So there I am walking around Hong Kong for the day and I came across something I truly miss since I live in Changhua, Taiwan - a book store. YES! A book store with ENGLISH books in it. Thank you, England, for taking over this city for so long. I cheerfully run into the book store like a kid running to the Christmas tree. I look through every book they have and find NOTHING.
My reading selection is very picky. I only like certain types of books. They had a lot of great novels, cookbooks, and biographies, but nothing really caught my interest. As I was about to walk out, I found it:
http://astore.amazon.com/monteblog-20/detail/0143116738
The book: The Element by Ken Robinson. There was one copy sitting on the table.
I have seen Ken Robinson talk before. He speaks a lot about the importance of creativity in education, so I decided to take a look. Right away, he captured me. Very early in the book, Robinson says:
"...school systems everywhere inculcate us with a very narrow view of intelligence and capacity and overvalue particular sorts of talent and ability. In doing so, they neglect others that are just as important, and they disregard the relationships between them in sustaining the vitality of our lives and communities." (pg. 13-14)
The question Robinson ultimately poses, especially to teachers, is no easy one to answer. How can we help our children to find their element, which he defines as, "the point in which natural talent meets personal passion." How do we get our students to this point?
As an ESL Teacher, we are often very limited in what we actually can do. This is especially true and felt here in Taiwan, where it is often difficult to come across a job where teaching skills are highly valued. The answer to how we do this is simple:
You, too, must find your element with teaching. If you don't truly love this job, then stay here for a year, enjoy the traveling, and move on to wherever you go to next. Just do not be surprised when you come to me explaining your teaching techniques and I roll my eyes when you say sticky ball games are all you need to know.
If you're truly passionate about teaching, then really take the time to learn how students learn, learn about childhood development, learn about Bloom's Taxonomy and how to apply it to the classroom...I don't care what you study about this. The point is if you love teaching, make teaching your element. Make it the thing that really drives you. From there, start to form your philosophy and framework with which to work.
Once you have that, start going out there and selling this idea to schools. It may take a while, but you'll eventually find a school owner that will agree with you. Once you're in there, make that program the best it can be with the help of your owner. You'll be surprised how much happier you are than the 9-5 "turn to the next page" jobs we are often used to here in Taiwan.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
ESL Weekly Tip #3 - Yes, and...
This is WAY too common for foreigners here in Taiwan. You're sitting at a restaurant or a bar and someone comes up to talk to you. He, quite rudely, sits down at your table and demands you cheers him with your beer, which you do right before going back to working on reading your book, grading papers, or doing whatever it was you were doing. Next comes the fun part.
"Hello!"
Yes. He's talking to you. You KNOW how this is going to go. You KNOW this guy wants nothing more than to say he managed to talk to a foreigner. You KNOW this guy is not going to become a close, personal friend. Still...you minimally engage.
"Hi," is your reply. Not even 2 syllables like he produced.
A very awkward conversation follows until his friend comes and pulls him away, apologizing because he was drunk.
After thinking back on many of these conversations, I realized I usually give up because the person has nothing interesting to say. They ask you what you like to do, you say, "bowling," and they say, "Oh. Yes." How are you supposed to reply to that? More importantly, as a teacher, how do you get your students to actually have normal conversations?
The answer, my friends, is in 2 little words. "Yes, and...." This is something any person in improv knows. It is, in fact, the FIRST rule of improv. In improv, we are beaten with this rule. When we begin practicing it, we practice it with the actual words. Later, it becomes second nature to us to just accept everything we are given on stage. For ESL, it is a conversation gold mine. Here's how you use it.
Have your students line up in 2 lines. Designate who starts (which line) so it's easier. The first person walks up and says any non-question sentence:
"Here's your pizza."
"Your shoes look great!"
"This rice is delicious."
The person in front of the other line must reply. The secret is they HAVE to say, "Yes, and ______." They have to start with these two words. A normal conversation might be:
"Here's your pizza." "Yes and it looks great!"
"Your shoes look great!" "Yes and I bought them at Sogo."
"This rice is delicious." "Yes and I poisoned it, you dumb shit!"
Once they say their line, they move to the back of the other line (so they have a turn to do both).
Get in line with them and play this, too. After a few rounds, tell them you are going to do something different. This time, you reply to one of their replies. This time, we are going to see how far we can go with continuing to say "Yes...and...." The alternating conversation might go like this:
"Your shoes look great."
"Yes and I bought them at Sogo."
"Yes and I saw they were on sale."
"Yes and I bought 100 pairs so I never run out."
"Yes and that's a lot of shoes."
Notice at some points, we really wouldn't say "Yes, and" in the conversation. Still have them say it. It's really an exercise in getting them to accept what the person said, acknowledge it and add something to it.
After you do this with a person, have the students get in groups of two. Tell them any person can start, but after that first sentence, every reply must start with "yes, and...."
I did this on Tuesday in an adult class and Wednesday in a kids class. Both could do this for a long time.
Enjoy!
Matt
"Hello!"
Yes. He's talking to you. You KNOW how this is going to go. You KNOW this guy wants nothing more than to say he managed to talk to a foreigner. You KNOW this guy is not going to become a close, personal friend. Still...you minimally engage.
"Hi," is your reply. Not even 2 syllables like he produced.
A very awkward conversation follows until his friend comes and pulls him away, apologizing because he was drunk.
After thinking back on many of these conversations, I realized I usually give up because the person has nothing interesting to say. They ask you what you like to do, you say, "bowling," and they say, "Oh. Yes." How are you supposed to reply to that? More importantly, as a teacher, how do you get your students to actually have normal conversations?
The answer, my friends, is in 2 little words. "Yes, and...." This is something any person in improv knows. It is, in fact, the FIRST rule of improv. In improv, we are beaten with this rule. When we begin practicing it, we practice it with the actual words. Later, it becomes second nature to us to just accept everything we are given on stage. For ESL, it is a conversation gold mine. Here's how you use it.
Have your students line up in 2 lines. Designate who starts (which line) so it's easier. The first person walks up and says any non-question sentence:
"Here's your pizza."
"Your shoes look great!"
"This rice is delicious."
The person in front of the other line must reply. The secret is they HAVE to say, "Yes, and ______." They have to start with these two words. A normal conversation might be:
"Here's your pizza." "Yes and it looks great!"
"Your shoes look great!" "Yes and I bought them at Sogo."
"This rice is delicious." "Yes and I poisoned it, you dumb shit!"
Once they say their line, they move to the back of the other line (so they have a turn to do both).
Get in line with them and play this, too. After a few rounds, tell them you are going to do something different. This time, you reply to one of their replies. This time, we are going to see how far we can go with continuing to say "Yes...and...." The alternating conversation might go like this:
"Your shoes look great."
"Yes and I bought them at Sogo."
"Yes and I saw they were on sale."
"Yes and I bought 100 pairs so I never run out."
"Yes and that's a lot of shoes."
Notice at some points, we really wouldn't say "Yes, and" in the conversation. Still have them say it. It's really an exercise in getting them to accept what the person said, acknowledge it and add something to it.
After you do this with a person, have the students get in groups of two. Tell them any person can start, but after that first sentence, every reply must start with "yes, and...."
I did this on Tuesday in an adult class and Wednesday in a kids class. Both could do this for a long time.
Enjoy!
Matt
Saturday, June 26, 2010
ESL Weekly Tip #2 - Phonics and ESL
We got into a huge discussion online about phonics in ESL programs. I say yes...teach the younger students phonics, but don't do it how Taiwanese do it. Here's my reply. Thought you'd all enjoy it. Feel free to comment.
_______________________
Other Person's Point:
Well, precisely what words will they be reading that they already know? Because if they are "reading" words that are new to them, and grammar patterns that they don't know the meaning of, they are not reading, they are decoding.
*****
My response:
My students easily know most of these words (will vary from student to student):
___________
a words: dad, cat, gas, hat, pan, had, can, man, ran, Sam (since there's a Sam in the school), van, sad, rat, sat, nap, Mat (my name, minus one "t"), map, lap, fat, fan, bag, bad, bat, cap
e words: bed, hen, jet, men, red, ten, yes, wet, web, vet
i words: fin, lip, lid, dig, hit, Jim (again...a student's name), kid, pin, pig, did, him, big, sit, six, bit, fix, win, wig, rib
o words: mop, mom, dog, job, top, hot, not, box, lot, cot (if they use them for naps)
u words: nut, fun, mud, rug, sun, bug, gun, bus, cup, tub, hug, bun, gum
__________________
And that's just looking at CVC words, which is where they start sounding out the words and spelling them. That doesn't include a list of other words once they both move from that process into reading and move into other areas as well.
I would have to question the effectiveness of any ESL program that says its Kindergarten students do not know a good enough portion of the words above to be able to sound them out and spell them. Reading might be a whole different story, as they might not have come to the realization of how to read them yet. But with a big box of cut out letters, if they can't spell things out phonetically by the end of the year, even CVC short vowel words, that's a huge red flag for me as to them missing something that the students both love and is beneficial to them.
[quote]By all means, give 6 year olds simple texts, scaffolded by appropriate illustrations and lots of them, containing language they already know by ear. But don't give them children's books just because they're children's books for little native speaking kids in the US or Britain.[/quote]
The students reading books comes later in this process. To be effective, the teacher has to assess exactly where the students are. Possibly an overview might help here. A lot of this comes from several sources, so bear with me as I page through things. It might be a little disorganized and I apologize if it is:
1) I believe you're correct in developing oral language first. Along with just a list of words or phrases, it is also important to do many things with oral language:
--Rhyming games
--Telling stories
*with or without a book
*with or without props
*stories where each person adds a part
*stories with drama
--Giving directions (one step at a time to begin).
--Playing opposite games
There's a huge list that can be added here. I'm sure the list is endless.
2) The desire must be built within the child to want to read. In my 3-6 Language course, I was given a great paper by Carol Woods, who is a fantastic teacher. It has many ways to support literacy. It goes into a little more detail than I do here, but here's the basic summary of it. I'm going to take some away from this list because they might not be relevant to ESL or Kindergarten. Remember that the ultimate goal is the desire to read. This is done through them understanding the intrinsic value of writing and reading:
*Read aloud every day.
*Read poems that make words fun. (Think Dr. Seuess)
*Involve children who can read to read to the younger ones that cannot. (My note added: Look into research about how much more children can learn from other children than what they can learn from the teacher. I remember one specific study that even went back to infants with this. An infant who sees another infant starting to walk is more likely going to try to walk himself and begin walking.)
*Model reading.
*Model writing. Read things aloud as you write.
*De-emphasize the importance of spelling and handwriting. Just get them doing it.
*Group story telling where they tell the story and you write it down.
*Eliminate erasers. I don't FULLY agree with this point, but think of how much time your students spend erasing just to "get the right thing." Find some way, at least, to get rid of that.
*Trace below the words (such as with your finger) as you read with one child.
*Emphasize left to right, top to bottom. (Note: She talks about using a sticker if necessary. That's OK, but remember to do this in everything you do as much as possible. When you're showing them how to spoon, tong, etc., are you doing it so they see it from left to right? Those little details help a LOT!)
*Play rhyming, opposite, who am I? games on field trip van rides.
*Provide functional signs in the environment. (How to care for a class pet, for example).
*Listen to the students. Avoid interrupting, even if there's a distraction going on that you normally SHOULD address.
*Engage in book writing with the group. Utilize as many things as possible. If the students cannot spell yet...even if it's all of them that cannot...then work with simply a picture book. Laminate the books they do and have them on display in the classroom.
*(My addition) Encourage "made up" reading. Students who do not know the text yet often like to look at pictures in the book and create their own story. If a student has trouble doing this because they see the text and they think there must be a right answer, there are several story books out there that only have pictures. There are some with open-ended pictures that can be interpreted in many different ways.
________________
From here, we can see the writing/reading process in two different ways:
--Ablity to discriminate between the various sounds. This will eventually lead into students being able to spell out words and move into reading words.
--Ability to write the words down when it comes time.
Both of these skills can be developed separately with a variety of activities. To make things easier, I originally started to type up how to build the skills separately, but that won't give a very good time frame, which is more useful. When I talk about the actual phonetic sounds, I will use "p" next to the number. When I talk about the use of the writing utensils, I will use "w." When they combine, I'll use "pw."
(p) Auditory discrimination. The next step is auditory discrimination. For the child to understand who to take the word "bat" and break it up into many sounds requires quite a bit of skill. Some activities to promote this are:
*Rhyming with objects - have objects in a basket the child can select that have rhyming objects in it. It is important that the child know what the objects are since the focus is not a vocabulary lesson. If the child does not know the objects, simply turn this into a vocabulary lesson until he or she does know them then continue. I've noticed it just takes time for students to "get" rhyming. If they do not understand it, play other rhyming games later, but don't let on that they didn't "get it." This is a developmental thing and it the last thing you want to do is make them think they are doing it incorrectly and get them frustrated.
*Beginning sound discrimination. Start with things that all sound the same together. A basket with a spoon, sand, snowman, sandwich, and star would be an example. Point out how they all begin with the same sound as you say them and emphasize the sound to them. Once the child seems to get that, play games such as "I spy" or "Bring me something that starts with /m/." Notice I took out what I perceive to be one of the biggest flaws of the "old way" of doing phonics - I haven't mentioned the NAME of a letter yet. My other pet peeve are when they learn to pronounce the sounds incorrectly. (More on that later).
(p) Along with auditory discrimination, we also need visual discrimination. Look for matching objects (then pictures...even combining objects to pictures), patterning (red, red, blue...red, red, blue...), and sequencing (putting pictures of a story together in the right sequence. Example: a picture starts with a dirty table, the child carries the dishes to the sink, the dishes are washed.)
(w) While this is happening, a lot of stuff has to happen for the mechanical writing process. Do your kindergarten students:
*Have puzzles available to them that have knobs which encourage a 3 finger pinch?
*Have daily life activities, such as spooning, tonging, or other activities available to them?
*Serve themselves lunch, thus requiring more control of the motor skills? Or does the teacher simply dish it out to make it faster, thus depriving them of this important task?
*Have clay? (Play dough is OK, but clay is more tactile).
(p) Once auditory and visual discrimination is well formed, we can move into key sounds. Before showing the students an actual letter, it is important that they know how to hear the first sound. A prerequisite to this would be how well they seem to understand the sound basket I mentioned above. Now use a basket full of things that all have different sounds. Snake, cat, dog, monkey, and apple might be 5 objects easy to find. Play the game of "I spy." If the child can say all the words, say, "I spy with my little eye something that begins with /a/." (Not the letter "a," the sound "aaaa.")
(p) The introduction of letters, for me, begins with these:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003BGOE98?ie=UTF8&tag=monteblog-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B003BGOE98
These are smooth pieces of wood, painted red for consonants and blue for vowels, that have sandpaper cut out letters glued on to them. As the child traces the letter, he or she says the sound it makes. The most annoying thing in Taiwan is when a teacher, either due to lack of experience or being Taiwanese, simply says the letter sounds incorrectly. I am teaching a level 4 class right now and it is full of students with reading difficulties. They simply did not learn how to properly say the sounds of the letters. Listening to them read, you can hear the struggle in their voice. Let's just assume (incorrectly) that they do not know the word "pet." When it comes time to read it, they sound it out as:
"/puh/ /a/ /tuh/."
This one syllable word turned into 3 syllables with the wrong vowel sound. They're doing 3 times the work, getting none of the results, and are confused at the end of the process. The time to teach them the correct sounds is when they are younger, when it's easier for them to move the mouth muscles into the correct formation.
(w) While the introduction of letter sounds corresponding to the letters is happening, it is also important to not ignore the fine motor skills of the hand. One of the biggest problems with pencils at this age is not so much how they grab the pencil (since there are all those other activities that make the three finger grip natural...see above). The problem I encounter tends to be the amount of pressure put on the pencil and the overall control of the pencil. I recommend using this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001RJYAK4?ie=UTF8&tag=monteblog-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001RJYAK4
I know that looks expensive, but this is one thing that can be made easily with cardboard and a nice box cutter. It won't last as long or be as nice, but will still serve a similar purpose. The child can trace the shape on a piece of paper the same size. Colored pencils are used for this. The blue piece is harder than the yellow piece and requires much more control, which the students love to challenge themselves with. Things such as lines drawn in there, different shading (dark to light or vice versa), or even different designs can be made with these materials. It's an effortless way to get the students to easily control their pencil.
(pw) Once the student has learned a few consonants and at least one vowel, you can likely get them to spell out words. I introduce my big box of cut out letters (moveable alphabet). Like the sandpaper letters above, they have red for consonants and blue for vowels. I first introduce the sounds that he or she knows so it's clear that the letters can look different, but the sounds are the same. Then give the child a word to spell. "Man." Have the child hold up 3 fingers. Grab the finger tip of the one on the left (his left...not yours) and say, "mmm" Grab the middle one and say "aaa." Grab the last one and say, "nnn." (I typed them three times to signify saying them longer, not saying it three times. Again, remember to use the sounds). If the child needs help, refer back to the fingers and draw the connection between the different sounds. This is a great stepping stone for children. You'll eventually see them doing this on their own without you telling them the letters. They may or may not get rid of it before, or even after, learning to read the words.
The interesting thing is that they will spell out so many words independently, but if you ask them to read them, they will have no clue what they wrote. This is important because they are two completely different processes. We also often start with, what I feel, is the wrong one ~ reading. In reality, spelling comes first, but our focus on spelling is with writing so we don't see it as easily. The nice thing about this is that once the student finishes a few words, they often WANT to write them, maybe even with a picture. On top of that, they also already have the motor skills and experience to control a pencil so they can do it easily. This is where it all comes together.
After a while, another student might walk by and read the words the child wrote. That's often how the light switch kicks in where the child realizes, "Oh...we can read these." You can then use either the sandpaper letters of the moveable alphabet to show it. Just line up a CVC word and ask what each sound is. Tell the student to say it faster. I noticed it helps if they almost sing the first consonant and the vowel. If they get it, great. If not, it will happen.
Once a child is reading, there are a lot of things that can be done. Command cards that tell them what to do, books, spelling out phrases (remember phonetically is OK. "fat apl" is just as good at this stage as "fat apple"), labelling pictures, or creating their own book of words they can take home with them.
The important thing is to know where the students are and what they need help with and when to let them struggle. Lev Vygotsky calls this the zone of proximal development. Does the student still need you to tell him what the 3 finger sounds are or is he ready to try to decide on his own? Does the student ready to try the metal inset tracing or does she still need fine motor skills? The process of knowing what comes next and giving them the next step (scaffolding) is very important.
*****************
Other person's point:
By all means, give 6 year olds simple texts, scaffolded by appropriate illustrations and lots of them, containing language they already know by ear. But don't give them children's books just because they're children's books for little native speaking kids in the US or Britain.
******************
My response:
Remember to also include books that have new language in it. Reinforcing is important, but literacy is the best way to build vocabulary. By literacy, I don't simply mean the ability to read and write. I also mean what stories they hear or are read.
Students reading books is quite a few steps along the process. It's important to have books that students can read when they get to certain levels, but I would recommend selecting books more on their ability to engage the children. A story such as "Caps for Sale," where a cap peddler gets all his caps stolen by monkeys, is quite an engaging story and has a lot of repetitive language, which is important for vocabulary building and auditory discrimination.
Often times, it is helpful to put more emphasis on certain key words in the story. You might want to focus on action words and have the student act out those actions, in place if it's in a group classroom (as opposed to a private tutor). In "Caps for Sale," you might say something like:
"The peddler PULLED OFF his CAP, THREW it to the ground, and began to WALK AWAY" while doing the motions you want the students to mime out. For some, they might genuinely understand. For others, they might just be doing what you're doing. Both are building a skill. The one that understands is building his vocabulary and comprehension. The one that is simply imitating is building a skill of listening (they'll soon know WHEN to do these actions) and observation and the connection of the language will come later.
So...out of curiosity...what is not age appropriate in what I suggest?
_______________________
Other Person's Point:
Well, precisely what words will they be reading that they already know? Because if they are "reading" words that are new to them, and grammar patterns that they don't know the meaning of, they are not reading, they are decoding.
*****
My response:
My students easily know most of these words (will vary from student to student):
___________
a words: dad, cat, gas, hat, pan, had, can, man, ran, Sam (since there's a Sam in the school), van, sad, rat, sat, nap, Mat (my name, minus one "t"), map, lap, fat, fan, bag, bad, bat, cap
e words: bed, hen, jet, men, red, ten, yes, wet, web, vet
i words: fin, lip, lid, dig, hit, Jim (again...a student's name), kid, pin, pig, did, him, big, sit, six, bit, fix, win, wig, rib
o words: mop, mom, dog, job, top, hot, not, box, lot, cot (if they use them for naps)
u words: nut, fun, mud, rug, sun, bug, gun, bus, cup, tub, hug, bun, gum
__________________
And that's just looking at CVC words, which is where they start sounding out the words and spelling them. That doesn't include a list of other words once they both move from that process into reading and move into other areas as well.
I would have to question the effectiveness of any ESL program that says its Kindergarten students do not know a good enough portion of the words above to be able to sound them out and spell them. Reading might be a whole different story, as they might not have come to the realization of how to read them yet. But with a big box of cut out letters, if they can't spell things out phonetically by the end of the year, even CVC short vowel words, that's a huge red flag for me as to them missing something that the students both love and is beneficial to them.
[quote]By all means, give 6 year olds simple texts, scaffolded by appropriate illustrations and lots of them, containing language they already know by ear. But don't give them children's books just because they're children's books for little native speaking kids in the US or Britain.[/quote]
The students reading books comes later in this process. To be effective, the teacher has to assess exactly where the students are. Possibly an overview might help here. A lot of this comes from several sources, so bear with me as I page through things. It might be a little disorganized and I apologize if it is:
1) I believe you're correct in developing oral language first. Along with just a list of words or phrases, it is also important to do many things with oral language:
--Rhyming games
--Telling stories
*with or without a book
*with or without props
*stories where each person adds a part
*stories with drama
--Giving directions (one step at a time to begin).
--Playing opposite games
There's a huge list that can be added here. I'm sure the list is endless.
2) The desire must be built within the child to want to read. In my 3-6 Language course, I was given a great paper by Carol Woods, who is a fantastic teacher. It has many ways to support literacy. It goes into a little more detail than I do here, but here's the basic summary of it. I'm going to take some away from this list because they might not be relevant to ESL or Kindergarten. Remember that the ultimate goal is the desire to read. This is done through them understanding the intrinsic value of writing and reading:
*Read aloud every day.
*Read poems that make words fun. (Think Dr. Seuess)
*Involve children who can read to read to the younger ones that cannot. (My note added: Look into research about how much more children can learn from other children than what they can learn from the teacher. I remember one specific study that even went back to infants with this. An infant who sees another infant starting to walk is more likely going to try to walk himself and begin walking.)
*Model reading.
*Model writing. Read things aloud as you write.
*De-emphasize the importance of spelling and handwriting. Just get them doing it.
*Group story telling where they tell the story and you write it down.
*Eliminate erasers. I don't FULLY agree with this point, but think of how much time your students spend erasing just to "get the right thing." Find some way, at least, to get rid of that.
*Trace below the words (such as with your finger) as you read with one child.
*Emphasize left to right, top to bottom. (Note: She talks about using a sticker if necessary. That's OK, but remember to do this in everything you do as much as possible. When you're showing them how to spoon, tong, etc., are you doing it so they see it from left to right? Those little details help a LOT!)
*Play rhyming, opposite, who am I? games on field trip van rides.
*Provide functional signs in the environment. (How to care for a class pet, for example).
*Listen to the students. Avoid interrupting, even if there's a distraction going on that you normally SHOULD address.
*Engage in book writing with the group. Utilize as many things as possible. If the students cannot spell yet...even if it's all of them that cannot...then work with simply a picture book. Laminate the books they do and have them on display in the classroom.
*(My addition) Encourage "made up" reading. Students who do not know the text yet often like to look at pictures in the book and create their own story. If a student has trouble doing this because they see the text and they think there must be a right answer, there are several story books out there that only have pictures. There are some with open-ended pictures that can be interpreted in many different ways.
________________
From here, we can see the writing/reading process in two different ways:
--Ablity to discriminate between the various sounds. This will eventually lead into students being able to spell out words and move into reading words.
--Ability to write the words down when it comes time.
Both of these skills can be developed separately with a variety of activities. To make things easier, I originally started to type up how to build the skills separately, but that won't give a very good time frame, which is more useful. When I talk about the actual phonetic sounds, I will use "p" next to the number. When I talk about the use of the writing utensils, I will use "w." When they combine, I'll use "pw."
(p) Auditory discrimination. The next step is auditory discrimination. For the child to understand who to take the word "bat" and break it up into many sounds requires quite a bit of skill. Some activities to promote this are:
*Rhyming with objects - have objects in a basket the child can select that have rhyming objects in it. It is important that the child know what the objects are since the focus is not a vocabulary lesson. If the child does not know the objects, simply turn this into a vocabulary lesson until he or she does know them then continue. I've noticed it just takes time for students to "get" rhyming. If they do not understand it, play other rhyming games later, but don't let on that they didn't "get it." This is a developmental thing and it the last thing you want to do is make them think they are doing it incorrectly and get them frustrated.
*Beginning sound discrimination. Start with things that all sound the same together. A basket with a spoon, sand, snowman, sandwich, and star would be an example. Point out how they all begin with the same sound as you say them and emphasize the sound to them. Once the child seems to get that, play games such as "I spy" or "Bring me something that starts with /m/." Notice I took out what I perceive to be one of the biggest flaws of the "old way" of doing phonics - I haven't mentioned the NAME of a letter yet. My other pet peeve are when they learn to pronounce the sounds incorrectly. (More on that later).
(p) Along with auditory discrimination, we also need visual discrimination. Look for matching objects (then pictures...even combining objects to pictures), patterning (red, red, blue...red, red, blue...), and sequencing (putting pictures of a story together in the right sequence. Example: a picture starts with a dirty table, the child carries the dishes to the sink, the dishes are washed.)
(w) While this is happening, a lot of stuff has to happen for the mechanical writing process. Do your kindergarten students:
*Have puzzles available to them that have knobs which encourage a 3 finger pinch?
*Have daily life activities, such as spooning, tonging, or other activities available to them?
*Serve themselves lunch, thus requiring more control of the motor skills? Or does the teacher simply dish it out to make it faster, thus depriving them of this important task?
*Have clay? (Play dough is OK, but clay is more tactile).
(p) Once auditory and visual discrimination is well formed, we can move into key sounds. Before showing the students an actual letter, it is important that they know how to hear the first sound. A prerequisite to this would be how well they seem to understand the sound basket I mentioned above. Now use a basket full of things that all have different sounds. Snake, cat, dog, monkey, and apple might be 5 objects easy to find. Play the game of "I spy." If the child can say all the words, say, "I spy with my little eye something that begins with /a/." (Not the letter "a," the sound "aaaa.")
(p) The introduction of letters, for me, begins with these:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/p
These are smooth pieces of wood, painted red for consonants and blue for vowels, that have sandpaper cut out letters glued on to them. As the child traces the letter, he or she says the sound it makes. The most annoying thing in Taiwan is when a teacher, either due to lack of experience or being Taiwanese, simply says the letter sounds incorrectly. I am teaching a level 4 class right now and it is full of students with reading difficulties. They simply did not learn how to properly say the sounds of the letters. Listening to them read, you can hear the struggle in their voice. Let's just assume (incorrectly) that they do not know the word "pet." When it comes time to read it, they sound it out as:
"/puh/ /a/ /tuh/."
This one syllable word turned into 3 syllables with the wrong vowel sound. They're doing 3 times the work, getting none of the results, and are confused at the end of the process. The time to teach them the correct sounds is when they are younger, when it's easier for them to move the mouth muscles into the correct formation.
(w) While the introduction of letter sounds corresponding to the letters is happening, it is also important to not ignore the fine motor skills of the hand. One of the biggest problems with pencils at this age is not so much how they grab the pencil (since there are all those other activities that make the three finger grip natural...see above). The problem I encounter tends to be the amount of pressure put on the pencil and the overall control of the pencil. I recommend using this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/p
I know that looks expensive, but this is one thing that can be made easily with cardboard and a nice box cutter. It won't last as long or be as nice, but will still serve a similar purpose. The child can trace the shape on a piece of paper the same size. Colored pencils are used for this. The blue piece is harder than the yellow piece and requires much more control, which the students love to challenge themselves with. Things such as lines drawn in there, different shading (dark to light or vice versa), or even different designs can be made with these materials. It's an effortless way to get the students to easily control their pencil.
(pw) Once the student has learned a few consonants and at least one vowel, you can likely get them to spell out words. I introduce my big box of cut out letters (moveable alphabet). Like the sandpaper letters above, they have red for consonants and blue for vowels. I first introduce the sounds that he or she knows so it's clear that the letters can look different, but the sounds are the same. Then give the child a word to spell. "Man." Have the child hold up 3 fingers. Grab the finger tip of the one on the left (his left...not yours) and say, "mmm" Grab the middle one and say "aaa." Grab the last one and say, "nnn." (I typed them three times to signify saying them longer, not saying it three times. Again, remember to use the sounds). If the child needs help, refer back to the fingers and draw the connection between the different sounds. This is a great stepping stone for children. You'll eventually see them doing this on their own without you telling them the letters. They may or may not get rid of it before, or even after, learning to read the words.
The interesting thing is that they will spell out so many words independently, but if you ask them to read them, they will have no clue what they wrote. This is important because they are two completely different processes. We also often start with, what I feel, is the wrong one ~ reading. In reality, spelling comes first, but our focus on spelling is with writing so we don't see it as easily. The nice thing about this is that once the student finishes a few words, they often WANT to write them, maybe even with a picture. On top of that, they also already have the motor skills and experience to control a pencil so they can do it easily. This is where it all comes together.
After a while, another student might walk by and read the words the child wrote. That's often how the light switch kicks in where the child realizes, "Oh...we can read these." You can then use either the sandpaper letters of the moveable alphabet to show it. Just line up a CVC word and ask what each sound is. Tell the student to say it faster. I noticed it helps if they almost sing the first consonant and the vowel. If they get it, great. If not, it will happen.
Once a child is reading, there are a lot of things that can be done. Command cards that tell them what to do, books, spelling out phrases (remember phonetically is OK. "fat apl" is just as good at this stage as "fat apple"), labelling pictures, or creating their own book of words they can take home with them.
The important thing is to know where the students are and what they need help with and when to let them struggle. Lev Vygotsky calls this the zone of proximal development. Does the student still need you to tell him what the 3 finger sounds are or is he ready to try to decide on his own? Does the student ready to try the metal inset tracing or does she still need fine motor skills? The process of knowing what comes next and giving them the next step (scaffolding) is very important.
*****************
Other person's point:
By all means, give 6 year olds simple texts, scaffolded by appropriate illustrations and lots of them, containing language they already know by ear. But don't give them children's books just because they're children's books for little native speaking kids in the US or Britain.
******************
My response:
Remember to also include books that have new language in it. Reinforcing is important, but literacy is the best way to build vocabulary. By literacy, I don't simply mean the ability to read and write. I also mean what stories they hear or are read.
Students reading books is quite a few steps along the process. It's important to have books that students can read when they get to certain levels, but I would recommend selecting books more on their ability to engage the children. A story such as "Caps for Sale," where a cap peddler gets all his caps stolen by monkeys, is quite an engaging story and has a lot of repetitive language, which is important for vocabulary building and auditory discrimination.
Often times, it is helpful to put more emphasis on certain key words in the story. You might want to focus on action words and have the student act out those actions, in place if it's in a group classroom (as opposed to a private tutor). In "Caps for Sale," you might say something like:
"The peddler PULLED OFF his CAP, THREW it to the ground, and began to WALK AWAY" while doing the motions you want the students to mime out. For some, they might genuinely understand. For others, they might just be doing what you're doing. Both are building a skill. The one that understands is building his vocabulary and comprehension. The one that is simply imitating is building a skill of listening (they'll soon know WHEN to do these actions) and observation and the connection of the language will come later.
So...out of curiosity...what is not age appropriate in what I suggest?
Friday, June 18, 2010
ESL Weekly Tip #1 - Creating Sentences
I can't tell you how many higher level ESL classrooms I walked into where the students had a big problem - they DREADED creating sentences with their new vocabulary words. I was shocked the first time I saw it, but soon realized it is a very common problem in Taiwan.
The biggest problem is simply how they treat the language here. For a foreigner, English is a method of communication. For Taiwanese, English often tends to be about passing a test or showing off that you can say certain things. If you need any proof of this, simply ask someone the question, "How are you?" You'll see what I mean. That parroted, robot-like response of, "I'm fine, thank you. And you?" drives anyone insane who has taught here for more than a week. This is, however, exactly what they are used to. English is taught as "I say this...you say that." Any deviation easily confuses them. To ask a student who is used to parroting answers to develop their own sentence is, quite honestly, overwhelming to them. If English is about saying what you've heard a million times, it is hard to say something if you never heard it before. So...what do you do?
To do this, the students need knowledge of two things:
1) What a verb is.
2) A good understanding of many of the question words and phrases.
Most teachers like to teach the idea of SVO sentences. (Subject - Verb - Object). They'll want the student to think of the subject first, then the verb, then the object. This is fine to a point, but I find it a little too advanced for a student locking up easily. It also easily leads to many boring sentences. Let me suggest something else....start with the verb.
I can hear you already. "What? The verb? What's wrong with you?" Well...let's take a word and watch what happens.
I draw a diagram similar to this on the board:
http://www.montessoriedutoys.com/upload/20090325005838_285.jpg
I have the red circle, the two black arrows, and 2 black circles. Above the black arrow on the left, I write "Who....?" and under it I write "What....?" Above the black arrows on the right, I put "....whom?" and "...what?" (If you're not as lazy as me, you can make these and print them up, but I realized in a group setting, having it up on the board helps enough).
To see how to create sentences, let's first look at how this material is actually used. Let's take an easy SVO sentence:
Matt eats a pizza.
We can write this down on a piece of paper, tear it up into different parts ("Matt," "eats," and "a pizza"), and we are ready to begin.
We begin with the verb: eats. We put that down on the red circle (red circles symbolize verbs in the Montessori method...that's for a different discussion another week).
We then go to the subject. The arrow to the left says "Who....? What....?" I pick the appropriate one and ask the question. In this case, it is "Who?" So I say, "Who eats?" (Obvious answer: Matt). I put "Matt" on the black circle.
Then we have the next set of question arrows.
"Matt eats.....what?" (a pizza). We put "a pizza" over that circle and we're done.
As the students understand this, it's fun to switch it around. ("A pizza eats Matt?")
For a student to create his or her own sentence, a little adjustment has to be made, but many of the ideas stay the same. It is important to focus on the verb first so you can ask questions that guide them through this process. If the word they are using to create a sentence is not a verb, still start with the verb. If the word they are learning is musician, still start with a verb. Here's how the classroom discussion might go. (S = Student. T = Teacher).
T = Give me a verb.
S = kick.
T = OK. (Write "kick" under the red circle. Point to the "Who" question). Who kicks? (Notice I wrote down his form: kick, but I used the correct form in the question).
S = A musician.
T = (Write "A musician" below the black circle on the left). A musician KICK?!?!
S = Kicks!
T = (Fix the verb. On the next part, point to the appropriate places on the board as you say them). "A musician kicks....what?"
S = A duck.
T = (Write "A duck" under the black circle on the right).
Now, there are two things I am going to point out. One, there is a problem with the sentence above. Part of the goal of the sentence should be to show that the student knows the meaning of the word. This clearly does not show that. The other thing I want to point out is that there can be more added to this. Let me address these issues separately.
Assuming I am working with a VERY basic level, I would point out that is a good sentence, but it does not show really what musicians do. Don't stop it until you've had a little fun with it, though. Notice the learning that did go on that was non-vocabulary related (subject-verb agreement, beginning knowledge of subjects and direct objects). Still, I would ask the student to supply me with a verb that more fits with the vocabulary word. "Plays," "brings," "carries," "takes" can lead to sentences such as "A musician:
1) plays the guitar.
2) brings his violin.
3) carries his music.
4) takes piano lessons.
Usually, you will be teaching higher level students this exercise since that is where many schools begin requiring sentences of a certain amount of words. For that, we want something where they can add more to the sentence:
http://www.montessoriedutoys.com/upload/20090325005431_582.jpg
Before you feel intimidated, don't worry. You won't have to draw this on the board. Go over your "Wh" questions. Let's pick up with the sentence "The musician kicked the duck" and see how we can still make this work. For this, you can just write out the sentence across the board as they say it.
T - "The musician kicks the duck....where?"
S- "In the park."
T - "He kicks the duck .... When?
S - Last week.
T - The musician KICKS last week!?
S - kicked
T - (change it to kicked). The duck kicked ....why?
S - because he is mad.
T - he IS mad LAST WEEK?
S - because he was mad.
T - Can we tie it in more with him being a musician?
S - Because the duck eats ....
T - ...wait. (Point to "Last week")
S - the duck ate the musician's violin
T - OK. So "The musician kicked the duck in the park last week because the duck ate the musician's violin." You have to write 10 word sentences for homework. Let's take a look at how many words you have.
(Just so you know, that is 17 words). You'll likely get a few running jokes (I had a student that always talked about his little island in every class). Suddenly, your students will love writing sentences rather than dreading it.
The biggest problem is simply how they treat the language here. For a foreigner, English is a method of communication. For Taiwanese, English often tends to be about passing a test or showing off that you can say certain things. If you need any proof of this, simply ask someone the question, "How are you?" You'll see what I mean. That parroted, robot-like response of, "I'm fine, thank you. And you?" drives anyone insane who has taught here for more than a week. This is, however, exactly what they are used to. English is taught as "I say this...you say that." Any deviation easily confuses them. To ask a student who is used to parroting answers to develop their own sentence is, quite honestly, overwhelming to them. If English is about saying what you've heard a million times, it is hard to say something if you never heard it before. So...what do you do?
To do this, the students need knowledge of two things:
1) What a verb is.
2) A good understanding of many of the question words and phrases.
Most teachers like to teach the idea of SVO sentences. (Subject - Verb - Object). They'll want the student to think of the subject first, then the verb, then the object. This is fine to a point, but I find it a little too advanced for a student locking up easily. It also easily leads to many boring sentences. Let me suggest something else....start with the verb.
I can hear you already. "What? The verb? What's wrong with you?" Well...let's take a word and watch what happens.
I draw a diagram similar to this on the board:
http://www.montessorieduto
I have the red circle, the two black arrows, and 2 black circles. Above the black arrow on the left, I write "Who....?" and under it I write "What....?" Above the black arrows on the right, I put "....whom?" and "...what?" (If you're not as lazy as me, you can make these and print them up, but I realized in a group setting, having it up on the board helps enough).
To see how to create sentences, let's first look at how this material is actually used. Let's take an easy SVO sentence:
Matt eats a pizza.
We can write this down on a piece of paper, tear it up into different parts ("Matt," "eats," and "a pizza"), and we are ready to begin.
We begin with the verb: eats. We put that down on the red circle (red circles symbolize verbs in the Montessori method...that's for a different discussion another week).
We then go to the subject. The arrow to the left says "Who....? What....?" I pick the appropriate one and ask the question. In this case, it is "Who?" So I say, "Who eats?" (Obvious answer: Matt). I put "Matt" on the black circle.
Then we have the next set of question arrows.
"Matt eats.....what?" (a pizza). We put "a pizza" over that circle and we're done.
As the students understand this, it's fun to switch it around. ("A pizza eats Matt?")
For a student to create his or her own sentence, a little adjustment has to be made, but many of the ideas stay the same. It is important to focus on the verb first so you can ask questions that guide them through this process. If the word they are using to create a sentence is not a verb, still start with the verb. If the word they are learning is musician, still start with a verb. Here's how the classroom discussion might go. (S = Student. T = Teacher).
T = Give me a verb.
S = kick.
T = OK. (Write "kick" under the red circle. Point to the "Who" question). Who kicks? (Notice I wrote down his form: kick, but I used the correct form in the question).
S = A musician.
T = (Write "A musician" below the black circle on the left). A musician KICK?!?!
S = Kicks!
T = (Fix the verb. On the next part, point to the appropriate places on the board as you say them). "A musician kicks....what?"
S = A duck.
T = (Write "A duck" under the black circle on the right).
Now, there are two things I am going to point out. One, there is a problem with the sentence above. Part of the goal of the sentence should be to show that the student knows the meaning of the word. This clearly does not show that. The other thing I want to point out is that there can be more added to this. Let me address these issues separately.
Assuming I am working with a VERY basic level, I would point out that is a good sentence, but it does not show really what musicians do. Don't stop it until you've had a little fun with it, though. Notice the learning that did go on that was non-vocabulary related (subject-verb agreement, beginning knowledge of subjects and direct objects). Still, I would ask the student to supply me with a verb that more fits with the vocabulary word. "Plays," "brings," "carries," "takes" can lead to sentences such as "A musician:
1) plays the guitar.
2) brings his violin.
3) carries his music.
4) takes piano lessons.
Usually, you will be teaching higher level students this exercise since that is where many schools begin requiring sentences of a certain amount of words. For that, we want something where they can add more to the sentence:
http://www.montessorieduto
Before you feel intimidated, don't worry. You won't have to draw this on the board. Go over your "Wh" questions. Let's pick up with the sentence "The musician kicked the duck" and see how we can still make this work. For this, you can just write out the sentence across the board as they say it.
T - "The musician kicks the duck....where?"
S- "In the park."
T - "He kicks the duck .... When?
S - Last week.
T - The musician KICKS last week!?
S - kicked
T - (change it to kicked). The duck kicked ....why?
S - because he is mad.
T - he IS mad LAST WEEK?
S - because he was mad.
T - Can we tie it in more with him being a musician?
S - Because the duck eats ....
T - ...wait. (Point to "Last week")
S - the duck ate the musician's violin
T - OK. So "The musician kicked the duck in the park last week because the duck ate the musician's violin." You have to write 10 word sentences for homework. Let's take a look at how many words you have.
(Just so you know, that is 17 words). You'll likely get a few running jokes (I had a student that always talked about his little island in every class). Suddenly, your students will love writing sentences rather than dreading it.
ESL Weekly Tip #1 - Creating Sentences
I can't tell you how many higher level ESL classrooms I walked into where the students had a big problem - they DREADED creating sentences with their new vocabulary words. I was shocked the first time I saw it, but soon realized it is a very common problem in Taiwan.
The biggest problem is simply how they treat the language here. For a foreigner, English is a method of communication. For Taiwanese, English often tends to be about passing a test or showing off that you can say certain things. If you need any proof of this, simply ask someone the question, "How are you?" You'll see what I mean. That parroted, robot-like response of, "I'm fine, thank you. And you?" drives anyone insane who has taught here for more than a week. This is, however, exactly what they are used to. English is taught as "I say this...you say that." Any deviation easily confuses them. To ask a student who is used to parroting answers to develop their own sentence is, quite honestly, overwhelming to them. If English is about saying what you've heard a million times, it is hard to say something if you never heard it before. So...what do you do?
To do this, the students need knowledge of two things:
1) What a verb is.
2) A good understanding of many of the question words and phrases.
Most teachers like to teach the idea of SVO sentences. (Subject - Verb - Object). They'll want the student to think of the subject first, then the verb, then the object. This is fine to a point, but I find it a little too advanced for a student locking up easily. It also easily leads to many boring sentences. Let me suggest something else....start with the verb.
I can hear you already. "What? The verb? What's wrong with you?" Well...let's take a word and watch what happens.
I draw a diagram similar to this on the board:
http://www.montessoriedutoys.com/upload/20090325005838_285.jpg
I have the red circle, the two black arrows, and 2 black circles. Above the black arrow on the left, I write "Who....?" and under it I write "What....?" Above the black arrows on the right, I put "....whom?" and "...what?" (If you're not as lazy as me, you can make these and print them up, but I realized in a group setting, having it up on the board helps enough).
To see how to create sentences, let's first look at how this material is actually used. Let's take an easy SVO sentence:
Matt eats a pizza.
We can write this down on a piece of paper, tear it up into different parts ("Matt," "eats," and "a pizza"), and we are ready to begin.
We begin with the verb: eats. We put that down on the red circle (red circles symbolize verbs in the Montessori method...that's for a different discussion another week).
We then go to the subject. The arrow to the left says "Who....? What....?" I pick the appropriate one and ask the question. In this case, it is "Who?" So I say, "Who eats?" (Obvious answer: Matt). I put "Matt" on the black circle.
Then we have the next set of question arrows.
"Matt eats.....what?" (a pizza). We put "a pizza" over that circle and we're done.
As the students understand this, it's fun to switch it around. ("A pizza eats Matt?")
For a student to create his or her own sentence, a little adjustment has to be made, but many of the ideas stay the same. It is important to focus on the verb first so you can ask questions that guide them through this process. If the word they are using to create a sentence is not a verb, still start with the verb. If the word they are learning is musician, still start with a verb. Here's how the classroom discussion might go. (S = Student. T = Teacher).
T = Give me a verb.
S = kick.
T = OK. (Write "kick" under the red circle. Point to the "Who" question). Who kicks? (Notice I wrote down his form: kick, but I used the correct form in the question).
S = A musician.
T = (Write "A musician" below the black circle on the left). A musician KICK?!?!
S = Kicks!
T = (Fix the verb. On the next part, point to the appropriate places on the board as you say them). "A musician kicks....what?"
S = A duck.
T = (Write "A duck" under the black circle on the right).
Now, there are two things I am going to point out. One, there is a problem with the sentence above. Part of the goal of the sentence should be to show that the student knows the meaning of the word. This clearly does not show that. The other thing I want to point out is that there can be more added to this. Let me address these issues separately.
Assuming I am working with a VERY basic level, I would point out that is a good sentence, but it does not show really what musicians do. Don't stop it until you've had a little fun with it, though. Notice the learning that did go on that was non-vocabulary related (subject-verb agreement, beginning knowledge of subjects and direct objects). Still, I would ask the student to supply me with a verb that more fits with the vocabulary word. "Plays," "brings," "carries," "takes" can lead to sentences such as "A musician:
1) plays the guitar.
2) brings his violin.
3) carries his music.
4) takes piano lessons.
Usually, you will be teaching higher level students this exercise since that is where many schools begin requiring sentences of a certain amount of words. For that, we want something where they can add more to the sentence:
http://www.montessoriedutoys.com/upload/20090325005431_582.jpg
Before you feel intimidated, don't worry. You won't have to draw this on the board. Go over your "Wh" questions. Let's pick up with the sentence "The musician kicked the duck" and see how we can still make this work. For this, you can just write out the sentence across the board as they say it.
T - "The musician kicks the duck....where?"
S- "In the park."
T - "He kicks the duck .... When?
S - Last week.
T - The musician KICKS last week!?
S - kicked
T - (change it to kicked). The duck kicked ....why?
S - because he is mad.
T - he IS mad LAST WEEK?
S - because he was mad.
T - Can we tie it in more with him being a musician?
S - Because the duck eats ....
T - ...wait. (Point to "Last week")
S - the duck ate the musician's violin
T - OK. So "The musician kicked the duck in the park last week because the duck ate the musician's violin." You have to write 10 word sentences for homework. Let's take a look at how many words you have.
(Just so you know, that is 17 words). You'll likely get a few running jokes (I had a student that always talked about his little island in every class). Suddenly, your students will love writing sentences rather than dreading it.
The biggest problem is simply how they treat the language here. For a foreigner, English is a method of communication. For Taiwanese, English often tends to be about passing a test or showing off that you can say certain things. If you need any proof of this, simply ask someone the question, "How are you?" You'll see what I mean. That parroted, robot-like response of, "I'm fine, thank you. And you?" drives anyone insane who has taught here for more than a week. This is, however, exactly what they are used to. English is taught as "I say this...you say that." Any deviation easily confuses them. To ask a student who is used to parroting answers to develop their own sentence is, quite honestly, overwhelming to them. If English is about saying what you've heard a million times, it is hard to say something if you never heard it before. So...what do you do?
To do this, the students need knowledge of two things:
1) What a verb is.
2) A good understanding of many of the question words and phrases.
Most teachers like to teach the idea of SVO sentences. (Subject - Verb - Object). They'll want the student to think of the subject first, then the verb, then the object. This is fine to a point, but I find it a little too advanced for a student locking up easily. It also easily leads to many boring sentences. Let me suggest something else....start with the verb.
I can hear you already. "What? The verb? What's wrong with you?" Well...let's take a word and watch what happens.
I draw a diagram similar to this on the board:
http://www.montessorieduto
I have the red circle, the two black arrows, and 2 black circles. Above the black arrow on the left, I write "Who....?" and under it I write "What....?" Above the black arrows on the right, I put "....whom?" and "...what?" (If you're not as lazy as me, you can make these and print them up, but I realized in a group setting, having it up on the board helps enough).
To see how to create sentences, let's first look at how this material is actually used. Let's take an easy SVO sentence:
Matt eats a pizza.
We can write this down on a piece of paper, tear it up into different parts ("Matt," "eats," and "a pizza"), and we are ready to begin.
We begin with the verb: eats. We put that down on the red circle (red circles symbolize verbs in the Montessori method...that's for a different discussion another week).
We then go to the subject. The arrow to the left says "Who....? What....?" I pick the appropriate one and ask the question. In this case, it is "Who?" So I say, "Who eats?" (Obvious answer: Matt). I put "Matt" on the black circle.
Then we have the next set of question arrows.
"Matt eats.....what?" (a pizza). We put "a pizza" over that circle and we're done.
As the students understand this, it's fun to switch it around. ("A pizza eats Matt?")
For a student to create his or her own sentence, a little adjustment has to be made, but many of the ideas stay the same. It is important to focus on the verb first so you can ask questions that guide them through this process. If the word they are using to create a sentence is not a verb, still start with the verb. If the word they are learning is musician, still start with a verb. Here's how the classroom discussion might go. (S = Student. T = Teacher).
T = Give me a verb.
S = kick.
T = OK. (Write "kick" under the red circle. Point to the "Who" question). Who kicks? (Notice I wrote down his form: kick, but I used the correct form in the question).
S = A musician.
T = (Write "A musician" below the black circle on the left). A musician KICK?!?!
S = Kicks!
T = (Fix the verb. On the next part, point to the appropriate places on the board as you say them). "A musician kicks....what?"
S = A duck.
T = (Write "A duck" under the black circle on the right).
Now, there are two things I am going to point out. One, there is a problem with the sentence above. Part of the goal of the sentence should be to show that the student knows the meaning of the word. This clearly does not show that. The other thing I want to point out is that there can be more added to this. Let me address these issues separately.
Assuming I am working with a VERY basic level, I would point out that is a good sentence, but it does not show really what musicians do. Don't stop it until you've had a little fun with it, though. Notice the learning that did go on that was non-vocabulary related (subject-verb agreement, beginning knowledge of subjects and direct objects). Still, I would ask the student to supply me with a verb that more fits with the vocabulary word. "Plays," "brings," "carries," "takes" can lead to sentences such as "A musician:
1) plays the guitar.
2) brings his violin.
3) carries his music.
4) takes piano lessons.
Usually, you will be teaching higher level students this exercise since that is where many schools begin requiring sentences of a certain amount of words. For that, we want something where they can add more to the sentence:
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Before you feel intimidated, don't worry. You won't have to draw this on the board. Go over your "Wh" questions. Let's pick up with the sentence "The musician kicked the duck" and see how we can still make this work. For this, you can just write out the sentence across the board as they say it.
T - "The musician kicks the duck....where?"
S- "In the park."
T - "He kicks the duck .... When?
S - Last week.
T - The musician KICKS last week!?
S - kicked
T - (change it to kicked). The duck kicked ....why?
S - because he is mad.
T - he IS mad LAST WEEK?
S - because he was mad.
T - Can we tie it in more with him being a musician?
S - Because the duck eats ....
T - ...wait. (Point to "Last week")
S - the duck ate the musician's violin
T - OK. So "The musician kicked the duck in the park last week because the duck ate the musician's violin." You have to write 10 word sentences for homework. Let's take a look at how many words you have.
(Just so you know, that is 17 words). You'll likely get a few running jokes (I had a student that always talked about his little island in every class). Suddenly, your students will love writing sentences rather than dreading it.
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