In language instruction, reading materials have traditionally been chosen from literary texts that represent "higher" forms of culture.
This approach assumes that students learn to read a language by studying its vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure, not by actually reading it. In this approach, lower level learners read only sentences and paragraphs generated by textbook writers and instructors. The reading of authentic materials is limited to the works of great authors and reserved for upper level students who have developed the language skills needed to read them.
When the goal of instruction is communicative competence, everyday materials such as train schedules, newspaper articles, and travel and tourism Web sites become appropriate classroom materials, because reading them is one way communicative competence is developed. Instruction in reading and reading practice thus become essential parts of language teaching at every level.
Strategies for Developing Reading Skills
Using Reading Strategies
They seem to think reading means starting at the beginning and going word by word, stopping to look up every unknown vocabulary item, until they reach the end. When they do this, students are relying exclusively on their linguistic knowledge, a bottom-up strategy. One of the most important functions of the language instructor, then, is to help students move past this idea and use top-down strategies as they do in their native language.
Effective language instructors show students how they can adjust their reading behavior to deal with a variety of situations, types of input, and reading purposes. They help students develop a set of reading strategies and match appropriate strategies to each reading situation.
Strategies that can help students read more quickly and effectively include
• Previewing: reviewing titles, section headings, and photo captions to get a sense of the structure and content of a reading selection
• Predicting: using knowledge of the subject matter to make predictions about content and vocabulary and check comprehension; using knowledge of the text type and purpose to make predictions about discourse structure; using knowledge about the author to make predictions about writing style, vocabulary, and content
• Skimming and scanning: using a quick survey of the text to get the main idea, identify text structure, confirm or question predictions
• Guessing from context: using prior knowledge of the subject and the ideas in the text as clues to the meanings of unknown words, instead of stopping to look them up
• Paraphrasing: stopping at the end of a section to check comprehension by restating the information and ideas in the text
Instructors can help students learn when and how to use reading strategies in several ways.
• By modeling the strategies aloud, talking through the processes of previewing, predicting, skimming and scanning, and paraphrasing. This shows students how the strategies work and how much they can know about a text before they begin to read word by word.
• By allowing time in class for group and individual previewing and predicting activities as preparation for in-class or out-of-class reading. Allocating class time to these activities indicates their importance and value.
• By using cloze (fill in the blank) exercises to review vocabulary items. This helps students learn to guess meaning from context.
• By encouraging students to talk about what strategies they think will help them approach a reading assignment, and then talking after reading about what strategies they actually used. This helps students develop flexibility in their choice of strategies.
When language learners use reading strategies, they find that they can control the reading experience, and they gain confidence in their ability to read the language.
When reading to learn, students need to follow four basic steps:
1. Figure out the purpose for reading. Activate background knowledge of the topic in order to predict or anticipate content and identify appropriate reading strategies.
2. Attend to the parts of the text that are relevant to the identified purpose and ignore the rest. This selectivity enables students to focus on specific items in the input and reduces the amount of information they have to hold in short-term memory.
3. Select strategies that are appropriate to the reading task and use them flexibly and interactively. Students' comprehension improves and their confidence increases when they use top-down and bottom-up skills simultaneously to construct meaning.
4. Check comprehension while reading and when the reading task is completed. Monitoring comprehension helps students detect inconsistencies and comprehension failures, helping them learn to use alternate strategies.
Goals and Techniques for Teaching Reading
Instructors want to produce students who, even if they do not have complete control of the grammar or an extensive lexicon, can fend for themselves in communication situations. In the case of reading, this means producing students who can use reading strategies to maximize their comprehension of text, identify relevant and non-relevant information, and tolerate less than word-by-word comprehension.
Focus: The Reading Process
To accomplish this goal, instructors focus on the process of reading rather than on its product.
• They develop students' awareness of the reading process and reading strategies by asking students to think and talk about how they read in their native language.
• They allow students to practice the full repertoire of reading strategies by using authentic reading tasks. They encourage students to read to learn (and have an authentic purpose for reading) by giving students some choice of reading material.
• When working with reading tasks in class, they show students the strategies that will work best for the reading purpose and the type of text. They explain how and why students should use the strategies.
• They have students practice reading strategies in class and ask them to practice outside of class in their reading assignments. They encourage students to be conscious of what they're doing while they complete reading assignments.
• They encourage students to evaluate their comprehension and self-report their use of strategies. They build comprehension checks into in-class and out-of-class reading assignments, and periodically review how and when to use particular strategies.
• They encourage the development of reading skills and the use of reading strategies by using the target language to convey instructions and course-related information in written form: office hours, homework assignments, test content.
• They do not assume that students will transfer strategy use from one task to another. They explicitly mention how a particular strategy can be used in a different type of reading task or with another skill.
By raising students' awareness of reading as a skill that requires active engagement, and by explicitly teaching reading strategies, instructors help their students develop both the ability and the confidence to handle communication situations they may encounter beyond the classroom. In this way they give their students the foundation for communicative competence in the new language.
Integrating Reading Strategies
Instruction in reading strategies is not an add-on, but rather an integral part of the use of reading activities in the language classroom. Instructors can help their students become effective readers by teaching them how to use strategies before, during, and after reading.
Before reading: Plan for the reading task
• Set a purpose or decide in advance what to read for
• Decide if more linguistic or background knowledge is needed
• Determine whether to enter the text from the top down (attend to the overall meaning) or from the bottom up (focus on the words and phrases)
During and after reading: Monitor comprehension
• Verify predictions and check for inaccurate guesses
• Decide what is and is not important to understand
• Reread to check comprehension
• Ask for help
After reading: Evaluate comprehension and strategy use
• Evaluate comprehension in a particular task or area
• Evaluate overall progress in reading and in particular types of reading tasks
• Decide if the strategies used were appropriate for the purpose and for the task
• Modify strategies if necessary
Using Authentic Materials and Approaches
For students to develop communicative competence in reading, classroom and homework reading activities must resemble (or be) real-life reading tasks that involve meaningful communication. They must therefore be authentic in three ways.
1. The reading material must be authentic: It must be the kind of material that students will need and want to be able to read when traveling, studying abroad, or using the language in other contexts outside the classroom.
When selecting texts for student assignments, remember that the difficulty of a reading text is less a function of the language, and more a function of the conceptual difficulty and the task(s) that students are expected to complete. Simplifying a text by changing the language often removes natural redundancy and makes the organization somewhat difficult for students to predict. This actually makes a text more difficult to read than if the original were used.
Rather than simplifying a text by changing its language, make it more approachable by eliciting students' existing knowledge in pre-reading discussion, reviewing new vocabulary before reading, and asking students to perform tasks that are within their competence, such as skimming to get the main idea or scanning for specific information, before they begin intensive reading.
2. The reading purpose must be authentic: Students must be reading for reasons that make sense and have relevance to them. "Because the teacher assigned it" is not an authentic reason for reading a text.
To identify relevant reading purposes, ask students how they plan to use the language they are learning and what topics they are interested in reading and learning about. Give them opportunities to choose their reading assignments, and encourage them to use the library, the Internet, and foreign language newsstands and bookstores to find other things they would like to read.
3. The reading approach must be authentic: Students should read the text in a way that matches the reading purpose, the type of text, and the way people normally read. This means that reading aloud will take place only in situations where it would take place outside the classroom, such as reading for pleasure. The majority of students' reading should be done silently.
Reading Purpose and Reading Comprehension
Reading is an activity with a purpose. A person may read in order to gain information or verify existing knowledge, or in order to critique a writer's ideas or writing style. A person may also read for enjoyment, or to enhance knowledge of the language being read. The purpose(s) for reading guide the reader's selection of texts.
The purpose for reading also determines the appropriate approach to reading comprehension. A person who needs to know whether she can afford to eat at a particular restaurant needs to comprehend the pricing information provided on the menu, but does not need to recognize the name of every appetizer listed. A person reading poetry for enjoyment needs to recognize the words the poet uses and the ways they are put together, but does not need to identify main idea and supporting details. However, a person using a scientific article to support an opinion needs to know the vocabulary that is used, understand the facts and cause-effect sequences that are presented, and recognize ideas that are presented as hypotheses and givens.
Reading research shows that good readers
• Read extensively
• Integrate information in the text with existing knowledge
• Have a flexible reading style, depending on what they are reading
• Are motivated
• Rely on different skills interacting: perceptual processing, phonemic processing, recall
• Read for a purpose; reading serves a function
Reading as a Process
Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension. The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that encode meaning. The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what that meaning is.
Reader knowledge, skills, and strategies include
• Linguistic competence: the ability to recognize the elements of the writing system; knowledge of vocabulary; knowledge of how words are structured into sentences
• Discourse competence: knowledge of discourse markers and how they connect parts of the text to one another
• Sociolinguistic competence: knowledge about different types of texts and their usual structure and content
• Strategic competence: the ability to use top-down strategies (see Strategies for Developing Reading Skills for descriptions), as well as knowledge of the language (a bottom-up strategy)
The purpose(s) for reading and the type of text determine the specific knowledge, skills, and strategies that readers need to apply to achieve comprehension. Reading comprehension is thus much more than decoding. Reading comprehension results when the reader knows which skills and strategies are appropriate for the type of text, and understands how to apply them to accomplish the reading purpose.
Jumat, 04 Juni 2010
Selasa, 25 Mei 2010
How to Teach Listening
When we teach listening we need to teach not only English, but we also need to teach how it is used. We need to teach both :
Using the language system involves how we apply this knowledge of the language system to understand or convey meaning and how we apply particular skills to understanding and conveying meaning.
Listening skills are often divided into two groups :
Listening Strategies
=> are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the comprehension and recall of listening input. Listening strategies can be classified by how the listener processes the input.
that is, the combination of sounds, words, and grammar that creates meaning. Bottom-up
strategies include
Before listening = Plan for the listening task
Authentic materials and situations prepare students for the types of listening they will need
to do when using the language outside the classroom.
One-Way Communication
Materials :
In authentic two-way communication, the listener focuses the speaker's meaning rather than
the speaker's language. The focus shifts to language only when meaning is not clear. Note the
difference between the teacher as teacher and the teacher as authentic listener in the
dialogues in the popup screens.
- The language system, (our knowledge of language : grammar and vocabulary, etc )
- The use of the language system ( the skills of language use )
Using the language system involves how we apply this knowledge of the language system to understand or convey meaning and how we apply particular skills to understanding and conveying meaning.
Listening skills are often divided into two groups :
- Bottom up listening skills ( bottom up processing ) => refers to the decoding process, the direct decoding of language into meaningful units, from sound waves through the air, in through our ears and into our brain where meaning is decoded. To do this students need to know the code. How the sounds work and how they string together and how the codes can change in different ways when they're strung together.
- Top-down listening skills ( top-down processing ) => refers to how we use our world knowledge to attribute meaning to language input; how our knowledge of social convention helps us understand meaning.
Listening Strategies
=> are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the comprehension and recall of listening input. Listening strategies can be classified by how the listener processes the input.
- Top-down strategies are listener based; the listener taps into background knowledge of the topic, the situation or context, the type of text, and the language. This background knowledge activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is heard and anticipate what will come next. Top-down strategies include
- Listening for the main idea.
- Predicting.
- Drawing inferences.
- Summarizing.
that is, the combination of sounds, words, and grammar that creates meaning. Bottom-up
strategies include
- Listening for specific details.
- Recognizing cognates.
- Recognizing word-order patterns.
- They plan by deciding which listening strategies will serve best in a particular situation.
- They monitor their comprehension and the effectiveness of the selected strategies.
- They evaluate by determining whether the combination of listening strategies selected was an effective one.
Before listening = Plan for the listening task
- Set a purpose or decide in advance what to listen for
- Decide if more linguistic or background knowledge is needed
- Determine whether to enter the text from the top-down ( attend to the overall meaning ) or from the bottom-up ( focus on the words and phrases )
- Verify predictions and check for inaccurate guesses
- Decide what is and is not important to understand
- Listen / view again to check comprehension
- Ask for help
- Evaluate comprehension in a particular task or area
- Evaluate overall progress in listening and in particular types of listening tasks
- Decide if the strategies used were appropriate for the purpose and for the task
- Modify strategies if necessary
Authentic materials and situations prepare students for the types of listening they will need
to do when using the language outside the classroom.
One-Way Communication
Materials :
- Radio and television programs
- Public address announcements ( airports, train / bus stations, stores )
- Speeches and lectures
- Telephone customer service recordings.
- Help students identify the listening goal : to obtain specific information; to decide whether to continue listening; to understand most or all the message
- Help students outline predictable sequences in which information may be presented : who-what-when-where ( news stories ); who-flight number-arriving / departing-gate number ( airport announcements ); "for [ function ], press [ number ]" ( telephone recordings )
- Help students identify key words / phrases to listen for
In authentic two-way communication, the listener focuses the speaker's meaning rather than
the speaker's language. The focus shifts to language only when meaning is not clear. Note the
difference between the teacher as teacher and the teacher as authentic listener in the
dialogues in the popup screens.
Rabu, 28 April 2010
How to Teach Writing
In learning English language, there are four skills that we have to learn and master, such as reading, writing, speaking, and listening. But, here we will only talk about writing and the 30 ideas for teaching it.
This ideas originated as full-lenght articles in NWP publications.
30 Ideas for teaching Writing :
1. Use the shared events of students' lives to inspire writing.
Debbie Rotkow, a co-director of the Coastal Georgia Writing Project, uses the real-life circumstances of her first grade students to help them compose writing that, in Frank Smith's words, is "natural and purposeful."
The inspirations for writing can come from everything that happen around us, such as :
This ideas originated as full-lenght articles in NWP publications.
30 Ideas for teaching Writing :
1. Use the shared events of students' lives to inspire writing.
Debbie Rotkow, a co-director of the Coastal Georgia Writing Project, uses the real-life circumstances of her first grade students to help them compose writing that, in Frank Smith's words, is "natural and purposeful."
The inspirations for writing can come from everything that happen around us, such as :
- When a child comes to school with a fresh haircut or a tattered book bag, it can inspire us to write a poem.
- When Michael rode his bike without training wheels for the first time, this occasion provided a worthwhile topic to write about.
- A new baby in a family, a lost tooth, and the death of one student's father were the playful or serious inspirations for student writing.
Rotkow says, "Our classroom reverberated with the stories of our lives as we wrote, talked, and reflected about who we were, what we did, what we thought, and how we thought about it. We became a community."
2. Establish an email dialogue between students from different schools who are reading the same book.
The high school teacher Karen Murar and college instructor Elaine Ware, teacher-consultants with the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project, discovered students were scheduled to read the August Wilson play Fences at the same time, they set up email communication between students to allow some " teacherless talk" about the text.
Rather than typical teacher-led discussion, the project fostered independent conversation between students. Formal classroom discussion of the play did not occur until students had completed all email correspondence. Though teachers were not involved in student online dialogues, the conversations evidenced the same reading strategies promoted in teacher-led discussion, including predication, clarification, interpretation, and others.
3. Use writing to improve relations among students.
Diane Waff, co-director of the Philadelphia Writing Project, taught in an urban school where boys outnumbered girls four to one in her classroom. This situation left girls feeling overwhelmed, and their voice faded into the background, overpowered by more aggressive male voices.
Determined not to ignore this unhealthy situation, Waff urged students to face the problem head-on, asking them to write about gender-based problems in their journals. She then introduced literature that considered relationships between the sexes, focusing on themes of romance, love, and marriage. Students wrote in response to works as diverse as de Maupassant's "The Necklace" and Dean Myers's Motown and DiDi.
There was a great dissonance between male and female responses in the beginning. According to Waff, "Girls focused on feelings; boys focused on sex, money, and the fleeting nature of romantic attachment." But as the students continued to write about and discuss their honest feelings, they began to notice that they had similar ideas on many issues. " By confroting these gender-based problems directly, the effect was to improve the lives of individual students and the social well-being of the wider school community."
4. Help student writers draw rich chunks of writing from endless sprawl.
Jan Matsuoka, a teacher-consultant with the Bay Area Writing Project ( California ), describes a revision conference she held with a third grade English language learner named Sandee, who had written about a recent trip to Los Angeles.
Matsuoka told Sandee to have more focus in her story. For avoid she feels confused, Matsuoka made rough sketches representing the events of her trip by made a small frame out of a piece of paper and placed it down on one of her drawings-a sketch she had made of a visit with her grandmother. According Matsuoka, focus means writing about the memorable details of the visit with her grandmother, not everything else she did on the trip. Now, her next draft was more deep than broad.
5. Work with words relevant to students' lives to help them build vocabulary.
Eileen Simmons, a teacher-consultant with the Oklahoma State University Writing Project, knows and says that the more relevant new words are to students' lives, the more likely they are to take hold. In her high school classroom, she uses a form of the children's ABC book as a community-building project. For each letter of the alphabet, the students find an appropriately descriptive word for themselves and elaborate on the word by writing sentences and creating an illustration. In the process, they make extensive use of the dictionary and thesaurus. One student describes her personality as sometimes 'caustic', illustrating the word with a photograph of a burning car in a war zone. Her caption explains that she understands the hurt her 'burning' sarcastic remarks can generate.
6. Help students analyze text by asking them to imagine dialogue between authors.
John Levine, a teacher-consultant with the Bay Area Writing Project ( California ), helps his college freshmen integrate the ideas of several writers into a single analytical essay by asking them to create a dialogue among those writers. For instance, one of his students are the moderator of a panel discussion on the topic those writers are discussing who consider the three writers and construct a dialogue among the four 'voices' (the three essayists plus them). Levin also tells students to format the dialogue as though it were a script. The essay follows from this preparation.
7. Spotlight language and use group brainstorming to help students create poetry.
The following is a group poem created by second grade students of Michelle Fleer, a teacher-consultant with the Dakota Writing Project ( South Dakota ).
Underwater
Crabs crawl patiently along the ocean floor
searching for prey.
Fish soundlessly weave their way through
slippery seaweed
Whales whisper to others as they slide
through the salty water.
And silent waves wash into a dark cave
where an octopus is sleeping.
Fleer helped her students get started by finding a familiar topic, for example : her students had been studying sea life. First, she asked them to brainstorm language related to the sea, allowing them time to list appropriate nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Then, they used these words to create phrases and used the phrases to produce the poem itself.
As a group, students put together words in ways Fleer didn't believe many of them could have done if they were working on their own, and after creating several group poems, some of them felt confident enough to work alone.
8. Ask students to reflect on and write about their writing.
Douglas James Joyce, a teacher-consultant with the Denver Writing Project, makes use of what he calls "metawriting" in his college writing classes. He sees metawriting (writing about writing) as a way to help students reduce errors in their academic prose.
Joyce explains one metawriting strategy : After reading each essay, he selects one error that occurs frequently in a student's work and points out each instance in which the error is made. He instructs the student to write a one page essay, comparing and contrasting three sources that provide guidance on the established use of that particular convention, making sure a variety of sources are available.
He wants the student to dig into the topic as deeply as necessary, to come away with a thorough understanding of the how and why of the usage, and to understand any debate that may surround the particular usage.
9. Ease into writing workshops by presenting yourself as a model.
Glorianne Bradshaw, a teacher-consultant with the Red River Valley Writing Project ( North Dakota ), decided to make use of experiences from her own life when teaching her first-graders how to write. For example, on an overhead transparency she shows a sketch of herself stirring cookie batter while on vacation. She writes the phrase 'made cookies' under the sketch. Then she asks students to help her write a sentence about this. She writes the words who, where, and when. Using these words as prompts, she and the students construct the sentence, "I made cookies in the kitchen in the morning."
Next, each student returns to the sketch he or she has made of a summer vacation activity and, with her help, answers the same questions answered for Bradshaw's drawing. Then she asks them, "Tell me more. Do the cookies have chocolate chips ? Does the pizza have pepperoni ?" These facts lead to other sentences. Rather than taking away creativity, Bradshaw believes this kind of structure gives students a helpful format for creativity.
10. Get students to focus on their writing by holding off on grading.
Stephanie Wilder found that the grades she gave her high school students were getting in the way of their progress. The weaker students stopped trying. Other students relied on grades as the only standard by which they judged their own work. Wilder decided to postpone her grading until the portofolios, which contained a selection of student work, were complete. She continued to comment on papers, encourage revision, and urge students to meet with her for conferences. But she waited to grade the papers.
It took a while for students to stop leafing to the ends of their papers in search of a grade, and there was some grumbling from students who had always received excellent grades. But she believes that because she was less quick to judge their work, students were better able to evaluate their efforts themselves.
11. Use casual talk about students' lives to generate writing.
Erin ( Pirnot ) Ciccone, teacher-consultant with the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project, found a way to make more productive the "Monday morning gab fest" she used as a warm-up with her fifth grade students. She conceived of "Headline News." As students entered the classroom on Monday morning, they wrote personal headlines about their weekends and posted them on the bulletin board. A headline might read "Fifth-Grader Stranded at Movie Theatre" or "Girl Takes on Responsibility as Mother's Helper." After the headlines had been posted, students had a chance to guess the stories behind them. The writes then told the stories behind their headlines. As each student had only three minutes to talk, they needed to make decisions about what was important and to clarify details as they proceeded. They began to rely on suspense and "purposeful ambiguity" to hold listeners' interest. On Tuesday, students committed their stories to writing. Because of the " Headline News" experience, her students have been able to generate writing that is focused, detailed, and well ordered.
12. Give students a chance to write to an audience for real purpose.
Patricia A. Slagle, high school teacher and teacher-consultant with the Louisville Writing Project ( Kentucky ), understands the difference between writing for a hypothetical purpose and writing to an audience for real purpose. She illustrates the difference by contrasting two assignments. She asks her students to imagine if they are the drama critic for their local newspaper, write a review of an imaginary production of the play they have just finished studying in class. This prompt asks students to assume the contrived role of a professional writer and drama critic. They must adapt to a voice that is not theirs and pretend to have knowledge they do not have.
Slagle developed a more effective alternative by asks them to write a letter to the director of their local theater company in which they present arguments for producing the play that they have just finished studying in class. This prompt allows the writer her own voice, building into her argument concrete references to personal experience. This prompt would constitute authentic writing only for those students who, in fact, would like to see the play produced.
13. Practice and play with revision techniques.
Mark Farrington, college instructor and teacher-consultant with the Northern Virginia Writing Project, believes teaching revision sometimes means practicing techniques of revision. An exercise like 'find a place other than the first sentence where this essay might begin' is valuable because it shows student writers the possibilities that exist in writing.
For Farrington's students, practice can sometime turn to play with directions to :
2. Establish an email dialogue between students from different schools who are reading the same book.
The high school teacher Karen Murar and college instructor Elaine Ware, teacher-consultants with the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project, discovered students were scheduled to read the August Wilson play Fences at the same time, they set up email communication between students to allow some " teacherless talk" about the text.
Rather than typical teacher-led discussion, the project fostered independent conversation between students. Formal classroom discussion of the play did not occur until students had completed all email correspondence. Though teachers were not involved in student online dialogues, the conversations evidenced the same reading strategies promoted in teacher-led discussion, including predication, clarification, interpretation, and others.
3. Use writing to improve relations among students.
Diane Waff, co-director of the Philadelphia Writing Project, taught in an urban school where boys outnumbered girls four to one in her classroom. This situation left girls feeling overwhelmed, and their voice faded into the background, overpowered by more aggressive male voices.
Determined not to ignore this unhealthy situation, Waff urged students to face the problem head-on, asking them to write about gender-based problems in their journals. She then introduced literature that considered relationships between the sexes, focusing on themes of romance, love, and marriage. Students wrote in response to works as diverse as de Maupassant's "The Necklace" and Dean Myers's Motown and DiDi.
There was a great dissonance between male and female responses in the beginning. According to Waff, "Girls focused on feelings; boys focused on sex, money, and the fleeting nature of romantic attachment." But as the students continued to write about and discuss their honest feelings, they began to notice that they had similar ideas on many issues. " By confroting these gender-based problems directly, the effect was to improve the lives of individual students and the social well-being of the wider school community."
4. Help student writers draw rich chunks of writing from endless sprawl.
Jan Matsuoka, a teacher-consultant with the Bay Area Writing Project ( California ), describes a revision conference she held with a third grade English language learner named Sandee, who had written about a recent trip to Los Angeles.
Matsuoka told Sandee to have more focus in her story. For avoid she feels confused, Matsuoka made rough sketches representing the events of her trip by made a small frame out of a piece of paper and placed it down on one of her drawings-a sketch she had made of a visit with her grandmother. According Matsuoka, focus means writing about the memorable details of the visit with her grandmother, not everything else she did on the trip. Now, her next draft was more deep than broad.
5. Work with words relevant to students' lives to help them build vocabulary.
Eileen Simmons, a teacher-consultant with the Oklahoma State University Writing Project, knows and says that the more relevant new words are to students' lives, the more likely they are to take hold. In her high school classroom, she uses a form of the children's ABC book as a community-building project. For each letter of the alphabet, the students find an appropriately descriptive word for themselves and elaborate on the word by writing sentences and creating an illustration. In the process, they make extensive use of the dictionary and thesaurus. One student describes her personality as sometimes 'caustic', illustrating the word with a photograph of a burning car in a war zone. Her caption explains that she understands the hurt her 'burning' sarcastic remarks can generate.
6. Help students analyze text by asking them to imagine dialogue between authors.
John Levine, a teacher-consultant with the Bay Area Writing Project ( California ), helps his college freshmen integrate the ideas of several writers into a single analytical essay by asking them to create a dialogue among those writers. For instance, one of his students are the moderator of a panel discussion on the topic those writers are discussing who consider the three writers and construct a dialogue among the four 'voices' (the three essayists plus them). Levin also tells students to format the dialogue as though it were a script. The essay follows from this preparation.
7. Spotlight language and use group brainstorming to help students create poetry.
The following is a group poem created by second grade students of Michelle Fleer, a teacher-consultant with the Dakota Writing Project ( South Dakota ).
Underwater
Crabs crawl patiently along the ocean floor
searching for prey.
Fish soundlessly weave their way through
slippery seaweed
Whales whisper to others as they slide
through the salty water.
And silent waves wash into a dark cave
where an octopus is sleeping.
Fleer helped her students get started by finding a familiar topic, for example : her students had been studying sea life. First, she asked them to brainstorm language related to the sea, allowing them time to list appropriate nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Then, they used these words to create phrases and used the phrases to produce the poem itself.
As a group, students put together words in ways Fleer didn't believe many of them could have done if they were working on their own, and after creating several group poems, some of them felt confident enough to work alone.
8. Ask students to reflect on and write about their writing.
Douglas James Joyce, a teacher-consultant with the Denver Writing Project, makes use of what he calls "metawriting" in his college writing classes. He sees metawriting (writing about writing) as a way to help students reduce errors in their academic prose.
Joyce explains one metawriting strategy : After reading each essay, he selects one error that occurs frequently in a student's work and points out each instance in which the error is made. He instructs the student to write a one page essay, comparing and contrasting three sources that provide guidance on the established use of that particular convention, making sure a variety of sources are available.
He wants the student to dig into the topic as deeply as necessary, to come away with a thorough understanding of the how and why of the usage, and to understand any debate that may surround the particular usage.
9. Ease into writing workshops by presenting yourself as a model.
Glorianne Bradshaw, a teacher-consultant with the Red River Valley Writing Project ( North Dakota ), decided to make use of experiences from her own life when teaching her first-graders how to write. For example, on an overhead transparency she shows a sketch of herself stirring cookie batter while on vacation. She writes the phrase 'made cookies' under the sketch. Then she asks students to help her write a sentence about this. She writes the words who, where, and when. Using these words as prompts, she and the students construct the sentence, "I made cookies in the kitchen in the morning."
Next, each student returns to the sketch he or she has made of a summer vacation activity and, with her help, answers the same questions answered for Bradshaw's drawing. Then she asks them, "Tell me more. Do the cookies have chocolate chips ? Does the pizza have pepperoni ?" These facts lead to other sentences. Rather than taking away creativity, Bradshaw believes this kind of structure gives students a helpful format for creativity.
10. Get students to focus on their writing by holding off on grading.
Stephanie Wilder found that the grades she gave her high school students were getting in the way of their progress. The weaker students stopped trying. Other students relied on grades as the only standard by which they judged their own work. Wilder decided to postpone her grading until the portofolios, which contained a selection of student work, were complete. She continued to comment on papers, encourage revision, and urge students to meet with her for conferences. But she waited to grade the papers.
It took a while for students to stop leafing to the ends of their papers in search of a grade, and there was some grumbling from students who had always received excellent grades. But she believes that because she was less quick to judge their work, students were better able to evaluate their efforts themselves.
11. Use casual talk about students' lives to generate writing.
Erin ( Pirnot ) Ciccone, teacher-consultant with the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project, found a way to make more productive the "Monday morning gab fest" she used as a warm-up with her fifth grade students. She conceived of "Headline News." As students entered the classroom on Monday morning, they wrote personal headlines about their weekends and posted them on the bulletin board. A headline might read "Fifth-Grader Stranded at Movie Theatre" or "Girl Takes on Responsibility as Mother's Helper." After the headlines had been posted, students had a chance to guess the stories behind them. The writes then told the stories behind their headlines. As each student had only three minutes to talk, they needed to make decisions about what was important and to clarify details as they proceeded. They began to rely on suspense and "purposeful ambiguity" to hold listeners' interest. On Tuesday, students committed their stories to writing. Because of the " Headline News" experience, her students have been able to generate writing that is focused, detailed, and well ordered.
12. Give students a chance to write to an audience for real purpose.
Patricia A. Slagle, high school teacher and teacher-consultant with the Louisville Writing Project ( Kentucky ), understands the difference between writing for a hypothetical purpose and writing to an audience for real purpose. She illustrates the difference by contrasting two assignments. She asks her students to imagine if they are the drama critic for their local newspaper, write a review of an imaginary production of the play they have just finished studying in class. This prompt asks students to assume the contrived role of a professional writer and drama critic. They must adapt to a voice that is not theirs and pretend to have knowledge they do not have.
Slagle developed a more effective alternative by asks them to write a letter to the director of their local theater company in which they present arguments for producing the play that they have just finished studying in class. This prompt allows the writer her own voice, building into her argument concrete references to personal experience. This prompt would constitute authentic writing only for those students who, in fact, would like to see the play produced.
13. Practice and play with revision techniques.
Mark Farrington, college instructor and teacher-consultant with the Northern Virginia Writing Project, believes teaching revision sometimes means practicing techniques of revision. An exercise like 'find a place other than the first sentence where this essay might begin' is valuable because it shows student writers the possibilities that exist in writing.
For Farrington's students, practice can sometime turn to play with directions to :
- add five colors
- add four action verbs
- add one methapor
- add five sensory details.
In his college fiction writing class, Farrington asks student to choose a spot in the story where the main character does something that is crucial to the rest of the story. At the moment, Farrington says, they must make the character do the exact opposite.
According to Farrington, playing at revision can lead to insightful surprises.
14. Pair students with adult reading / writing buddies.
Bernadette Lambert, teacher-consultant with the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project ( Georgia ), wondered what would happen if she had her sixth-grade students pair to read a book with an adult family member. She asked the students about the kinds of books they wanted to read (mysteries, adventure, ghost stories ) and the adult about the kinds of books they wanted to read with the young people (character-building values, multiculturalism, no ghost stories ). Then, using these suggestions for direction, he developed a list of 30 books where from it, each student-adult pair chose one and committed themselves to read and discuss the book and write separate reviews. Most of the students were proud to share a piece of writing done by their adult reading buddy and several admitted that they had never before had this level of intellectual conversation with an adult family member.
15. Teach "tension" to move students beyond fluency.
Suzanne Linebarger, a co-director of the Northern California Writing Project, recognized that one element lacking from many of her students' stories was tension. One day, in front of the class, she demonstrated tension with a rubber band. Looped over her finger, the rubber band merely dangled. However, when she stretches it out and point it ( not at a student ), the rubber band suddenly becomes more interesting. It's the tension, the potential energy, that rivets your attention. It's the same in writing.
Linerbarger revised a generic writing prompt to add an element of tension. The initial prompt read, think of a friend who is special to you. Write about something your friend has done for you, you have done for your friend, or you have done together. Because, Linerbarger didn't want responses that settled for "my best friend was really good to me", so during the rewrite session we talked about how hard it is to stay friends when met with a challenge. Students talked about times they had let their friends down or times their friends had let them down, and how they had managed to stay friends in spite of their problems. In other words, we talked about some tense situations that found their way into their writing.
16. Encourage descriptive writing by focusing on the sounds of words.
Ray Skjelbred, middle school teacher at Martin Country Day School, wants his seventh grade students to listen to language. He wants to begin to train their ears by asking them to make lists of wonderful sounding words. This is strictly a listening game, they shouldn't write lunch just because they're hungry. After the collective list is assembled, Skjelbred asks students to make sentences from some of the words they've collected. They may use their own words, borrow from other contributors, add other words as necessary, and change word forms.
Among the words on one student's list : tumble, detergent, sift, bubble, syllable, creep, erupt, and volcano. The student writes :
According to Farrington, playing at revision can lead to insightful surprises.
14. Pair students with adult reading / writing buddies.
Bernadette Lambert, teacher-consultant with the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project ( Georgia ), wondered what would happen if she had her sixth-grade students pair to read a book with an adult family member. She asked the students about the kinds of books they wanted to read (mysteries, adventure, ghost stories ) and the adult about the kinds of books they wanted to read with the young people (character-building values, multiculturalism, no ghost stories ). Then, using these suggestions for direction, he developed a list of 30 books where from it, each student-adult pair chose one and committed themselves to read and discuss the book and write separate reviews. Most of the students were proud to share a piece of writing done by their adult reading buddy and several admitted that they had never before had this level of intellectual conversation with an adult family member.
15. Teach "tension" to move students beyond fluency.
Suzanne Linebarger, a co-director of the Northern California Writing Project, recognized that one element lacking from many of her students' stories was tension. One day, in front of the class, she demonstrated tension with a rubber band. Looped over her finger, the rubber band merely dangled. However, when she stretches it out and point it ( not at a student ), the rubber band suddenly becomes more interesting. It's the tension, the potential energy, that rivets your attention. It's the same in writing.
Linerbarger revised a generic writing prompt to add an element of tension. The initial prompt read, think of a friend who is special to you. Write about something your friend has done for you, you have done for your friend, or you have done together. Because, Linerbarger didn't want responses that settled for "my best friend was really good to me", so during the rewrite session we talked about how hard it is to stay friends when met with a challenge. Students talked about times they had let their friends down or times their friends had let them down, and how they had managed to stay friends in spite of their problems. In other words, we talked about some tense situations that found their way into their writing.
16. Encourage descriptive writing by focusing on the sounds of words.
Ray Skjelbred, middle school teacher at Martin Country Day School, wants his seventh grade students to listen to language. He wants to begin to train their ears by asking them to make lists of wonderful sounding words. This is strictly a listening game, they shouldn't write lunch just because they're hungry. After the collective list is assembled, Skjelbred asks students to make sentences from some of the words they've collected. They may use their own words, borrow from other contributors, add other words as necessary, and change word forms.
Among the words on one student's list : tumble, detergent, sift, bubble, syllable, creep, erupt, and volcano. The student writes :
- A man loads his laundry into the tumbling washer, the detergent sifting through the bubbling water.
- The syllables creep through her teeth.
- The fog erupts like a volcano in the dust.
Unexpected words can go together, creating amazing images.
17. Require written response to peers' writing.
Kathleen O'Shaughnessy, co-director of the National Writing Project of Acadiana ( Louisiana ), asks her middle school students to respond to each others' writing on Post-it Notes. Students attach their comments to a piece of writing under consideration.
She has found that when she requires a written response on a Post-in instead of merely allowing students to respond verbally, the responders take their duties more seriously and, with practice, the quality of their remarks improves.
One student wrote :
While I was reading your piece, I felt like I was riding a roller coaster. It started out kind a slow, but you could tell there was something exciting coming up. But then it moved real fast and stopped all of a sudden. I almost needed to read it again the way you ride a roller coaster over again because it goes too fast.
According O'Shaughnessy, this response is certainly more useful to the writer than the usual 'I think you could, like, add some more details, you know ?' that I often overheard in response meetings.
18. Make writing reflection tangiable.
Anna Collins Trest, director of the South Mississippi Project, finds she can lead upper elementary school students to better understand the concept of "reflection" if she anchors the discussion in the concrete and helps students establish categories for their reflective responses. She decided to use mirrors to teach the reflective process. Each student had one. As the students gazed at their own reflections, she asked this question : " What can you think about while looking in the mirror at your own reflection ? " As they answered, she categorized each response :
I think I'm a queen - pretending/imagining
I look at my cavities - examining/observing
I think I'm having a bad hair day - forming opinions
What will I look like when I am old ? - questioning
My hair is parted in the middle - describing
I'm thinking about when I broke my nose - remembering
I think I look better than my brother - comparing
Everything on my face looks sad today - expressing emotion.
Trest talked with students about the categories and invited them to give personal examples of each. Then she asked them to look in the mirrors again, reflect on their images, and write. According Trest, Elementary students are literal in their thinking, but that doesn't mean they can't be creative.
19. Make grammar instruction dynamic.
Philip Ireland, teacher-consultant with the San Marcos Writing Project ( California ), believes in active learning. One of his strategies has been to take his seventh-graders on a "preposition walk" around the school campus. Walking in pairs, they tell each other what they are doing :
I'm stepping off the grass. I'm talking to my friend.
Students soon discover that everything they do contains prepositional phrases. He walks among his students prompting answers.
One of his student, Amanda proclaims from her hands and knees, " I'm crawling under the tennis net, the prepositional phrase is under the net. "
Ireland asks, " The preposition ? "
" Under. "
20. Ask students to experiment with sentence length.
Kim Stafford, director of the Oregon Writing Project at Lewis and Clark College, wants his students to discard old notions that sentences should be a certain length. He explains to his students that a writer's command of long and short sentences makes for a " more pliable " writing repertoire. He describes the exercise he uses to help students experiment with sentence length.
Stafford invites writers to compose a sentence that goes on for at least a page - and no fair cheating with a semicolon. Just use 'and' when you have to, or a dash, or make a list, and keep it going. After years of being told not to, they take pleasure in writing the greatest run-on sentences they can.
Then they shake out their writing hands, take a blank page, and write from the upper left to the lower right corner again, but this time letting no sentence be longer than four words, but every sentence must have a subject and a verb.
Stafford compares the first style of sentence construction to a river and the second to a drum. Writers need both. Rivers have long rhythms and drums roll.
21. Help students ask questions about their writing.
Joni Chancer, teacher-consultant of the South Coast Writing Project ( California ), has paid a lot of attention to the type of questions she wants her upper elementary students to consider as they re-examine their writing, reflecting on pieces they may make part of their portofolios. Here are some of the questions :
Why did I write this piece ? Where did I get my ideas ?
Who is the audience and how did it affect this piece ?
What skills did I work on in this piece ?
Was this piece easy or difficult to write ? Why ?
What parts did I rework ? What were my revisions ?
Did I try something new ?
What elements of writer's craft enhanced my story ?
What might I change ?
Did something I read influence my writing ?
What did I learn or what did I expect the reader to learn ?
Where will I go from here ? Will I publish it ? Share it ?
Expand it ? Toss it ? File it ?
Chancer cautions that these questions should not be considered a "reflection checklist," rather they are questions that seem to be addressed frequently when writers tell the story of a particular piece.
22. Challenge students to find active verbs.
Nancy Lilly, co-director of the Greater New Orleans Writing Project, wanted her fourth and fifth grade students to breathe life into their nonfiction writing. She thought the student who wrote this paragraph could do better :
The jaguar is the biggest and strongest cat in the rainforest. The jaguar's jaw is strong enough to crush a turtle's shell. Jaguar also have very powerful legs for leaping for branch to branch to chase prey.
Building on an idea from Stephanie Harvey ( Nonfiction Matters, Stenhouse,1998) Lilly introduced the concept of "nouns as stuff" and verbs as "what stuff does."
In a brainstorming session related to the students' study of the rain forest, the class supplied the following assistance to the writer :
Stuff/Nouns : What Stuff Does/Verbs
jaguar : leaps, pounces
jaguar's : legs pump
jaguar's : teeth crush
jaguar's : mouth devours
This was just the help the writer needed to create the following revised paragraph :
As the sun disappears from the heart of the forest, the jaguar leaps through the underbrush, pumping its powerful legs. It spies a gharial gliding down the river. The jungle cat pounces, crushing the turtle with his teeth, devouring the reptile with pleasure.
23. Require students to make a persuasive written argument in support of a final grade.
For a final exam, Sarah Lorenz, a teacher-consultant with the Eastern Michigan Writing Project, asks her high school students to make a written argument for the grade they think they should receive. Drawing on work they have done over the semester, students make a case for how much they have learned in the writing class.
According to Lorenz, the key to convincing is the use of detail, they can't simply say they have improved as writers-they have to give examples and even quote their own writing..They can't just say something was helpful-they have to tell me why they thought it was important, how their thinking changed, or how they applied this learning to everyday life.
24. Ground writing in social issues important to students.
Jean Hicks, director, and Tim Johnson, a co-director, both of the Louisville Writing Project ( Kentucky), have developed a way to help high school students create brief, effective dramas about issues in their lives. The class, working in groups, decides on a theme such as jealousy, sibling rivalry, competition, or teen drinking. Each group develops a scene illustrating an aspect of this chosen theme.
Considering the theme of sibling rivalry, for instance, students identify possible scenes with topics such as " I Had It First " (competing for family resources) and " Calling in the Troops" (tattling). Students then set up the circumstances and characters.
Hicks and Johnson give each of the "characters" a different color packet of Post-it Notes. Each student develops and posts dialogue for his or her character. As the scene emerges, Post-its can be added, moved, and deleted. They remind students of the conversations of drama such as conflict and resolution. Scenes, when acted out, are limited to 10 minutes. According Hicks and Johnson, It's not so much about the genre or the product as it is about creating a culture that supports the thinking and learning of writers.
25. Encourage the" framing device " as an aid to cohesion in writing.
Romana Hillebrand, a teacher-consultant with the Northwest Inland Writing Project (Idaho), asks her university students to find a literary or historical reference or a personal narrative that can provide a fresh way into and out of their writing, surrounding it much like a window frame surrounds a glass pane.
Hillebrand provides this example :
A student in her research class wrote a paper on the relationship between humans and plants, beginning with a reference to the nursery rhyme, 'Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies...'
She explained the rhymes as originating with the practice of masking the stench of death with flowers during the Black Plague. The student finished the paper with the sentence, "Without plants, life on Earth would cease to exist as we know it; ashes we all fall down."
Hillebrand concludes that linking the introduction and the conclusion helps unify a paper and satisfy the reader.
26. Use real world examples to reinforce writing conventions.
Suzanne Cherry, director of the Swamp Fox Writing Project ( South Carolina ), has her own way of dramatizing the comma splice error. She brings to class two pieces of wire, the last inch of each exposed. She tells her college students that we need to join these pieces of wire together right now if we are to be able to watch our favorite TV show. We could use some tape, but that would probably be a mistake as the puppy could easily eat through the connection. By splicing the wires in this way, we are creating a fire hazard.
A better connection, the students usually suggest, would be to use one of those electrical connectors that look like pen caps.
Cherry says to her students to turn these wires into sentences. If we simply splice them together with a comma, the equivalent of a piece of tape, we create a weak connection, or a comma splice error. Then would be the grammatical equivalent of the electrical connector is think conjunction -and, but,or. Or try a semicolon. All of these show relationships between sentences in a way that the comma, a device for taping clauses together in a slapdash manner.
According to Cherry, the more able we are to relate the concepts of writing to 'real world' experience, the more successful we will be.
27. Think like a football coach.
In addition to his work as a high school teacher of writing, Dan Holt, a co-director with the Third Coast Writing Project ( Michigan), spent 20 years coaching football. While doing the latter, he learned quite a bit about doing the former. Here is some of what he found out :
The writing teacher can't stay on the sidelines. " When I modeled for my players, they knew what I wanted them to do." The same involvement, he says, is required to successfully teach writing.
Like the coach, the writing teacher should praise strong performance rather than focus on the negative. Statements such as "Wow, that was a killer block," or "That paragraph was tight" will turn "butterball" ninth-grade boys into varsity linemen and insecure adolescents into aspiring poets.
The writing teacher should apply the KISS theory : Keep it smile stupid. Holt explains for a freshman quarterback, audibles (on-field commands) are best used with care until a player has reached a higher skill level. In writing class, a student who has never written a poem needs to start with small verse forms such as a chinquapin or haiku.
Practice and routine are important both for football players and for writing students, but football players and writers also need the " adrenaline rush " of the big game and the final draft.
28. Allow classroom writing to take a page from yearbook writing.
High school teacher Jon Appleby noticed that when yearbooks fell into students' hands, "my curriculum got dropped in a heartbeat for spirited words scribbled over photos." Appleby wondered, "How can I make my classroom as facinating and consuming as the yearbook ? "
Here are some ideas that yearbook writing inspired :
Take pictures, put them on the bulletin boards, and have students write captions for them. Then design small descriptive writing assignments using the photographs of events such as the prom and homecoming. Afterwards, ask students to choose quotes from things they have read that represent what they feel and think and put them on the walls.
Check in about students' lives. Recognize achievements and individuals the way that yearbook writers direct attention to each other. Ask students to write down memories and simply, joyfully share them. As yearbook writing usually does, insist on a sense of tomorrow.
29. Use home language on the road to Standard English.
Eileen Kennedy, special education teacher at Medger Evers College, works with native speakers of Caribbean Creole who are preparing to teach in New York City. Sometimes she encourages her students to draft writing in their native Creole. The additional challenge becomes to redraft this writing, rendered in patois, into Standard English.
She finds that narratives involving immigrant Caribbean natives in unfamiliar situations - buying a refrigerator, for instance - lead to inspired writing. In addition, some students expressed their thoughts more proficiently in Standard English after drafting in their vernaculars.
30. Introduce multi - genre writing in the context of community service.
Jim Wilcox, teacher-consultant with the Oklahoma Writing Project, requires his college students to volunteer at a local facility that serves the community, any place from the Special Olympics to a burn unit. Over the course of their tenure with the organization, students write in a number of genres : an objective report that describes the appearance and activity of the facility, a personal interview/profile, an evaluation essay that requires students to set up criteria by which to assess this kind of organization, an investigative report that includes information from a second source, and a letter to the editor of a campus newspaper or other publication.
He says that besides improving their researching skills, students learn that their community is indeed full of problems and frustrations. They also learn that their own talents and time are valuable assets in solving some of the world's problems - one life at a time.
17. Require written response to peers' writing.
Kathleen O'Shaughnessy, co-director of the National Writing Project of Acadiana ( Louisiana ), asks her middle school students to respond to each others' writing on Post-it Notes. Students attach their comments to a piece of writing under consideration.
She has found that when she requires a written response on a Post-in instead of merely allowing students to respond verbally, the responders take their duties more seriously and, with practice, the quality of their remarks improves.
One student wrote :
While I was reading your piece, I felt like I was riding a roller coaster. It started out kind a slow, but you could tell there was something exciting coming up. But then it moved real fast and stopped all of a sudden. I almost needed to read it again the way you ride a roller coaster over again because it goes too fast.
According O'Shaughnessy, this response is certainly more useful to the writer than the usual 'I think you could, like, add some more details, you know ?' that I often overheard in response meetings.
18. Make writing reflection tangiable.
Anna Collins Trest, director of the South Mississippi Project, finds she can lead upper elementary school students to better understand the concept of "reflection" if she anchors the discussion in the concrete and helps students establish categories for their reflective responses. She decided to use mirrors to teach the reflective process. Each student had one. As the students gazed at their own reflections, she asked this question : " What can you think about while looking in the mirror at your own reflection ? " As they answered, she categorized each response :
I think I'm a queen - pretending/imagining
I look at my cavities - examining/observing
I think I'm having a bad hair day - forming opinions
What will I look like when I am old ? - questioning
My hair is parted in the middle - describing
I'm thinking about when I broke my nose - remembering
I think I look better than my brother - comparing
Everything on my face looks sad today - expressing emotion.
Trest talked with students about the categories and invited them to give personal examples of each. Then she asked them to look in the mirrors again, reflect on their images, and write. According Trest, Elementary students are literal in their thinking, but that doesn't mean they can't be creative.
19. Make grammar instruction dynamic.
Philip Ireland, teacher-consultant with the San Marcos Writing Project ( California ), believes in active learning. One of his strategies has been to take his seventh-graders on a "preposition walk" around the school campus. Walking in pairs, they tell each other what they are doing :
I'm stepping off the grass. I'm talking to my friend.
Students soon discover that everything they do contains prepositional phrases. He walks among his students prompting answers.
One of his student, Amanda proclaims from her hands and knees, " I'm crawling under the tennis net, the prepositional phrase is under the net. "
Ireland asks, " The preposition ? "
" Under. "
20. Ask students to experiment with sentence length.
Kim Stafford, director of the Oregon Writing Project at Lewis and Clark College, wants his students to discard old notions that sentences should be a certain length. He explains to his students that a writer's command of long and short sentences makes for a " more pliable " writing repertoire. He describes the exercise he uses to help students experiment with sentence length.
Stafford invites writers to compose a sentence that goes on for at least a page - and no fair cheating with a semicolon. Just use 'and' when you have to, or a dash, or make a list, and keep it going. After years of being told not to, they take pleasure in writing the greatest run-on sentences they can.
Then they shake out their writing hands, take a blank page, and write from the upper left to the lower right corner again, but this time letting no sentence be longer than four words, but every sentence must have a subject and a verb.
Stafford compares the first style of sentence construction to a river and the second to a drum. Writers need both. Rivers have long rhythms and drums roll.
21. Help students ask questions about their writing.
Joni Chancer, teacher-consultant of the South Coast Writing Project ( California ), has paid a lot of attention to the type of questions she wants her upper elementary students to consider as they re-examine their writing, reflecting on pieces they may make part of their portofolios. Here are some of the questions :
Why did I write this piece ? Where did I get my ideas ?
Who is the audience and how did it affect this piece ?
What skills did I work on in this piece ?
Was this piece easy or difficult to write ? Why ?
What parts did I rework ? What were my revisions ?
Did I try something new ?
What elements of writer's craft enhanced my story ?
What might I change ?
Did something I read influence my writing ?
What did I learn or what did I expect the reader to learn ?
Where will I go from here ? Will I publish it ? Share it ?
Expand it ? Toss it ? File it ?
Chancer cautions that these questions should not be considered a "reflection checklist," rather they are questions that seem to be addressed frequently when writers tell the story of a particular piece.
22. Challenge students to find active verbs.
Nancy Lilly, co-director of the Greater New Orleans Writing Project, wanted her fourth and fifth grade students to breathe life into their nonfiction writing. She thought the student who wrote this paragraph could do better :
The jaguar is the biggest and strongest cat in the rainforest. The jaguar's jaw is strong enough to crush a turtle's shell. Jaguar also have very powerful legs for leaping for branch to branch to chase prey.
Building on an idea from Stephanie Harvey ( Nonfiction Matters, Stenhouse,1998) Lilly introduced the concept of "nouns as stuff" and verbs as "what stuff does."
In a brainstorming session related to the students' study of the rain forest, the class supplied the following assistance to the writer :
Stuff/Nouns : What Stuff Does/Verbs
jaguar : leaps, pounces
jaguar's : legs pump
jaguar's : teeth crush
jaguar's : mouth devours
This was just the help the writer needed to create the following revised paragraph :
As the sun disappears from the heart of the forest, the jaguar leaps through the underbrush, pumping its powerful legs. It spies a gharial gliding down the river. The jungle cat pounces, crushing the turtle with his teeth, devouring the reptile with pleasure.
23. Require students to make a persuasive written argument in support of a final grade.
For a final exam, Sarah Lorenz, a teacher-consultant with the Eastern Michigan Writing Project, asks her high school students to make a written argument for the grade they think they should receive. Drawing on work they have done over the semester, students make a case for how much they have learned in the writing class.
According to Lorenz, the key to convincing is the use of detail, they can't simply say they have improved as writers-they have to give examples and even quote their own writing..They can't just say something was helpful-they have to tell me why they thought it was important, how their thinking changed, or how they applied this learning to everyday life.
24. Ground writing in social issues important to students.
Jean Hicks, director, and Tim Johnson, a co-director, both of the Louisville Writing Project ( Kentucky), have developed a way to help high school students create brief, effective dramas about issues in their lives. The class, working in groups, decides on a theme such as jealousy, sibling rivalry, competition, or teen drinking. Each group develops a scene illustrating an aspect of this chosen theme.
Considering the theme of sibling rivalry, for instance, students identify possible scenes with topics such as " I Had It First " (competing for family resources) and " Calling in the Troops" (tattling). Students then set up the circumstances and characters.
Hicks and Johnson give each of the "characters" a different color packet of Post-it Notes. Each student develops and posts dialogue for his or her character. As the scene emerges, Post-its can be added, moved, and deleted. They remind students of the conversations of drama such as conflict and resolution. Scenes, when acted out, are limited to 10 minutes. According Hicks and Johnson, It's not so much about the genre or the product as it is about creating a culture that supports the thinking and learning of writers.
25. Encourage the" framing device " as an aid to cohesion in writing.
Romana Hillebrand, a teacher-consultant with the Northwest Inland Writing Project (Idaho), asks her university students to find a literary or historical reference or a personal narrative that can provide a fresh way into and out of their writing, surrounding it much like a window frame surrounds a glass pane.
Hillebrand provides this example :
A student in her research class wrote a paper on the relationship between humans and plants, beginning with a reference to the nursery rhyme, 'Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies...'
She explained the rhymes as originating with the practice of masking the stench of death with flowers during the Black Plague. The student finished the paper with the sentence, "Without plants, life on Earth would cease to exist as we know it; ashes we all fall down."
Hillebrand concludes that linking the introduction and the conclusion helps unify a paper and satisfy the reader.
26. Use real world examples to reinforce writing conventions.
Suzanne Cherry, director of the Swamp Fox Writing Project ( South Carolina ), has her own way of dramatizing the comma splice error. She brings to class two pieces of wire, the last inch of each exposed. She tells her college students that we need to join these pieces of wire together right now if we are to be able to watch our favorite TV show. We could use some tape, but that would probably be a mistake as the puppy could easily eat through the connection. By splicing the wires in this way, we are creating a fire hazard.
A better connection, the students usually suggest, would be to use one of those electrical connectors that look like pen caps.
Cherry says to her students to turn these wires into sentences. If we simply splice them together with a comma, the equivalent of a piece of tape, we create a weak connection, or a comma splice error. Then would be the grammatical equivalent of the electrical connector is think conjunction -and, but,or. Or try a semicolon. All of these show relationships between sentences in a way that the comma, a device for taping clauses together in a slapdash manner.
According to Cherry, the more able we are to relate the concepts of writing to 'real world' experience, the more successful we will be.
27. Think like a football coach.
In addition to his work as a high school teacher of writing, Dan Holt, a co-director with the Third Coast Writing Project ( Michigan), spent 20 years coaching football. While doing the latter, he learned quite a bit about doing the former. Here is some of what he found out :
The writing teacher can't stay on the sidelines. " When I modeled for my players, they knew what I wanted them to do." The same involvement, he says, is required to successfully teach writing.
Like the coach, the writing teacher should praise strong performance rather than focus on the negative. Statements such as "Wow, that was a killer block," or "That paragraph was tight" will turn "butterball" ninth-grade boys into varsity linemen and insecure adolescents into aspiring poets.
The writing teacher should apply the KISS theory : Keep it smile stupid. Holt explains for a freshman quarterback, audibles (on-field commands) are best used with care until a player has reached a higher skill level. In writing class, a student who has never written a poem needs to start with small verse forms such as a chinquapin or haiku.
Practice and routine are important both for football players and for writing students, but football players and writers also need the " adrenaline rush " of the big game and the final draft.
28. Allow classroom writing to take a page from yearbook writing.
High school teacher Jon Appleby noticed that when yearbooks fell into students' hands, "my curriculum got dropped in a heartbeat for spirited words scribbled over photos." Appleby wondered, "How can I make my classroom as facinating and consuming as the yearbook ? "
Here are some ideas that yearbook writing inspired :
Take pictures, put them on the bulletin boards, and have students write captions for them. Then design small descriptive writing assignments using the photographs of events such as the prom and homecoming. Afterwards, ask students to choose quotes from things they have read that represent what they feel and think and put them on the walls.
Check in about students' lives. Recognize achievements and individuals the way that yearbook writers direct attention to each other. Ask students to write down memories and simply, joyfully share them. As yearbook writing usually does, insist on a sense of tomorrow.
29. Use home language on the road to Standard English.
Eileen Kennedy, special education teacher at Medger Evers College, works with native speakers of Caribbean Creole who are preparing to teach in New York City. Sometimes she encourages her students to draft writing in their native Creole. The additional challenge becomes to redraft this writing, rendered in patois, into Standard English.
She finds that narratives involving immigrant Caribbean natives in unfamiliar situations - buying a refrigerator, for instance - lead to inspired writing. In addition, some students expressed their thoughts more proficiently in Standard English after drafting in their vernaculars.
30. Introduce multi - genre writing in the context of community service.
Jim Wilcox, teacher-consultant with the Oklahoma Writing Project, requires his college students to volunteer at a local facility that serves the community, any place from the Special Olympics to a burn unit. Over the course of their tenure with the organization, students write in a number of genres : an objective report that describes the appearance and activity of the facility, a personal interview/profile, an evaluation essay that requires students to set up criteria by which to assess this kind of organization, an investigative report that includes information from a second source, and a letter to the editor of a campus newspaper or other publication.
He says that besides improving their researching skills, students learn that their community is indeed full of problems and frustrations. They also learn that their own talents and time are valuable assets in solving some of the world's problems - one life at a time.
Minggu, 18 April 2010
Total Physical Response
INTRODUCTION
A general approach to foreign language instruction which has been named 'the Comprehension Approach.' It is called this because of the importance it gives to listening comprehension. In the 1960s and 1970s research gave rise to the hypothesis that language learning should start first with understanding and later proceed to production (Winitz 1981).
After the learner internalizes an extensive map of how the target language works, speaking will appear spontaneously. Of course, the student's speech will not be perfect, but gradually speech will become more target-like. Notice that this is exactly how an infant acquires its native language. For example, a baby spends many months listening to the people around it long before it ever says a word. The child has the time to try to make sense out of the sounds it hears. No one tells the baby that it must speak. The child chooses to speak when it is ready to do so.
There are several methods being practiced, an attempt to apply these observations to foreign language instruction :
After the learner internalizes an extensive map of how the target language works, speaking will appear spontaneously. Of course, the student's speech will not be perfect, but gradually speech will become more target-like. Notice that this is exactly how an infant acquires its native language. For example, a baby spends many months listening to the people around it long before it ever says a word. The child has the time to try to make sense out of the sounds it hears. No one tells the baby that it must speak. The child chooses to speak when it is ready to do so.
There are several methods being practiced, an attempt to apply these observations to foreign language instruction :
- Krashen and Terrel's Natural Approach. It shares certain features with the Direct Method. Emphasis is placed on students' developing basic communication skills and vocabulary through their receiving meaningful exposure to the target language. The students listen to the teacher using the target language communicatively from the beginning of instruction. They do not speak at first. The teacher helps her students to understand her by using pictures and occasional words in the students'native language and by being as expressive as possible.
- Another method that fits within the Comprehension Approach is Winitz and Reed's self-instructional program and Winitz' The Learnables. Students listen to tape-recorded words, phrases, and sentences while they look at accompanying pictures. The meaning of the utterance is clear from the context the pictures provides. The students are asked to respond in some way, such as pointing to each picture as it is described, to show that they understand the language to which they are listening, but they do not speak. Stories illustrated by pictures are also used as a device to convey abstract meaning.
- A new method, called the Lexical Approach, also fits within the Comprehension Approach. Developed by Michael Lewis, the Lexical Approach is less concerned with student production and more concerned that studentsreceive abundant comprehensible input. Especially at lower levels, teachers talk extensively to their students, while requiring little or no verbal response from them. Instead, students are given exercises and activities which raise their awareness about lexical features of the target language.
- James Asher's Total Physical Response (TPR). On the basis of his research, Asher reasoned that the fastest, least stressful way to achieve understanding of any target language is to follow directions uttered by the instructor (without native language translation).
TPR => one of the English teaching approaches and methods developed by Dr. James J Asher. It has been applied for almost thirty years. This method attempts to center attention to encouraging learners to listen and respond to the spoken target language commands of their taechers. In other words, TPR is a language teaching method built around the coordination of speech and action; it attempts to teach language through physical (motor) activity.
THE TECHNIQUES
Using commands to direct behavior
The use of commands is the major teaching technique of TPR. The commands are given to get students to perform an action that makes the meaning of the command clear.
Role reversal
Students command their teacher and classmates to perform some actions. Asher says that students will want to speak after ten to twenty hours of instruction, although some students may take longer. Students should not be encouraged to speak until they are ready.
Action sequence
At one point the teacher give three connected commands. For example, the teacher told the students to point to the door, walk to the door, and touch the door. As the students learn more and more of the target language, a longer series of connected commands can be given, which together comprise a whole procedure. A little later on students might receive the following instructions :
THE TECHNIQUES
Using commands to direct behavior
The use of commands is the major teaching technique of TPR. The commands are given to get students to perform an action that makes the meaning of the command clear.
Role reversal
Students command their teacher and classmates to perform some actions. Asher says that students will want to speak after ten to twenty hours of instruction, although some students may take longer. Students should not be encouraged to speak until they are ready.
Action sequence
At one point the teacher give three connected commands. For example, the teacher told the students to point to the door, walk to the door, and touch the door. As the students learn more and more of the target language, a longer series of connected commands can be given, which together comprise a whole procedure. A little later on students might receive the following instructions :
Take out a pen.
Take out a piece of paper.
Write a letter. (imaginary)
Fold the letter.
Put it in an envelope.
Seal the envelope.
Write the address on the envelope.
Put a stamp on the envelope.
Mail the letter.
This series of command is called an action sequence, or an operation. Many everyday activities, like writing a letter, can be broken down into an action sequence that students can be asked to perform.
Take out a piece of paper.
Write a letter. (imaginary)
Fold the letter.
Put it in an envelope.
Seal the envelope.
Write the address on the envelope.
Put a stamp on the envelope.
Mail the letter.
This series of command is called an action sequence, or an operation. Many everyday activities, like writing a letter, can be broken down into an action sequence that students can be asked to perform.
Minggu, 11 April 2010
The Community Language Learning
This method advises teachers to consider their students as ‘whole persons.’
Whole person learning : teachers consider not only their students’ intellect, but also have some understanding of the relationship among students’ feelings, physical reactions, instinctive protective reactions, and desire to learn.
The Community Language Learning Method takes its principles from the more general Counseling-Learning approach developed by Charles A. Curran, a professor of psychology at Loyola University. He studied adult learning for many years and also influenced by Carl Rogers’ humanistic psychology ( Rogers 1951; Brown 1994), he found that adults often feel threatened by a new learning situation. They are threatened by the change inherent in learning and by the fear that they will appear foolish.
This method refers to two roles: that of the knower (teacher) and student (learner). Also the method draws on the counseling metaphor and refers to these respective roles as a counselor and a client. Because Currant believed that a way to deal with the fears of students is for teachers to become ‘language counselors.’ It does not mean someone trained in psychology, but someone who is a skillful understander of the struggle students face as they attempt to internalize another language. The teacher who can ‘understand’ can indicate his acceptance of the student, so by understanding their fears and being sensitive to them, he can help they overcome their negative feelings and turn them into positive energy to further their learning.
Community language learning (CLL) : an approach in which students work together to develop what aspects of a language they would like to learn. The teacher acts as a counsellor and a paraphraser, while the learner acts as a collaborator, although sometimes this role can be changed.
Whole person learning : teachers consider not only their students’ intellect, but also have some understanding of the relationship among students’ feelings, physical reactions, instinctive protective reactions, and desire to learn.
The Community Language Learning Method takes its principles from the more general Counseling-Learning approach developed by Charles A. Curran, a professor of psychology at Loyola University. He studied adult learning for many years and also influenced by Carl Rogers’ humanistic psychology ( Rogers 1951; Brown 1994), he found that adults often feel threatened by a new learning situation. They are threatened by the change inherent in learning and by the fear that they will appear foolish.
This method refers to two roles: that of the knower (teacher) and student (learner). Also the method draws on the counseling metaphor and refers to these respective roles as a counselor and a client. Because Currant believed that a way to deal with the fears of students is for teachers to become ‘language counselors.’ It does not mean someone trained in psychology, but someone who is a skillful understander of the struggle students face as they attempt to internalize another language. The teacher who can ‘understand’ can indicate his acceptance of the student, so by understanding their fears and being sensitive to them, he can help they overcome their negative feelings and turn them into positive energy to further their learning.
Community language learning (CLL) : an approach in which students work together to develop what aspects of a language they would like to learn. The teacher acts as a counsellor and a paraphraser, while the learner acts as a collaborator, although sometimes this role can be changed.
Sabtu, 03 April 2010
The Summary of The Desuggestopedia
INTRODUCTION
Celce-Murcia calls this method as an affective-humanistic approach => an approach in which there is respect for students' feelings.
The originator of this method : Dr. Georgi Lozanov in 70s, Bulgaria.
According to Lozanov : Language learning can occur at a much faster rate than ordinarily transpires.
The reason for our inefficiency, is that we set up psychological barriers to learning :
Celce-Murcia calls this method as an affective-humanistic approach => an approach in which there is respect for students' feelings.
The originator of this method : Dr. Georgi Lozanov in 70s, Bulgaria.
According to Lozanov : Language learning can occur at a much faster rate than ordinarily transpires.
The reason for our inefficiency, is that we set up psychological barriers to learning :
- we fear that we will be unable to perform.
- then, we will be limited in our ability to learn.
- then, we will fail.
- The result is we do not use the full mental powers that we have. We may be using only 5-10 % of our mental capacity.
In order to make better use of our reserved capacity, the limitations we think we have need to be 'desuggested'.
Desuggestopedia : desuggesting limitation on learning / the application of the study of suggestion to pedagogy, has been developed to help students eliminate the feeling that they cannot be successful or the negative association they may have toward studying and to help them overcome the barriers to learning.
One of the ways the students' mental reserves are stimulated is through integration of the fine arts, an important contribution to the method made by Lozanov's colleague Evelyna Gateva.
Suggestopedia : apply suggestology to teaching.
Charateristics :
Stimulates the whole person.
Undoes blocks
Goes rapidly forward
Gives creative solution
Encourages relaxation
Strengthens self-image
Talks to all the senses
Optimizes learning
Propagates talent
Enhances learning
Dramatises material
Includes pictures, music and movement
Addresses the whole person
According to Lozanov :
Desuggestopedia : desuggesting limitation on learning / the application of the study of suggestion to pedagogy, has been developed to help students eliminate the feeling that they cannot be successful or the negative association they may have toward studying and to help them overcome the barriers to learning.
One of the ways the students' mental reserves are stimulated is through integration of the fine arts, an important contribution to the method made by Lozanov's colleague Evelyna Gateva.
Suggestopedia : apply suggestology to teaching.
Charateristics :
Stimulates the whole person.
Undoes blocks
Goes rapidly forward
Gives creative solution
Encourages relaxation
Strengthens self-image
Talks to all the senses
Optimizes learning
Propagates talent
Enhances learning
Dramatises material
Includes pictures, music and movement
Addresses the whole person
According to Lozanov :
- Learning => the process of consciousness and unconsciousness.
- Authority
- Infantilisation
- Double-planeness (direct/indirect influences)
- Intonation and rhythm
- Concert pseudo-passiveness
- Relaxed attention
THINKING ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE
1. Observation => The classroom is bright and colorful.
Principle => Learning is facilitated in a cheerful environment.
2. Observation => among the posters hanging around the room are several containing grammatical information.
Principle => Students can learn from what is present in the environment, even if their attention is not directed to it ('Peripheral learning').
3. Observation => The teacher speaks confidently. Principle => If students trust and respect the teacher's authority, they will accept and retain information better.
4. Observation => The teacher gives the students the impression that learning the target language will be easy and enjoyable.
Principle => The teacher should recognize that learners bring certain psychological barriers with them to the learning situation. She should attempt to'desuggest' these.
5. Observation => The students choose new names and identities. Principle => Assuming a new identity enhances students' feeling of security and allows them to be more open. They feel less inhibited since their performance is really that of a different person. 6. Observation => The students introduce themselves to the teacher. Principle => The dialog that the students learn contains language they can use immediately.
7. Observation => The play rhythmic instruments as they sing a song. Principles => Songs are useful for 'freeing the speech muscles' and evoking positive emotions.
8. Observation => The teacher distributes a lengthy handout to the class. The title of the dialog is 'To want to is to be able to.' Principle => The teacher should integrate indirect positive suggestions ('there is no limit to what you can do') into the learning situation.
9. Observation => The teacher briefly mentions a few points about English grammar and vocabulary. These are in bold print in the dialog.
Principle => the teacher should present and explain the grammar and vocabulary, but not dwell on them. The bold print allows the students' focus to shift from the whole text to the details before they return to the whole text again. The dynamic interplay between the whole and the parts is important.
10. Observation => There are reproductions of classical paintings throughout the text.
Principle => Fine art provides positive suggestions for students.
11. Observation => In the left column is the dialog in the target language. In the right column is the native language translation.
Principle => One way that meaning is made clear is through native language translation.
12. Observation => The teacher reads the dialog with a musical accompaniment. She matches her voice to the rhythm and intonation of the music.
Principle => Communication takes place on 'two planes': on one the linguistic message is encoded; and on the other are factors which influence the linguistic message. On the conscious plane, the learner attends to the language; on the subconscious plane, the music suggest that learning is easy and pleasant. When there is a unity between conscious and subconscious, learning is enhanced.
13. Observation => The teacher reads the script a second time as the students listen. This is done to different music.
Principle => A calm state, such as one experiences when listening to a concert, is ideal for overcoming psychological barriers and for taking advantage of learning potential.
14. Observation => For homework, the students are to read the dialog at night and in the morning.
Principle => At these times, the distinction between the conscious and the subconscious is most blurred and therefore, learning can occur.
15. Observation => The teacher gives the students hats to wear for the different characters in the dialog. The students take turns reading portions of the dialog.
Principle => Dramatization is a particularly valuable way of playfully activating the material. Fantasy reduces barriers to learning.
16. Observation => The teacher tells the students that they are auditioning for a play.
Principle => The fine arts (music, art,and drama) enable suggestions to reach the subconscious. The arts should, therefore, be integrated as much as possible into the teaching process.
17. Observation => The teacher leads the class in various activities involving the dialog, for example,question-and-answer, repetition, and translation.
Principle => The teacher should help the students 'activate' the material to which they have been exposed. The means of doing this should be varied so as to avoid repetition as much as possible. Novelty aids acquisition.
18. Observation => She teaches the students a children's song.
Principle => Music and movement reinforce the linguistic material. It is desirable that students achieve a state of 'infantilization' so that they will be more open to learning. If they trust the teacher, they will reach this state more easily.
19. Observation => The teacher and students play a question-and-answer game.
Principle => In an atmosphere of play, the conscious attention of the learner does not focus on linguistic forms, but rather on using the language. Learning can be fun.
20. Observation => The student makes an error by saying, ' How you do ?' The teacher corrects the error in a soft voice.
Principle => Errors are corrected gently, not in a direct, confrontational manner.
REVIEWING THE PRINCIPLES
1. The goals of teachers who use Desuggestopedia :
To accelerate the process by which students learn to use a foreign language for everyday communication. More of the students' mental powers must be tapped by desuggesting the psychological barriers learners bring with them to the learning situation and using techniques to activate the 'paraconscious' part of the mind, just below the fully-conscious mind.
2. The teacher is the authority in the classroom. For the method to be successful, the students must trust and respect her. The students will retain information better from someone in whom they have confidence since they will be more responsive to her 'desuggesting' their limitations and suggesting how easy it will be for them to succeed.
Once the students trust the teacher, they can feel more secure, so they can be more spontaneous and less inhibited.
3. Some characteristics of the teaching / learning process :
A Desuggestopedia course is conducted in a classroom which is bright and cheerful because posters displaying grammatical information about the target language are hung around the room to take advantage of students' peripheral learning. The posters are changed every few weeks to create a sense of novelty in the environment.
- Students select target language names and choose new occupations.
- During the course they create whole biographies to go along with their new identities.
- The texts students work from are handouts containing lengthy dialogs (as many as 800 words) in the target language. Next to the dialog is a translation in the students' native language. There are also some notes on vocabulary and grammar which correspond to bold-faced items in the dialog.
The teacher presents the dialog during two concerts which comprise the first major phase (the receptive phase).
- The first concert (the active concert) => the teacher reads the dialog, matching her voice to the ryhthm and pitch of the music, so the 'whole brain'(both the left and the right hemispheres) of the students become activated. The students follow the target language dialog as the teacher reads it out loud. They also check the translation.
- During the second concert (the passive concert), the students listen calmly while the teacher reads the dialog at a normal rate of speed. For homework the students read over the dialog just before they go to sleep, and again when they get up the next morning.
What follows is the second major phase (the activation phase), in which students engage in various activities designed to help them gain facility with the new material. The activities include dramatizations, games, songs, and question-and-answer exercises.
4. The teacher initiates interactions with the whole group of students and with individuals right from the beginning of a language course. Initially, the students can only respond nonverbally or with a few target language words they have practiced. Later the students have more control of the target language and can respond more appropriately and even initiate interaction themselves.
5. The feeling of the students dealt with :
A great deal of attention is given to students' feelings. One of the fundamental principles is that if students are relaxed and confident, they will not need to try hard to learn the language. It will just come naturally and easily. It is considered important that the psychological barriers that students bring with them be desuggested. Indirect positive suggestions are made to enhance students' self-confidence and to convince them that success is obtainable. Students also choose target language names on the assumption that a new identity makes students feel more secure and thus more open to learning.
6. Language is the first of two planes in two-plane process of communication. In the second plane are the factors which influence the linguistic message. For example, the way one dresses or the nonverbal behavior one uses affectshow one's linguistic message is interpreted.
The culture which students learn concerns the everyday life of people who speak the language. The use of the fine arts is also important in Desuggestopedic class.
7. Vocabulary is emphasized. Grammar is dealt with explicitly but minimally. In fact, it is believed that students will learn best if their conscious attention is focused not on the language forms, but on using the language. The 'paraconscious' mind will then absorb the linguistic rules. Speaking communicatively is emphasized. Students also read in the target language (for example, dialogs) and write (for example, imaginative compositions).
8. The role of the students' native language :
Native-language translation is used to make the meaning of the dialog clear. The teacher also uses the native language in class when necessary. As the course proceeds, the teacher uses the native language less and less.
9 Evaluation accomplished :
Evaluation usually is conducted on students' normal in-class performance and not through formall tests.
10. The teacher respond to student errors :
Errors are corrected gently, with the teacher using a soft voice.
REVIEWING THE TECHNIQUES AND THE CLASSROOM SET-UP
Classroom set-up
The teacher is challenged to create a classroom environment which is bright and cheerful by decorated the classroom with scenes (holidays, festival) from a country where the target language is spoken. The teacher should try to provide as positive an environment as possible.
Peripheral learning
This technique is based upon the idea that we perceive much more in our environment than that to which we consciously attend. By putting posters containing grammatical information about the target language on the classroom walls, students will absorb the necessary facts effortlessly. They are changed from time to time to provide grammatical information that is appropriate to what the students are studying.
Positive suggestion
The teacher's responsibility to orchestrate the suggestive factors in a learning situation, thereby helping students break down the barriers to learning that they bring with them through direct suggestion appeals to the students' consciousness : A teacher tells students they are going to be successful. But indirect suggestion, which appeals to the students' subconscious, is actually the more powerful of the two. Indirect suggestion is accomplished through the choice of a dialog entitled, 'To want to is to be able to.'
Choose a new identity
The students choose a target language name and a new occupation. As the course continues, the students have an opportunity to develop a whole biography about their fictional selves. For instance, later on they may be asked to talk or write about their fictional hometown, childhood, and family.
Role play
Students are asked to pretend temporarily that they are someone else and to perform in the target language as if they were that person and often asked to create their own lines relevant to the situation.
First concert (active concert)
The two concerts are components of the receptive phase of the lesson. After the teacher has introduced the story as related in the dialog and called students' attention to some particular grammatical points that arise in it, she reads the dialog in the target language. The students have copies of the dialog in the target language and their native language and refer to it as the teacher is reading. Music is played accompanied with a dramatic reading (the teacher's voice rises and falls with the music) in target language, synchronized in intonation with the music. The music is classical; the early Romantic period is suggested.
Second concert (passive concert)
At here, the students are asked to put their scripts aside. They simply listen as the teacher reads the dialog at a normal rate of speed. The teacher is seated and reads with musical accompaniment. The content governs the way the teacher reads the script, not the music, which is pre-Classical or Baroque.
Primary activation
This technique and the one that follows are components of the active phase of the lesson. The students playfully reread the target language dialog out loud, as individuals or in groups.
Creative adaptation
The students engage in various activities designed to help them learn the new material and use it spontaneously. For example : singing, dancing, dramatizations, and games. The important thing is that the activities are varied and do not allow the students to focus on the form of the linguistic message, just the communicative intent.
Conclusion
Learning will be facilitated in relaxed and comfortable environment.
Learning should be as enjoyable as possible.
4. The teacher initiates interactions with the whole group of students and with individuals right from the beginning of a language course. Initially, the students can only respond nonverbally or with a few target language words they have practiced. Later the students have more control of the target language and can respond more appropriately and even initiate interaction themselves.
5. The feeling of the students dealt with :
A great deal of attention is given to students' feelings. One of the fundamental principles is that if students are relaxed and confident, they will not need to try hard to learn the language. It will just come naturally and easily. It is considered important that the psychological barriers that students bring with them be desuggested. Indirect positive suggestions are made to enhance students' self-confidence and to convince them that success is obtainable. Students also choose target language names on the assumption that a new identity makes students feel more secure and thus more open to learning.
6. Language is the first of two planes in two-plane process of communication. In the second plane are the factors which influence the linguistic message. For example, the way one dresses or the nonverbal behavior one uses affectshow one's linguistic message is interpreted.
The culture which students learn concerns the everyday life of people who speak the language. The use of the fine arts is also important in Desuggestopedic class.
7. Vocabulary is emphasized. Grammar is dealt with explicitly but minimally. In fact, it is believed that students will learn best if their conscious attention is focused not on the language forms, but on using the language. The 'paraconscious' mind will then absorb the linguistic rules. Speaking communicatively is emphasized. Students also read in the target language (for example, dialogs) and write (for example, imaginative compositions).
8. The role of the students' native language :
Native-language translation is used to make the meaning of the dialog clear. The teacher also uses the native language in class when necessary. As the course proceeds, the teacher uses the native language less and less.
9 Evaluation accomplished :
Evaluation usually is conducted on students' normal in-class performance and not through formall tests.
10. The teacher respond to student errors :
Errors are corrected gently, with the teacher using a soft voice.
REVIEWING THE TECHNIQUES AND THE CLASSROOM SET-UP
Classroom set-up
The teacher is challenged to create a classroom environment which is bright and cheerful by decorated the classroom with scenes (holidays, festival) from a country where the target language is spoken. The teacher should try to provide as positive an environment as possible.
Peripheral learning
This technique is based upon the idea that we perceive much more in our environment than that to which we consciously attend. By putting posters containing grammatical information about the target language on the classroom walls, students will absorb the necessary facts effortlessly. They are changed from time to time to provide grammatical information that is appropriate to what the students are studying.
Positive suggestion
The teacher's responsibility to orchestrate the suggestive factors in a learning situation, thereby helping students break down the barriers to learning that they bring with them through direct suggestion appeals to the students' consciousness : A teacher tells students they are going to be successful. But indirect suggestion, which appeals to the students' subconscious, is actually the more powerful of the two. Indirect suggestion is accomplished through the choice of a dialog entitled, 'To want to is to be able to.'
Choose a new identity
The students choose a target language name and a new occupation. As the course continues, the students have an opportunity to develop a whole biography about their fictional selves. For instance, later on they may be asked to talk or write about their fictional hometown, childhood, and family.
Role play
Students are asked to pretend temporarily that they are someone else and to perform in the target language as if they were that person and often asked to create their own lines relevant to the situation.
First concert (active concert)
The two concerts are components of the receptive phase of the lesson. After the teacher has introduced the story as related in the dialog and called students' attention to some particular grammatical points that arise in it, she reads the dialog in the target language. The students have copies of the dialog in the target language and their native language and refer to it as the teacher is reading. Music is played accompanied with a dramatic reading (the teacher's voice rises and falls with the music) in target language, synchronized in intonation with the music. The music is classical; the early Romantic period is suggested.
Second concert (passive concert)
At here, the students are asked to put their scripts aside. They simply listen as the teacher reads the dialog at a normal rate of speed. The teacher is seated and reads with musical accompaniment. The content governs the way the teacher reads the script, not the music, which is pre-Classical or Baroque.
Primary activation
This technique and the one that follows are components of the active phase of the lesson. The students playfully reread the target language dialog out loud, as individuals or in groups.
Creative adaptation
The students engage in various activities designed to help them learn the new material and use it spontaneously. For example : singing, dancing, dramatizations, and games. The important thing is that the activities are varied and do not allow the students to focus on the form of the linguistic message, just the communicative intent.
Conclusion
Learning will be facilitated in relaxed and comfortable environment.
Learning should be as enjoyable as possible.
Sabtu, 27 Maret 2010
Compare the Audio-Lingual Method and The Silent Way
The Audio- Lingual Method
- In the Audio-Lingual Method, teachers want their students to be able to use the target language communicatively. In order to do this, they believe students need to overlearn the target language, to learn to use it automatically without stopping to think and achieve this by forming new habits in the target language and overcoming the old habits of their native language.
- The teacher is like an orchestra leader, directing and controlling the language behavior of her students. She is also responsible for providing her students with a good model for imitation. Students are imitators of the teacher's model or the tapes she supplies of model speakers. They follow the teacher's directions and respond as accurately and as rapidly as possible.
- The characteristics of the teaching/learning process : New vocabulary and structural patterns are presented through dialogs that are learned through imitation and repetition. Drills (such as repetition, backward build-up, chain, substitution, transformation, and question-and-answer) are conducted based upon the patterns present in the dialog. Students' successful responses are positively reinforced. Grammar is induced from the examples given; explicit grammar rules are not provided. Cultural information is contextualized in the dialogs or presented by the teacher. Students' reading and written work is based upon the oral work they did earlier.
- There is student-to-student interaction in chain drills or when students take different roles in dialogs, but this interaction is teacher-directed. Most of the interaction is between teacher and students and is initiated by the teacher.
- The view of language in the Audio-Lingual method has been influenced by descriptive linguists. Every language is seen as having its own unique system. The system is comprised of several different levels : phonological, morphological, and syntactic. Each level has its own distinctive patterns. Everyday speech is emphasized in the Audio-Lingual Method. The level of complexity of the sppech is graded, however, so that beginning students are presented with only simple patterns. Culture consists of the everyday behavior and lifestyle of the target language speakers.
- Vocabulary is kept to a minimum while the students are mastering the sound system and grammatical patterns. A grammatical pattern is not the same as a sentence. For instance, underlying the following three sentences is the same grammatical pattern : Meg called, The Blue Jays won, The team practiced. The natural order of skills presentation is adhered to : listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The oral/aural skills receive most of the attention. What students write they have first been introduced to orally. Pronunciation is taught from the beginning, often by students working in language laboratories on discriminating between members of minimal pairs.
- The role of the students' native language : The habits of the students' native language are thought to interfere with the students' attempts to master the target language. Therefore, the target language is used in the classroom, not the students' native language. A contrastive analysis between the students' native language and the target language will reveal where a teacher should expect the most interference.
- The evaluation accomplished : it was discrete-point in nature, each question on the test would focus on only one point of the language at a time. Student might be asked to distinguish between words in a minimal pair, for example, or to supply an appropriate verb form in a sentence.
- The teacher respond to student errors : Students errors are to be avoided if at all possible through the teacher's awareness of where the students will have difficulty and restriction of what they are taught to say.
- Dialog memorization
- Backward build-up (expansion) drill
- Repetition drill
- Chain drill
- Single-slot substitution drill
- Multiple-slot substitution drill
- Transformation drill
- Question-and-answer drill
- Use of minimal pairs
- Complete the dialog
- Grammar game
- In the Silent Way, students should be able to use the language for self-expression--to express their thought, perceptions, and feelings by developed independence from the teacher, to develop their own inner criteria for correctness. Students become independent by relying on themselves. The teacher, therefore, should give them only what they absolutely need to promote their learning.
- The teacher is a technician or engineer. 'Only the learner can do the learning,' but the teacher, relying on what his students already know, can give what help is necessary, focus the students' perceptions,' force their awareness,' and ' provide exercises to insure their facility' with the language. The teacher should respect the autonomy of the learners in their attempts at relating and interacting with the new challenges. The role of the students is to make use of what they know, to free themselves of any obstacles that would interfere with giving their utmost attention to the learning task, and to actively engage in exploring the language. No one can learn for us. Gattegno would say; to learn is our personal responsibility. As Gattegno says, 'The teacher works with the student; the student works on the language.'
- Characteristics of the teaching / learning process : Students begin their study of the language through its basic building blocks, its sounds. These are introduced through a language-specific sound-color chart. Relying on what sounds students already know from their knowledge of their native language, teachers lead their students to associate the sounds of the target language with particular colors. Later, these same colors are used to help students learn the spellings that correspond to the sounds (through the color-coded Fidel charts) and how to read and pronounce words properly (through the color-coded word charts). The teacher sets up situations that focus student attention on the structures of the language. The situations provide a vehicle for students to perceive meaning. The situations sometimes call for the use of rods and sometimes do not; they typically involve only one structure at a time. With minimal spoken cues, the students are guided to produce the structure. The teacher works with them, striving for pronunciation that would be intelligible to a native speaker of the target language. The teacher uses the students' errors as evidence of where the language is unclear to students and, hence, where to work. The students receive a great deal of practice with a given target language structure without repetition for its own sake. They gain autonomy in the language by exploring it and making choices. The teacher asks the students to describe their reactions to the lesson or what they have learned. This provides valuable information for the teacher and encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning. Some further learning takes place while they sleep.
- For much of the student-teacher interaction, the teacher is silent. He is still very active, however--setting up situations to 'force awareness,' listening attentively to students' speech, and silently working with them on their production through the use of nonverbal gestures and the tools he has available. When the teacher does speak, it is to give clues, not to model the language. Student-student verbal interaction is desirable (students can learn from one another) and is therefore encouraged. The teacher's silence is one way to do this.
- The feelings of the students dealt with : The teacher constantly observes the students. When their feelings interfere, the teacher tries to find ways for the students to overcome them. Also, through feedback sessions at the end of lessons, students have an opportunity to express how they feel. The teacher takes what they say into consideration and works with the students to help them overcome negative feelings which might otherwise interfere with their learning. Finally, because students are encouraged throughout each lesson to cooperate with one another, it is hoped that a relaxed, enjoyable learning environmet will be created.
- Language of the world share a number of features. However, each language also has its own unique reality, or spirit, since it is the expression of a particular group of people. Their culture, as reflected in their own unique world view, is inseparable from their language.
- Since the sounds are basic to any language, pronunciation is worked on from the beginning. It is important that students acquire the melody of the language. There is also a focus on the structures of language, although explicit grammar rules may never be supplied. Vocabulary is somewhat restricted at first. There is no fixed, linear, structural syllabus. Instead, the teacher starts with what the students know and builds from one structure to the next. As the learners' repertoire is expanded, previously introduced structures are continually being recycled. The syllabus develops according to learning needs. All four skills are worked on from the beginning of the course, although there is a sequence in that students learn to read and write what they have already produced orally. The skills reinforce what students are learning.
- The role of the students' native language : Meaning is made clear by focusing the students' perception, not by translation. The students' native language can, however, be used to give instructions when necessary, to help a student improve his or her pronunciation, for instance. The native language is also used ( at least at beginning levels of proficiency) during the feedback sessions. More important, knowledge students already possess of their native language can be exploited by the teacher of the target language. For example, the teacher knows that many of the sounds in the students' native language will be similar, if not identical, to sounds in the target language; he assumes, then, that he can build upon this existing knowledge to introduce the new sounds in the target language.
- The evaluation accomplished : although the teacher may never give a formal test, he assesses student learning all the time. Since 'teaching is subordinated to learning,' the teacher must be responsive to immediate learning needs. The teacher's silence frees him to attend to his students and to be aware of these needs. The needs will be apparent to a teacher who is observant of his students' behavior. One criterion of whether or not students have learned is their ability to transfer what they have been studying to new contexts. The teacher does not praise or criticize student behavior since this would interfere with students' developing their own inner criteria. He expects students to learn at different rates. The teacher looks for steady progress, not perfection.
- The teacher respond to students errors : Student errors are seen as a natural; indispensable part of the learning process. Errors are inevitable since the students are encouraged to explore the language. The teacher uses student errors as a basis for deciding where further work is necessary. The teacher works with the students in getting them to self-correct. Students are not thought to learn much if the teacher merely supplies the correct language. Students need to learn to listen to themselves and to compare their own production with their developing inner criteria. If the students are unable to self-correct and peers cannot help, then the teacher would supply the correct language, but only as a last resort.
- Sound-color chart
- Teacher's silence
- Peer correction
- Rods
- Self-correction gestures
- Word chart
- Fidel charts
- Structured feedback
Minggu, 21 Maret 2010
Desuggestopedia
DESUGGESTOPEDIA
The originator of Desuggestopedia :
• Georgi Lozanov ( a Bulgarian psychotherapist )
• “ Learning is a matter of attitude, not aptitude.“
Georgi Lozanov ( 1988 ), Foreign Language Teacher’s Suggestopedic Manual
The meaning of suggestopedia
• Suggest => desuggest
• This method puts importance on “ desuggesting limitations on learning
Classroom set-up
• Armchair
• Light is comfortable
• Everything is bright and colorful
• Posters
• Music
• The teacher speaks confidently;
• The teacher leads the class in various activities involving the dialog, for example, question-and-answer, repetition, and translation;
• The teacher should integrate indirect positive suggestion ( there is no limit to what you can do ) into the learning situation.
Fine arts
• One of the ways the students’ mental reserves are stimulated is through integration of the fine arts-music, drama, or paintings.
Enjoy your learning
• The teacher gives the students the impression that learning is easy and enjoyable.
• It’s desire that the students achieve a state of ‘infantilization’ so they will be more open to learning.
Choosing a new identity
• This enhances students’ feeling of security and allows them to be more open.
Positive suggestion
• Direct suggestion
• Indirect suggestion
Active concert
Passive concert
Primary activation
2. The teacher’s role :
• Authority => being confident and trustable.
• Security => affording a cheerful classroom atmosphere.
The students’ role :
• Relaxed => following the teacher’s instruction easily.
• Role play => enjoying in the new identity freely.
3. Some characteristics of the teaching / learning process are :
• Classroom atmosphere => decoration & posters.
• A new name and occupation => to dispel fear or anxiety
• Hand Out => for advanced students
• No test, no assignment
• Conversation with translation in music => to activate the ‘whole brain’ of the students
• Games, songs, role play => to strengthen the material
4. The teacher initiates the interactions in two way—
1) The teacher to a group of students
2) The teacher to only one student
The students respond through—
1) Nonverbal actions
2) A few target language
Student-student interaction—role play
5. The feelings of the students dealt with by
6. – Language itself is the first of two planes in the two-plane process of communication.
- Nonverbal factors also influence the linguistic message.
- The use of the fine arts is important in Desuggestopedia classes.
7. – Vocabulary is emphasized.
- Grammar is dealt with explicitly but minimally.
- Speaking communicatively is emphasized.
8. The role of the students’ native language is
• Native language is used to make the meaning of the dialog clear.
• As the course proceeds, the teacher uses the native language less and less.
9. The evaluation accomplished by
Evaluation usually is conducted on students’ normal in-class performance, not through tests.
10. The teacher respond to student errors by
Errors are corrected gently, with the teacher using a soft voice.
Lozanov’s “ Suggestopedia” is :
Sources, History, Initial Results
Purpose and theory
In Practice
The lesson of Suggestopedia consisted of three phases at first : deciphering, concert session (memorization séance), and elaboration.
Deciphering : The teacher introduces the grammar and lexis of the content.
Introduction : The teacher teaches the material in “a playful manner” instead of analyzing lexis and grammar of the text in a directive manner.
Elaboration : The students sing classical songs and play games while “the teacher acts more like a consultant.”
Production : The students spontaneously speak and interact in the target language without interruption or correction.
How to Teach using Suggestopedia
Major Concepts and Features
1. Mental Reserve Capacities (MRC)
2. Psychological “Set-Up”
3. Suggestion
4. Anti-Suggestive Barriers
• An anti-suggestive emotional barrier which rejects anything likely to produce a feeling of lack of confidence or insecurity : “This anti-suggestive barrier proceeds from the set-up in every man.”
• An anti-suggestive barrier of man’s rational faculty which through reasoning rejects suggestions it judges unacceptable : ‘This barrier is the conscious critical thinking’. But, very often this barrier is the camouflage of the emotional barrier.
• An ethical barrier, which rejects everything not in harmony with the ethical sense of the personality.
Three barriers to Suggestion
1) Logical-critical
“That’s not possible “
“Others may be able to do that, but not me.”
2) Affective-emotional
“ I won’t do it. It just makes me feel uneasy. I can’t explain it really.
“ I’d rather not, thank you.”
3) Ethical
“ I really think that’s slightly dishonest.”
“I don’t think it’s fair.”
5. Means of Suggestion
Suggestive authority
Infantilization
Intonation
Concert pseudo-passivity (concentrative psychorelaxation)
Successful classroom atmosphere
For a successful classroom atmosphere, Lozanov maintains these three elements should be present :
• PSYCHOLOGICAL
• EDUCATIONAL
• ARTISTIC
Music
The originator of Desuggestopedia :
• Georgi Lozanov ( a Bulgarian psychotherapist )
• “ Learning is a matter of attitude, not aptitude.“
Georgi Lozanov ( 1988 ), Foreign Language Teacher’s Suggestopedic Manual
The meaning of suggestopedia
• Suggest => desuggest
• This method puts importance on “ desuggesting limitations on learning
Classroom set-up
• Armchair
• Light is comfortable
• Everything is bright and colorful
• Posters
• Music
• The teacher speaks confidently;
• The teacher leads the class in various activities involving the dialog, for example, question-and-answer, repetition, and translation;
• The teacher should integrate indirect positive suggestion ( there is no limit to what you can do ) into the learning situation.
Fine arts
• One of the ways the students’ mental reserves are stimulated is through integration of the fine arts-music, drama, or paintings.
Enjoy your learning
• The teacher gives the students the impression that learning is easy and enjoyable.
• It’s desire that the students achieve a state of ‘infantilization’ so they will be more open to learning.
Choosing a new identity
• This enhances students’ feeling of security and allows them to be more open.
Positive suggestion
• Direct suggestion
• Indirect suggestion
Active concert
• Teacher will introduce a story as related in the dialog and call the students’ attention to some particular grammatical points that arise in it, she reads the dialog in the target language. Music is played. The teacher begins a slow, dramatic reading, synchronized in intonation with the music. The music is classical and the teacher’s voice rises and falls with the music.
Passive concert
• In the phase, the students are asked to put their scripts aside. They simply listen as the teacher reads the dialog at a normal rate of speed. The teacher is seated and reads with musical accompaniment.
Primary activation
• The students playfully reread the target language dialog out loud, as individuals or in groups. Students are asked to read the dialog in particular manner : sadly, angrily, and cheerfully.
Creative adaptation
• The students engage in various activities designed to help them learn the new material and use it spontaneously. Activities particularly recommended for this phase include singing, dancing, dramatizations, and games.
Creative adaptation
• The students engage in various activities designed to help them learn the new material and use it spontaneously. Activities particularly recommended for this phase include singing, dancing, dramatizations, and games.
1. The goals of teachers who use Desuggestopedia are :
• To accelerate the process of learning a foreign language for everyday communication.
• To desuggest learners’ psychological barriers.
• To activate learners’ ‘paraconscious’ part of the mind.
• To help students eliminate and overcome the barriers to learning and increase their communicative ability.
• To accelerate the process of learning a foreign language for everyday communication.
• To desuggest learners’ psychological barriers.
• To activate learners’ ‘paraconscious’ part of the mind.
• To help students eliminate and overcome the barriers to learning and increase their communicative ability.
2. The teacher’s role :
• Authority => being confident and trustable.
• Security => affording a cheerful classroom atmosphere.
The students’ role :
• Relaxed => following the teacher’s instruction easily.
• Role play => enjoying in the new identity freely.
3. Some characteristics of the teaching / learning process are :
• Classroom atmosphere => decoration & posters.
• A new name and occupation => to dispel fear or anxiety
• Hand Out => for advanced students
• No test, no assignment
• Conversation with translation in music => to activate the ‘whole brain’ of the students
• Games, songs, role play => to strengthen the material
4. The teacher initiates the interactions in two way—
1) The teacher to a group of students
2) The teacher to only one student
The students respond through—
1) Nonverbal actions
2) A few target language
Student-student interaction—role play
5. The feelings of the students dealt with by
- Relaxed—psychological barriers are desuggested.
- Confident—the target language comes naturally.
- Secure—assumption of a new identity
6. – Language itself is the first of two planes in the two-plane process of communication.
- Nonverbal factors also influence the linguistic message.
- The use of the fine arts is important in Desuggestopedia classes.
7. – Vocabulary is emphasized.
- Grammar is dealt with explicitly but minimally.
- Speaking communicatively is emphasized.
8. The role of the students’ native language is
• Native language is used to make the meaning of the dialog clear.
• As the course proceeds, the teacher uses the native language less and less.
9. The evaluation accomplished by
Evaluation usually is conducted on students’ normal in-class performance, not through tests.
10. The teacher respond to student errors by
Errors are corrected gently, with the teacher using a soft voice.
Suggestopedia is a teaching method developed by the Bulgarian psychotherapist Georgi Lozanov. The method has been used in different fields of studies but mostly in the field of foreign language learning.
Lozanov says that by using this method one can teach languages approximately three to five times as quickly as conventional methods. However, it is not limited to the learning of languages, but language learning was found to be a process in which one can easily measure how much and how fast something is learned.
The theory applied positive suggestion in teaching when it was developed in the 1970s. However, as improved, it has focused more on “desuggestive learning” and now is often called “desuggestopedia.” Suggestopedia is used in six major foreign-language teaching methods known to language teaching experts (the oldest being the grammar translation method.) The name of Suggestopedia is from the words “suggestion” and “pedagogy”. Many discussions and misunderstanding have caused this name because people connects the words “suggestion” to “hypnosis”. There are many different definitions for the word “suggestion”. When Dr. Lozanov chose this word, he was thinking about the English meaning : TO SUGGEST = TO OFFER, TO PROPOSE (BUT THE STUDENTS ARE FREE TO CHOOSE).
Desuggestopedia is an approach to education whose primary objective is to tap the extraordinary reserve capacities we all possess but rarely if ever use. This method utilizes techniques from many sources of research into how best we can learn.
Dr. Georgi Lozanov has demonstrated that through a carefully “orchestrated” learning environment including most importantly a specially-trained teacher, the learning process can be accelerated by a factor of three to ten times enjoyably. Such result are possible through the proper use of suggestion. The suggestive-desuggestive process allows students to go beyond previously held beliefs and self-limiting concepts concerning the learning process and learn great quantities of material with ease and enjoyment.
Lozanov says that by using this method one can teach languages approximately three to five times as quickly as conventional methods. However, it is not limited to the learning of languages, but language learning was found to be a process in which one can easily measure how much and how fast something is learned.
The theory applied positive suggestion in teaching when it was developed in the 1970s. However, as improved, it has focused more on “desuggestive learning” and now is often called “desuggestopedia.” Suggestopedia is used in six major foreign-language teaching methods known to language teaching experts (the oldest being the grammar translation method.) The name of Suggestopedia is from the words “suggestion” and “pedagogy”. Many discussions and misunderstanding have caused this name because people connects the words “suggestion” to “hypnosis”. There are many different definitions for the word “suggestion”. When Dr. Lozanov chose this word, he was thinking about the English meaning : TO SUGGEST = TO OFFER, TO PROPOSE (BUT THE STUDENTS ARE FREE TO CHOOSE).
Desuggestopedia is an approach to education whose primary objective is to tap the extraordinary reserve capacities we all possess but rarely if ever use. This method utilizes techniques from many sources of research into how best we can learn.
Dr. Georgi Lozanov has demonstrated that through a carefully “orchestrated” learning environment including most importantly a specially-trained teacher, the learning process can be accelerated by a factor of three to ten times enjoyably. Such result are possible through the proper use of suggestion. The suggestive-desuggestive process allows students to go beyond previously held beliefs and self-limiting concepts concerning the learning process and learn great quantities of material with ease and enjoyment.
Lozanov’s “ Suggestopedia” is :
- Not Hypnosis
Lozanov, once a hypnotist himself, now strongly opposes against use of hypnosis. He has realized the danger of hypnosis and being hypnotized ( Lozanov 1978 ). In the process of refining his own Suggestopedia with Evelina Gateva, he has removed all elements that may induce “hypnotical states” of mind.
Lozanov defines hypnotic situation as being taken one’s freedom and creativity away by a hypnotic dictator. Every teaching method that uses “order”, “guidance”, “Monotonous intonation” and “ monotonous rhythm” may cause hypnotic states.
Lozanov defines hypnotic situation as being taken one’s freedom and creativity away by a hypnotic dictator. Every teaching method that uses “order”, “guidance”, “Monotonous intonation” and “ monotonous rhythm” may cause hypnotic states.
- Not Superlearning
The authors of “Superlearning” have never been trained by Lozanov. The book was written with limited information acquired from a short observation of Lozanov’s experimental research. Hence, there is a lot of misunderstandings in the book.
- Not NLP ( Neuro-Linguistic Programming)
Lozanov denies any kind of manipulation on ones personality, even if it would “program” however positive or optimistic way of thinking. Suggestopedia sees ”programming” is a product of “dictation” and “ manipulation” that, like hypnosis, inhibits freedom of persoanality.
- Not using a reclining chair, or a sofa
A suggestopedia class uses a room with a central round table and ordinary chairs surrounding the table. It never uses reclining chairs to lay down students and make them listen to a teacher’s voice. Such an activity may cause hypnotic states.
- Not using “breathing exercise”
- Not using “visualization exercise”
Lozanov calls such an exercise as “guided fantasy”. He regards this kind of guided fantasy in which people are forced to visualize some image is a hypnosis.
- Not using “alpha wave” enhance exercise
- Not using “slow baroque” music in the concert reading
Suggestopedia uses baroque music pieces in the second or “passive” concert session. However it never uses a “slow baroque” or a music piece written as “adagio”. It is simply because Suggestopedia does not want students to fall asleep in the concert session. Rather, it uses faster and livelier pieces to stimulate a whole brain.
In the first or “active” concert session, it uses even more lively pieces of classical music. The music list includes a quite dramatic piece such as Beethoven’s piano concerto No. 5.
In the first or “active” concert session, it uses even more lively pieces of classical music. The music list includes a quite dramatic piece such as Beethoven’s piano concerto No. 5.
- Not using rap music in the concert reading
Suggestopedia uses the power of the selected (scientifically proven) pieces of classical music because of its artistically harmonized colorful melody, rhythm, and emotion that stimulates all levels of mind as it changes from time to time. Music dominated by a monotonous rhythm and beat, such as rap music, may cause hypnotic states.
- Not only a group of teaching techniques
Teaching techniques are meaningless if applied without full comprehension of the theory. For example, giving a set of concert reading sessions in the traditional setting language classroom doesn’t work.
- Not able to teach without a teacher
Suggestopedia uses a lot of emotion in the classroom to stimulate all levels of human “personality” that works in coordination of consciousness and paraconsciousness. Self study can never receive such a global stimuli.
- Not selling tapes, CDs, Videos, and bio-feedback devices or any mechanical materials as such
Dr. Lozanov denies all the “mechanical” stimuli. Monotonous and meaningless stimuli generated by a machine that can cause hypnotic states.
Sources, History, Initial Results
The artful use of suggestion as a means of facilitating the learning and communication process is, of course, and has always been, a part of nearly all effective teaching and persuasive communication.
For more than 20 years he has been experimenting with accelerative approaches to learning, has founded the Institute of Suggestopedia in Sofia, Bulgaria and has authored the book : Suggestology and the Outlines or Suggestopedia ( Gordon and Breach, New York, 1997).
In his early research Lozanov investigated individual cases of extraordinary learning capacities etc., and theorized that such capacities were learnable and teachable. He experimented with a wide range of techniques drawn from both traditional and esoteric sources, including hypnosis and yoga, and was able to accelerate the learning process quite drammatcally.
Dr. Georgi Lazanov of the Institute of Suggestology in Sofia, Bulgaria is, together with his colleagues, the originator of these techniques. SUGGESTOLOGY is the study of the power of suggestion which can be verbal, non-verbal, conscious or unconscious.
SUGGESTOPEDIA is the study of these suggestive factors in a learning situation.
Lozanov maintains that a suggestopedic teacher spends most of the time de-suggesting the students, i.e., freeing them from any nonfacilitating influences from their past.
For more than 20 years he has been experimenting with accelerative approaches to learning, has founded the Institute of Suggestopedia in Sofia, Bulgaria and has authored the book : Suggestology and the Outlines or Suggestopedia ( Gordon and Breach, New York, 1997).
In his early research Lozanov investigated individual cases of extraordinary learning capacities etc., and theorized that such capacities were learnable and teachable. He experimented with a wide range of techniques drawn from both traditional and esoteric sources, including hypnosis and yoga, and was able to accelerate the learning process quite drammatcally.
Dr. Georgi Lazanov of the Institute of Suggestology in Sofia, Bulgaria is, together with his colleagues, the originator of these techniques. SUGGESTOLOGY is the study of the power of suggestion which can be verbal, non-verbal, conscious or unconscious.
SUGGESTOPEDIA is the study of these suggestive factors in a learning situation.
Lozanov maintains that a suggestopedic teacher spends most of the time de-suggesting the students, i.e., freeing them from any nonfacilitating influences from their past.
Purpose and theory
The intended purpose of Suggestopedia was to enhance learning by lowering the affective filter of learners. Suggestopedia is a system for liberation, the liberation from the “preliminary negative concept regarding the difficulties in the process of learning” that is established throughout their life in the society. Desuggestopedia focuses more on liberation as Lozanov describes “desuggestive learning” as “ free, without a mildest pressure, liberation of previously suggested programs to restrict intelligence and spontaneous acquisition of knowledge, skills and habits.” The method implements this by working not only on the conscious level of human mind but also on the subconscious level, the mind’s reserves. Since it works on the reserves in human mind and brain, which are said to have unlimited capacities, one can teach more than other method can teach in the same amount of time.
In Practice
The lesson of Suggestopedia consisted of three phases at first : deciphering, concert session (memorization séance), and elaboration.
Deciphering : The teacher introduces the grammar and lexis of the content.
Concert session (active and passive) : In the active session, the teacher reads the text at a normal speed, sometimes intoning some words, and the students follow. In the passive session, the students relax and listen to the teacher reading the text calmly. Music (“Pre-Classical”) is played background.
Elaboration : The students finish off what they have learned with dramas, songs, and games.
Then it has developed into four phases as lots of experiments were done : introduction, concert session, elaboration, and production.
Then it has developed into four phases as lots of experiments were done : introduction, concert session, elaboration, and production.
Introduction : The teacher teaches the material in “a playful manner” instead of analyzing lexis and grammar of the text in a directive manner.
Concert session (active and passive ) : In the active session, the teacher reads with intoning as selected music is played. Occasionally, the students read the text together with the teacher, and listen only to the music as the teacher pauses in particular moments. The passive session is done more calmly.
Elaboration : The students sing classical songs and play games while “the teacher acts more like a consultant.”
Production : The students spontaneously speak and interact in the target language without interruption or correction.
How to Teach using Suggestopedia
Traditional books cannot be used in a Suggestopedic class since they fail to present the content and grammar following the function of the human brain. The way they present information is not according to the real way the human brain processes information. The whole book has to be adapted to be used in a Suggestopedic class. It is hard work but the final result are worth it.
In Brazil, there is a teacher who developed a whole teacher training course to apply and use Suggestopedia using traditional books. He teaches how to adapt and create a new Suggestopedic book to be used in Suggestopedic classes. The training also teaches the teachers how to conduct an intensive course in English or in any other foreign language using the newest development of Suggestopedia – Desuggestopedia.
In Brazil, there is a teacher who developed a whole teacher training course to apply and use Suggestopedia using traditional books. He teaches how to adapt and create a new Suggestopedic book to be used in Suggestopedic classes. The training also teaches the teachers how to conduct an intensive course in English or in any other foreign language using the newest development of Suggestopedia – Desuggestopedia.
Major Concepts and Features
1. Mental Reserve Capacities (MRC)
Among the examples of such capacities are the ability to learn rapidly and recall with ease large quantities or material, solve problems with great rapidity and spontaneous ease, respond to complex stimuli with facility and creativity. There is general agreement among researchers that the human being uses 5-10% of his/her brain capacity at the most. The primary objective is to tap into the MRC.
2. Psychological “Set-Up”
Our inner set-up operates when we encounter any situation – entering a school, being confronted with an opportunity – consulting a physician – as examples. Our inner, unconscious set-up is extremely basic and important to our behavior and to our survival – and it can be extremely limiting, for it can imprison us in unconscious, consistently patterned responses which prevent us from experiencing and exploring other alternatives – which might be far more desirable and beneficial to us. Prevailing social norms, instilled in us by all our social institutions, including family and schools, are the main carriers and enforces of the beliefs and responses which contribute to the formation of our inner set-up. The power of the influence of our unconscious set-up is very great, and any significant lasting change or overcoming of previous limits will necessarily involve a change in our unconscious patterns of response.
3. Suggestion
Suggestion is the key which Lozanov found to penetrate through the “set-up” and stimulate the mental reserve capacities. Even more, through suggestion we can facilitate the creation of new, richer patterns of conscious / unconscious responses or new (set-ups) : “Suggestion is the direct road to the set-up. It creates and utilizes such types of set-ups which would free and activate the reserve capacities of the human being.” ( Lozanov : The Key Principles of Suggestopedia”, Journal of SALT, 1976,p.15)
There are two basic kinds of suggestion : direct and indirect. Direct suggestions are directed to conscious processes, i.e., what one says that can and will occur in the learning experience, suggestions which can be made in printed announcements, orally by the teacher, and/or by text materials. Direct suggestion is used sparingly, for it is most vulnerable to resistance from the set-up.
Indirect suggestion is largely unconsciously perceived and is much greater in scope than direct suggestion. It is always present in any communication and involves many levels and degrees of subtlety. Lozanov speaks of it as the second plane of communication and considers it to encompass all those communication factors outside our conscious awareness, such as voice tone, facial expression, body posture and movement, speech tempo, rhythms, accent, etc. Other important indirect suggestive effects result from room arrangement, décor, lighting, noise level, institutional setting- for all these factors are communicative stimuli which result in what Lozanov terms non-specific mental reactivity on the paraconscious level (at the level of the set-up). And they, like the teacher and materials can reinforce the set-up, preserve the status quo, or can serve in the desuggestive-suggestive process.
Everything in the communication/learning environment is a stimulus at some level, being processed at some level of mental activity.
There are two basic kinds of suggestion : direct and indirect. Direct suggestions are directed to conscious processes, i.e., what one says that can and will occur in the learning experience, suggestions which can be made in printed announcements, orally by the teacher, and/or by text materials. Direct suggestion is used sparingly, for it is most vulnerable to resistance from the set-up.
Indirect suggestion is largely unconsciously perceived and is much greater in scope than direct suggestion. It is always present in any communication and involves many levels and degrees of subtlety. Lozanov speaks of it as the second plane of communication and considers it to encompass all those communication factors outside our conscious awareness, such as voice tone, facial expression, body posture and movement, speech tempo, rhythms, accent, etc. Other important indirect suggestive effects result from room arrangement, décor, lighting, noise level, institutional setting- for all these factors are communicative stimuli which result in what Lozanov terms non-specific mental reactivity on the paraconscious level (at the level of the set-up). And they, like the teacher and materials can reinforce the set-up, preserve the status quo, or can serve in the desuggestive-suggestive process.
Everything in the communication/learning environment is a stimulus at some level, being processed at some level of mental activity.
4. Anti-Suggestive Barriers
The first task of suggestology and suggestopedia is to remove people’s prior conditioning to de-suggest, to find the way to escape the social norm and open the way to development of the personality. This is perhaps the greatest problem suggestology is confronted with, since the person must be ‘convinced’ that his potential capacity is far above what he thinks it is. The individual protects himself with psychological barriers, according to Dr. Lozanov, just as the organism protects itself from physiological barriers :
• An anti-suggestive emotional barrier which rejects anything likely to produce a feeling of lack of confidence or insecurity : “This anti-suggestive barrier proceeds from the set-up in every man.”
• An anti-suggestive barrier of man’s rational faculty which through reasoning rejects suggestions it judges unacceptable : ‘This barrier is the conscious critical thinking’. But, very often this barrier is the camouflage of the emotional barrier.
• An ethical barrier, which rejects everything not in harmony with the ethical sense of the personality.
“These anti-suggestive barriers are a filter between the environmental stimuli and the unconscious mental activity. They are inter-related and mutually reinforcing, and a positive suggestive effect can only be accomplished if these barriers are kept in mind. The overcoming of barriers means compliance with them. Otherwise suggestion would be doomed to failure. “ It is clear that the suggestive process is always a combination of suggestion and de-suggestion and is always at an unconscious or slightly conscious level.”
Three barriers to Suggestion
1) Logical-critical
“That’s not possible “
“Others may be able to do that, but not me.”
2) Affective-emotional
“ I won’t do it. It just makes me feel uneasy. I can’t explain it really.
“ I’d rather not, thank you.”
3) Ethical
“ I really think that’s slightly dishonest.”
“I don’t think it’s fair.”
5. Means of Suggestion
Suggestive authority
Lozanov defines it as “the non-directive prestige which by indirect ways creates an atmosphere of confidence and intuitive desire to follow the set example”. Authority in its positive, suggestive sense, is communicated through our “global” presence, through all our non-verbal as well as verbal signals.
When we communicate in a simultaneous, congruent manner that we are confident with the material we are teaching, that we love what we are doing, that we respect the students who have come to learn, that we know they can learn it, and that we take delight in teaching – when we can communicate these things with our voices, facial expressions, posture, movement and words, we will achieve an invaluable rapport with our students, will arouse expectancy and motivation, and will establish a suggestive atmosphere within the student’s mental reserve capacities can be tapped. ( Self-fulfilling prophecy)
When we communicate in a simultaneous, congruent manner that we are confident with the material we are teaching, that we love what we are doing, that we respect the students who have come to learn, that we know they can learn it, and that we take delight in teaching – when we can communicate these things with our voices, facial expressions, posture, movement and words, we will achieve an invaluable rapport with our students, will arouse expectancy and motivation, and will establish a suggestive atmosphere within the student’s mental reserve capacities can be tapped. ( Self-fulfilling prophecy)
Infantilization
In suggestopedia we do not talk about infantilization in the clinical sense of the word, nor of infantility. Infantilization in the process of education is a normal phenomenon connected with authority (prestige). Infantilization in suggestopedia must be understood roughly as memories of the pure and naïve state of a child to whom someone is reading, or who is reading on his own.
Intonation
Intonation is strongly connected with the rest of the suggestive elements. The intonation in music and speech is one of the basic expressive means, with formidable form-creating influence and potential in many psycho-physiological directions. “Learning is state of mind dependent”. When varying your voice you ”reach” different “states of mind”.
Concert pseudo-passivity (concentrative psychorelaxation)
An important moment in suggestopedia. The artistic organization of the suggestopedic educational process creates conditions for concert pseudo-passivity in the student.
Successful classroom atmosphere
For a successful classroom atmosphere, Lozanov maintains these three elements should be present :
• PSYCHOLOGICAL
A nurturing, supportive atmosphere in which the student feels free to try out the new information, be inventive with it, make mistakes without being put down, and, in general, enjoy the learning experience.
• EDUCATIONAL
The material should be presented in a structured fashion, combining the Big Picture, Analysis and Synthesis. Every moment should be a didactic experience even when the learning process is not that apparent.
• ARTISTIC
The classroom should not be cluttered with too many posters and unnecessary objects, otherwise we don’t see them. We go into overwhelm. Good quality pictures should be displayed and changed every few days. Music can be played as the students enter the room, and during the breaks. Plants and flowers add to a pleasant atmosphere. If the chairs are arranged in a U-shape, there is a better communication possible between the teacher and students and among the students themselves.
Music
After conducting numerous controlled experiments using a wide variety of music, Lozanov concluded that music of the Classical and Early Romantic periods was most effective for the first presentation of material to be learned. The music of Hayden, Mozart and Beethoven is dramatic, emotionally engaging, and ordered, harmoniously structured. It stimulates, invites alertness, and its harmony and order evoke ease and relaxation. For the second concert presentation of material Lozanov found that Baroque music was especially suited. The music of Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Telemann, Corelli (among others) has a less personal, more rigorously structured quality, providing a background of order and regularity which supports very well the more straight-forward presentation of material during the second concert.
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