Hi Everyone, it’s been 6 days of lively and insightful discussions!
Hi Everyone, it’s been 6 days of lively and insightful discussions!
Here are things that struck me from the first live session last week:
1. Not to pre-teach new vocabulary before listening. I have been pre-teaching new vocabulary (with visuals and word definitions, etc) quite often before a listening or reading activity, especially when these words are vital to the comprehension of what is being discussed. Doing this for a listening activity sometimes works (with minimum success) and many times doesn’t (especially with young learners). On the other hand, for a reading activity, that works most of the time. I didn’t really investigate this myself until I learned from Penny that “a single exposure to a vocabulary item won’t normally lead to retention”. This kind of gave me the answer, I think, it means that when students come across an unfamiliar word in a listening activity, the meaning is often not ready yet at their disposal and they don’t have enough time to relate and recall this word to the pre-taught vocabulary items as the (listening) activity goes on. While in the reading activity, in most cases, students can take full control of themselves whether or whenever they want to stop and go back to look at the pre-taught vocabulary items first before continuing the rest of the text. Penny Ur please see if I got this right :)
2. Making tasks available to students at different levels/speed. I love this idea! To me, it means providing choice and giving the opportunity to students to take charge of their own learning. I believe this truly can engage students and make them more active by sharing and working on the answers together with their peers . I’m going to do this in my classes and see how it goes.
Here are things that struck me from the first live session last week:
1. Not to pre-teach new vocabulary before listening. I have been pre-teaching new vocabulary (with visuals and word definitions, etc) quite often before a listening or reading activity, especially when these words are vital to the comprehension of what is being discussed. Doing this for a listening activity sometimes works (with minimum success) and many times doesn’t (especially with young learners). On the other hand, for a reading activity, that works most of the time. I didn’t really investigate this myself until I learned from Penny that “a single exposure to a vocabulary item won’t normally lead to retention”. This kind of gave me the answer, I think, it means that when students come across an unfamiliar word in a listening activity, the meaning is often not ready yet at their disposal and they don’t have enough time to relate and recall this word to the pre-taught vocabulary items as the (listening) activity goes on. While in the reading activity, in most cases, students can take full control of themselves whether or whenever they want to stop and go back to look at the pre-taught vocabulary items first before continuing the rest of the text. Penny Ur please see if I got this right :)
2. Making tasks available to students at different levels/speed. I love this idea! To me, it means providing choice and giving the opportunity to students to take charge of their own learning. I believe this truly can engage students and make them more active by sharing and working on the answers together with their peers . I’m going to do this in my classes and see how it goes.
Great post, Nina. I found it really interesting when you said that making tasks available for students does make them more responsible for their learning, I hadn't seen it like that before, but know that you have mentioned it, it makes a lof sense! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Juliana Mastroeni perhaps we can try that in class and then later share our findings 😊
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