TESOL practitioners are supported by theories and models, principles, methods and ideas that must be synthesised with pedagogical circumstances and approaches. Drawing on my life experiences, my growing practice develops through reflection and scholarly research supporting my work as a secondary teacher of English and drama.
Tarnopolsky’s outline of the six principles of TESOL
Learners’ needs.
Learners’ attitudes.
Introduce culture.
Avoid home tasks.
Limit intensiveness.
Individual course autonomy.
(2016)
This title will be intro
Nation and Macalister's 20 Principles of language teaching
Nation & Macalister. (2009).
the power of storytelling for tesol
Storytelling preserves cultural heritage and keeps traditions alive. It is the oldest form of education (Hamilton & Weiss, 2005). Teachers of language acknowledge there are six language arts, all tools to make meaning from language. Talking, listening, reading, writing, viewing -- the ability to make meaning of more nuanced elements of language (for example, non-verbal communication such as human gestures, acting or even tech-media), and visual representation, or signifiers such as graphics, video and dance. Storytelling enlists all six language arts.
+ the digital story
+ things a map wont show you
+ the graphic text
+ drama/role play
the digital story
The targets were year 7 students with a competent understanding of English. I began by showing them my digital story – The Boy in the Forty-Four Gallon Drum – which I created as a learning resource and used to encourage reading in English classes.
Please press Play.
Stories allow us to collect and organise information, and in the ‘telling’ we are free from the text, allowing adaptation through improvisation and voice acting. The students were encouraged to think of a story they would like to tell from Timorese culture, or a story personal to them, and create a mind-map, which would evolve into a visual storyboard. The students were reminded that the images, which could be hand drawn, stock photographs, or personal photographs – as mine showed – would then be the inspiration for the story. The students were asked to ‘tell’ the story first, using the images, and then write the script down from their oral narration. The task was completed over a two week period and the results were remarkable.
To sample, press the muted music icon on the bottom right corner of Sofia’s digital story.
The creation of a digital story collectively addresses shifting modes of learning space, and learner centric product creation. The multimodal delivery is a product of strong personal growth allowing the student to ‘tell their story’ using elements of the English language, engendering cross-cultural understanding and respect. The students who create these digital stories also enhance their communicative skills by organizing, researching and expressing opinion in their narratives. By creating something that is inherently ‘theirs’ the students’ “ recognize the linguistic features of the narratives of everyday currency: the jokes and anecdotes, as well as the popular and traditional stories, which are the source of so many cultural references in society” (Pennington, 2009, p. 7)
Watching digital stories also teaches students to appreciate how the spoken word -- language fluently spoken alongside visual representation -- can enhance the concept of reading for pleasure and make a cognitive connection between the imagery and the text. Pennington (2009) expands on Krashen’s Input Hypothesis – that where students learn incrementally -- that “acquisition is a process of acquiring something subconsciously by exposure to models, a process of trial and error, and practice within social groups” (p. 8). Formatting the story digitally is a result of the student combining content and theme based learning accessing benefits of both intentional and incidental language acquisition (Shintani, 2016).
Initial drafting of the script for the digital story allows editing for errors which aims to “help students become aware of and eliminate their syntactic and lexical flaws”(Rebuck, 2010, p. 33) before recording their script and producing an aural product. Importantly, this tactic also highlights the “ ’vast difference’ between many [EAL] texts and English as it is spoken in the real world” (Rebuck, 2010, p. 33).
things a map wont show you
Things A Map Wont Show You is a collection of short fiction, poetry and comic art from Australia and the Asio-Pacific region. The text includes stories from Indigenous and refugee writers, providing a rich exposure to narratives of the region and is specifically aimed at students in years 8-9. I chose and ordered this text for a number of reasons. The target students were fourteen year 10 EAL students preparing to leave IB MYP teaching and launch into VCE EAL. The VCE syllabus is heavy with Australian regional topics and the students’ exposure to many concepts, idioms and language of this type was minimal or indeed non-existent. Thus the preparation for their further education would be complemented by the extra reading lessons I prepared for them using this text. The process I outline below was exceptionally effective and popular with the students. It was repeated with further stories from the text over the course of ten weeks.
The lesson consisted of students taking turns reading aloud in the group, a page at a time, with the specific task of identifying strange words, underlining them and making a list to define. It became increasingly apparent that that there were many more ‘strange’ words than I would have guessed, in fact, in this story alone, from fifteen pages, the group identified sixty words. We then discussed, using a multi-lingual dictionary, a suitable definition of each word, ensuring the group all agreed and understood the word and its definition. Code swapping often ensued and they encouraged each other, knowing the learning space was safe, and learning from their errors.
Communicative Language teaching (CLT) focuses on ‘making meaning’ from the language as opposed to outdated prescriptive grammatical approaches. This highlights the fundamental importance of descriptive grammar, that which evolves and changes. In the context of my classroom – inquiry/project based IB MYP – the students identified the problem (the unknown (socio-ecological) words) and then set about constructing their own flashcard-like quiz on the online platform 'Quizlet'. By providing their own answers they solved their problem and provided a student based approach to their agentive learning.
The concept of Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT) in my IB classroom encouraged students in an immersive setting. The learning was a combination of INTENTIONAL (creating the QUIZLET) and INCIDENTAL (the conversations surrounding meaning). Shintani (2016) asserts TBLT “creates contexts for picking up new language which the learner had no particular intention to learn” (p. 36) as they were focusing more on communication and understanding rather than the learning objectives. The adaptation of a flashcard style-learning programme, such as QUIZLET, also harnesses the behaviorist approaches of audio -lingual reaction and positive adaptation – particularly when the objective is to introduce idioms and culturally specific language to EAL learners. Nation and Macalister (2009), in their approach to curriculum building, suggest that building on an established text is a productive approach, and the text used in this exercise is a recognised scholastic resource.
In CLT, using L1 (Tetum) in some circumstances is a vehicle to bring prior knowledge so as to highlight contrasts and comparisons between L1 and L2(English). According to Atkinson, (cited in Cole), "For many learners (in particular adults and teenagers), occasional use of the L1 gives them the opportunity to show that they are intelligent, sophisticated people"(1998, p. 11). In creative exercises, such as the construction of stories, this is where code swapping would be advantageous to build the narrative. For example, the Milford Sound exercise, where the students built their list for the Quizlet game, the general discussion around the table built its foundations on code swapping between L1 and L2 for better understanding of abstract vocabulary and to allow those students who weren’t as knowledgeable in English, to continue to meaningfully contribute.
Shintani cites Laufer and Hulstijn’s 2001 hypothesis of Involvement Load, whereby the effectiveness of the teaching depended on the student’s NEED, SEARCH and EVALUATION (p.54). In other words the lesson was more effective if the student needed to understand the word to move forward in the task; thus prompting a search for the word in a dictionary and ultimately a decision as to the appropriateness of the word to meet an effective solution to the task.
As the facilitator of the exercise I continued to remind the students that reverting to Tetum was only to be used when the meaning of the word was difficult for a direct grammatical translation. Cole reminds us that there are times where use of L1 isn’t justified unless there is increased frustration, as it challenges the entire purpose of the EAL class (1998). Further, in the specific Timorese context, Boon and Kurvers (2015) remind us that code swapping is to be used only as a “pedagogic aid’ (p. 226), lest it leads to defeating the purpose of the lessons.
The learning space then progressed online to QUIZLET, and interactive site using games and tests, built on self-produced flashcards. The students matched and uploaded their ‘strange’ words and definitions to the site and launched into collaborative and often competitive learning. It may have helped that chocolate was offered to high point scorers. Over the following two days the students practiced and refined their knowledge and the story was re-read with new and enhanced understanding.
the graphic text
Oz and Efecioglu assert Krashen’s theory that “graphic narrative materials are an excellent means of reducing the affective filters of anxiety and lack of confidence blocking student pleasure in learning L2” (2015, p. 78). The graphic novel provides a ‘scaffold’ that promotes positive risk taking, presumptive guesswork, linking images and words to produce meaning and an understanding of inference. The graphic novel engages students who may otherwise lack motivation or self-confidence increasing L2 acquisition and encouraging self directed learning. L2 students who engage in graphic texts recognise “foreshadowing, symbolic language, comment on the setting and infer deeper meaning”(Oz & Efecioglu, 2015).
Liddicoat reminds us, “the act of interpretation is a core element of the processes of both communication and learning” (2013, p. 47). Understanding teaching and learning language from an intercultural perspective, students bring their own interpretations to learning the second language, by how they perceive they have learned their first language. Interactive engagement within the two cultures (for example, the digital story story about Timor in English), leads to a “multidirectional ...[engagement] ... in which knowing contributes to expanded awareness and awareness contributes to expanded knowing” (p. 50). This progressive intercultural awareness and knowledge allows the student to have a greater sense of their identity as a “cultural being”. (p. 50).
The year 9 and 10 students studied the graphic novel 'Persepolis' as an EAL text. The story is based on the memoir of a young Iranian girl during and after the Iranian revolution. Understanding the devastating socio-economic effects of forced colonial occupation in Timor-Leste over the past century, students were able to construct parallels in the narrative.
Students in my year 10' extra reading' class explained how access to the graphics gave them confidence to predict meaning. This increased visual literacy and the resultant intercultural awareness of the text-matter encouraged learner growth in both their self and their language learning.
Students love to use their imagination. It applies to all ages. Levels of motivation may vary when the process of making drama becomes a task, but creative endeavours have a way of making meaning that opens up understanding for all. When code swapping as a teaching tool was applied, the barriers fell away and the learning thrived. Students created SLAM poetry, performed in the school production of Oliver! which I directed, explored intertextuality in scriptwriting, played Theatresports, sang often and beautifully and in every instance their understanding of language flourished and improved.
drama & role-play
Drama and role-play are experiential subjects, highlighting Tarnopolsky’s notion that “Experiential learning activities in language teaching model extra-linguistic reality” (2016, p.10).
Bournot – Trites et al suggest the performative nature of drama within the classroom is a shared cultural activity where students bring prior knowledge to both improvisational and learned role-play (2007). Communication is facilitated through a range of activities such as singing, acting, dance, mime, SLAM poetry and so on. Similarly, touching on the behaviourist notion of Suggestopedia, Mateva (1997) asserts dramatic role-play involves both teachers and learners in an interactive social ‘drama’, noting that many elements of suggestopedic teaching employ an eclectic mix of stimuli to produce enhanced effects in L2 learning. Suggestopedia, is a teaching method introduced by Georgi Lozanov, which, in applying the ‘power of suggestion’ it allows students to overcome negative thoughts and doubts (Mustapha, 2018, p. 17). As outlined in the 6 language arts above, these elements may be conscious and subconscious, verbal and non-verbal. Mateva suggests a combination of Stanislavsky’s “magic IF” and the self-discovery notion of “I amness” (1997, p.27), whereby taking on a made up personality, the student “restores the natural bonds between thought, emotions and language” (Mateva, 1997, p. 28). Drama and role-play harness the principles of context and participation by exploring personal, socio-cultural and institutional paradigms in a learner-centric process.
References