More activities to integrate language into content teaching (continued):
**Alhough I’ve never heard of this or tried it, this next one is my favorite:
*4) Dictogloss- is useful for providing models of academic language as well as to help them reflect upon and clarify language. So, students should listen while you read an important text at normal speed for one minute. Read again a second time. The third reading, students should write down the main points from the text that they remember. (This is usually fragmented). Then, in pairs, students work together to improve what they wrote individually. After 5 minutes, students join pairs to work in fours, again collaborating to improve upon what they were able to produce in pairs. The final version does not have to be identical to the original, but should contain the key information from the text. Display all the texts around the room, then show the original. Invite students to talk about any differences between the original and their own text. Apparently this is a very successful exercise. I’m anxious to try it in my own classroom!
5) Joint construction- Is valuable for focusing students’ attention on how written language is structured. In this activity, the teacher acts as a scribe as she guides students in composing a piece of writing. (This is essentially shared writing.) By using this model, she helps students reshape the wording of their initial words. For example, a student says, “There was a bad witch who…” The teacher would say (as she’s scribing), what other word could we use for “bad”? Then she or other students suggest, “evil”, a better choice of words. She can also do the same for sentence structure.
6) The Last Word-is similar to a group discussion and is based on a text that students have read on a topic they’re familiar with. The best type is the most contentious. First, students should underline one sentence that is significant to him/her. Students should be prepared to speak for about one minute without interruption. (This encourages them to use extended language and make what they say as clear as possible.) What’s important here is that each student has something to say. Number each student 1-4. #1 reads his sentence. Students comment on what the number before them said (2 comments on 1 etc.). Finally, #1 comments on his/her sentence incorporating others’ ideas and his or her original ideas. The rule here is that there is no cross-discussion. At the end, students have an informal unstructured discussion about the topic. Gibbons recommends practicing this beforehand and debriefing after the activity the first few times trying it out.
7) Thinking sheets- is a structured way of having students make their reasoning explicit while they are engaged in cognitive tasks. It requires them to make their reasoning visible by talking through their thinking out loud. A thinking sheet is assigned to a group of 4 students and might have questions such as: 1) What are the key words in this question? 2) Write down another way of saying the same thing. 3) What mathematical processes will you need to use: _____________? Solve this problem in a group. Write down the steps you followed as you were finding the answer. A recorder in the group should record the answers, then a reporter will share out.
As you can see, this type of learning process as shown in these examples, is much different than one dominated by teacher-directed explanation. In my next blog I will list the last of the suggested language activities.
#4 - dictogloss sounds very interesting. I would like to know how that goes for your class, love the collaboration involved. I feel that it would really give students a chance to evaluate what they hear verses what was said.
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