finding the balance between games, learning and communicativity
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Finding the balance between games, learning and communicativity. Presented by Martin McCloud [email protected]. Introduction. About the workshop The main aim of this workshop is to show you how to improve the activities used in the classroom About me Martin McCloud - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Finding the balance between games, learning and
communicativity.
Presented by Martin McCloud [email protected]
Introduction
About the workshopThe main aim of this workshop is to show
you how to improve the activities used in the classroom
About meMartin McCloud 3rd Year ALT based at Tsunan ChutoLessons of 20 or 40 students
Activity Demo 1
To help you see the lesson from the students point of view
Give us something to improve
Wake you, the attendees, up!
Dengon Game
Teams arranged in lines down the classroom
Person at the front gets a message from the ALT
The message is passed to the person behind them
When the message reaches the last person, the last person must run to the front and write the answer on the board.
Dengon Game
GO!!!
Dengon Game Analysis
A) How many rounds did we play?
B) How many times did you speak during one round?
C) What where the answers needed to win the rounds?
Questions I Ask Myself (1)
Why did the students not like an activity?
Why did the one of the activities ruin the atmosphere?
Why didn’t this activity work, but the others did?
Questions I Ask Myself (2)
How can this dull activity be more interesting?
Can I make it more fun?
Can I make it more educational?
Can I make it fun AND educational?
Why should we question our activities?
Why should we question our activities?
Because we re-use our activities
Why do we re-use activities?
Saves timeWe don’t have to spend time thinking of new
ideasCan re-use materials we have already made
Less riskwe know the activity ‘works’we know the benefits of the activityBut, we also know the problems of the
activity
Main benefit of re-use
Main benefit of re-use
But, by re-using activities, we will have an opportunity to improve the activities.
Use ActivityUse Activity
Find ProblemsFind ProblemsMake ChangesMake Changes
What are the problems? (1)
1) Losing the student’s attention (i.e. not fun)
The activity is boring Students have no interest in the activity Activity is just dull
activity fatigue Activity goes on for too long Activity has been used too much
too much to learn Students shocked by the amount they must learn and
give up
What are the problems? (2)
2) Students not acquiring enough English (i.e. not learning)
Not enough English used in class Students waiting for the translation
Not enough practise Students need to process language to learn it practice constructing and expressing their
own sentences
What are the problems? (3)
No immediate feedback
after giving an answer, students need to know if it is correct or not as quickly as possible.
Too much to learn
students shocked by the scale of the task and just give up
Solving these Problems (1)
1) Keeping the students attention (more fun!!)
problem: activities are boringMake the activity entertainingStudents are very competitive. Distract the
students by making activities competitive
problem: activity fatigueDon’t let an activity run for too longDon’t do the same activity too often
problem: too much to learnLimit the amount of new vocabulary
Solving these Problems (2)
2) Increasing the amount of English students acquire (more learning!!)
problem: Not enough English usedtry to use only English in the classroom
(on materials, during explanations, checking answers etc.)
problem: not enough practise try to use activities that encourage
speaking as much as possible.have students speak with the ALT and JTE
Solving these Problems (3)
problem: no immediate feedbacktry to use activities that provide instant
feedback (quizzes, short interview style dialogues)
problem: too much to learnLimit the amount of new vocabulary
In Summary…
To improve a lesson, we want to add:
Entertainment Competition Limits on the vocabulary More practice and feedback More interaction
Competition
Types of competition
Student versus Student e.g. Pair Quiz, Pen Race
Student versus team e.g. Karuta
Students versus class (mixed) e.g. “Find someone who”
Pairs versus class e.g. questionnaire T/F
Team versus class e.g. King and Servant, Dengon Game, Quiz games
Avoid having a single student against the whole class.
Limit the vocabulary
A psychology theory, “The Magical Number Seven”, describes the limits of short-term memory
Humans have a working memory of around seven elements. Elements can be anything, such as numbers or words
So, when we introduce new vocabulary to students, and we want them to use it, we should limit the number of words to about seven at a time
More Speaking
TT lessons are an opportunity for students to use spoken English.
Try to introduce speaking as much as possibleDialogues between studentsPassing messagesAnswering questions
More Feedback
People learn from their mistakes and successes.
But feedback has to happen quickly to reinforce learning
Proof? It’s why flashcards are effective
More Interaction
Try to encourage students to talk with lots of people:
Mixing pairs after an activity Combining pairs into groups “Find someone who” games Make chances to speak with ALT and JTE .
This is the communicativity part!
The Ideal Activity
So, the ideal activity would
be entertaining be competitive limited to a practical amount of new material provide lots of practice, with instant
feedback, using old and new material encourage interaction with other students,
the ALT and the JTE
The Aim of Improvement
A typical activity will cover some of these qualities. We should aim to improve the activity to cover ALL five qualities.
And if an activity covers all five qualities, we should aim to improve the way it covers the five qualities.
Improving “Dengon Game” Activity – Analysis
NoneLittle
bitSo-so
Fair bit
Lots
Entertainment
Competition
Focused
material
Practice and
Feedback
Interaction
How does the Dengon Game fit our expectations for the Ideal Activity?
Improving “Dengon Game” Activity – Analysis
NoneLittle
bitSo-so
Fair bit
Lots
Entertainment x
Competition xFocused
material x
Practice and
Feedback x
Interaction x
We should improve ‘Practice and Feedback’ and ‘Interaction’
Improving “Dengon Game”– Changes Have two messages;
one going backwards and the other forwards. Have the messages make a small dialogue Have answers at the back for last student to find
Whose camera is this?
It’s Mark’s camera
An
swers
Start
Finish!
Activity Demo 2
To see if the changes we’ve made have improved the original activity
Wake you up after sitting through 20 minutes of slides!
Pad out the workshop to last 50 minutes!
Dengon Game v2.0
Have two messages; one going backwards and the other forwards.
Have the messages make a small dialogue Have answers at the back for last student to find
Whose camera is this?
It’s Mark’s camera
An
swers
Start
Finish!
Dengon Game v2.0
GO!!!
Dengon Game v2.0 Analysis
A) How many rounds did we play?
B) How many times did you speak during one round?
C) What where the answers needed to win the rounds?
Improving “Dengon Game”– Analysis of Improvements
NoneLittle
bitSo-so
Fair bit
Lots
Entertainment x
Competition xFocused
material x
Practice and
Feedback x
Interaction xX : Original Dengon
X : Dengon v2.0
Improving “Dengon Game”– Analysis of Improvements
NoneLittle
bitSo-so
Fair bit
Lots
Entertainment x x
Competition x xFocused
material xx
Practice and
Feedback x x
Interaction x x
Overall, an improvement!!
X : Original Dengon
X : Dengon v2.0
Conclusions (1)
We should think about our activities after we use them
We might re-use the activity in a future lesson. We should learn from our mistakes and improve the activity.
Conclusions (2)
Good TT activities should have these five qualities:EntertainmentCompetitionLimits on the vocabularyPractice and feedbackInteraction
Any Questions?
More information
Slides for this workshop can be downloaded from:
http://www.martinmccloud.com/teaching
Any other comments or questions can be sent to: