Out of Your Seats!

Purpose: Most of us can only sit for a limited period of time before our capacity to learn decreases. Some of us learn better using a multi-sensory approach. Plan at least one activity in every lesson where learners get out of their seats. In this way, you appeal to a variety of learning styles. All students will return to their seats more alert and energized. Here are two examples of activities that require little or no preparation.

I. Vote with Your Feet

Preparation Time: 5-10 minutes (to make signs the first time)

Materials: Make 3 signs for the classroom. Depending on level of students, signs read:
“strongly disagree”, “strongly agree”, and “neutral”
OR
“YES”, “NO”, and “?”.

Preparation: Place the signs along a wall or at either end of the room with the “neutral” or “?”sign in the middle.

Procedure:
1. Make a statement to the class. For example, if you are studying months of the year and seasons, you might say: I love winter. Then demonstrate what you want the students to do, by asking for volunteers to place themselves next to the sign that indicates their feeling or belief about winter. Teacher or tutor also participates, perhaps picking a position that hasn’t been chosen. Now each person explains his/her opinion.
2. Demonstrate a second time if necessary, with a different statement: Driving a car in the winter is very difficult.
3. Once instructions are clear, ask the students to arrange themselves along the spectrum in response to a new statement.
4. Encourage them to explain their position to the others in the group. One person from each group summarizes the reasons stated.

II. Line-Ups

Preparation Time: 0

Materials: none needed

Procedure:
1. Ask learners to line up sequentially: by month and day of birth, by height, in alphabetical order by first name, then last name, or by dates in U.S. history, for citizenship students.
2. Depending on the theme or grammar focus, ask students questions. For example, use “before” and “after” to talk about months of the year or where individual students are located in line. Use the comparative and superlative to talk about who is shorter, who is taller, who is shortest and tallest. For history, match an event with a date.
3. Have students ask questions of each other or make statements about the line-up, using the appropriate vocabulary or grammar point.

Variation:
Give each student a number and have them line up from smallest to biggest number. Students self-correct, then take turns reading the numbers, once the order is correct.

Tutor Tip: Keeping Word Lists for Phonics Review

To reinforce phonics (and vocabulary), keep cumulative lists of words your students have learned. Use a flip chart, or create lists on a word wall, with a separate page or column for each beginning letter. Review them frequently with students.

**Once students have learned a number of words with the same initial sound, read the list orally together.
**Now ask students to listen to a list of words they know, raising their hands when they hear one with the target beginning sound.
**Alternately, have them identify words which do not have the same beginning sound. This is more difficult.
**Asking students to indentify final sounds is also a way to increase the difficulty.
**Extend the activity by having students add words they can think of which begin with the same letter or sound.

How do you use lists of words in your teaching? Share your ideas in a comment.

Checking for Comprehension Using Total Physical Response (TPR)

We all know what most learners will say if we ask, “Do you understand?” Here are some alternative ways to check for comprehension.

--Ask a learner to show you the action or the object that you name.

--Ask learners to actively listen to a story that you tell, draw, or act out. Then ask them specific questions that can be answered with “yes” or “no”. Each student must respond by holding up a color card, one color for “no”, a different color for “”yes”.

--Learners brainstorm a list of clothing items while you record them on the board. Working from the list, ask people to stand if they are wearing a particular item. Or use family relationships and ask students to raise their hands if they are sisters, brothers, husbands, etc.

--Act out commands as you speak them. Students copy the actions. The visual component assures comprehension and the body language reinforces memory. With beginners, use TPR to teach classroom commands, like “please sit down” or “open your books”. For more advanced learners, in work readiness classes, for example, demonstrate the use of a piece of equipment, naming each step as you perform the action. Eventually, give the commands without demonstrating. Student response will be a clear sign of comprehension! Now ask students to take turns giving and following the commands.

How do you check and see if your students understand? Share your ideas in a comment.

Best Practice: Minimizing Teacher Talk and Maximizing Comprehension

Minimizing teacher talk means not only limiting the number of words you use, but also thinking about which words you use. Here are some speaking tips to aid in communicating with your learners:

*Use gestures, mime and facial expressions to help clarify meaning.
*Use picture dictionaries, realia and visuals whenever possible.
*Slow down, but don’t talk down to your students.
*Enunciate, so learners are able to distinguish where one word ends and the next one begins.
*Use fewer reductions, especially with beginning level learners. Examples of reductions are: didja (did you), arentcha (aren’t you), gonna, wanna, etc.
*Avoid idioms. Have you ever realized how many idioms in American English come from sports?!
*Avoid slang. Monitor your choice of words. Is this something I’d say to my grandmother? If so, then it’s probably acceptable.
*Use simple words whenever possible, for example, “give me your papers” instead of “hand in your papers”. Multi-word verbs are more difficult for beginners to understand.
*Be prepared to repeat and rephrase what you just said. Use synonyms and/or define new words.

The above points come from a series of online presentations, designed to help native speakers of English communicate better with international students. To listen to them all, go to:
http://cybertower.cornell.edu/
1. click Cybertower
2. click Go underneath Study Rooms
3. scroll down and click on Watch Your Language: Improving Communication with Non-Native Speakers
4. click on a video title on the left and enjoy (the video may not work, but the audio is clear and easy to follow).

Do you struggle with minimizing teacher talk? At what point in the lesson is it the most difficult to reduce your teacher talk time? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Borrowing Letters

Purpose: This activity provides practice in spelling clarification and requesting to borrow something.

Prep time: 20 minutes

Materials: a set of 5 word cards for each team of 3-4 people (each team should have different words, but the vocabulary should be familiar); one set of alphabet cards that contains all the letters used in the words given to the students (if each group has a word with “i” in it, then you need multiple “i”s in your set of cards).

Prep: see above

Procedure:

1. Divide the class into teams of no more than 3-4 people. Send each team to a separate area of the classroom.

2. Give one word card to each team.

3. The goal is for each team to collect the letters it needs in order to spell the word on its card.

4. Shuffle the alphabet cards and deal 5 alphabet cards to each group. Place the remainder of the cards face down in a pile in the center of the room.

5. Teams check to see if they have any of the letters they need for their first word. They put those aside and decide which letters they still need.

6. Then, one team sends a runner to one of the other teams. This student asks to borrow a letter that the team needs by asking, “Can I please borrow an ‘a’?”

7. The other team responds, “Sure. Here you are.” Or, “Sorry, we need our a’s” or “We don’t have any a’s.”

8. If the runner doesn’t get the card he/she needs, she picks a new card from the pile in the middle of the room and takes it back to the team.

9. Then it’s the next team’s turn.

10. When a team completes a word, it sends a runner to the teacher to get another word from the set of word cards. The first team to complete its word list wins.

Variations:

More advanced students can use forms like, “Would you mind lending me…” or “Could I borrow…”
Ask students to clarify their request by asking, “May I please borrow an a as in apple?”

Involving All Students

Here are some ways to help ensure that all students are included in oral practice.

Many teachers tend to focus on one particular section of the classroom, without realizing it. Is it the area where the “good” students sit, or the front of the class, or the table by the window? Recognizing this tendency will help you adjust your focus and spread your attention more generally around the class.

Use the class list and call on every second or third student as you work your way down the list. Keep the list where you can refer to it easily.

To prevent students from “turning off” once they’ve responded to a question, ask several of them for a second answer later in the sequence. Ask the question first, pause, and then say a student’s name, instead of saying the name first. This way, everyone must listen to the question, in case they’ll be called on to answer it.

Look at the class as a set of lines or rows or groupings and address a question to a person from each row, line, or group.

If you have a few students who tend to shout out answers before anyone else has a chance to respond, make a rule that when a student has responded once, he or she must miss the next three chances before answering again.

After you ask the first question, invite the student who answers to name the student who will answer the next one.

If the student you ask is unable to respond, try repeating the question again. When it’s clear that the student isn’t able to respond, ask another student if he or she knows. If that student isn’t able to respond, open the question up to the group. Avoid asking, “Can anyone help Jamal?”

How do you help students participate in class? Share your ideas in a comment.

Using the Board to Practice Capitalization

Select a series of phrases or sentences that contain a number of different examples of capitalization.

Examples: Paris, France
the month of June
on Park Avenue
the United Nations
Rainbow Foods
Pierre’s wife, Marie
Rosita is from Colombia.
We went to Seattle, Washington, in July.
Why was Henry absent on Thursday?
Have you read the novel Pride and Prejudice?
May I help you?
George and Carla were married in December.
Have you been to the Mall of America in Bloomington?
Laurence was born in France but lives in Minnesota and speaks French and Italian.
Is the new Target store located on Cedar Avenue or Cedar Street?

1) Write the list of phrases and sentences on the board.
2) Ask students to find examples within the phrases in which similar words are capitalized and to formulate rules to cover those situations.
3) If students are literate in a first language that uses the Roman alphabet, ask them to compare capitalization rules in the two languages and note the differences.
4) The next day, write the same phrases and sentences on the board, but without capitalizations. Have students go to the board and make corrections.