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New Zealand – Viet Nam Education Cooperation
Professional Development for English Teacher Trainers
Ho Chi Minh City University of Education, July 2010
Objective
To provide professional development for 15 Vietnamese Teacher Trainers of English teachers in the effective teaching of English as an additional language in primary or secondary classrooms.
To provide a professional learning frameworks that schools and teachers can use to measure the impact of their teaching on student progress and achievement.
Programme
The suggested approach is a two week intensive workshop for teacher trainers on effective English language teaching and learning strategies, followed by observations of practice and feedback sessions on working with teachers. The programme seeks to help trainers explore teacher beliefs and practices about effective language teaching and learning, and explore evidence around what strategies are shown to work best for different learner groups in different situations.
The professional development programme will draw on two key frameworks that have shown to be effective in achieving shifts in teacher practice. Firstly, Ellis’s (2005) ten principles of instructed language learning
www.asian-efl-journal.com/sept_05_re.pdf will underpin the discussions and activities around language teaching methodology, and secondly the teacher inquiry framework (Timperley et al, 2007)
http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Publications/Educational_Practices/EdPractices_18.pdf
will help teachers closely examine and evaluate the teaching strategies they are using, and to pursue alternative approaches when these are found to be less effective in terms of assessing student outcomes.
The two week programme will consist of 10 morning professional learning sessions which focus in depth on one of Ellis’s 10 principles of instructed language learning within a teacher inquiry framework. This will involve the use of DVDs and digistories that demonstrate the effective use of these strategies in New Zealand classrooms. Each afternoon session, participants will be required to design a teaching and learning task that demonstrates how this principle can be effectively applied in practice and present this to the group.
Day One Principle One.
1. Instruction needs to ensure that learners develop both a rich repertoire of formulaic expressions and a rule-based competence.
There is now widespread acceptance of the importance played by formulaic expressions in language use.
Classroom studies by Ellis and others demonstrate that learners often internalise rote-learned materials as chunks, breaking them down for analysis later on.
This session will draw on strategies trainers already use that support this principle as well as introducing a number of other strategies and learning tasks that have been shown to be effective.
In the afternoon, trainers will demonstrate their understanding of this principle by planning and sharing a learning task based on use of formulaic expressions in a range of authentic contexts.
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Activity
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Purpose
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Details
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Introductions:
Digital Mihi?
Participants to introduce each other
Course design
Must apply learning in afternoon
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Cultural practices – learning language is
about learning cultural practices too.
Pair work important for confidence and
practice. Interviewing good for listening and
speaking.
Introducing another good for less confident
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Powerpoint slides – digital mihi
Teaching as Inquiry
Assessment diagram
Participants interview each other:
Three things about themselves
In what ways do you learn languages best?
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Exploring beliefs about language
teaching and learning
“People learn a new language best when.”.
Whiteboard.
So… what does this mean for our work
in supporting teachers?
‘ Do what you’ve always done, you will
Get what you’ve always got.’
Responsibility lies with TEACHER
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Reflecting on different language learning styles and purposes
Brainstorm reasons why people learn a new
language
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Research on effective Instructional Strategies
Motivation-desire/need to communicate in target
language
Appropriate to learning needs – basic tourist etc
Tolerance for risk taking
Efficiency of language for purpose
Manageable chunks
Connections with known (e.g. Latin)
Affective factors – observable progress; FUN;
Situated language learning – context dependent
Cultural codes and practices – positive interactions
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Teaching as Inquiry
Was it effective for all learners?
How do you know?
What could you do differently next time?
Really important for teachers to determine
the impact of their teaching on intended
learning outcomes.
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To incorporate reflective practice into teaching
Research on effective instructional strategies:
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Show Facilitator Inquiry Diagram.
Make chart with examples; 2 columns
- Setting objectives and providing feedback
- Non linguistic representations
- Cues, questions, and advance organisers
- Cooperative learning
- Summarising and notetaking
- Homework and practice
- Reinforcing effort and providing recognition
- Generating and testing hypotheses
Identifying similarities and differences
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Formulaic Language Learning
Why do people learn another language?
People learn a language best when…
Tasks for formulaic language learning:
Situational dialogues.
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Principle One:
Importance of formulaic expressions
Quick progress
Meets immediate purpose
Can see patterns later
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Situational Dialogue on powerpoint - practice
Practice
Handout x 30 Both sides
Possible uses:
Greetings – How are you this morning? Beginner
Do you speak English?
No/a little/some/yes
Job Interview-Advanced
Other teaching strategies
Flash cards of words and phrases
- Picture sequences – write phrases on w/board.
- Two other picture sequences
Matching supplied phrases to picture sequence – pairs to write phrases. Swap and others to match.
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Afternoon
Activity preparation
Task design
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Embedding Principle One in task design
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Participants to design a teaching and learning activity
that focuses on formulaic language learning for either
beginner, intermediate or advanced learners.
Criteria (Evaluation from group)
Usefulness of language will be important (investment of
time)
A number of formulaic expressions can be learnt
Potential to build on them
Sharing: Flash sticks?
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Day Two
Principle Two
Instruction needs to ensure that learners focus predominantly on meaning.
Focus on meaning can be on semantic meaning (e.g. grammatical structures) or on pragmatic meaning, that is, the highly contextualised meaning that comes from authentic communication.
To provide opportunities for students to attend to and perform pragmatic meaning, a task based approach to language teaching is required and that these should be predominant in any language teaching curriculum.
In the afternoon, trainers will demonstrate their understanding of this principle by planning and sharing a learning task based on pragmatic meaning required to communicate in a range of authentic contexts.
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Activity
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Purpose
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Details
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Accuracy versus meaning
I not well ( meaning clear)
Approve and add am
I well (meaning not clear) without body language /expression.
May mean pronunciation I will.
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Instruction needs to ensure that learners focus predominantly on meaning.(communication of message)
Semantic meaning- grammatical structures
Pragmatic meaning – authentic purpose
e.g.
Phrasal verbs - differences in meaning when they become part of a phrase.
Better to learn words as part of sentences rather than single words which have no meaning out of context
Why are songs and poems so useful? formulaic, focus on meaning, stress and phrasing, aural support.
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Semantic meaning .
Pragmatic meaning Picture / write dialogue
Sequencing
Role play
Diagrams
Matching
- Reading for meaning – powerpoint text.
Find errors
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Language efficiency
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- Phrasal verbs
- Collocations
- High frequency vocabulary- investment of time
- Corpus – Common words
- Powerpoint examples
- Gap fill (exact words not important – meaning is
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Afternoon
Task design
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Embedding principle 2 into regular practice
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Design and present tasks to group
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Day Three
Principle Three.
There is now widespread acceptance that acquisition also requires that learners attend to form. Instruction can comprise of grammar tasks that require ‘noticing’ of particular forms and the application of particular rules, as well as error correction tasks.
In the afternoon, trainers will demonstrate their understanding of this principle by planning and sharing a learning task based on use of form -focussed teaching and learning.
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Activity
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Purpose
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Details
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- Focus on form without boring learners.
Learner needs
Establish context
Show learners the form of the item
Organise teaching and learning material so that grammatical patterns become obvious
Direct your learners attention to items on known contexts
And establish meaning
Avoid confusing learners – eg two tenses
Opportunities for practice
Monitor learners’ understanding
Revisit over several weeks
Opportunities for applied use
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Instruction needs to ensure that learners also focus on form
Form-
What forms can the item have?
What other items have similar forms?
Position
What positions can the item occur in?
What items can come before or after it?
Where does it come in the sentence?
What other items are substituted for it?
Function
What is the item used for?
What does its use or absence tell us?
Meaning
What is another grammatical way or expressing this meaning?
When can you use different forms to express the same meaning?
Frequency
How likely are learners or users of English to need to understand or produce the item or items?
Attention to common mistakes for Vietnamese learners of English
e.g. the verb to be
he is hungry v he hungry
final consonant pronunciation
Focus on form associated with different functions.
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Timelines (tenses)
Drawing the time line
Matching the sentences
Error noticing
Infinitives supplied for gap fill. (verbs esp the verb to be) is are was were
Drama
Definite and indefinite articles a/the/this etc
Countable / uncountable noun
Frequencies - Corpus
- Nouns 26 % ¼ this is a/that is a
- Verbs 18 % 1/5 time line verbs
- Determiner/quantifiers 14%
- Prepositions 12 %
- Pronouns 6%
- Conjunctions 6%
- Adverbs5%
- Others eg wh words, foreign words/interjections etc
Complete table handout
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Participants design tasks
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Day Four
Principle Four
Instruction needs to be predominantly directed at developing implicit knowledge of the target language while not neglecting explicit knowledge.
Implicit knowledge is accessed rapidly and easily and thus is available for use in rapid, fluent communication. In the view of most language research, competence in a target language is primarily a matter of implicit knowledge.
Learners need to have opportunities to participate in communicative activity to develop implicit knowledge, aided by some focus on form.
In the afternoon, trainers will demonstrate their understanding of this principle by planning and sharing a learning task based on use of communicative teaching and learning.
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Activity
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Purpose
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Details
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Practice practice practice
Communication is goal – not perfection
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Instruction needs to be predominantly directed at developing implicit knowledge of the target language while not neglecting explicit knowledge.
Implicit knowledge is accessed rapidly and easily and thus is available for use in rapid, fluent communication. In the view of most language research, competence in a target language is primarily a matter of implicit knowledge
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Think back to situational dialogues
Building up repertoire of easily recalled language
Warmers at beginning of lesson to reinforce confidence & motivation
Try to use most recent learning – can look at notes (individualised and pairs opportunities)
Matching pictures and words
Cognitive organisers around theme or context
Have a conversation /interview
Running Dictation – three teams to convey text to group. Text split up into 7 pieces.
Barrier games – maps and instructions
Role play :
What do I sell? (Butcher) (Sonia + whole class- each person to try to buy one item) all forms possible. Go over verbally:
I would like to buy
Could I have
Do you have etc
Card Games
Charades
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Task design and present
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Day Five
Principle 5
Instruction needs to take account the learner’s built-in syllabus
Early research into naturalistic target language acquisition showed that learners follow a natural order an sequence of acquisition. This session will look at typical patterns of target language acquisition and the likely progression of language structures required to ensure appropriateness of language curriculum design.
In the afternoon, trainers will demonstrate their understanding of this principle by planning and sharing the first components of a language teaching framework.
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Activity
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Purpose
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Details
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What do we teach when?
What are the language demands of the task we want then to do (avoid overload)
Language
Ideas
Skills
Text
Supporting effective teacher practice
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Instruction needs to take account the learner’s built-in syllabus
Language Learning Progressions (ELP)
Age appropriate texts and content.
Interests
Selections
Supporting effective teacher practice- what will you be looking for in teacher thinking and planning
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Powerpoint on
Dimensions of Effective Practice
Stages of second language acquisition
Typical sequence of forms
Cummins chart 7 years pathway
Surface and deep language proficiency
Language functions in the classroom
SELLIPS resources
Input
Guided practice
Independent practice
English Language Learning Progressions
Inquiry cycle use of resource material
Teacher self appraisal
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Participants to design tasks
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Matrix that takes each of the groups and lists down suitable activities for input, guided practice, and independent practice
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Day Six
Principle Six
Successful instructed language learning requires extensive target language input.
If learners do not receive exposure to the target language they cannot acquire it. In general, the more exposure they receive the more and faster they will learn. This session will explore the range of opportunities and resources that can be used to give students opportunities to engage with the target language. This includes audio visual materials and music.
In the afternoon, trainers will demonstrate their understanding of this principle by planning and sharing a teaching and learning task that uses one or more of these resources.
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Activity
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Purpose
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Details
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Opportunities to hear and read English at a comprehensible level and pace.
Teacher – support oral with written text whiteboard
Songs – sing along (songbooks)
Stories – read along ebooks; cdroms
Movies – read along
Picture dictation
Internet
Skype ??
Facebook
Blogs
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Successful instructed language learning requires extensive target language input.
Thinking in own language
(translanguaging in early stages for depth
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Developmental language learning
Checking understanding of input
Brainstorm
What can you do with a song?
What can you do with a story?
Students contribute songs
MP3s IPODs
Yrs 7-10 and 5-6
Electronic storybook examples – Frog Pond
CDs CDRoms – interactive with notes
Input – teacher
Guided – group /pairs
Independent
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Task design
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Use of LML texts
Matrix of resources and use
One task
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Day Seven
Principle 7
Successful instructed language learning also requires opportunities for output.
Controlled practice exercises typically result in output that is limited in terms of length and complexity. Research has shown that extended talk of a clause or more in a classroom context is more likely to occur when students initiate interactions in the classroom and when they have to find their own words. This is best achieved by asking learners to perform oral and written tasks.
In the afternoon, trainers will demonstrate their understanding of this principle by planning and sharing a teaching and learning task that utilises students’ interests to provide opportunities for extended talking and writing.
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Activity
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Purpose
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Details
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Extended opportunities
Student led teaching and learning
Group discussion – cue cards
Conditionals (if you won/ if you were president / if you could)
Themes approach
Extended talk/writing around a prompt eg picture.
For those who are not good risk takers – Writing fast in English and Vietnamese
- graphing number of words.first
then
Self correcting
Speaking- prompt sheets
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Successful instructed language learning also requires opportunities for output.
Context
Purpose
Criteria
Scaffolding
Practice*
Performance*
* prepared v prepared
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Topics that students are likely to have an interest in:
Celebrities
Fashion
Sport
Scaffolding – chart
Taiaha and other stories – parallel writing etc
Supply picture/ diagrams
Writing process – concept maps first
Provided
Develop own
Writing Thinksheets – scaffolded instruction for extended writing
Thinking Hats - de Bono
Use tracked changes to show student error correction
Make up class books – authentic audiences - clearfiles
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Task design
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Talking about self and family /places etc
About Vietnam/Ho Chi minh – places cultural practices, things to say and do – brochure
Identify when you are writing this what are the language structures you are using.
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Day 8
Principle 8
The opportunity to interact in the target language is central to developing target language proficiency
Frequent interactions with others not only promotes the automatising of existing linguistic resources but the creation of new ones. Opportunities to negotiate meaning with plenty of scaffolding are needed. This is more likely achieved through tasks than through exercises. Group work is a key strategy to provide these opportunities to learn from each other and to modify through peer feedback and meaning clarification. Strategies to control the level of first language usage will also be explored*
In the afternoon, trainers will demonstrate their understanding of this principle by planning and sharing a teaching and learning task that utilises small group approaches to provide support and feedback to learners.
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Activity
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Purpose
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Details
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Pair and group and whole class work where students are encouraged to give feedback on meaning, pronunciation and grammar for communication.
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The opportunity to interact in the target language is central to developing target language proficiency
Opportunities to negotiate meaning with plenty of scaffolding are needed
Reading stories to each other
Pairs
Small groups
Larger groups
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Giving instructions on how to make something
Doing exactly what the instructor says
Groups of three – one observer /feedback agent
A Folding paper napkins
Can write instructions in first language*
Must give in instructions in English.
Expert jigsaw – using Teacher Professional Learning and development text
Describe picture –action seen.
Partner has sentences on another copy
B Completing documentation via an interview
Icebreaker activities booklet – get each group to explain task to whole group.
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Day 9
Principle 9
Instruction needs to take account of individual differences in learners.
While there are identifiable universal aspects of target language acquisition, there is also considerable variability in the rate of learning and in the ultimate level of achievement. In particular, learning will be more successful when:
- the instruction is matched to the students’ particular aptitude for learning
- the students are motivated.
In addition, the use of tasks and strategies that help students recognise and utilise knowledge of their own approaches and preferences in learning can be a key factor in learner motivation and self management. The teaching as inquiry framework will also be revisited in depth in this session.
In the afternoon, trainers will demonstrate their understanding of this principle by planning and sharing a teaching and learning task that encourages and elicits student self knowledge and utilises this in planning for different student strengths and needs.
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Revisit motivational factors
Way something is set out can increase/decrease motivation –demonstrate
Font/colour/text density/ space/ pictures/
Not too hard
Opportunities for practice
Focus on meaning/communication – not perfection
Learning styles versus language learning strategies
(Rebecca Oxford)
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How do you find out what students enjoy?
Questionnaire (Vietnamese)
Internet
Students lead instructional sessions on
what they enjoy
What makes a good strategy?
Depends on the learner and context
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All sorts of learning opportunities
Independent
Pairs
Groups
Outside
Other people/adults
Projects
Effective Learning Strategies List
Go back to own learning preferences
(workshop one)
Complete VARK questionnaire
Making Language and Learning work. DVDs 1,2,3
Looking at increasing student ownership of
learning
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Task design
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Checklists for teachers- Knowing your learner
Teacher observation
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Day 10
Principle 10
In assessing learners target language proficiency, it is important to examine free as well as controlled production.
The extent of the effectiveness of instruction is contingent on the way it is measured. While students may perform well on multi-choice and gap filling assessment approaches, free constructed response (e.g. a communicative task) constitutes the best measure of learners’ target language proficiency, as it corresponds most closely with the kind of language use found outside the classroom. This session will explore the effective use of assessment tasks that best inform further teaching and learning.
In the afternoon, trainers will demonstrate their understanding of this principle by designing a number of possible assessment tasks, determining the type of knowledge about learner progress that would be revealed, and the type of teaching and learning tasks that would need to follow to help learners progress.
This final session will recap on all the 10 principles that have been covered over the two weeks and the range of tasks and approaches that trainers have designed that effectively support these principles.
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Activity
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Purpose
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Details
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Assessment for Learning
Revisit Teaching as Inquiry cycle
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In assessing learners target language proficiency, it is important to examine free as well as controlled production
Improve student achievement by improving the professional
capability of teachers
Who assesses?
Tutor teacher:
Have teachers got a good understanding of language learning principles and progressions?
Are these evidenced through their lesson planning and delivery?
How much attention do they pay to the on going evidence of all student learning (data/notes)?
How much do they allow students to be responsible for their learning? Students given opportunities to design and lead sessions e.g. songs
Students to self assess through learning logs
How much do teachers evaluate the impact of their own teaching – where do they think the responsibility lies?
Because all learners learn differently, we just haven’t found the best way to teach all students yet.
Doing the same things and expecting different results.
If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.
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Assessment – diagnostic/formative/summative
Revisit 10 principles
Key Question:
When would you say someone is good at
English language?
Communicates well in speaking and writing –
Few errors of meaning
Few grammatical errors
Understands and can contribute to what
someone is saying pairs / group
Can read and summarise a text well
May make odd mistake but will freely ask for w
Word or expression they don’t know
Risk taker
How would you assess these?
Handout: Assessment activities
So how might we value these competencies in
Assessment:
Communicative
- Conversation e.g.Interview exchange (error analysis)
- Talk about a picture
Give directions using map
- Group discussion (observation/error
analysis
- Read text and say what it is about
- Listen to discussion and say what they are talking about
Accuracy
- Gapfill – completing a form understanding meaning
- Error correction in paragraph text
- Write on topic – opinion piece
- Read and complete task
Teacher evaluation / student evaluation according to criteria.
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Assessment Task design
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Assessment kit that attend to all aspects of
learner proficiency. Totals from different areas.
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Course review and Evaluation
What have you learnt?
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