B-SLIM Model

B-SLIM MODEL

We talk so much about self directed learning and have structured policies and proposed practices around the assumption that all learners are equally self-directed.  BUT, practitioners know that not all learners are equally self-directed.  In fact, teachers also know from experience that some learners need to be taught to be self-directed.  By being based on success, B-SLIM incorporates enough scaffolding (structure and support) at each phase for learners who are less self sufficient to succeed while simultaneously providing opportunities and direction for the more self-directed student to push forward.  For example, while a less self-directed student might need to follow a template several times before really ‘getting’ the structure of a form such as a brief event review (in order to be able to create one on his/her own as an OUTPUT assignment), a more self-directed learner may only need to hear or see the model once and be able to replicate and creatively alter it!

Theoretical Underpinnings

Cognitive Science (Piaget, Vygotsky, Gagne) (We organize knowledge of different types into schema through mental processes.  As learners who are active participants we require scaffolded instructional material that utilizes demonstrations, illustrative examples and corrective feedback to maximize memory retention.)

Constructivism (Bruner) (We construct our own understanding of the world by generating our own rules and mental models to make sense of our experiences.)

Developmentalism (Ryle, Schwitzgebel) (We learn concepts and dispositions in a gradual way frequently passing through periods of being "in between" genuine understanding and failure to understand.

Goals

-to develop self directed learners

-to ensure that every learner succeeds at each phase of the learning process by maximizing exposure to concepts through all learning styles/intelligences and encouraging intellectual/thinking growth in systematically developed steps

-to help students develop all aspects of language by applying research findings from all areas of second language learning and acquisition (language awareness, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, situations- fluency-accuracy, culture and Culture, learning strategies, listening comprehension, speaking, writing, reading, forms, skills, content, motivation-attitude)

-to ensure that learners can transfer what they have learned to new contexts

-to learn language and to learn through language

-to identify success in learning in concrete term.

Planning and Preparation

•         What we do before we enter the classroom

•         Knowledge of what resources we can use and how to quickly find them

•         Choosing what materials to use

•         Adapting and/or developing resources

•         Scaffolding:

•         Creating games, pair activities

•         Selecting worksheets

•         Creating games, pair activities

•         Selecting worksheets

•         Pacing – considering cognitive overload/capacity (attention and automaticity)

•         Selecting and developing activities that appeal to all learning styles/intelligences

•         Selecting and developing activities that help each student advance in each type of input

Comprehensible Input

•         What is new to the students

•         Building on what students already know (moving from their understanding of a concept in L1 or MT to how that concept is expressed in L2)

•         Choosing and structuring the learning of something into small steps to teach “new” material

•         Presenting in a way that students understand

•         Power of the First impression

•         Miller’s magical Number of 7 +/- 2

•         Appeal to as many of Gardner’s learning Intelligences as possible: linguistic, visual-spatial, logical-mathematical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, musical

•         Maximize use of instruction in Target Language (TL)

•         Research suggests that language production is a complex enterprise that entails the integration of many areas: language awareness, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, situations- fluency-accuracy, culture and Culture, learning strategies, listening comprehension, speaking, writing, reading, forms, skills, content, motivation-attitude, content (See Appendix A)

Intake - “getting it”

•         Helping students LEARN meaning that they understand AND remember  because if one cannot remember a concept (vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, cultural point, learning strategy, etc.) one cannot use it!

•         “getting it” activities help students understand the concept being taught at their own rate (self-paced) and through a variety of learning styles.  They need to be structured so that all students can succeed.

•         The teacher needs to develop a REPERTOIRE of strategies/activities in this phase so that students can learn in different ways AND not become bored or unmotivated when learning more difficult concepts

•         Providing clear examples

•         Providing sufficient examples

•         Providing supports such as templates, sample sentences, models, dictionaries, visual support of keywords or illustrations

•         Answering student questions

•         Guiding, coaching, encouraging, praising students

•         Takes time to learn:

•         “often lower performing students need more time to reach levels of language development similar to those of other students”

•         LOTS of Pair work for practice and clarification

•         Can include ‘drill and skill’ activities

•         Use choice and chance to maintain motivation

•         Giving personalized positive feedback

•         Emphasis on accuracy

•         Focusing “attention” in order to later develop “automaticity”

Intake - “using it”

•         From memory (or with minimal assistance) students engage in activities that require them to USE or apply what they have learned

•         Students problem solve, create, use their imaginations (e.g. moral dilemmas, role plays)

•         Students are put in new situations-contexts in order to ‘transfer’ what they have learned to it

•         Work in pairs, groups or alone

•         One- or two- way information gap activities

•         Move from “learning language” to “learning through language” 

•         Includes Tasks (TBLT)

•         Activities should be more communicative in nature (NO ‘drill and skill’ at this phase)

•         Emphasis on fluency

Output – “Proving it”

•         PROOF of what the students have learned

•         Meaningful task for the students (high interest)

•         Oral and written FORMS

•         Integrates pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, situations, functions.

•         Requires criteria for direction/structure/inclusion of NEWly emphasized content. . .

•         Emphasis on BOTH fluency and accuracy

•         Students reveal their abilities to use English spontaneously, creatively, and personally by integrating all aspects of INPUT into oral and/or written activities or projects

Assessment

•         Criteria that help students see how they are doing and how they can improve

•         What makes a GOOD performance

•         What makes communication successful

•         Gives Feedback to the teacher about how and what students are learning – through observation and direct feedback from students – at every phase of B-SLIM

•         Helps teachers to determine what students still need to learn

Evaluation

•         Final grade            

•         Tests

•         Exams

•         Determining what students still need to learn in order to reach a prescribed mandate

PPP Model

Presentation-Practice-Production

Presentation, Practice and Production, commonly referred to as PPP, is a kind of instructional sequence, i.e. a model of lesson planning.

Presentation stage: The teacher begins the lesson by setting up a situation, either eliciting or modeling some language that the situation calls for. Presentation may consist of model sentences, short dialogues illustrating target items, either read from the textbook, heard on the tape or acted out by the teacher.

Practice stage: Students practise the new language in a controlled way. They drill sentences or dialogues by repeating after the teacher or the tape, in chorus and individually, until they can say them correctly. Other practice activities are matching parts of sentences, completing sentences or dialogues and asking and answering questions using the target language.

Production stage: Students are encouraged to use the new language in a freer way either for their own purposes and meanings or in a similar context introduced by the teacher. It can be a role play, a simulation activity or a communication task.

PPP critique

Within this model the language is presented by small, discrete items that are gradually combined over the length of course. The language is tightly controlled and the emphasis is on accuracy. After a definite time period (at the end of a unit) students are tested on the items presented within the unit.

Though the PPP model looks quite sensible for language teaching and at least it looks ideal for lower levels, it has been recently criticized-

1) for being too teacher-centered

2) for keeping students passive

3) for its linear sequencing of language items

The theory of learning, underlying this sequence is rooted in behaviorist psychology: practice makes perfect and rote learning and repetition help to ‘automate’ responses (see the Audio-Lingual Method).

However, the findings of recent SLA research prove that language learning does not happen in an additive fashion with bits of language being learnt separately. Rather, the process of second language acquisition is multi-directed and the student’s mind is working on constructing several knowledge systems at a time. A human mind is capable of attending to several language points at a time without paying conscious attention to each of them. When taught to use some specific language point which is in focus in the PPP lesson the student is deprived of the opportunity to develop her interlanguage system from the point where she is at the moment and in the direction she needs to go. A PPP lesson does not provide enough space for language development (there is no space for Krashen’s roughly-tuned input or Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development). It doesn’t secure proper language exposure.

Furthermore, automatic performance does not always originate from intentional learning and mechanical practice. Language learning does need practice but practice which would rather call for the learner’s involvement and her effort to process the language input. The student may be not aware of attending to a language item, yet it eventually becomes automated. In addition, the student’s involvement in the learning process is a safer guarantee that the new knowledge will be taken in and retained.

As J. Willis (Longman, 1996, p.134-135) concludes in her book ‘A Framework for Task-Based Learning’ the PPP model has further major drawbacks:

Sometimes learners manage to do the task or role play at the production stage without using the target form at all. This may be because their interlanguage system is not yet ready to cope with its use, or because they don’t need the new pattern to express the meanings they want. The goal of the final ‘P” – free production is not achieved.

When focused on a specific language item, learners tend to overuse it, apply it to wrong situations and make very stilted and unnatural conversation, e.g. Maybe I’m going to go to the cinema on Sunday. By doing so they want to display control of the new form rather than express their own meanings.

PPP gives an illusion of mastery because learners are able to produce the required form confidently in the classroom, but once they are outside the classroom and the drill, learners seem to forget it completely. Therefore, since learners are require to produce forms which have been specified in advance, the last stage of a PPP lesson is nowadays referred to as a freer or less controlled practice of the target structure.

Content-based instruction

Content-based instruction

Submitted by NikPeachey on 13 August, 2003 - 12:00

In recent years content-based instruction has become increasingly popular as a means of developing linguistic ability. It has strong connections to project work, task-based learning and a holistic approach to language instruction and has become particularly popular within the state school secondary (11 - 16 years old) education sector.

What is content-based instruction?

The focus of a CBI lesson is on the topic or subject matter. During the lesson students are focused on learning about something. This could be anything that interests them from a serious science subject to their favourite pop star or even a topical news story or film. They learn about this subject using the language they are trying to learn, rather than their native language, as a tool for developing knowledge and so they develop their linguistic ability in the target language. This is thought to be a more natural way of developing language ability and one that corresponds more to the way we originally learn our first language.

What does a content-based instruction lesson look like?

There are many ways to approach creating a CBI lesson. This is one possible way.

Preparation

Choose a subject of interest to students.

Find three or four suitable sources that deal with different aspects of the subject. These could be websites, reference books, audio or video of lectures or even real people.

During the lesson

Divide the class into small groups and assign each group a small research task and a source of information to use to help them fulfil the task.

Then once they have done their research they form new groups with students that used other information sources and share and compare their information.

There should then be some product as the end result of this sharing of information which could take the form of a group report or presentation of some kind.

 What are the advantages of content-based instruction?

It can make learning a language more interesting and motivating. Students can use the language to fulfil a real purpose, which can make students both more independent and confident.

Students can also develop a much wider knowledge of the world through CBI which can feed back into improving and supporting their general educational needs.

CBI is very popular among EAP (English for Academic Purposes) teachers as it helps students to develop valuable study skills such as note taking, summarising and extracting key information from texts.

Taking information from different sources, re-evaluating and restructuring that information can help students to develop very valuable thinking skills that can then be transferred to other subjects.

The inclusion of a group work element within the framework given above can also help students to develop their collaborative skills, which can have great social value.

What are the potential problems?

Because CBI isn't explicitly focused on language learning, some students may feel confused or may even feel that they aren't improving their language skills. Deal with this by including some form of language focused follow-up exercises to help draw attention to linguistic features within the materials and consolidate any difficult vocabulary or grammar points.

Particularly in monolingual classes, the overuse of the students' native language during parts of the lesson can be a problem. Because the lesson isn't explicitly focused on language practice students find it much easier and quicker to use their mother tongue. Try sharing your rationale with students and explain the benefits of using the target language rather than their mother tongue.

It can be hard to find information sources and texts that lower levels can understand. Also the sharing of information in the target language may cause great difficulties. A possible way around this at lower levels is either to use texts in the students' native language and then get them to use the target language for the sharing of information and end product, or to have texts in the target language, but allow the students to present the end product in their native language. These options should reduce the level of challenge.

Some students may copy directly from the source texts they use to get their information. Avoid this by designing tasks that demand students evaluate the information in some way, to draw conclusions or actually to put it to some practical use. Having information sources that have conflicting information can also be helpful as students have to decide which information they agree with or most believe.

Conclusions

While CBI can be both challenging and demanding for the teacher and the students, it can also be very stimulating and rewarding. The degree to which you adopt this approach may well depend on the willingness of your students, the institution in which you work and the availability of resources within your environment. It could be something that your school wants to consider introducing across the curriculum or something that you experiment with just for one or two lessons. Whichever you choose to do I would advise that you try to involve other teachers within your school, particularly teachers from other subjects. This could help you both in terms of finding sources of information and in having the support of others in helping you to evaluate your work.

Lastly, try to involve your students. Get them to help you decide what topics and subjects the lessons are based around and find out how they feel this kind of lessons compares to your usual lessons. In the end they will be the measure of your success.

Teaching Writing Skills

Teaching Writing Skills

Teaching Writing: Strategies

The most important factor in writing exercises is that students need to be personally involved in order to make the learning experience of lasting value. Encouraging student participation in the exercise, while at the same time refining and expanding writing skills, requires a certain pragmatic approach. The teacher should be clear on what skills he/she is trying to develop. Next, the teacher needs to decide on which means (or type of exercise) can facilitate learning of the target area. Once the target skill areas and means of implmentation are defined, the teacher can then proceed to focus on what topic can be employed to ensure student participation. By pragmatically combing these objectives, the teacher can expect both enthusiasm and effective learning.

Choosing the target area depends on many factors; What level are the students?, What is the average age of the students, Why are the students learning English, Are there any specific future intentions for the writing (i.e school tests or job application letters etc.). Other important questions to ask oneself are: What should the students be able to produce at the end of this exercise? (a well written letter, basic communication of ideas, etc.) What is the focus of the exercise? (structure, tense usage, creative writing). Once these factors are clear in the mind of the teacher, the teacher can begin to focus on how to involve the students in the activity thus promoting a positive, long-term learning experience.

Having decided on the target area, the teacher can focus on the means to achieve this type of learning. As in correction, the teacher must choose the most appropriate manner for the specified writing area. If formal business letter English is required, it is of little use to employ a free expression type of exercise. Likewise, when working on descriptive language writing skills, a formal letter is equally out of place.

With both the target area and means of production, clear in the teachers mind, the teacher can begin to consider how to involve the students by considering what type of activities are interesting to the students; Are they preparing for something specific such as a holiday or test?, Will they need any of the skills pragmatically? What has been effective in the past? A good way to approach this is by class feedback, or brainstorming sessions. By choosing a topic that involves the students the teacher is providing a context within which effective learning on the target area can be undertaken.

Finally, the question of which type of correction will facilitate a useful writing exercise is of utmost importance. Here the teacher needs to once again think about the overall target area of the exercise. If there is an immediate task at hand, such as taking a test, perhaps teacher guided correction is the most effective solution. However, if the task is more general (for example developing informal letter writing skills), maybe the best approach would be to have the students work in groups thereby learning from each other. Most importantly, by choosing the correct means of correction the teacher can encourage rather discourage students.

Steps for Teaching Reading to ESL Students

Steps for Teaching Reading to ESL Students

ESL Reading Strategies

An effective lesson plan teaching reading to ESL students, or EFL students, needs to have a structure. Here's a set of steps you can use to prepare a lesson plan for teaching reading skills.

Step 1: Engage the student. The first step in teaching reading to ESL students is to get the students warmed-up by engaging them in the topic of the reading passage.

The purpose of engaging the student is to introduce the theme or topic of the reading. The student can be engaged, for example, by using visuals or a "warm-up" conversation. If you use visuals, you can ask a question such as, "who do you think lives here?" The ESL teacher should elicit responses from the students. Remember that lessons should be student-focused, so the majority of the talking should be done by the students.

Step 2: Pre-teach new vocabulary. When preparing ESL reading activities, decide the vocabulary (lexis) that is critical for the ESL learners to know to understand the story. Decide how you will teach the new words or key words. You don't have to teach every word that you think the student may not know, just those that are critical to understanding the reading passage. This part of the lesson shouldn't take too much time.

Step 3: Ask a focus question. A lesson plan teaching reading to ESL students should have a focus question. Write a question about a detail that is three-quarters of the way through the text for ESL beginning reading exercises. For advanced level ESL students, ask a "gist" question. This is something that the students have to deduce from the reading passage. Be sure to write the focus question on the board so that all students can see it.

Step 4: The students read. Finally, the students read! Be sure to allow enough time for the students to read the entire passage. You'll have to watch the students to see how they are doing and when they're done. If one student is taking a particularly long time, you may not need to wait until he or she finishes.

Step 5: Ask questions about the reading. First, ask the students the focus question again. In addition to the focus question, ask the students a few other questions about the reading. If the students are unable to answer the questions, allow the students to read the passage again.

Step 6: Follow up with a task. A lesson plan teaching reading to ESL students should always be followed up with a task. The task can be oral or written. This allows the student to bring in his or her knowledge on the topic, and helps to reinforce comprehension and the learning process.

Step 7 (optional): Follow up with an activity. If you have enough time (or too much time left over!), you can include another ESL activity. This could be additional writing practice or speaking practice. It's helpful to have a specific activity built in to your lesson plan, but you can also be flexible. If something comes up that the students seem particularly interested in, use this topic for the students to write about or to continue with a conversation.

In addition to teaching ESL reading comprehension, the ESL teacher can also use these ESL reading strategies to teach grammar embedded in the reading passage.

Speaking Strategies for English Learners

Many English students complain that they understand English, but don't feel confident enough to join a conversation. There are a number of reasons for this including:

Students are trying to translate from their native language into English.

Production "blocking" is occurring due to nervousness, lack of confidence, etc.

The speaker is looking for a specific word, rather than using simple language to describe what is meant.

There aren't enough conversation opportunities in or outside of class.

Students aren't able to speak to peers (for example: mixed classes of adults and teenagers).

Exam preparation focuses on grammar, vocabulary, etc. and leaves little time for active use.

Here are a number of resources, lesson plans, suggestion pages and more which will help you and your students improve English speaking skills in and outside of class.

Speaking Strategies

The first rule of improving speaking skills is to speak, converse, talk, gab, etc. as much as you can! However, these strategies can help you - or your students - make the most out of your efforts.

American English Usage Tips - Understanding how Americans use English and what they expect to hear can help improve conversations between native and non-native speakers.

These next two features help you understand how words stress plays a role in both understanding and being understood:

Intonation and Stress: Key to Understanding

Word Stress - Changes in Meaning

Register use refers to the "tone" of voice and words that you choose when speaking to others. Appropriate register use can help you develop a good rapport with other speakers.

Register Usage

Register Use in English

Teaching Conversational Skills will help teachers understand specific challenges involved when teaching speaking skills in class.

Social English Examples

Making sure that your conversation starts well often depends on using social English (standard phrases). These social English examples provide short dialogues and key phases necessary.

Introductions

Greetings

Special Days

Speaking to Strangers

Traveling phrases

Dialogues

Dialogues are useful in learning standard phrases and vocabulary used in common situations. These situations are some of the most common you'll find when practicing your English.

A Busy Day

A Great Workout

Weekend Sports

Here are a number of dialogues based on level:

Beginner's Dialogues

Intermediate Dialogues

Conversation Lesson Plans

Here are a number of lesson plans which have proven quite popular in ESL / EFL classrooms around the world.

We'll start with debates. Debates can be used in class to help motivate students and use phrases and vocabulary that they may not use on an everyday basis. Here are a few to start off with:

Men and Women - Equal at Last?

Multinationals - Help or Hindrance?

Games are also quite popular in class, and games which encourage to express their point of view are some of the best:

Creating a New Society

Guilty!

Lego Blocks

This page will lead you to all the conversation plans located on this site:

Conversation Lesson Plan Resource

Places to Practice Your English Online

Finally, you'll need to find as many English speaking opportunities as you can. Here are a few sites that will help you make English speaking friends over the Internet.

Teaching Listening Skill For ESL Student

The Challenge of Teaching Listening Skills

Teaching listening skills is one of the most difficult tasks for any ESL teacher. This is because successful listening skills are acquired over time and with lots of practice. It's frustrating for students because there are no rules as in grammar teaching. Speaking and writing also have very specific exercises that can lead to improved skills. This is not to say that there are not ways of improving listening skills, however they are difficult to quantify.

One of the largest inhibitors for students is often mental block. While listening, a student suddenly decides that he or she doesn't understand what is being said. At this point, many students just tune out or get caught up in an internal dialogue trying translate a specific word. Some students convince themselves that they are not able to understand spoken English well and create problems for themselves.

They key to helping students improve their listening skills is to convince them that not understanding is OK. This is more of an attitude adjustment than anything else, and it is easier for some students to accept than others. Another important point that I try to teach my students (with differing amounts of success) is that they need to listen to English as often as possible, but for short periods of time.

I like to use this analogy: Imagine you want to get in shape. You decide to begin jogging. The very first day you go out and jog seven miles. If you are lucky, you might even be able to jog the seven miles. However, chances are good that you will not soon go out jogging again. Fitness trainers have taught us that we must begin with little steps. Begin jogging short distances and walk some as well, over time you can build up the distance. Using this approach, you'll be much more likely to continue jogging and get fit.

Students need to apply the same approach to listening skills. Encourage them to get a film, or listen to an English radio station, but not to watch an entire film or listen for two hours. Students should often listen, but they should listen for short periods - five to ten minutes. This should happen four or five times a week. Even if they don't understand anything, five to ten minutes is a minor investement. However, for this strategy to work, students must not expect improved understanding too quickly. The brain is capable of amazing things if given time, students must have the patience to wait for results. If a student continues this exercise over two to three months their listening comprehension skills will greatly improve.