Below you can see a description of the lesson conducted in March 2012 in Daugavpils Russian Lyceum. I was a guest teacher and it was my first time with these learners. The learners are 13-14 years old and they have worked with the Thinking Approach for two and a half years. It was an open lesson and one of our intentions was to show a possible way with the Creative Grammar Technology of the TA. In addition to my reflection, you are also welcome to watch the video of the lesson.
1. Lesson description - before
The idea of the lesson was to get the learners to test their models for choosing an appropriate structure to refer to the past in English with the purpose of further improving them later on. All the students had their models with them. An example of a student's model can be seen here.
In the previous lesson, the learners were offered a bank of sentences to be used for testing the model and asked to read it. This was necessary to ensure that there are no problems with understanding the sentences during the lesson.
In terms of competences to be developed, the lesson aims can be defined as follows:
The following worksheet was developed to be given to learners during the lesson.
2. Lesson description - after
The procedures for the lesson are described in the worksheet. The lesson itself was a game, where different groups of learners competed with each other in filling in the worksheet. This was pretty well as motivation to do the task well.
Part 2 of the task was the key stage for the lesson, as it was here where most learning actually took place. The learners had to switch from the abstract model to specific examples in the text and find correspondences. The factor which made it even more difficult was the need to understand the model of fellow students as the task was set on the basis of someone else's rather than their own model.
The lesson was pretty dynamic and the students seemed to be enjoying that. The role of the teacher was to ensure that all groups understood the tasks and kept an eye of the task. The procedures themselves were defined by the task, so in this respect it was fairly easy for the teacher. It was more challenging to organise fellow teachers present in the lesson as they outnumbered the learners and it was essential that they are also involved in the work.
3. Overall reflection
The lesson definitely provided learners with enough data to reflect on their models and improve them later on. They could also experience what was more difficult for them and make conclusions for further learning. It was also useful for the teacher as it was easy to see which structures students notice better and understand and where they actually fall behind (fail to find examples or even fail to identify).
In terms of references to the Thinking Task Framework, the three tasks offered to the learners actually corresponded to the steps of the framework. It should be noted though that it is also possible to speak about the framework from the perspective of the multi-screen model of powerful thinking. In this case, one can speak about the three steps within each of the tasks offered to learners. For example, if some learners found it challenging to find examples, one can start thinking about developing a strategy for finding examples (Step 2) and then testing it and seeing if it works (Step 3).
Comments
I have several questions.
1. I am sure many teachers would be interested in how students came up with the models so hope one day to see a video on it as well:) Did all students have the same models (or the same names for parameters and values)? If no, then how could they understand what another student meant?
2. What kind of questions did students ask you (on support parts of the videos)? Were there any 'typical' questions or those worth mentioning?
3. It would also be interesting to know your vision on what the typical students mistakes they make while doing this task will be? What do you expect to work with during the next lesson and how do you plan to do it.
Many thanks.
1. No, they didn't have the same models, although I must admit that the differences between their models were fewer in comparison to the usual situation with my students when I worked at school. In fact, getting them to work with a different model and make sense out of it, was one of the ideas of the lesson. One of the competences we are interested in developing is about an ability to switch between different models. Moreover, an exchange of models between students is helpful in itself at a certain stage as it allows for a metacognitive level of work, where models themselves are the objects of study and students come up with a kind of super-model as a result.
2. There were different questions, as far as I remember. Some were purely technical, ie about the task itself and whether they correctly understood what they were to do. Some dealt with language or understanding of what the other student wrote (they exchanged papers, so had to read and understand each other's handwriting).
It's difficult for me to speak about typical questions as one lesson is not enough for generalisations like this.
3. This I think is a question to Irina as she analysed the works and can give a much more precise answer, I think. Normally the teacher can see the problematic parameters for this or that learner (can't find examples or don't even include in setting the task), the situation with the systemic vision of grammar (do they choose parameters and values that can go together when setting the task or not?), etc. In fact, certain kind of monitoring can be done according to each of the competences I listed.
There was also one additional thing we were interested in. If you look at the worksheet, there was a task set by me. This was supposed to deal with something they hadn't worked on yet. We wanted to see if students would be able to identify any structures.
1. Thanks again for explanation. Now I understand what the skill 'switch between different models' mean.
You said that you want students to 'come up with a kind of super-model as a result', but do students actually know that they are supposed to do so? I mean, that all the time we are speaking about making things explicit to learners. In this case, at some point (maybe on the next lesson) is the teacher supposed to discuss with the students what they got from their peer's models and why actually the task was done, what the aim was?
2. Clear, thanks. I thought maybe there was an interesting similar question coming from 2 or 3 pairs.
3. Thank you, it's clear. That's actually a very interesting part to see, how the next stage is done since in the video, students are simply working on the worksheets and there is no kind of working-with-the students-produced-results organised. This is probably an eternal question of a new TA teacher - and what's next?:)
3. In fact, when working with the worksheets, they are working with each other's results as well, as they exchange the worksheets after each task. The thing is that lots of learning takes place when students are just working, so it may not look like a fascinating lesson from the side.
I think, this is a generally well-planned lesson. The materials are fine and helps the pupils to develop understanding. There aren't any difficulties in class management. Pupils understood what they had to do. It is a satisfactory lesson shortly.
There are some differences between this lesson and how I teach. Here, the importance is given to grammar RULES unfortunately. Sometimes it may be boring for my students. Our English lessons are often rule based as a result of the central exams. But I realized that yours is more student centered allowing for more communication. In aspect of class management , there is no difference.
As you aim to develop an integration of both language and thinking skills of learners, it may be a thinking lesson, I think. Also you gave them tasks that arise their awareness and their vision of grammar.
I want to ask a question:
How would you deal with an unmotivated student in this grammar game?
Many thanks already
Alper
Re your question, I am afraid my answer won't be more specific than 'it depends'. Let me explain. I believe that the question of motivation is always contextual - we should motivate specific students, therefore all our solutions will be rather specific as they are targeted at particular students and take account of their characteristics. With this particular group, my plan was that the form of the competitive game will be motivational enough and it worked.