Getting into Gear: Summer Scavenger Hunt

Spring semester is nearly over and we are getting into gear for our summer sessions here in the English Language Program. One activity that has worked well is the On-Campus/Off-Campus Scavenger Hunt. I developed this with my coworker, Tatjana Mulina, a couple years ago for a short-term summer course we were teaching. I modified it for last summer and it was a blast. In pairs or small groups, students are sent on a mission throughout campus and the surrounding community for about three hours to collect as many items and information pieces as they can.

Objectives: Practice scanning (signs and written information) and speaking skills (asking for information) in an authentic context; also, becoming more familiar with the campus and community

Results: It was fun to see the kids running back all sweaty from their labors in the summer heat, running around campus. They were really excited to show me all their documentation, including photos, brochures, and even an official printed estimate from the tire shop on the corner (one of the items asked how much a new set of tires cost). Apparently, the employees there were very friendly and helpful. Such a great experience to have our students interacting with native speakers outside an academic setting.

Download a copy of the scavenger hunt and adapt it for your campus.

Student Research Projects: Can I make it work?

I'm developing a new elective course for students who are in our ELP Pathways Program. This means that students are taking one or two ESL classes in our program concurrently with one or two mainstream university courses. Generally, these types of students are more advanced and need opportunities that challenge them.

The answer: Project-based learning. Specifically, a research project. Now, I feel like a lot of us tend to roll our eyes when the topic of research papers has come up in professional development meetings. It's just such a mammoth project, requiring a lot of hand-holding. High school students cringe at the thought of digging through "sources" at the library, feeling baffled at why they can't use Wikipedia for all of their material. Writing research papers largely invoke the feeling of unauthentic busywork that is simply not relevant.

But, then again, most of them want to go to graduate school. In my master's program, we had to write a thesis. Surely, there is some value in helping students to go through the process of inquiry, even if we do skip the official "paper" part of the research.

The Assignment
In groups of two or three, I had students take the following actions:

1. Select a topic within the general context of sociology/human behavior - altruism; collectivism vs. individualism; big data; cyber bullying
2. Synthesize background information from a video link I provided with an article they found online - Skill: Summarizing and synthesis
3. Formulate a research question - Skill: Embedded questions to state research purpose 
4. Produce a written research proposal, outlining their research plan - Skill: Writing a report, proposing action and defending decisions
5. Collect data through surveys and interviews - Skill: Grammar, listening/speaking
6. Analyzing data in order to reach conclusions - Skill: Critical thinking
7. Present results in a Power Point presentation - Skill: Appropriate grammar/writing to effectively convey research on slides; presentation skills
8. Critically evaluate other groups' project designs/conclusions - Skill: Critical thinking, speaking, grammar 

Results
As we worked over the course of six weeks, this project went turned out extremely well. It gave us the chance to work on and apply skills learned in other classes -- summarizing sources, embedding questions (The purpose of this research was to determine whether there was a difference in attitudes...), giving conclusions and reporting survey results, presentation skills with graphics ("As we can see in this graph,"), academic vocabulary (implies, suggests, concludes, etc), and group discussion skill.

What Students Said: Oral Reflection
At the end of the project, I had each student record a 4-5 minute reflection, answering these prompts:

1. What did you learn from this project, and how did it benefit you?
2. What did you contribute to your group's project?
3. What would you do differently if you were to do the project again?
4. How well did your group work together as a team? Discuss strengths and weaknesses.

I chose to have them do the reflection orally because it was one additional facet of language use - the monolog. I didn't grade it on pronunciation or grammar, because the object here was content. And I purposely did not give them a lot of time to prepare or script what to say. In this way, their reflection was more natural (as opposed to the report and presentation). Therefore, it made the assignment more authentic for the students.

Here is one excerpt, illustrating some things the student learned in general:

I learn a lot from this project. First, know the importance of cooperation. I had more ideas when I listened to my partner’s ideas. Second, I can ask Americans questions without bashfulness. And I improved my oral skills. Third, I learned that when I do a presentation, I need to face the audience instead of looking at the Power Point because it might make people think you didn’t prepare good for the presentation and it is not respectful.

A second excerpt shows the a more natural (and unscripted) summary of her project, as well as what she learned:

From this project, I’ve learned the internal and external reasons for deviant behavior, such as bad parenting, education, and social situations, and the teenage brain. Parents will influence their kids very well. However, from the project, I have noticed that the teenagers’ brains are active when they are young, so it is easy for them to do something wrong. I have learned how people think about youth deviant behavior. They think it’s annoying, but they can understand it.  Teenagers are still young. Everyone will do something wrong, so they can understand it. And I learned how to control youth deviant behavior, so they don’t do something wrong.

I have known the importance of teamwork. We finished this project together. I believe we could complete our project better with teamwork. Because when we have a problem, we can deal with that problem together, so it will be more easy for us to solve this problem than only one person.  In this project, I interviewed two young adults and sent out an online survey to twenty young people. We did the Power Point together and we did the questions together. If I am able to do this project again, I will interview more people because in this project, we only interviewed four people. Not only students, but teachers and professors. However, it was a little hard for us to interview older adults because all of my friends are students. In my opinion, our team worked well together because we could communicate with each other and share our own opinions.

Lab Reports: Practice with Passives

I told my students: "Did you know that lab reports should be written in the passive? This is because the focus is on your experiment, not on you." So I told them to do a little experiment to find the answer to this question: How much liquid can be absorbed by a diaper?

Here is an example lab report one of the groups did:

Title: Liquid Amount Absorbed By a Diaper

Introduction: This report shows an experiment to demonstrate the amount of liquid that a diaper can hold. For this experiment, the diaper capacity was hypothesized to be 375 mL of liquid.

Materials: A plastic bag was used to avoid leaking of the diaper. The water was provided from a drinking fountain. A blue color was mixed with the water to see how the diaper’s material absorbed the liquid. The diaper was the principal material for the test.

Methods: In this experiment, the diaper was inserted inside the plastic bag to avoid any leaking. The water was mixed with the colorant to show the liquid in the diaper. Then, the water was poured on the diaper too see how much liquid it could stand. The diaper was cut with a pair of scissors to allow the water to pour into the absorbing material. The water was poured until the diaper was saturated.

Results: The diaper reached its limit of liquid capacity when the fourth glass of water was poured. The water started leaking because the diaper was saturated. At the beginning of the experiment, the amount of water was expected to be 375 mL, but at the end of the test, the diaper reached 875 mL.

 

Poster Sessions

I remember going to a presentation at a conference several years ago on poster presentations as a low-tech, but engaging activity. My coworker, Katy, came up with the idea of doing posters as a way for students to share a book that they had read. This is my second semester doing this, and it turned out well. I asked me students to include the following information on their posters:

1. Book title and author
2. Setting - 2-3 sentences
3. Plot summary - 4-5 sentences
4. Main characters - list of characters, a phrase telling who each person is, and 3 adjectives 
5. Favorite passage - 2-3 sentences telling why they liked the passage
6. 3 new vocabulary words - context sentences, part of speech, and meaning
7. Pictures to illustrate and make the poster look attractive

I invited another class to come and see the posters, talk to the students. It was a great English-use activity, as they had to explain their book again and again for each student who passed by! Repetition always helps. 

A different kind of presentation... NGOs

I've seen a few presentations lately on "Digital Storytelling," basically putting pictures with voice.  I decided to try that in my advanced listening/speaking class.  Hearing my students' voices only, without the benefit of seeing their fact and body language brings out their struggles with pronunciation, as well as grammar.  I decided to use this as a way to hone those particular skills.

I had them choose an NGO to research, through watching videos mainly.  Then, we followed these steps:

1. Write the transcript (approximately 100-150 words), telling what the NGO is, what work it does, and why ELP students should donate money to it.
2. Review and revise the transcript for content and grammar.  I, along with their peer mentor, helped them with this.
3. Review the transcript, marking a) stressed words, b) thought groups that should be linked together, c) pauses.
4. Record Draft #1.  
5. Feedback from me. I listened and noted any major pronunciation issues, as well as key words that were being mispronounced.
6. Record Draft #2.
7. Create a video by adding photos and music.

Overall, it was fun, and helped focus on specific skills--sentence-level stress, linking, etc.  Here are a few of them, as an example:

Student-led Listening Activity

This semester, in my intermediate Listening/Speaking class, I had my students sign up throughout the semester to present their own listening activities.

Objectives:

• Engage in a listening passage that interests students
• Listen to a passage in a more meaningful way, in order to create comprehension and discussion questions for their classmates
• Apply presentation skills in delivering the activity to the class

Sample:

Here is one of the activities my students created.

Student-created Listening Worksheet (pdf)

Student-led Discussions

Here is an activity that I have implemented this semester into my advanced/speaking course. I had my students sign up in pairs on Thursdays throughout the semester.

Objective: Prepare my advanced listening/speaking students for mainstream classes where they will may have to lead a group discussion- either a study group or an in-class assignment.

Skills Practiced:

• Presentation skills
• Formulation of discussion questions
• Eliciting comments
• Responding to comments
• Asking follow-up questions
• Summarizing the discussion
• Synthesizing ideas from multiple groups

This semester, topics my students have chosen so far were engaging: Domestic abuse, environmental issues, robotics, to name a few. Below is the most recent video clip my students used (last week).

Level 3 Charity Contest

For the past few years of teaching Advanced Listening/Speaking, our semester project has been the "Charity Contest." After a listening activity on George Soros, the philanthropist (from our textbook, Consider the Issues, from NPR), I assign my students to create their own idea for a charity organization. Turning it into a contest to compete for a $10 million grant from the Soros Foundation makes it especially exciting for the students.

*I must give the credit to my colleague, Pamela Martin, for coming up with this idea and first implementing it in her classes.

Here are excerpts from my worksheets, which outline the project:

STEP 1: Which groups of people need help from charities? What else in our world needs to be fixed? Consider people, social institutions, animals, and the environment. Brainstorm in groups of 4. Write your ideas below.


STEP 2: With a partner—Now, design a charity with your group. Answer the following questions:

1. What is the problem that your charity would help solve?
2. Why would your charity be important or special?
3. What specific services would your charity provide?
4. What people would you need to provide these services? (Eg, volunteers, paid employees?) What kind of training would you to do?
5. What materials and supplies would your charity need?
6. How much money would your charity need for one year?

STEP 3: Presenting Your Ideas.
Homework Assignment-Due in class, Wednesday, March 24 Individually, create an outline for your presentation. Type your outline and bring it to class. (You will compare your outline with your partner(s) outline in class and combine them.)

Step 4: Get feedback from your classmates. In pairs, ask your partner about his/her project.

• What problem are you focusing on?
• Why did you choose this problem to solve? + Follow-up questions
• Why is this problem more of a priority than others? + Follow-up questions
• How important is this problem to other people/groups like George Soros? + Follow-up questions
• How would your organization go about solving this problem?
• What services would your organization provide?
• Where would your organization get people/workers from?
• Where would your organization get materials from?
• How would your organization manage the money ($10,000,000)?
• How long would your organization take to get results?
• How practical is your plan?

After your discussion, get back with your group and talk about areas you identified that need further planning.

Step 5: Finish your outline and create your powerpoint
Compare your outline with your partner(s). Decide together how to combine your ideas into one amazing outline.

Step 6: Presentation Skills Day

Give a Lecture Plan

• First we’re going to talk about…
• Then, we’ll go on to…
• And then we’ll move on to….
• We’ll
• tell you about…
• explain..
• discuss…
• show…
• After that…
• Finally, we’ll tell you…

Transitioning Between Speakers

Choose one transition.

____ Okay, now Johnny is going to tell you about…
____ I’ll take us through…. (the goals and objectives of our charity)…
____ Thanks, Jill. Let’s move now to….
____ Now that we’ve talked about….. I’ll explain…..
____ Okay, I’m going to let Jack tell you about….

Dealing with Q&A

1. Inviting Questions at the end of the presentation:

• Okay, we have about ___________ minutes for questions.
• We’ll take your questions now.
• Who has the first question?
• Now, what questions do you have?

2. Answering Questions

to a good question
• That’s a very good question. [+ Answer]

to a difficult question
• I don’t know that off the top of my head.
• That’s a really good question. I’m not sure I can answer that…
• I’m sorry… I’m afraid I don’t have that information with me.
• Can I get back to you on that?
• I’m afraid I can’t answer that.

to an unnecessary question
• I think we answered that question earlier.
• Well, as we mentioned earlier,….[repeat answer]

to an irrelevant/confusing question
• I’m afraid I don’t see the connection.
• Sorry, I don’t follow you.
• I’m sorry, I don’t understand your question.

3. Moving to another question:
• Okay, let’s move on to the next question.
• Who has the next question?
• Let’s move on to the next question.

4. Near the end of your Q&A time:
• We’re almost out of time.
• We’ll take 1 more question.
• We have time for 1 more question.

At the end of your Q&A time:
• Thanks for all of your questions and attention.

Contest Day!!!

This semester, we only had two sections of Advanced Listening/Speaking, so I had to find two different audiences for the presentations.

Section 1 - Panel of judges consisting of 2 other teachers and staff workers from the International Programs Office. To make it nice, I reserved a conference/board room for the presentations. The change of scenery was rather effective.

Section 2 - One of our Intermediate Listening/Speaking classes served as the audience and selection committee.

Debate: Gun Control

This is a video from my advanced listening/speaking class last semester. I need to credit my coworker, Katy Montgomery, for spearheading this actually. It was her idea to do a major debate with a lot of preparation and organization. Our two classes split into two teams each-For and Against Gun Ownership. On Debate Day, she led one debate, while I led the other. Here is a video of the highlights.

Spring 2011 - Making the Transition to Mainstream Classes

I just wanted to share some of my recent and ongoing efforts to help students prepare for mainstream classes after the ELP. Two activities that I am spearheading this semester are:

Class Visits - Three times during the semester, my students find a regular university class they want to observe, take notes, fill out an observation report, and then report back to the class. The assignment consists of:

• Navigating the online course schedule and evaluating possible options. I require students to get my approval signature before moving forward with this. I want to make sure that all my students aren't bombarding the same professor, as well as ensure that the class is an is appropriate for them to observe.
• Contacting the professor via email to request permission. Composing emails is always a challenge for ESL students. To help them with this stage, I give them a template they can copy. If the professors have any questions, they can email me. Occasionally, some do, but for the most part, professors at my university do not seem to mind.
• Visiting the class and completing an observation report. What I want them to look for is phrases and key language the professor uses in the lecture to introduce topics, give examples, definitions, signal topic changes, and so forth.
• Writing a reflection.
• Presentation to the Class. Occasionally, I like to have students report back to the class in the form of a mini-presentation, although this depends on time constraints.

Click here to see the observation report and material.

Level 3 Panel Discussion - This is something I am in the process of organizing at the moment. I have invited former ELP students, now in their mainstream undergraduate programs in the university, to come to a panel discussion for all our advanced ELP students. In my listening/speaking classes, we are compiling questions about how to succeed in academic courses outside the ELP. This is set for April 25, if all goes well.