TESL 160 - Unit 2

How can introducing a variety of activities enhance language learning?

Giving learners a variety of activities means that they can interact with the material and lessons in the way they learn best. If you use many different activities to teach the same concept, it also gives them multiple chances to use the concept as well to get a deeper understanding of it. In my opinion, student-centered activities will have learners more engaged in their learning and therefore learning more. In my class, I use a project system for my science classes that goes along with the Universal design concept in which learners can present the information in a way that works best for them. I have found that it has made my learners more engaged because even though they are all learning the same topic, they can present it in a way that makes sense for them. I have had learners do presentations, plays, dioramas, etc. It has been very helpful. This has not only helped me in classroom management, but it has helped learners retain more information and are interested in the topics.  When learners are engaged, you tend to have less to deal with in terms of classroom management.

Choose an activity that you would like to include in your lesson plan and explain why.

Betting/Auction http://iteslj.org/games/9946.html

This activity is a great way to teach students about the differences between correct sentences and incorrect sentences.  Through the use of an activity like this, the ideas of grammatically correct and incorrect sentences are represented and assessed through the use of a game.  Additionally, the game forces students to auto-evaluate because they may believe a sentence is correct but they have to be certain it is correct or they may suffer a fine for bidding on an incorrect sentence.  The game supports work in groups that can help learners experience decision-making as a group in a way that directly relates to their ability to win.

Although I think this activity is a great way to teach learners to identify correct and incorrect sentences, I do have one issue with this activity.  As a teacher of young adults, I have problems with the ideas of gambling and betting in the classroom. I would adapt the activity by removing the idea of money and replacing it with points and would emphasize the “auction” idea over the “betting” idea.  I would also not use words like “auction,” “betting,” or “gambling” in relation to this activity.

Choose an activity that you would be reluctant to include in your lesson plan and explain why.

Hangman http://iteslj.org/games/9999.html

Hangman is a very common and widely used activity when discussing vocabulary and spelling.  However, there are some problems with this activity that I think make it less useful in a classroom.  First and foremost, the entire premise of the activity is based on hanging a person. Working with children, representing the hanging of a person, especially as a repercussion for their inability to spell out or guess a word, is not a useful tactic.  When working with adults, the activity may seem more acceptable despite the violent imagery, however if you are working with learners who have experienced very real and traumatizing events of violence this activity may become a trigger. One possible adaptation to make this activity more useful and acceptable would be to draw the shape of an animal or some other item that does not represent any violent imagery.  For example, during the holiday season I will use the shape of a present. The learners would need to be informed of the number of attempts they have (ie. there are 8 parts of the present that I will draw before the learners “lose” the activity). Another example would be to draw an octopus, which consists of 8 legs, a body, and 2 eyes.

However, this adaptation does not overcome the second challenge facing this activity.  Learners are not necessarily required to know the correct spelling of a word in order to successfully complete the word.  Guessing random letters until either the learner figures out the word or gets the correct letters through luck does not inherently teach any concepts.  The only real benefit of this activity is it helps beginner learners the opportunity to practice and think about the alphabet.

References:

Brown, H. D., & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

The Internet TESL Journal (1998). Hangman [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://iteslj.org/games/9999.html

The Internet TESL Journal (2000). Betting/Auction [Webpage]. Retrieved from http://iteslj.org/games/9946.html


**Here is the link for a video showing how to create games with google classrooms. It shows other possibilities of interactive activities for the learners.

How to create learning games in Google Classroom