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Andrew Graff

TPR Foreign Language Instruction and Dyslexia - 2 views

www.dyslexia.com/...tprlanguage.htm

dyslexia foreign language TPR TPRS CIinstruction lessonplanning differentiation

shared by Andrew Graff on 16 Jul 11 - Cached
  • For language teachers, this accepted presumption of incapacity is a huge hurdle, because it keeps many children and adults from even dipping a toe into the language pool!
  • TPR was and is a wonderful way to turn that presumption on its head and show the learner that, not only can we learn, but under the right circumstances, it's fun!
  • When we are infants our exposure to language is virtually inseparable from physical activities. People talk to us while tickling us, feeding us, changing our diapers... We are immersed in a language we don't speak, in an environment that we explore with every part of our body. Our parents and caregivers literally walk and talk us through activities - for example, we learn lots of vocabulary while someone stands behind us at the bathroom sink, soaping our hands until they're slippery, holding them under warm water, rubbing or scrubbing, all the while talking about what we're doing and what it feels like. In this way, movement and feeling are intimately tied to the process of internalizing the language.
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  • Classes are active - you are not in your seat all period. The focus for the first weeks is on listening and moving in response to what the teacher says.
  • There is heavy emphasis on listening comprehension, because the larger your listening comprehension vocabulary is, the larger your speaking vocabulary will become.
  • Lots of language is learned in happy circumstances, especially while you're having fun.
  • In a TPR class, grammar and syntax are not taught directly. Rather, the teacher designs activities that expose the student to language in context, especially in the context of some kind of movement.
  • I'm asked with some regularity about appropriate foreign language instruction for students with a dyslexic learning or thinking style. I'm quick to recommend finding a school or program that includes - or even better - relies on TPR as its principal instructional strategy.
  • Typically, the initial TPR lessons are commands involving the whole body - stand up, sit down, turn around, walk, stop.
  • Fairly soon, the teacher quietly stops demonstrating, and the students realize that they somehow just know what to do in response to the words.
  • You're also encouraged to trust your body, because sometimes it knows what to do before your brain does!
  • As class proceeds, nouns, adverbs, prepositions are added until before you know it, students are performing commands like, 'Stand up, walk to the door, open it, stick your tongue out, close the door, turn around, hop to Jessica's desk, kiss your right knee four times, and lie down on Jessica's desk."
  • It's just that the instruction is designed to facilitate language acquisition, not learning a language through analysis, memorization and application of rules.
  • But consider your native language: you did not need to learn the grammar and syntax of your native language in order to learn to speak it. You learned those structures, unconsciously as you learned to speak.
  • The first is that in a TPR classroom, the focus is not on analysis of linguistic structures, but on internalizing those structures for unconscious use.
  • When we use TPR strategies to teach, our goal is truly to be able to understand, speak, read and write the language, not "about" the language.
  • I think this creativity, the synthetic rather than analytic experience, the low stress, and generally accepting environment engineered by the teacher, are a large part of the reason so many students, including students with learning challenges, find TPR classes so effective and enjoyable.
  • Within these real experiences, students are free to generate all kinds of expressions using the language they're studying, and to lead instruction in unique directions.
Sheryl A. McCoy

n2teaching: Dr. Marzano, have you seen this? - 0 views

samccoy-n2teaching.blogspot.com/...arzano-have-you-seen-this.html

instructional strategies n2teaching professional development teachers visualizations

shared by Sheryl A. McCoy on 25 May 08 - Cached
  • Sheryl A. McCoy on 25 May 08
     
    This Periodic Table of Visualizations is the most awesome mashup; reminded me of Marzano, et al meta-analysis of instructional strategies
Carilyn Bergamini

ReadingQuest | Reading Strategies for Social Studies - 0 views

www.readingquest.org/...home.html

reading strategies readingstrategies literacy content languages

shared by Carilyn Bergamini on 06 Aug 09 - Cached
  • Carilyn Bergamini on 06 Aug 09
     
    instructions and blackline masters for reading comprehension strategies. useful across disciplines
Pamela Arraras

Foreign Language Teaching Wiki - Culture - 1 views

flteaching.wikispaces.com/Culture

virtualbackpacking culture intercultural

shared by Pamela Arraras on 22 Aug 09 - No Cached
  • The main exposure students had to the culture of the target language was through controlled interaction with native speakers in the classroom.
  • Language & culture are more naturally integrated in this approach. Culture instruction is connected to grammar instruction. Its main goal is to teach students how to use the target language when communicating in a cultural context
  • the following are other common approaches to teaching culture: (from Omaggio) The Frankenstein Approach: A taco from here, a flamenco dancer from there, a gaucho from here, a bullfight from there. The 4-F Approach: Folk dances, festivals, fairs and food. The Tour Guide Approach: The identification of monuments, rivers and cities. The "By-the-Way" Approach: Sporadic lectures or bits of behavior selected indiscriminately to emphasize sharp differences.
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  • focusing a little more on similarities, instead of the differences, between cultures
  • Latorre believes that focusing on differences instead of on the similarities contributes to people misunderstanding other cultures, often thinking that the foreign cultures are "exotic," perhaps more exotic than they actually are. What Latorre suggests that any teacher of any foreign language should do is focus on the “true differential, the language [itself], rather than enlarging beyond proportion attitudes and activities which are either regional, outdated, or downright non-existent” (672).
  • one of the most important factors for success in learning a foreign language is the need for students to get involved in the learning process. The use of materials based on internet technologies offers many innovative ways of getting students involved in the process of learning a language. Students can get to know the target culture by means of interacting directly with native speakers via on-line communication, with mail exchanges or chatrooms.
  • From her point of view, it is crucial that the students can learn not only the language but also the diversity of the target culture. That is why, according to her, internet resources, such as newspapers and magazines, have a great importance, since they provide students with authentic and current information that can help them understand the target culture. Reading on-line newspapers makes students aware of current social phenomena.
  • According to Lee, recent studies have proved that internet resources can help students improve their language skills in a similar way to full immersion or study abroad, although are based basically on written communication. Besides, this use of on-line resources are more beneficial to students at the advanced level because they require a high level of language proficiency to read, comprehend, and respond to cultural readings, for example, newspapers.
  • The most important part of Stern's research involves his 3-level framework of foreign culture pedagogy: teaching social sciences, applying theory/research, and their practical applications in the classroom. In the 1990s, Stern's cultural/communication mix evolved from describing sociocultural contexts of second language/foreign language to contexts of competence in second culture acquisition (not just language acquisition). This is the first time that cultural pedagogy and social sciences had been paired.
  • In H.H. Stern's breakthrough 1983 study "Fundamental concepts of language Teaching," there are concepts of day-to-day culture and customs that should be used in the classroom. Stern uses a four component model including a 'cultural syllabus' for culture teaching.
  • Foreign language (FL) teachers should make culture more of a central role in the class FL teachers should throw out teaching culture in terms of isolated facts FL teachers should have an awareness of the past on the present within any culture without focusing too much on the past FL teachers should be aware of cognitive and affective influences on the students FL teachers should engage students as active participants FL teachers should teach culture in such a way that students can be cross-cultural here and abroad Given that the teacher’s assumptions about how language and lang learning affect how he or she teaches lang and culture, the approach should aim for communicative competence (that is, real communication)
  • Tang discussed the use of performance-based theory developed by Walker (2000) who suggests that culture could be better taught if done through simulated social interactions in the classroom, for example hosting a guest or accepting a gift. This serves to create a “default memory” within the student's mind that will help him perform in the target culture without drawing conclusions or using as a reference his own base culture which could lead to misunderstandings.
  • Tang also discourages the pure instruction of behavioral culture in the classroom and says that to perform effectively in a target culture one must not only be able to master it linguistically, be familiar with its artifacts, norms and rituals but also with the meaning system, or the hidden significance underlying these. This is why she believes that Walker's performance-based theory can only work properly if the true meaning system underlying the simulated situations and interations created in the classroom are internalized by the students.
  • the Three P's, into three separate categories: cultural perspectives, cultural products, and cultural practices. Cultural perspectives are the values, beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions shared within a culture. Cultural products are things such as literature, music, art, or even utensils such as chopsticks; tangible items that are linked to a certain culture. Cultural practices are the acceptable behavioral patterns, forms of discourse, and rites of passage within a specific culture.
  • the goals are that students "demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the practices and perspectives of the culture studied," which means that we should encourage the students to understand why other cultures do what they do and what the members of that culture think about the reasons behind what they do. In addition, the students should come to an understanding of "the relationship between the products and perspectives of the culture studied." This means that we should enlighten the students on what members of other cultures do and what these peoples' own opinions are about what they do. Moreover, culture should be starting point for all classroom education. In keeping with the 5 C's, culture is used to make comparisons and connections about communities and in doing so students can have meaningful communication within those communties.
  • According to Omaggio: Culture is complex and elusive and is difficult to include in linear instructional formats. Culture requires time that many teachers feel that do not have. Teachers avoid culture because of their own perceived lack of knowledge. Culture often requires both teacher and learner to move beyond their level of comfort when confronted with deeper, sometimes controversial issues. When teaching languages that are spoken in many different countries, e.g., Spanish, where are the cultural boundaries? Balancing Big C with Little C.
  • Strategies, techniques, and tools for teaching culture in the classroom
Maggie Verster

Novelinks: Great resource for school about authors and reading - 0 views

english.byu.edu/...Index%20of%20strategies.htm

library2.0 librarians school2.0 english education reading

shared by Maggie Verster on 20 May 09 - Cached
  • Maggie Verster on 20 May 09
     
    Novelinks is maintained by the Education section of the English Department at Brigham Young University. Our goal is to provide educators with quality teaching materials that will enhance classroom instruction for a wide variety of commonly taught novels in middle through secondary schools. Novelinks includes online as well as printed references to biographical, historical and critical insights on authors and their works. We also offer reading strategies and units for specific novels under the heading reading resources.
Isabelle Jones

When do people learn languages? - 0 views

www.zompist.com/whylang.html

languages learning promotion reference resources

shared by Isabelle Jones on 07 Aug 08 - Cached
  • eflclassroom 2.0 on 07 Aug 08
     
    Advice for language learners General warning: what follows may or may not apply to you. It's based on what linguistics knows about people in general (but any general advice will be ludicrously inappropriate for some people) and on my own experience (but you're not the same as me). If you have another way of learning that works, more power to you. Given the discussion so far, the prospects for language learning may seem pretty bleak. It seems that you'll only learn a language if you really need to; but the fact that you haven't done so already is a pretty good indication that you don't really need to. How to break out of this paradox? At the least, try to make the facts of language learning work for you, not against you. Exposure to the language, for instance, works in your favor. So create exposure. * Read books in the target language. * Better yet, read comics and magazines. (They're easier, more colloquial, and easier to incorporate into your weekly routine.) * Buy music that's sung in it; play it while you're doing other things. * Read websites and participate in newsgroups that use it. * Play language tapes in your car. If you have none, make some for yourself. * Hang out in the neighborhood where they speak it. * Try it out with anyone you know who speaks it. If necessary, go make new friends. * Seek out opportunities to work using the language. * Babysit a child, or hire a sitter, who speaks the language. * Take notes in your classes or at meetings in the language. * Marry a speaker of the language. (Warning: marry someone patient: some people want you to know their language-- they don't want to teach it. Also, this strategy is tricky for multiple languages.) Taking a class can be effective, partly for the instruction, but also because you can meet others who are learning the language, and because, psychologically, classes may be needed to make us give the subject matter time and attention. Self-study is too eas
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