic framing with written and verbal application of target vocabulary and grammar

Listening – note-taking task; active listening & acknowledging tasks

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Try this in your TL

Using one of our in-class lesson demos or a lesson you have created yourself, think of a topic or way you would like to open an interactive discussion in your WL classroom in the TL

Clearly ask the question Clearly ask students to respond orally (to provide

a model) You may want 1 – 2 word answers first, Then, depending on level/age, the students

may expand those into sentence form using YOUR SENTENCE STARTER(S)

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Overview for Our Session

Review of the overarching concepts in our WL classrooms (30 min)

Exploration of reasons many learners fail to engage in lesson discussions (1 hr)

Potential impacts of daily unstructured discussion in K-12 classrooms

Thoughts on Integration of communicative language in lesson instruction (1 hr)

Effective partnering (30 min)

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Effective partnering

Clock buddies What could the question be? The linking game

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