PGDE (Secondary) AUG 2014 Intake
QCE520 Language Teaching Approaches
QCE520 LANGUAGE TEACHING APPROACHES AUG 2014 SEMESTER ASSIGNMENT 2 PART 1: LESSON PLAN
Name of Student Teacher Francesca Tan / TG04 & TG number Secondary 3 Normal (Academic) - 19 girls, 21 boys English Language Abilities: The dominant home language of 80% is English. The Class (Level and Stream) remaining 20% of students are from overseas (China and Indonesia) and they speak a language other than English at home. Language Skills
URL of supplementary resources, if any
Primary skills: reading, representing Secondary skills: critical thinking For ACTIVITY I: DIRECTED READING-THINKING ACTIVITY (DRTA) Link A – Google Form for pre-reading predictions: http://goo.gl/wRlesZ Link B – Google form for reading predictions: http://goo.gl/MIhJSz Link C – Consolidated predictions: http://goo.gl/Yg1c3l For ACTIVITY II: CREATE A COMIC STRIP Link D – Comic strip maker: http://www.toondoo.com
Venue
Computer Lab (Each student has access to one computer.)
Learning Outcome/s Refer to the EL syllabus 2010 “Learning Outcomes” column
LO2: Process and comprehend age- and year levelappropriate texts at literal and inferential levels. Lesson 5 in a series of 12 lessons
Learning Objectives Refer to Skills, Strategies, Attitudes and Behaviors i.e. the SSAB column in the EL syllabus 2010
By the end of this lesson, students should be able to accurately: 1. Use prior knowledge. 2. Use contextual clues (knowledge of vocabulary and text features). 3. Make predictions based on prior knowledge and contextual clues using the text Tsunami in Thailand.
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PGDE (Secondary) JAN 2014 Intake
QCE520 Language Teaching Approaches
Previous Lesson
Students continue working individually on their process writing drafts based on peer feedback given during the previous lesson. Students peer edit each other’s draft again, before completing their final draft.
Subsequent Lesson
Students identify techniques used in a visual text to support meaning by analysing the comic strips they have created based on the text Tsunami in Thailand.
Lesson Phase and Duration
Procedures, Activities and Materials 1.1 Teacher posts the following question to students: “Based on your day so far, what do you think will happen the rest of the day?” Teacher elicits responses from several students and prompts them to explain why they think the rest of their day would turn out that way.
Pre-activity (10 min)
1.2 Teacher explains that the short activity they have just done is a form of prediction – the process of estimating what will happen in the future, based on helping clues. e.g. Student A thinks she might have a busy evening (prediction), because she could not complete her assignment in class (clue) and so she would have to complete it later on top of the rest of her homework. 1.3 Teacher explains that the act of making predictions is also a strategy that can enhance one’s comprehension of a text.
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PGDE (Secondary) AUG 2014 Intake
QCE520 Language Teaching Approaches
ACTIVITY I: DRTA [The title of the text Tsunami in Thailand will be modified to A Life-Threatening Experience for this DRTA lesson.] 2.1 Teacher shows students a photograph of a scene from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Thailand (Appendix A) and the title of the passage, A LifeThreatening Experience. Teacher asks students, “Looking at this picture and the title, what do you think will happen in the story? Why?” 2.2 Students submit their predictions individually using Google Forms (Link A). Teacher shows the consolidated list of responses (Link C) onscreen to let students see the different predictions made by their peers. 2.3 Teacher shows the first paragraph of the passage onscreen and selects one student to read it aloud. 2.4 After students finish reading the first paragraph, teacher asks them the following questions: Main Activity (25 min)
i. ii. iii. iv.
“What do you think about your predictions now?” “What did you read in the paragraph that proved your predictions were correct?” OR “What did you read in the paragraph that made you change your predictions? “What do you think will happen next? Why?”
Students submit their responses individually using Google Forms (Link B). Teacher shows the consolidated list of responses (Link C) onscreen and guides students to discuss the various reasons why their peers have confirmed or revised their predictions. 2.5 Teacher draws students’ attention to common or popular predictions and highlights interesting predictions. Teacher calls upon students to explain their predictions and evidence if their responses are vague or require further clarification. 2.6 Teacher does not comment on whether the predictions are correct or incorrect. 2.7 Teacher repeats steps 2.3 to 2.6 with the remaining three paragraphs of Tsunami in Thailand. If necessary, teacher provides the definitions of more complex words or phrases (e.g. “tourniquet,” “relative safety”).
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PGDE (Secondary) JAN 2014 Intake
QCE520 Language Teaching Approaches
ACTIVITY II: CREATE A COMIC STRIP 3.1 Teacher explains to students that the story they have just read relies solely on language to convey its meaning, which comprise of relevant information and s sequence of events. Teacher asks students to brainstorm about other ways a story can be told, and how its meaning can be conveyed not just through language but other mediums as well. Post-activity (20 min)
3.2 Teacher records students’ responses on the whiteboard. Teacher prompts students to consider that stories can be told through comics, which rely on pictures (visuals) as well as language to convey meaning. 3.3 Teacher organises students into groups of four. Using the website ToonDoo (Link D), each group starts creating their own comic strip of a scene from Tsunami in Thailand. 4.1 Teacher concludes lesson by consolidating the key points learnt. 4.2 Teacher informs students they may continue working on their comic strips at home, and that they have the first 15 minutes of the next English lesson to complete them.
Consolidation (5 min)
4.3 Teacher informs students that for the next lesson, each group will analyse another group’s comic strip and identify the techniques used by their peers to create meaning in the comic strip.
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PGDE (Secondary) AUG 2014 Intake
QCE520 Language Teaching Approaches
PART 2: RATIONALE I plan this lesson with the intention of strengthening the students’ critical reading comprehension and viewing skills. Given that the students would have to produce a digital story by the end of this unit, it is essential that they are familiar with narrative structure so that they may apply it effectively in their digital story. As a way of revising narrative structure, I use the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA), a comprehension strategy developed by Russell Stauffer (1969) that guides the reading of narrative texts by allowing students to “stop, confirm or revise previous predictions, and make new predictions about what they will read next” (Conner, 2006). The skill of predicting outcomes can develop interpretive, applicative, and transactive levels of thinking (Ruddell, 1999), and thereby strengthens reading and critical thinking skills.
I begin the lesson with a short pre-activity that would help ease the students into the habit of making predictions. As seen from steps 1.1 and 1.2, getting the students to think about what the rest of their day would be like based on their day so far is a simple way of encouraging them to make predictions. This demonstrates the teaching process of “guiding discovery,” as students learn about the process of making predictions without explicit instruction. By asking the students to explain why they think the rest of their day would turn out the way they have predicted, they would also be prompted to provide justification for their predictions. In this preactivity, students would realise that the act of making predictions and justifying them is a natural process that takes place in their day-to-day lives. When students understand that they have been habitually estimating a future occurrence as a
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PGDE (Secondary) JAN 2014 Intake
QCE520 Language Teaching Approaches
consequence of an occurrence in the past, it would help cultivate the skill of predicting.
With reference to step 2.1, I kick-start the DRTA by showing a photograph of a scene from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Thailand. According to schema theory (Anderson, 2004), it would be beneficial to provide students with a visual stimulus as this helps to activate relevant prior knowledge on the topic of the text. As they “do not spontaneously integrate what they are reading with what they already know” (Anderson, 2004), it is essential that the stimulus allows them to meaningfully integrate what they already know with what they are about to read. However, I modify the title of the text, Tsunami in Thailand, to A Life-Threatening Experience because I think the original title seems too telling of the topic, and may therefore prime or influence the students to make predictions that they would not otherwise make based on the text itself. I also plan for the stopping points of the text to be at the end of each paragraph, which entails that students would pause at four different points of the text to evaluate their predictions and make new ones. This is so that the flow of the text would not be interrupted too often, which may have detrimental effects on comprehension instead.
Evidenced by step 2.4, the DRTA is an effective strategy to strengthen the students’ reading comprehension skills, as it follows the principle of “process orientation” by providing students with a scaffold that directs them “toward a purposeful reading objective” (Ruddell, 1999). Students would read up to each predetermined stopping point of the text and evaluate the predictions they have made prior to reading by answering a set of four questions. Instead of just asking them what they now think
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PGDE (Secondary) AUG 2014 Intake
QCE520 Language Teaching Approaches
about their predictions (2.4.i) and what they think will happen next (2.4.iv), I include two more questions (2.4.ii and 2.4.iii) that specifically ask the students to quote what they have read that led them to either confirm or revise their predictions. These questions clearly require students to provide textual evidence to explain why they think their predictions are valid or unsound before proceed to predict what is going to happen next. Furthermore, question iii. gives students the option to revise their predictions, and this would promote flexible thinking.
I also include step 2.6 in the DRTA, which emphasises that the teacher does not make judgments about the students’ predictions when they are being presented. Instead, it is the students’ responsibility to evaluate for themselves whether or not their predictions are correct after they read the next section of the text. Moreover, schema theory highlights that “often more than one interpretation of a text is possible” (Anderson, 2004), and this suggests that students should be allowed to contribute their predictions freely so long as they can substantiate their claims with evidence from the text. Additionally, even though the Secondary 3 Normal (Academic) students are learners of slightly above average ability, they do not read widely, and a fifth of the class come from overseas and do not converse in English at home. Hence, the more complex or obscure words and phrases found in the text may be met with confusion and impede the students’ prediction-making process. Therefore, providing them with the definitions of these words and phrases, as seen from step 2.7, would aid the students in making predictions.
Since the school places emphasis on information and communications technology (ICT), I incorporate the use of Google Forms (see Links A and B) in the DRTA for the
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PGDE (Secondary) JAN 2014 Intake
QCE520 Language Teaching Approaches
students to submit their predictions. This is a straightforward online questionnaire that allows the teacher to record and consolidate each student’s predictions on a spreadsheet (see Link D) and facilitates active involvement on the part of all students, which is something that is difficult to achieve if the students were to volunteer their predictions verbally. Showing the students their consolidated predictions on a spreadsheet also makes it easier for them to read each other’s responses and consider the text from the perspectives of their classmates.
In order to prepare the students to produce a digital story by the end of the unit, I plan a post-activity that comprises creating a comic strip, as this simulates the creation of a storyboard. This is a simple yet enjoyable activity that would integrate multiliteracy in the classroom, as it encompasses three modes of meaning in the form of linguistic, visual, and spatial design (Chan & Herrero, 2010). Operating on the principle of “learner-centredness,” it is also a suitable activity for this class as the students love reading graphic novels. Hence, this would elicit a desire to create a multimodal text and engage the students better. As a follow-up activity, it builds on what the students would have learnt from the DRTA; in step 3.1, the students would have focused their attention on the relevant textual information in order to make predictions, and understood the text as a constructed sequence of events where one occurrence happens as a result of another. Consequently, this knowledge can be translated into a comic strip, where only the relevant information would be depicted and the panels would be arranged according to the sequence of events. I propose using the website ToonDoo.com for the students to create the comic strip as it is a user-friendly site that allows students to save their work mid-creation, so that they can continue working on it after the lesson.
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