Observation tasks
AWESOME TEACHING STRATEGIES FOR GETTING THE SILENT STUDENTS TO SPEAK
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On the teaching and learning process is essential the student participation, the learning has to be student-centred, and therefore, all the students have to take part and be involved. As Collins and O'Brien (as cited in Froyd & Simpson, n.d.) children have to be involved on the learning process, being placed on the centre, increasing by this, motivation, participation and positive attitudes towards the learning.
When teaching a language the four communication skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) have to be fostered. Focusing on speaking, it is the most difficult to work during the lessons, and in addition, the most difficult to assess. Different kinds of activities can be done in class to practice this skill, but they have to be meaningful and engaging, and ensure everybody’s participation. When planning speaking activities the teachers have to take into account an essential aspect: how to involve all the students on the task. In all the classes students are different from each other, so ones will be more motivated to speak and take part, while others with a shy personality will have more difficulties to participate. When working in groups or in pairs is common to see how a child does the great part of the conversation while others hardly speak, due to shyness or confidence towards the own language level.
Teachers have to be aware of that, knowing the children that they have in class, and plan the speaking activities accordingly, ensuring everybody’s participation.
So, having all this into account, which awesome teaching strategies for getting the silent student to speak can be used?
During my practices I had the great opportunity to see different types of activities, fostering different skills, and thus, activities that required speaking. During this type of activities I saw that all the students participate and speak, not in the same way, as said before, all the students are different and therefore is the participation, but all took part. I find interesting to consider and talk about different strategies to achieve that, because is not strange to go in an English lesson and see that some students act only as a listener during speaking tasks, taking part very few times. Aforementioned, this lack of participation is not only because of shyness, but can also be for different reasons, such as the language knowledge. Next, I will explain different ways that can help to get the silent students to speak.
- Giving roles
If during the tasks students have roles they will have to participate, because they will be essential. This importance of their presence and participation requires them to take part and, therefore speak. For example, in an expert reading, children have the role of an expert, so they have to work on a topic to be able to explain it later to the peers; so he/she will need to speak, because his/her parts are essential. Moreover, if we do the expert reading giving each child of the group a different role, they will also need to speak according to their task.
The roles can also be seen in other activities, for example, during the last term Y6 was doing dubbing, to do that, they had different roles (director, translator, adjustor, etc.) with different language support to use, having to use it made them be more engaged to speak in English.
According to that, The Teaching Centre (n.d.) assigning roles to the children has potential benefits, encouraging silent students to participate, strengthening collaboration and communication skills.
- Productions
Having to do oral productions, such as presentations, is a way to make them speak, during the practices I have seen several times children recording videos in order to do that. Recording a video they practice oral skills, having to prepare what to say, and how, practising the pronunciation. But doing it through a video is more engaging than doing a presentation in front of their class. On the video, all the students take part, so the silent students are forced to speak. Maybe their part will be shorter, but they speak and gain little by little more confidence to speak in English.
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In the same line, preparing plays helps silent student to take part, as before, maybe their sentences will be shorter, but they will start to lose the fear to speak in the foreign language. Russo (2006) highlight some advantages that plays have such as improving communication and speaking skills, and increase motivation “because it is something different from what they do everyday” (p.83).
Another case will be the pair part on the Think, Pair and Share activity; during some time they have been thinking on a topic so when sharing it with a pair they cannot be in silence, they have to tell him/her their thoughts and therefore speak. As Kagan (n.d.) exposes, sharing in pairs is useful to make every student to participate, providing opportunities for both to share equally. More types of pair share activities can be seen on its website (link below).
As a conclusion, speaking has a great importance on the communication, therefore, is essential to practice it. So, we as teachers have to provide opportunities and help these students to take part on speaking task, making them be engaged towards the activity. As seen on the examples mentioned above, it is fundamental that students see that they are essential on the task and that they have to participate in order to complete it. Moreover, the tasks have to be engaging and meaningful, as dubbing a take of a film after visiting a dubbing studio. It is easier for them to speak in an activity that enthusiasm them, if they are motivated they will be more engaged to speak in English. Teachers have to pose tasks to provide these beneficial situations to make them speak, and lose the fear to speak in English little by little while enjoying the task and without realising.
Links of interest:
Here you can find some links of interest regarding to strategies to make silent students to speak.
- http://www.teachhub.com/10-teaching-strategies-making-quiet-class-talk
- http://elt-connect.com/quiet-students-5-ways-get-speaking/
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References:
- Froyd, J. Simpson, N. (n.d.). Student-Centered Learning Addressing Faculty Questions about Studentcentered Learning. Retrieved from:
http://ccliconference.org/files/2010/03/Froyd_Stu-CenteredLearning.pdf
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- Kagan. (n.d.). Pair Share: Partners Take Turns Sharing and Listening. Retrieved from:
https://www.kaganonline.com/online_magazine/featured_structure.php
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- Russo, L. (2006). Drama in language learning. Encuentro, 16, 82 – 94. Retrieved from:
https://ebuah.uah.es/dspace/bitstream/handle/10017/1204/10-Russo2.pdf?sequence=1
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- The Teaching Centre. (n.d.). Using Roles in Group Work. Retrieved from: http://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/resources/teaching-methods/group-work-in-class/using-roles-in-group-work/
STRATEGIES FOR CHECKING COMPREHENSION
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During this internship I have realised the importance that recap has on the teaching units, due to the great presence of recap lessons that I have seen and that I have included on my TUs for recommendation of my teacher. I had planned some activities to check comprehension, but having to add more or a complete lesson to recap, makes me think about the importance of their presence on the teaching sequences. Checking the comprehension is vital to know if the children have acquired the knowledge or not, and in case that they have not acquired it, is helpful to see which are the weak points, and therefore, where we have to focus more and continue working. As Sanmartí (2010) expose it is essential to know where the children are regarding to comprehension and knowledge, in order to readjust the activities and the way to work, achieving by this a better achievement of the objectives. In addition, is also important that students are aware of this comprehension and of the weak points, in order to know what they have to learn, improving by this the learning to learn competence, also mentioned by the same author.
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The perfect way to do this checking will be by activities that engage children and not by activities that could seem as an “exam” or that they could feel assessed. Some proposals that I have seen during the lessons and that I have used are next explained.
One could be Kahoot, which is a digital tool that allows the creation of questionnaires. The questionnaires can be answered in groups, pairs or individually, as whished according to the purpose. After answering it, the teacher can see and download the answers, knowing the results for the whole group and also for each participant (they have to write the name when entering the game). With this information the teacher can check what questions and therefore, which knowledge was acquired, and which one needs to be reinforced. Moreover, s/he has information about the pupils individually, so it is useful to help them personally.
Using this tool they are being assessed while playing, which is good for them and also for the teacher, who has information about his/her pupils while they are having fun.
Another way is sharing information with the whole group, asking questions to the whole class and seeing if they are able to answer, but this have the risk that not all the children will speak, and at the end we will have a general vision of the whole class but not of the children individually, or not from all of them at least.
To solve that, can be useful the Think, Pair and Share activity. At the end we get a general vision of the whole group, because the last step of this activity is sharing with the whole group. But, the previous steps require to think alone, so everybody has to do this task and not only to wait for the peers to answer the questions. Then, the second step is to share with the pair, when they are doing so, the teacher has to walk around the classroom hearing to the conversations in order to have a more individually idea of what children have learnt. This strategy permits to have a general vision of the whole class and quite of the pupils individually. Moreover, the checking comprehension is orally so they practice this skill, and in addition, students receive feedback from the teacher, by repetitions, rephrases and confirmation. The use of the blackboard or digital board to write the main ideas is also useful to make it more visual for the children.
Checking comprehension has to be done also before starting an activity, in order to be sure that everybody has understood it. To do that my teacher usually asked someone to explain again the activity, encouraging him/her to do it in English but allowing Catalan, so the students with more difficulties understand the activities without problem.
Other ways to check comprehension is the correction of tasks done in the class, in order to see the results. This is a traditional way to check comprehension, which was related to assessing. Seeing both ways of checking comprehension and how the children behave to one and the other, I am determined to use strategies like the ones exposed firstly. These were just some examples but for the future I will have to have more formation and find resources in order to learn more strategies to put into practices in the class, and be able to know the achievements done by my students, knowing where are they and the work that we have to continue doing in order to achieve the goals set.
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Link of interest:
Next you have an interesting website with some tips when checking comprehension
- https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/checking-comprehension
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Reference:
- Sanmartí, N. (2010). Avaluació per aprendre: L’avaluació per millorar els aprenentatges de l’alumnat en el marc del currículum per competències. Retrieved from: http://xtec.gencat.cat/web/.content/alfresco/d/d/workspace/SpacesStore/0024/fc53024f-626e-423b-877a-932148c56075/avaluar_per_aprendre.pdf
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