Kahoot for practising superlative adjectives

Here’s an e-learning activity idea that I’ve just come up with, and which I’d like to share with you.

In this morning’s workshop on e-learning for grammar teaching, Ms Jenny Leung concluded her presentation with a Kahoot game that she played with the entire audience. You should have been there to witness how excited the teachers were. Jenny’s 10 questions were about general knowledge, and some of them asked about the longest river in the world; the fastest train on Earth; the tallest tower Man has ever built, etc. The audience was excited because the questions had realistic and meaningful subject-matter content. This converges on one methodology in second language teaching, which advocates integrating content with language teaching. (A strong form of this methodology is called CLIL: Content and Language Integrated Learning.)

After the workshop, I recalled that quite a few of Jenny’s questions made use of superlative adjectives, such as longest, fastest, tallest, etc. Then I was struck by the following activity idea, for students to practise using superlative adjectives meaningfully:

1. Put students into groups. Each group is responsible for creating a general knowledge quiz containing (5) questions. The quiz is to be played on Kahoot.
2. The (5) questions should make use of superlative adjectives: the longest, the slowest, the biggest, the most difficult, etc.
3. Stress that they must use the correct superlative form in the questions. If in doubt, they should consult a dictionary.
4. They may need to do a bit of research (online or in the library) to come up with their (5) questions. They then create a Kahoot game containing their questions.
5. A few days later when the students are ready, let each group administer their question set on Kahoot, as a game for the whole class to play.
6. For added excitement, the teacher, or the whole class will vote on the best set of questions afterwards.

Potential merits of this activity idea:
– Little work by the teacher; a lot of work by the students;
– The Ss will pay a lot of attention to the correct form of superlative adjectives;
– It involves realistic subject matter research, which secondary students will find interesting;
– They like to challenge their classmates;
– The teacher can easily get several Kahoot quizzes;
– It’s a lot of fun for the whole class when the Kahoot quizzes are administered.

Potential problem:
– The Ss get overly excited during the game, and start arguing with each other.

An e-learning workshop on grammar teaching

I had a most rewarding time this morning co-presenting an e-learning workshop with Miss Jenny Leung, a seasoned elearning teacher in English language teaching. In retrospect, we were trying to do too much, but overall the audience stayed focussed and motivated throughout the two hours. A bonus for me was of course catching up with a few former students. It was uplifting to see so many teachers who, despite their exhaustion after a long week of work, still came to the workshop as they cared about professional development. (Acknowledgment: Workshop organised by OUP.)

http://www.oupchina.com.hk/secondary/events/20160305elt.asp

 

 

How translatable are terms related to English Language Teaching?

多年前意外買了的一本英漢語言學詞典,在今天我要將一份英語課程文件翻譯為中文時,竟然大派用場。

那起碼是十年前的事了,當時在中大書店偶然拿起這本由商務出版陳慰主編的英漢語言學詞汇,覺得它收錄的語言學詞語頗不簡單,當時雖無特別用途,但既然只是二十五元,我也不多想,把它買下。 

年前曾經整理書架,放棄了不少藏書,今天回想,幸而當時沒有把它也棄掉。

今天,這專門字典給了我不少幫助;我什至因此而對主編及她的團隊深深感激,這樣編一本語言學辭典,因沒有前者可參巧,要由零開始,當中涉及多少功夫,去搜尋有関的字彙,然後再去鑽研其中文譯法。這當中需要大量人力物力,但編者卻不會因此而取得諾貝尓文學獎,而商務也一定大大虧本。這樣的事情在盈利掛帥的今天,是令人敬佩的。

話得說回來,語言學 (linguistics)是很西方的學科,很多意念在中文中原來不存在,而且有其文化背景,故此翻譯成中文時始終有其局限,例如我找到的 turn-taking, Wh -question , spoken text, cohesive device, complex sentence, discourse marker等的中文翻譯,不算妥貼。

這亦令我覺得二零一一年中國政府教育部,頒佈全國中小學新的英語課程綱要,竟然只有中文版 沒有英文版;這真是匪夷所思。

Grammar as it is treated in coursebooks in Hong Kong

Grammar is an area which is dealt with rather poorly in coursebooks in Hong Kong. This directly affects the teaching and learning of grammar in schools.

===
Take ‘should’.

In a P4 coursebook, it is presented as:

‘We use ‘should’ to talk about the correct things to do. We do not change the verb after ‘should’.
(example sentence)
shouldn’t = should not’

In an S1 coursebook, it is presented as:
‘We use the modal ‘should’ to talk about things that are necessary or right to do. We use the same form of a verb after the modal ‘should’.
(example sentences)
We make negative statements with ‘should’ like this’:
(example sentence)
===

You will notice that:
(a) the depth of treatment is almost the same despite a grade level difference of 3 years;
(b) the approach to presenting grammar is equally ineffective in both examples: absence of a rich context; reliance on abstract explanation; and a focus mainly on language form, with scant attention to meaning and use.

The results:
(i) Boring – students not motivated to learn grammar;
(ii) Students see grammar as a set of tedious rules, rather than as a means for communicating ideas accurately;
(iii) As the grammar presentation is often simplistic, students fail to gain a sophisticated understanding of the form, meaning, and use of a grammar structure.

There is now a huge literature on grammar pedagogy. Yet these coursebooks fall back on the most uninspiring and ineffective method – abstract and over-simplified explanation. If we teachers rely on these coursebooks, we really can’t blame our students for not learning their grammar properly.

Using animals to spice up language drills

Animals have special appeal to young children. I recently observed 2 lower primary lessons in which the teachers skilfully used animals to spice up the activities. How did they do it?

In a P1 lesson, the teacher wanted the pupils to practise a question-structure. She put on the mask of a fox, and had the children ask Mr Fox questions. The children enthusiastically repeated, ‘Mr Fox, is it a …’ This make-believe format successfully livened up what could have been a monotonous drill.

In a P2 lesson, the teacher set up a group activity in the last part of the lesson. To arouse interest, the teacher appointed one boy to be Mr Wolf, and asked Mr Wolf to go to each group to pick a student to be his prey animal. There were 6 groups, so Mr Wolf collected a total of 6 preys, which he kept at the front of the classroom, ie, the den. The teacher then explained the language activity itself, which required each prey to go back to their own group to talk with their groupmates in order to complete a tasksheet. If they completed the task successfully, they could save their own member from Mr Wolf. Now, each group, led by the prey temporarily freed by Mr Wolf, worked on the task. When the prey animals had got the answers, they returned to the den with the completed worksheets.

Now, the teacher and Mr Wolf checked the completed worksheets together. If a completed worksheet was OK, the prey would be set free by Mr Wolf, and he/she could go back to his/her animal group. If not, the prey would be eaten up by Mr Wolf. Either way, the kids loved it.

In both cases, the language focus itself had nothing to do with animals. But packaging the language practice with something about animals turned out to be an effective way to captivate the children.

Having made a small mark in the history of ELT in Macao

I’m glad to have made a mark, albeit a small one, in the history of ELT in Macao. This was the first-ever study programme for the core teachers (骨幹教師) (primary English), organised by the DSEJ (Portuguese for the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau of the Macao SAR Govt) in support of the curriculum reform that is currently taking place in Macao. The programme has lasted for 15 months, consisting of several modules that were held on Saturday afternoons. Besides attending class, the participating teachers had to carry out post-module tryout teaching at their schools, and complete assignments. It was a highly intensive programme for the 30 teacher participants. I have been lucky to have taught on some modules of the programme, while Ms Gina Twellmann of Macao taught on some other modules of the programme.

The programme has allowed me to learn more about the culture and practice of ELT in Macao. This first-hand experience has also triggered my thinking on many issues related to curriculum reform, teacher development, and even the meaning and purpose of education. After this programme, I am even more convinced that teachers are the key to quality education, and that all parties concerned should do everything to make it possible for teachers to do a good job, if we are truly sincere about good education for our students.

On the ‘softer’ side, I have also learnt a few things about primary English teachers in Macao: they have good grammar knowledge and can tell you a lot of grammar terms; they have very beautiful handwriting; and they have strong 人情味. But they are like their counterparts in Hong Kong: overworked and overstressed with teaching and marking and endless school activities. So, when I wrapped up my sharing at yesterday’s closing ceremony for the study programme, and since their DSEJ Division Head responsible for curriculum reform was there, I took the opportunity to read aloud the following message from FB of two days ago, which has resonated with me:

‘A teacher somewhere in your neighbourhood tonight is grading and preparing lessons to teach your children while you are watching television. In the minute it takes you to read this, teachers all over the world are using their “free time”, and often investing their own money, for your child’s literacy, prosperity, and future. Repost if you are a teacher, love a teacher, or appreciate our teachers.’

Pictures from yesterday’s ceremony:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151628065404976.1073741828.680179975&type=1&l=aad1eaa464

 

Using blurry pictures to challenge students

Here is another technique which I had learnt from a student teacher, and which I recently applied in my talks on English reading. The student teacher was teaching a P1 lesson, and she blurred some pictures of animals and had the children guess what they were. The children threw themselves into the game.

I applied the technique, and made a few blurry text types. During the talks, I showed them to the audience (secondary students) and invited them to guess what these text types were. They responded enthusiastically.

The underlying rationale is simple: students love being challenged (before they lose all interest in learning). And using a photo editor to blur a picture is as easy as ABC.

Getting the whole class to listen when a group is presenting

Today, even if students love presenting something to the whole class, when it comes to listening to other students’ presentations, they are seldom equally keen about it. As a result, many teachers may find it a bigger challenge to get everyone to listen, than finding a  student or a group that is willing to present on what they have done in the lesson.

I recently witnessed a clever technique by a novice teacher. She had earlier asked the class to work on a task in groups. The final phase of the lesson was the reporting back, which was a logical way to wrap up the lesson. But instead of asking each group to talk to the whole class what it had done, the teacher had one student in each group ask the presenting group a question on their work. Because she conducted this at a brisk pace, very quickly each group had asked a question, and the teacher moved on to the next presenting group and repeated the procedure.

The result was that the whole reporting back did not drag, and the presenting groups and the rest of the class stayed connected throughout. Interestingly, when I asked the teacher how she had learnt of this technique, she said she simply thought it up herself.  So, new teachers can (also) be very creative.

Livening up repetition practice

In this co-taught lesson, we had the P4 students practise giving directions through a game, called ‘Where’s my treasure?’. The idea is not exactly new, but we (a) used a mingling interaction format which enabled the students to choose the partners they would practise with, and (b) presented the game as a challenge: Challenge number 1: See if your partners can guess where you have hidden your treasure; Challenge number 2: we’ll see how many classmates you will have tried your game on within 10 minutes.

This fired up the children, who tried their presentation on one classmate, then on another classmate, and then on another classmate … At the end of 10 minutes, some of them had presented their directions-giving, and listened to their classmates’ presentations, 5 times. And I noticed a marked progress in their fluency in their later attempts. Hence, although it was, in essence, repetition practice, the children enjoyed the repetition, and acquired the language quickly (and happily).

(BTW, if you like this kind of experience sharing, check out ‘Running dictation’ by a volunteer primary school teacher, Usagi Eu:
http://used-to-be-gifted.blogspot.hk/2013/04/blog-post_9.html)

My observations of ELT in China

Below are the 3 articles in Oriental Daily (March 22-24, 2013), in which I shared with Dr Benjamin Au Yeung my observations of English Language teaching and learning in Mainland China:

Part 1

1976年時，英文在香港已很常用，當時的香港已有兩個英文電視台，兩份英文報紙，兩個英文電台，學生上學每天都有英文課，走在街上，到處都可以見到英文。但1976年時，英文在內地幾乎不存在，存在的外語只有俄文。

但從那一年開始，中國內地逐漸對外開放，70年代後期，英國廣播公司（BBC）的英語教學節目《Follow Me》打入內地，沒有人預料得到內地人對英語是如此好奇和熱切，該節目迅即極受歡迎，到1983年，看過《Follow Me》的人竟有1億之多。

我在80年代中開始在香港從事英語教師培訓，偶然看到一本內地出版，名為《外語教學與研究》的學報，內容多為英語教學的經驗分享，反映英文在中小學發展迅速，雖然文章大部分是以中文書寫，但其表現的專業精神，和對有效英語教學法的追求，令我留下深刻印象。當時學報其中一位中堅分子是魯宗幹老師，想不到20多年後，有機會和這位「特級教師」見面，而「特級教師」是內地頒發給模範教師的最高榮譽。

但我第一次有機會走入內地的英語教室，還要等到1996年，那一年隨中大教育學院黃顯華教授往內地交流，其中一項活動是在肇慶市觀課，該節是小四的英文課；在該節課之前，我從沒想過，內地的教師竟然可以全用英文教英文課，而學生亦全無聽不懂的問題。

Part 2

011年3月，知名的英語學者David Graddol在香港英國文化協會一次演講中，預測7年之後，內地學生平均英語水平，會高出於香港學生的平均英語水平；David Graddol是知名學者，對內地學習英語的情況亦很有了解，但是我對他的說法仍然存疑。同年6月，中國政府教育部頒布了最新的全國義務教育英語課程；8月，廣州市教育局教研室邀請我加入他們為新課程編寫新教科書的團隊，我認識了「特級教師」魯宗幹老師和一班「見過世面」的英語教學專家；從那時起，我有機會跟廣州和佛山市的教研人員及教師接觸，亦有機會在內地課室觀課，過去20個月的經驗，令我察覺David Graddol的預測，並非沒有可能成為事實。當然我明白，以內地之大，各地的差異可以很大，但只要廣州的情況在大城市中有代表性，就足以令我為香港的英語前途擔心了。我看到的，首先是學生對英文有很強的學習動機；這動機何以形成，有待研究，但可以肯定的是不單純是為了升學或日後就業，總之就是對學習英語興致勃勃。他們一周的英語課其實不多，以小三為例，每周只有3節課，每節40分鐘，但上課時學生都專心投入，我觀課時聽到學生說得最多的是Let me try, let me try。

令人慨歎的是，即使香港的大學生上英語課時也很被動，不願意主動回答問題，更遑論聽見他們熱切的一句Let me try。（本欄逢周五、六、日見報）

http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/lifestyle/20130323/00326_002.html

Part 3

正當香港學生慣於輕鬆愉快學習（Fun in Learning），而抗拒背誦和操練時，內地的學生卻樂於接受記誦。學習外語，當然興趣重要，但要學得好，一定程度的記誦和練習仍是需要的，內地的學生肯下這苦功，香港的學生卻不太願意，這是令人憂慮的。

而更令我感動的，是他們英語教師的專業發展精神。首先，內地教師的一般課堂管理技巧都很不錯，雖然每班動輒40、50人，但秩序良好；其次，他們的教學方法已經全然不是傳統的Chalk And Talk，相反，用英語教學法的術語來說，他們的教法已經很傳意（Communicative），任務為本（Task-based）和互動（Interactive），他們不再單教文法和詞彙，而是把英語當為中文以外，另一傳情達意的媒介。

內地教師一般對教學效能頗重視，而他們有系統的教研制度，亦令他們對教學能力不斷提升，我主講過的專業發展研討會，參加的無論是教研員或骨幹教師，都充滿學習的熱誠，希望自己的教學精益求精。以我個人經驗來說，甚至是在內地進行教師發展活動，比香港更有滿足感。

這個精神，從他們剛開展的一項研究活動可以反映出來，廣州市教研室現正訂定英語教師標準，嘗試將英語教師應具備的專業知識、技能和態度，巨細無遺的表述出來，作為英語教師的培訓、評核和專業發展的參考，這絕不是簡單的工程，需要很大的魄力，但亦反映他們對英語教學專業化的決心。

今天在內地，英語無論是學與教，都處於快速的上升軌道，香港如果不加把勁，那麼我們連英文的優勢，有一天也可能失去。

（本欄逢周五、六、日見報）
http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/lifestyle/20130324/00326_002.html