Possible classroom setting: student group together by different desks; there are a few study stations. The CBM assessment takes place in one of the stations, with teacher sits by the student who is being assessed.
Cognitive level: above average intelligence. In the mediate-high intelligence among the students in the class/
Social skill level: sociable, in the range of norm.
Behavior skill level: well-behaved in general, talk sometimes but does not interfere with his study and others.
2. Academic area: ESL / English
3. Instructional materials I will use to develop the content of my CBM
Children’s novels for 4-7th grade that I use during daily reading period
Masterpiece by Elise Broach (publisher: Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2008)
Also Known As Harper by Ann Haywood Leal (publisher: Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2009)
The CapturebyLasky, Kathryn (publisher: Scholastic, 2003)
Dark RiverbyHunter, Erin (publisher: HarperCollins, 2008)
The key words from these books have been taught in particular in the previous class.
4. Standardized procedures by defining:
In contrast to less formal methods of monitoring classroom academic skills, the hallmark of CBM is that it follows standardized procedures of administration and scoring.
1)Materials
A) Two copies of the numbered reading material will be prepared. One for the teacher, one for the student.
The CBM reading test is a two-paragraph segment of about 250 words that the teacher has taken from the bookMasterpiece with the vocabulary and fluency difficulty for a grade level between 4th grade and 7th grade, as a reading-fluency measurement tool to monitor the students performance in the daily reading literacy program.
B) stopwatch
C)Pen or marker
D)Score sheet
2) Directions for administration:
The exam takes place once every two weeks.
The teacher and the student sit across the table from each other. The examiner hands the student the unnumbered copy of the CBM reading passage. The teacher takes the numbered copy of the passage, shielding it from the student's view.
During the reading proficiency exam, the teacher sits down individually with the student, gives testing instructions. The instructions include the student should read aloud for 1 minute from each of two separate reading passages. If the student does not know a word, she should try her best or the teacher will tell her.
The teacher begins the stopwatch as soon as the student starts to read. As the student reads along in the text, the teacher records any errors by marking a slash (/) through the incorrectly read word. The errors include mispronunciations, substitutions, omission, transpositions of word-pairs, and words read to the student by the examiner after 3 seconds have gone by. At the end of 1 minute, the examiner says, “Stop”and marks the student's concluding place in the text with a bracket ( ] ).
3) Time limit: each CBM reading probe is timed for one minute.
4) Scoring rules:
The student’s performance on the CBM reading probe is scored for speed, or fluency, and for accuracy of performance. For each of the three reading probes, the teacher calculates the number of words that the student correctly read from the total word numbers attempted per minute, errors that the student makes, and then get a score in percent accuracy. The teacher then choose the median scores out of the three CBM reading probes (for both the correctly read words and errors made), as the more accurately obtained reading fluency of the student.
The teacher also gets the student’s reading fluency baseline from three CMB probes that take place over a period, for example, a week or three weeks.
Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised Clinical interview
Summary
Based on three instrumental assessment scores, Travis is currently functioning within the average range of intellectual ability, with weakness in verbal skills, which reflects on vocabulary, spelling, oral language, reading comprehension and some aspects on writing (basic writing skills, punctuation and writing fluency), and serious difficulty in attention span and free from distractions in class and in assessments.
The assessment scores on Conners’ Continuous Performance Test show that Travis has attention deficit. He has difficulty sustaining attention on some tasks, demonstrates weakness in short-term auditory memory as well as long-term retention of factual information, which may have caused his difficulty in listening in class, finishing tasks, test taking, time management, study habit, and the reason of his dropping his foreign language course (Spanish).
However, Travis performs well in comprehension reasoning in two instrumental assessments. In Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition assessment, his scales score on Matrix Reasoning is 14 and 12 on Comprehension, both of which are quite beyond the average scaled score 10. His Picture Completion scaled scores 12 is beyond average, which demonstrates some strengths in his visual perceptual organization of nonverbal stimuli. The difference between his Verbal IQ scores 95 and Performance IQ 110 indicates that he is able to use nonverbal strategies rather than verbal strategies for most problem solving. This may explain the reason he does well with his economics class.
Test Interpretations
According to Travis’s test scores in Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition assessment, he is currently functioning within the average range of intellectual ability (Full-scale IQ: 96 out of the standard mean of 100). He performs with poor skills on vocabulary (scores 9), arithmetic (scores 8), digit span (scores 8), information (scores 8), and picture arrangement (scores 9); and performs with strengths on similarities, picture comprehension, block design, and matrix reasoning. This is consistent with other two assessment instrument results, which show that he is weak in language skills and speed of processing information, altogether causing his inability of retaining his attention and grasping information during a short period of time. However, he shows strengths in reasoning and overall comprehension. His higher scores on picture completion shows that he has strengths in comprehend visual and nonverbal stimuli. Also, the score discrepancy between his verbal IQ (95) and performance IQ (110) can indicate he is strong in nonverbal O discrepancy IQ, and therefore the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition assessment result may not represent his true intelligence.
According to Travis’ assessment result from Conners’ Continuous Performance Test (which is designed to test a person’s attention), he has attention deficit when performing some tasks. On the instrument, the more measures found to be within the atypical range, the greater the likelihood that attention problem exists. Among twelve measures that he was assessed, he showed abnormality (scores were not within the average range) on half of them, which include number of omissions, hit rate standard error, attentiveness, risk taking, and hit rate block change. While his performances scores were within normal range on half of measures, the other half poor performance scores indicate that he may have difficulty sustaining attention to some tasks (as large number of omission errors indicates) and highly inconsistent in responding and an impulsive responding pattern (as the large number of standard errors indicates).
Travis’ assessment scores on Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised Clinical interview (which is designed to assess a person’s English proficiency on oral, reading and writing) also support the conclusion we have drawn from Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition assessment result: he is weak in verbal language skills. His subtest standard scores on verbal analogues is 81, which is much below his college freshman level (only equaled to a 6th grade’s level); his punctuation scored 71 and his proofing scored 70, which are only the equivalent of a 5th grader; his usage of language gets 86 which is an equivalent of an 8th grader. On cluster scores, his basic writing skills are only 77, an equivalent of a 7th grader; his oral language scores 88, an equivalent of a 9ththth grader), his writing sample scores as high as 136, much higher than his peers’ average, an equivalent of 16.9th grader; his broad written language (scores 107) and written expression (scores 110) are both superior (an equivalent of 1 16th grader) compared to his peers. His reading skills are poor or modest (basic reading scores 93, an equivalent of a 10th grader, broad reading scores 99, an equivalent of a 12th grader. His other language skills are also under his grade level: picture vocabulary scores 85, oral vocabulary scores 86, dictation scores 90, writing fluency scores 9.5, all of which are only on a 9 grader’s level. In addition, he test results also are consistent with other two instruments’ results that he is strong in comprehension and nonverbal skills in some ways: he is strong in listening comprehension (scores 103, beyond his grade level – an equivalent of a 14 grader).
Overall, Travis’ performance on Language Proficiency Battery-Revised Clinical interview demonstrates that he is weak in verbal language, and strong in nonverbal skills. He is poor at spelling, oral speaking, punctuation, vocabulary, and fluency. He needs to strengthen his reading, and improve some aspects of his writing skills.
The Present Levels of Performance for Travis
cognitive abilities
The current assessment data indicate that Travis is functioning in the average range of intelligence. Travis’ strengths are in the area of performance or nonverbal skills.
reading
1)basic reading skills
Various formal assessments indicate that Travis is performing poorly or modestly in reading decoding – especially in vocabulary recognition and phonemic awareness. His reading skills are at the 10th to 12th grade level.
2)Comprehension
verbal comprehension is poor. Passage comprehension is on 10th grade level.
3)Fluency
Both reading and writing fluency is below the grade average.
spelling
Travis’ spelling skills are poor. They are only at 10th grade level. He has letter-word identification difficulty.
written language
Overall writing skills are superior compared with peers, which is at 16th grade level.
listening
Nonverbal comprehension is strong. His listening comprehension is on 14th grade level, above his grade level.
oral
Oral language skills are the weakest part of his language skills. They are only at 9th grade level.
Recommendation
1. Travis may benefit from additional educational support in the area of reading and language arts. For example, he may join a particular literacy or reading program and get help on spelling, vocabulary and reading.
2. New material should be presented for him to reach the following language goals:
make phonological and phonemic awareness
increase short-term memory of sounds (e.g. sound repetition tasks)
master sound processing skills
help speech development
improve sentence syntax skills
help find the connections between the phonological aspect and meanings of language
master verbal expressive skills
improve reading comprehension skills
3. Travis will benefit from direct instruction techniques on spelling, vocabulary, reading comprehension, grammar, and oral speaking.
4. It will be helpful to teach Travis self-monitoring, self-management and self-discipline techniques, and encourage him immediately and frequently for any improvement he has made.
5. It may be helpful to place Travis in the front seat.
6. Travis may benefit from small group cooperative learning. In doing so, he will have chances to interact with peers and practice the targeted language skills and more engaged in the student-centered learning activities, with less chances of being distracted, as it happens often in a teacher-centered instruction session. He may also easily seek help from group members.
7. Teacher may conduct a functional assessment, and then change the antecedents that are likely to cause the distractions. Teacher may also directly help Travis sustain his attention with verbal and visual prompts for attention and change of activities, shorter period of instructions, less material, frequent breaks, and reinforcement of previously learned content knowledge.
Goals
Annual Goal for Verbal Skills and Behavior (oral, reading, writing and attention span sustaining)
Travis will expand his higher level vocabulary by 300 to 400, master the spelling of these words; he will be able to read and answer comprehension questions for an in depth article from New York Times with an accuracy of 85 percent at the assessment at the mid-term of the school year.
In all courses he is taking, he will also be able to sustain his attention for most of the class duration, largely remain undistracted in classes, concentrate on the lecture and retain information, and finish his task. By the end of the mid-term, he should be performing above average on all courses and earn grades C or above. In the second half semester, he will return to his Spanish lesson, finish the course, and pass it at the end of the year.
Short-term Objective
At the end of the 6-week period, Travis will be able to decode 90 percent of 50 higher-level words chosen from New York Times correctly, and read a research article chosen from New York Times with 60 percent of fluency at the end of the 6-week period with the chunking and decoding skills he has recently learned. He will make obvious progress in participating in class discussions, expressing himself in public.
He will be able to move along with most of his courses, without severe frustrations about get passing scores on most of the assessments and quizzes, he will ask help from the teacher when distracted or have difficulty; will have much less complaints about the distraction in class and time management problem.
Drew is a seventh-grade girl who is very bright and has ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) and social difficulty. She has an impulsivity to interfere with the teacher and other students, and blurt out her comments during class, and is unwelcomed by peers due to her inability to read social cues.
The setting event for Drew’s disruptive behavior is the commons area before school and in the hallway between classes. Drew’s classmates ignore her. The Antecedent for the misbehavior is during class, when she is asked to attend to the teacher. The Problem behavior is that she blurts out and interrupts the teacher and other students. The function or consequence of her behavior is to seek attention from the teacher and her classmates, even though the attention given is negative (the teacher reproaches her and classmates look at and laugh at her).
Based on the information about Drew and the intervention team’s list, I have developed a Behavior Intervention Plan. I will state my BIP in the following paragraphs.
The setting event interventions for the BIP are: call Drew to come to class first; place her in front of the line for entering class; pair her with another student who can be her friend, and allow them to sit together in class; give her picture cues with animal or sport images as a behavior reminder (for example, “Be quiet!” “Listen!” “Raise your hand!”); always write class procedures in clear language on board.
The antecedent interventions are as follows: Give her something to do at the beginning of the class, for example, distribute the worksheets or reading books to her classmates, or collect homework from the students, or help the teacher to arrange the class schedule for the day. Ask her to pay attention to what is being taught or said by others, make notes, and restate them afterwards. At times when she is about to blurt out, show attractive behavior cues with animal images. Use bell as a sound sue to remind the class and her not to blurt out.
New skills that the BIP team will teach are as follows: Teach her to get attention/to answer questions by raising her hand; teach her to listen to the teacher and other students quietly; teach her to watch or observe the class, make notes, and then present her results to the class; teach her to ask the classmates “Can I join?”
The consequence interventions are these: Praise if she behaves appropriately; allow her to hold animal toys if she does not interfere or disrupt in class; give her animal or sport stickers or pictures as a reward if she raises her hand to answer questions; allow her to use the computer to do class work or play games.
Comparing my BIP and the one from HO 10-3, both have some common interventions in each stage of the plan. They both include peer help as a setting event intervention; they both include behavior cue reminders as an antecedent intervention; they both include teaching her to raise her hand to ask questions and to listen to others without interruption; they also both include a reward system.
However, I overlooked a few factors in my BIP plan. In the antecedent interventions, I did not think to plan a meditative activity at the beginning of the class, for example, journal writing or reviewing previous lessons in HO – 3. These are wonderful warm-up activities to calm students down and draw their attention to the current class. I have witnessed this technique successfully implemented in all classes at one special ed school. I also forgot about the existence of the intervention team. The plan prepared the IEP team suggests that Drew should have a meeting and a social skills counseling, which is great. In addition, since Drew is being recorded on video in class, this resource should be fully used as a monitoring tool, and even better, as her self-monitoring tool. Finally, in consequence intervention, I forgot about the importance of ignoring the negative attention-seeking behavior as the first step of the intervention. Also, I missed the “monitoring and modifying” intervention plan stage, which is crucial to the entire BIP plan.
There are eight ways I would like to implement cooperative learning into my classroom teaching. They include the following:
1. peer tutoring subject/writing/dialogue
2. Class behavior committee
3. “tell us a few things about yourself” posting
4. learning stations (read articles or interpret paintings or artworks)
5. group visualizing a reading material
6. Multi-culture project
7. group competition to learn words
8. group writing a verb word song/acting it out 1. Peer tutoring Pair up all the students in one class. Each student has to tutor the others on one subject or one skill. It can be any subject or skill, including physical education or social skills, or any other skill that benefits the students. “Homework pair” can be a form of peer tutoring (pair two students who help each other with their homework). Match two students based on their mutual needs and personalities. The students should discuss the terms of their partnership and draw up a written contract, to be approved by the teacher. The contract has to be reviewed on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, and be revised for improvement, if needed. Pairs can be changed if they do not work well. Research shows that peer tutoring significantly improves student participants’ grades. It is because the students who are to tutor others have to study the subject thoroughly beforehand. This also gives students confidence and builds their self-esteem, and empowers them to believe that they can learn. It also builds students’ social skills and their friendships. 2. Weekly Class Behavior Committee Hearing Students set up their own committee to organize and host the process of setting up the behavior rules. Under the committee, there should be a number of teams. Each team groups different students together based on their preferences and characters so they can help each other with their behavior issues during the entire academic year. The committee will monitor how each team follows the rules, keep a record of their performance, and review it with the entire class every Friday afternoon, then give an award to the team that had the best review, and propose improvement suggestions for teams that did not comply with the rules well during that week. The committee will also hold meetings to solve conflicts that occur among students. A learning pledge by the students motivates the students because it gives them power to control their learning process. It builds a trusting relationship between the students and the faculty; it teaches the students to resolve conflicts in a responsible manner; it motivates students to have high expectations of their behaviors and to take care of behavior problems on their own.
3. Tell us a few things about yourself posting Paste four large-size sheets of paper on four classroom walls, titled separately with “My family,” “My personality,” “My likes,” and “My dislikes.” Students will take turns writing relevant information about themselves on the papers. Then, the class will be broken into different groups, which will read the postings and make notes. Each group will discuss the notes they have made and guess which traits belong to which student. A representative from each group will present their results to the class. Whichever group guesses the identity of the most people wins the game. Research shows that internal motivations will energize students to action. A material-based reward system does not really encourage students to learn in the long run because it provides only extrinsic involvement. Activities have to offer intrinsic interest to the participants. Activities that directly relate to students’ personal lives and their interests motivate students intrinsically. 4. Learning stations (read articles or interpret paintings or artworks) The teacher posts articles or excerpts from articles on different sides of the classroom. Groups will take turns going to each posting to read the articles, and then take notes and discuss within the group. All groups will work out a summary or analysis of the article according to the reading requests, and present them to the class. The postings on the wall can also be artworks, such as paintings. In that case, the students will appreciate the artworks and present their ideas about them. A teacher should always take Multiple Intelligence theory into account and try to stimulate all eight intelligence types to serve all students. This activity stimulates students’ spatial and physical intelligence. 5. Group visualizing a reading material In a reading class, one member will read an article, the group members will draw pictures illustrating the story. Then, the group will discuss the story based on what they have heard and how they perceive it, and modify the pictures they have drawn. At the end, all groups will present their drawings to the class and talk about their understanding of the article. It is important for a teacher to make learning material visual because most people are visual.
6. Multi-culture project Group students from the same culture and ethnicity together in the class; each group will prepare for a cultural introduction presentation, in which every member of the team will introduce some aspects of their culture. This project can last for a few weeks. During the preparation and research, students learn new vocabulary, forms of communication, social skills, new knowledge about other countries, and cultural understanding. Group investigation expands cooperative learning (48). Students have the freedom to choose a topic they like, and group together based on their common interests, and to plan and carry out the research on their own. 7. Group competition to learn words (fly swatter) After learning some new words, the teacher distributes the new word list to the class. The class is divided into two groups. Each group will discuss and memorize the new words, and then there will be a competition between the two groups. All new words will be written on the board. Every time, two people (one from each group) will compete with each other. When the teacher gives a cue about one word, whoever hits the word on the board with the fly swatter first wins. The group with the higher scores wins at the end. A mutual goal and joint rewards for a team are a must for the team’s positive interdependence in collaborative learning.
8. Group writing a verb word song/acting it out The goal of the activity is to learn verbs by acting them out. A new verb list will be distributed to all groups. Each group will play “Simon Says” to memorize the verbs, then, the group will write a song using a well-known tune (for example “I’m a Little Teapot,” and create body movements based on the meanings of these verbs. Finally, each group performs their song with body movements for the class. It includes contributions from all the students in the group and is a result of the collective wisdom and effort of the entire team. This activity has both individual accountability and positive interdependence, which are basic and important elements in cooperative learning.
“Teaching Interpersonal Skills” by Linda G. McGrew and Stephen D. Lewis introduces another goal and benefit of collaborative learning: teaching interpersonal skills through collaborative learning. The authors point out the importance of interpersonal skills in the workplace. The lack of these skills, including an inability to get along with coworkers, poor work ethics and job performance, often can be the cause of an employee’s failures at work or even result in someone losing their job.
The authors also state that students commonly work as a team with their peers in school, and that adults usually work in the same way. Successful teamwork not only creates productivity and efficiency, it also produces a feeling of ownership, pride and friendship among the coworkers. Therefore, it is important for teachers to train students intentionally in both the leadership and followership roles so they can fit into any situation when working in a team. This is especially beneficial for introverted students.
In order to teach students social skills through teamwork, the authors discuss definitions of groups and their characteristics. A group consists of “individuals who interact using verbal and nonverbal communication to accomplish a common goal.” The key elements to consider in planning group work are the group size (three to five is most suitable), composition of the group (diverse but cohesive: mix members with different talents, intellect, background, genders, personalities, and social skills), and careful planning of each step for the group activity.
I agree with the authors’ opinion that careful planning is essential for successful group activities. The steps for group activities are:
1) Determine the project objectives (to fulfill a certain goal and learn certain skills); set up time phrases for the projects along with intermittent checkpoints; and select group members.
2) Introduce the project or activity with clear directions, timelines and checkpoints (which must include students evaluating one another); discuss all details with the class at the beginning.
3) Monitor the process, ensuring the students are on task and following the directions; help to solve any interpersonal problems if any occur.
4) Presentation and evaluation. The evaluation should include both team grade and individual grade to ensure fairness. This is to encourage both teamwork and individual accountability.
The article has made me reconsider the missions of education. I used to think that the main goal of education was to teach the students academic knowledge so they could be useful citizens in society. (At most, we may add cultivating ethical integrity in the curriculum.) I never thought about teaching social skills as part of our main tasks. But consider how important social skills are for any person, whether he or she be a student, a teacher, a worker in any kind of job, we should all agree that communicative skills are essential for his or her success and existence, and therefore these should be taught in school. This is especially true for language teachers. If students in a language class are not inhibited by their lack of interpersonal communicative skills, they will be more inclined to speak in the target language. In addition, if students possess strong interpersonal skills, they will have the desire to express themselves in the target language, even when they do not know much about the target language. This was the case with the artistically talented students I taught at M408 in the fall of 2010. Those kids had no communicative difficulties at all, for they were trained to be performers and that made them quick language learners.
Teaching social skills is one of the main areas of focus in special education. The purpose of this is to help these students make a smooth transition into general society. Regrettably, we ignore the necessity of teaching social skills in general educational classes. I believe this understanding will benefit general education teachers tremendously.
The authors recommend some subjects for group work activities, such as international issues, technology, career education, professional development, career strategies and diversity. Inspired by these ideas, I thought about possible group activities for my future teaching, in ESL classes, Mandarin language classes, and other content classes:
• Introduce different musicians/authors/artists/painters
• Introduce different geographical regions/countries /areas
• Introduce various natural phenomenon /climate/weather
• Describe different things you and your classmates do daily
• Introduce a historical event/period in history (each group member introduces one aspect)
In these activities, each member studies one particular aspect of the project and the group engages in discussion and works together to give a presentation.
I believe with careful design and planning, the above activities can arouse the students’ interest because they engage the students individually and collectively, and socially and academically.
The “Group Investigation Expands Cooperative Learning” model, described by Yael Sharan and Shlomo Sharan, is a type of collaborative learning that groups students for research based on their common interest in a topic. The group members work together to plan the research topic, and then they divide the teamwork among individual members for independent individual research, and finally, the group synthesizes and summarizes all members’ research, and presents the results to the class. During the whole process, the teacher works only as a guide, providing a wide range of topics for students to choose from, brainstorming and stimulating students to think and raise questions about the topic, and helping them to pick a topic. The teacher may also work with the students to prepare the final evaluation standard. It is a truly group work.
There are six stages in the process, which can last from a week to a few months:
Stage 1: Identify the topic and form the student group.
Stage 2: Plan the investigation in groups. Present subtopics. The team decides which to pick for research, and how to cooperate. Then, internally organize the subtopics.
Stage 3: Carry out the investigation (both collectively and individually).
Stage 4: Prepare a final report.
Stage 5: Present the final report.
Stage 6: Evaluation.
According to the authors’ research data, Group Investigation works much better than the traditional classroom-teaching model. It is efficient because it gives students more control over their learning. Students have the freedom to choose a topic they like, and group together based on their common interests, and to plan and carry out the research on their own. They teach and help each other in order to complete the final project. It has the advantage of both teamwork and individual work. It includes contributions from all the students in the group and is a result of the collective wisdom and effort of the entire team.
The limitation of this model is that it takes a rather long time to prepare and complete. It needs careful planning and plenty of flexible time. It will be difficult for a subject teacher who has to cope with the pressures of a rigid curriculum required by the school and prepare students for standardized exams. It also requires the students to have basic vocabulary, language and analytical skills to conduct the group discussion and research. This is especially true with a foreign language class. Therefore, it is not a good choice for very small kids, for example, K to 2nd graders, because they lack analytical and synthesizing skills to do the research. For younger children, a short collaborative learning activity in class is preferable; for example, read to each other during a reading class, or discuss in groups about what to write in an essay during a writing class.
From my own teaching experience, Group Investigation suits intermediate and advanced level language learners more than it does beginning language learners. I tried a similar method in my intermediate college level Mandarin course and it worked well. The way I did it was to have students give an oral presentation in pairs after every unit’s study. I gave topics related to the unit to students, and paired students up based on their language level. Each pair of students had to work out the draft for the oral presentation (a dialogue), and make sure the draft was grammatically correct. They then practiced outside the class; and finally presented to the class. Students who were on lower language levels in the class later on told me that it was very challenging for them. However, they got help from their partners, and learned a lot by doing it. What I did mainly was brainstorming at the beginning of the project and correcting their drafts during the process.
Looking back, it was a very fulfilling experience though I did not know much about collaborative learning then. I only wanted to give students chances to speak the target language in an authentic manner. Now I can see that it was successful largely because it involved and stimulated students to help each other and teach each other in a collaborative manner. Indeed, during and after my teaching the class, the atmosphere in the class was very relaxed and students usually were willing to talk because they interacted with one anther well in every unit presentation. They felt that they were sitting with their friends in the class, not strangers. My teaching would have been more effective if I had known more about Group Investigation projects. Because in the final survey I did with my students at the end of the semester, some of them said they wished they had had more chances to talk in the target language in class; Group Investigation would have created a perfect opportunity for them to speak to each other during both the discussions and final presentations.
However, I feel that Group Investigation, a long-term project that requires certain language skills in the target language, does not suit beginning language learners well. Beginning language learners need more chances to hear authentic language from the teacher, and practice under the teacher’s observation and corrective feedback. In some ESL beginning lessons (in both elementary and middle/high school settings) that I have observed, during the group work, the students were unable to conduct the discussions in English, instead, they discussed the topics in their native languages.
Recently, I went for a campus visit at a private boarding school in New York for an ESL teacher’s position. During my visit, nearly every faculty member or administrator that I met mentioned the urgent need to blend the international ESL students with American students in school. (Each group counts for about half of the student population.) The fact is that the international students tend to group together during and after classes, without opportunities to improve their English. Because of this, they also have difficulty with their content course, because they are not proficient enough in English to grasp the material as readily as the American students.
I thought about this situation and about how Cooperative Learning might be helpful, and wrote an email to the principal with my suggestions:
1) peer tutoring program
Pair the ESL learners with the American students one-to-one, based on the students’ mutual needs (like an exchange tutoring). For example, math/science/art for English.
If an ESL student is good at math, science or arts, he or she can be paired with an American student who is good at English but needs help with math, science or arts. Research shows that tutoring is the best way to learn. Give the ESL students opportunity to receive language help, meanwhile, give them the opportunity to use the English language by being tutors. School credits also can be given to American students who qualify and volunteer to be English tutors after one semester.
2) collaborative learning
Teachers can implement the collaborative learning model, which involve many collaborative learning activities among students. For example, short-term or long-term learning projects involving students’ collaborations in and outside class. The purpose is to blend students.
3) Have more ice-breaking activities or other fun activities in content classes, especially at the beginning of a new academic year. This way, the students will get to know each other quickly and be friends outside the classroom. This will also create a stress-free atmosphere in the class so the ESL students will be more willing to talk in class. It is also a good way of blending students.
With the tool of Group Investigation in hand, I feel I will do better with my future teaching, whether it be ESL or Mandarin teaching.
Communicative language teaching, as it says in its name, is all about communication: the goal and objective are communication, the method of practicing is communication, the learning materials are authentic written or non-written language products from real world, and the assessment is also by assessing how efficient the learner can be when communicating in the target language.
The reading of Richards and Rodgers’ book "Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching" (2001, second edition, New York: Cambridge University Press.) has cleared some of my long-time confusion about what exactly communicative language method is, which I had heard repeatedly during my teacher’s training and at all kinds of workshops but I could not grasp what it was exactly. It is about delivering meaningful messages to one another in social context. It is emphasizing the social function of the languages rather than its surface form.
More importantly, my reading of the chapter has equipped me with a number of useful classroom activities that prompts and initiates communication and negotiation in class. For example, an authentic event provoking conversation by any of the following scenarios: a talking about personal identification, a customer visit, a supplier visit, a shopping experience, a travel experience, describing something, asking for information, providing information, expressing emotions and feelings, and agree and disagree with an opinion. In a word, it can be anything that happens in our daily life that engages human interactions. Therefore, the class activities can be anything that evokes a conversation. For example, a shared reading and a discussion followed, a role play, an imaginary scenario and acting it out, an inquiry from either the teacher or the students, a grouped study, a silent reading or a “reading to” activity followed by comprehension questions, and reading the authentic materials that the students and the teacher collect together in class.
At any rate, the Communicative Language Teaching is the golden tool that I have ever learned so far as a language teacher. I am very thankful.
