Cascading Towards Implementing Learning Strategies- A Recipe for Success

Abstract:

TEFL students face socio-cultural and cognitive development constraints effecting second language acquisition. The basis for the workshop is an eight-week project conducted in a TEFL setting (small Japanese Embassy school) in the Middle East. Findings from the research identified a link between the factors of performance in front of the ethnic community, ownership and co-construction of the task, relevance age appropriateness of the task in increasing language learning motivation. The content of the workshop dealt with differences between lower and upper primary, implementation of learning strategies, learning styles, cultural identity, deconstruction of games and activities based on cognitive variance and multimodal lesson design. Moreover, consciousness was raised regarding issues such as; difference between proficiency level and developmental level, types of language skills and when to implement them in the lesson and group dynamics.

Introduction:

For the TEFL primary student learning is less a cognitive process than a socio-cultural one (Vygotsky,

1967; Cummins, 2001). Unfortunately, often deficiency in socio-cultural contexts, exposure to schemata

or vocabulary knowledge, lack of access to multimodal technology and ‘print environment’ adds to the

formal TEFL classroom constraints (Hudelson, 2006). Therefore, TEFL primary students need exposure

to genres, archetypal characters, cultural story morals, traditions and norms transmitted from L2 stories

(English). Success in learning of another literacy code is dependent on the process of solving how the

community decodes their written language (Cummins, 2001; MacKay; 2006). Furthermore, contextual

decoding of text occurs when students unlock culturally embedded literacy structures (Cohen & Macaro,

2007; Chamot, 1996). Inclusion of activities with socio-cultural interaction in literacy skills will enable

stronger success in literacy practices (Hudelson, 2006; Cummins, 2001). Moreover, there are effective

ways to design lesson outcomes and lesson plans to enable students to solve language problems. While

certain learning strategies are intuitive at the upper primary or young learner (YL) stage (age 8-11 years

old) they are only starting to develop the meta-cognitive skills to enable employment of these strategies

successfully (Chamot, 2001). Lower primary or child learners(CL aged 5-8 years old) have yet to fully

access meta-cognition. While this is a difficulty it does not mean strategy lessons cannot be design

strategy for lower primary. The approach required by the teacher should include; systematic tasks,

activities and practice which will raise CL awareness. Therefore, educators must attend to the cognitive,

social, emotional and developmental differences between lower and upper TEFL primary students when

constructing learning strategy lessons (Cohen and Macaro, 2007). Implementing learning strategy

instruction can aid social language and literacy learning. Thus, when teachers employ strategy-based

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instruction considering factors such as; learning styles, literacy genres, socio-cultural relevance and

engagement as well as cognitive development will produce a more effective language learning experience

(Chamot, 1996; Oxford, 2001; Macaro and Cohen, 2007).

Children need to expend a lot of effort to learn the literacy skills of a language. They do not simply

absorb written language like a sponge (Hudelson, 2006). Just focusing on form will not aid the student in

succeeding to communicate. At around the age of seven years old CLs communicate with an expectation

that there is meaningful interaction occurring (Donaldson, 1978). Therefore, to enable real

communication implementing literacy and learning strategies rather than randomly applying them creates

a better recipe for success.

There have been a number of models for LLS instruction. One commonality is a four-step sequence,

modeled by the teacher for the students, and includes presentation, practice, planning, monitoring and

evaluation of some sort (Cohen & Macaro, 2007). Due to language constraints of the YL in the EFL

setting, words such as ‘think’, ‘strategy’, ‘learn’ and ‘evaluate’ would need to be instructed (Cohen &

Macaro, 2007). There are several ideas for raising awareness in the YL such as; eliciting students to

employ strategies used in L1 reading and writing. In this, the researcher got the students to compare the

strategies they used (Macaro, 2001). In the early days of SBI, most of the questionnaires created were for

high school students or adults. Recently Cohen & Oxford (2002) developed a Young Learners Language

Strategy Use Survey for primary school age. It incorporated visual components and practical resources.

The SILL survey provided understanding the ways young learners solved language-learning tasks. While

there are many models, there still remains a constraint. These models were based on high school or adult

research studies.

The Gap in the Research:

An issue in TESOL/TEFL research studies is that they often regard students as if they are all at a similar

developmental level (Cameron, 2003; Chamot, 1999). An example of this is in Cohen’s (2007) book on

Language Learner Strategies where, in the section entitled “Facilitating effective use of strategy

knowledge in younger learners”, the age group chosen to represent young learners is “school-aged

students aged 6-17” (p.143). This is an overly broad age range. Not only do students learn at different

rates but also language learning is also contingent on socio-cultural interaction. TEFL/TEYL

professionals must stop assuming that in pedagogy and research there is a universal truth that fits all ages

and cultures. Therefore, implementing learning strategy instruction, educators must assess the needs of 2

each class based on a model that factors in a wide range of variables such as; age, proficiency level,

socio-cultural context, and learning styles of the students (Bachman and Palmer, 2001; Boivin, 2008;

Cameron, 2003, Cummins, 2001; Vygotsky, 1967).

Some students are cognitively faster than others are. Furthermore, language is learnt not only in a

cognitive fashion but also through social interaction. Therefore, there is a social, developmental, as well

as emotional de lineation between lower primary and upper. This paper defines the child learner (CL) as

ages 5-8 years old whereas the young learner (YL) as ages 9-11. For upper primary students, there is a

sense of maturity and understanding of the world around them compared to their younger counterparts.

YLs’ have focused and selective attention. They analyze, make inferences, predictions, hypothesize, and

classify. YLs’ can produce accurate estimates of memory span, produce organizational strategies for

memory, and appreciate concepts of logical necessity. Furthermore, YLs socially and emotionally are

developing a greater social awareness. They have the ability of recursive thought, self-reflective role

taking, and mutual role taking which occurs at this age. Analysis and inference are something CL lacks

the cognitive ability of processing analysis (Gibson, 1988; Piaget, 1967). However, YLs accept other

points of view enabling them to solve their own problems. It should be noted that these components aid in

evaluation of the message. Socialization for the YL expands from peer experiential learning to group and

external factors in aiding the learning process. McKay (2006) points out “children are also growing

socially and emotionally as they are learning language in their elementary school years. They are

gradually developing from a main interest in self towards greater social awareness…” (p.8). Also these

are components needed when attempting to use learning strategies. Therefore, when designing lesson

plans that implement learning and literacy strategies for the lower and upper primary age there are many

factors that need attending.

Research Procedure:

Population

There were nineteen children aged six to eleven years old. The lower primary had a combined class with

eight children. The other class had five more children. The upper primary class had six children in total. I

taught the each class twice a week. The class time was 45 minutes. The research was facilitated with the

fact the researchers 10 year-old son attended the school. However, during the time of the research the

child was in Japan. The kids are mixed expat (have been raised in the Gulf). Only four of the nineteen

children came directly from Japan. They have a range of English proficiency in speaking and listening. It

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is noteworthy that most children were middle to upper middle class and travelled extensively. Thus, they

are not typical Japanese. The fact the class size was small enabled a wider range of activities to occur.

Methods:

This was a small 8-week pilot project. The purpose of the research was to assess the needs between lower

and upper primary classes. This article defines the child learner (CL) as age 5-8 years old and the young

learn as 9-11 year olds (Cummins, 2001; Bachman and Palmer, 2001; Cameron, 2003; Boivin, 2008).

Furthermore, while this research project initially was investigating how and which strategies were best

suited for lower and upper primary half-way through this process other issues came forth such as; the

types of engagement depending on age, and how cultural identity aids in the learning process). Each

lesson had one strategy every week to implement with practice occurring in the next lesson of the same

week. The strategies were listening/reading/vocabulary and memory. The decision was made, due to the

timeframe, to limit writing strategies to only the upper primary. However, the lower primary students

used writing to facilitate language acquisition with such activities as tracing and copying. Moreover,

grade one and two are too young to produce the writing. It was also decided that speaking strategies were

both too numerous and irrelevant as at this children when faced with engaging tasks were not self-

conscious to speak.

Design:

The first stage was the choice of strategies (see Appendix I learning strategy chart). The reason for the

choice of strategies, in the chart, was based on cognitive, social, emotional and developmental constraints

at the lower primary level (Chamot, 1999; Cohen & Macaro, 2006; Oxford, 2001). Lower primary

students lack comprehension of abstract and meta-cognitive thought. Therefore, social affective

strategies, elaboration and monitoring strategies were presented to raise awareness but without

expectation of full comprehension by the lower primary students. The rationale is similar to that of the

concept of time. Lower primary do not fully grasp the abstract concept of time however, teachers

routinely introduce time at this stage with the expectation of later comprehension. Implementation of

higher order cognitive strategies should occur with the belief that overtime practice will facilitate

acquisition by the time the student reaches the upper primary stage. Therefore, group collaboration,

modelling and scaffolding is needed for some of the strategies. Furthermore, the design of lesson plans

included activities that enabled oral, kinastetic, auditory, visual, and interpersonal learning styles. Game

and activity design included components that access speaking, listening, and reading skills. For example,

the game of musical chairs included the use of animal cards with a sentence “This is a monkey” written

underneath to allow reading to occur. While the students were walking around the circle of chairs they

chanted, “What’s this?” and responded “it’s a... (Response depended on the card the teacher was holding).

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After shouting stop, the students scrambled to sit on an empty chair. During the chanting the teacher

placed face down card. As they sat down they picked up the card that was on their chair and answered

“it’s a (name of animal) the question. Thus, games and activities were engaging, contained multiple skill

sets, catered to learning styles, and included cultural aspects, which later will be discussed in the article.

While the upper primary students collaborated on writing and creating comic books, the lower primary

students still access some writing. Even though the lower primary students did not practice writing

strategies worksheets were utilized at the end of every lesson. These worksheets facilitated tracing and

guided writing to aid practice and thus better enable vocabulary memorization. I made a choice of three

types of literary genres to facilitate the various reading strategies.

Reasons for Choice:

Strategies can seem abstract and random unless there is a relevant curriculum basis for implementation.

One method to create a relevant lesson plan is to use books and other text-based sources. Moreover,

storytelling and stories aid primary students’ grammar acquisition and social language knowledge and

concepts. Text is not the only modality to access stories. An oral story provides children with a myriad of

learning-input possibilities in vocabulary development, grammar, culturally encoded story structure,

morality, paralinguistic skills, and intonation (Hudelson, 2006). Not only does oral storytelling aid

language acquisition but also various genres allow students exposure to socio-cultural context. Three

types of books were selected educational stories, rhyming/nonsensical or comic stories, and fairy tale.

Genre Overview

Eric Carle is a beloved educational storybook writer. His stories have repetitive sentence structure. He

layers is story with many types of information such as numbers, colours, days of the week, animals. The

educational stories chosen for the upper primary class was taken from “discovery stories series”.

Furthermore, the upper primary students read easy comics (from the same source). I discovered that

comics not only contained difficult vocabulary such as retribution but also are heavily embedded with

socio-cultural context. However, while they are difficult comics due to their familiarity are engaging for

this age. For the lower primary student I selected the nonsensical stories of Dr. Seuss. Seuss is repetitive

at the discrete word phonological level and includes word families. Moreover, these books are truly

engaging. Fairy tales are a genre present in many cultures and with the popularity of Disney unfortunately

globally recognized in countries with access to multimodal technology. I chose “Little Red Riding Hood”

as there is a famous Japanese commercial using this character for the upper primary students. The lower

primary students used “Cinderella” as their fairy tale as it is so prevalent in popular culture around the

world. Below is a chart illustrating strategies used.

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Strategy Use:

Dr. Seuss Eric Carle Cinderella

Word form

Phonetic repetition

Phonetic construction

Practice of elaboration

Choral reading

Prediction

Read aloud/ Talk Alouds

Tell and re-tell

Group collaboration of story co-construction

Brainstorming

Guessing/Prediction

Using schemata knowledge

Elaboration

Repetition

.

Ultimately, the project was successful. Students found the lessons engaging, effective, and

comprehensible and allowed for ownership in reading and story creation. Three findings resulted from the

research. First, that performance in front of the ethnic community increases motivation for language

learning. Second, the relevance of the task aids engagement and ultimately language learning. Finally,

ownership and co-construction enables language learning. The first finding occurred by accident when the

comic created in class by the upper primary students was performed in front of family and members of

their ethnic community (outside of class time). This was an unplanned event which was not been part of

the original research. The second finding occurred when both lower and upper primary students saw a

purpose in the task. The finally finding occurred when both lower and upper primary students were able

to co-create stories and comics. The process took time but the results were positive with students being

able to tell the whole story without the teacher. Now after examining the findings, the next stage is to

design and implement a workshop based on the findings.

Workshop Design:

Researching the needs and difference in strategy lesson design for lower and upper primary students was

the first step. Now designing a workshop to enable inexperienced TESOL teachers’ comprehension was

the next stage. This is followed by cascading model for international overseas MA TESOL teachers.

Based on Dr. Clegg (2010) structuring and designing sessions I created seven 3 hour workshops that will

occur in early May 2011. I constructed (see Appendix II) learning outcomes based on specific

measurable active verbs based in a context. Moreover, I designed lessons to build towards the acquiring

pedagogical concepts. The first session evaluated student’s knowledge regarding emotional, social,

cognitive and developmental differences between lower and upper primary. This was followed by the

introduction of learning strategies and finally analysis of the learning strategy chart. To assess content

comprehension and lesson effectiveness homework was assigned after each workshop session. I will 6

assign two types of homework. First is a lesson design assignment to assess content comprehension. The

second piece of homework is reflective journal writing. This allows students to reveal where confusion or

extra attention is needed. These results will be tallied so that research can be further explored moreover,

pedagogical methods can be expanded. After each workshop the students will be peer reviewed. At the

end of the fifth session lesson plans will be evaluated. The students were assigned learning strategies in

groups of three. Each student will be responsible for the creation of 15 minutes of a 45 minutes lesson

plan. This allows a guided creation of a lesson. These lessons will be shared online to facilitate the

widening of pedagogical knowledge. Due to legal constraints of working with children, the lesson will

use volunteer families from the international students and their families at the University of York. To

cascade the research process and enable sustainable growth of learning strategy lessons questionnaires

will be implemented. Questionnaires were given not only to the MA TESOL students but also to the

volunteer families. Moreover, the volunteers will be questioned regarding their experience with the

lessons. The final part of the workshop is to have the MA TESOL student go abroad to further instruct

other teacher-trainers in this field. Results from these studies will enable widening of research and

methods in strategy lesson design.

Future Implications for Research:

Learning strategies are useful and effective for both lower and upper primary school students. However,

more research is needed. In future, the creation of a website would be essential. A website could log

lesson plans and research findings. Then teachers could access this data globally. This would facilitate

more effective implementation of learning strategy lessons. This would allow the sharing not only

methods but also greater understanding of constraints based on context and socio-cultural differences.

Moreover, the cascading approach is a sustainable one. It allows one instruct to design effective

workshops for small groups of teachers. These teachers then in turn share the knowledge with other

teachers. Questionnaires would be implemented allowing more findings to occur. Consistently using

reflective homework highlights difficulties that others can then avoid. This makes types of workshop

addresses not only pedagogy but also research in a cost-effective and timely matter. Blogs and discussion

boards enable teachers to access research without having to wait for the publishing time lag. Furthermore,

if more quantitative findings are desired modelling a larger project based on the findings could facilitate

this process. However, further research is still needed.

Conclusion

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In conclusion, allowing a global conversation in both aspects of research and pedagogy expands the

discussion regarding learning. Learning strategies allows problem solving and independent learning for

the TEFL primary student. Moreover, this type of workshop not only includes learning strategies but

learning styles, cultural strategies, and multimodal lesson plans. However, it should be noted that during

the pilot project with the Japanese school revealed that cultural ownership and performing in front of the

community increases language learning. After the students performed their comic book they had designed

an increase in class motivation occurred. The comic was performed at a special open house lesson in front

of not only family but also the Japanese ambassador. A sense of ownership and pride in performance

enabled an increase in motivation to occur. However, further examination is the aspect of community of

practice and performance as a factor for facilitating greater socio-cultural language learning. Avoiding the

idea that one size fits all and that cultural strategies need attendance allows teachers to implement

transformative pedagogy rather than just imposing a preferred pedagogical approach.

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References

Bachman, L., & Palmer, A. (1996). Language Testing in Practice. Oxford: Oxford University.

Boivin, N. (2008). Assessing Constraints and Affordances in the TEYL/TEFL Language Ecology: Distinction between Early and Late Primary School Students, MA dissertation York University, Toronto.

Cameron, L. (2003). Challenges for ELT from the expansion in teaching children. ELT Journal , 105-112.

Chamot, A. et al. (1996). Methods for Teaching Learning Strategies in the Foreign Language Classroom. In I. R. (ed), Language learning strategies around the world: Cross-cultural perspectives (pp. pp.175-187). Washington, D.C.: George Washington University Press.

Chamot, A.U, Barnhardt, S., El-Dinary, P. & Robbins, J. (1999). The Learning Strategies Hanbook. White Plains: Longman.

Cohen, A. &.Oxfod, R. (2002). Young Learners Language Strategy Use Survey. Minneapolis, MN: Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, University of Minnesota.

Cohen, A., & Macaro, E. (ed). (2007). Language Learner Strategies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Cummins, J. (2001). An Introductory Reader to the Writings of Jim Cummins. (C.Baker & N. Hornberger Ed.) Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Gibson, E. (1988). Exploratory behaviour in the development of perceiving, acting, and acquiring of knowledge. Annual Review of Psychology , 1-41.

Hudelson, S. (2006). Literacy development of second language children. In F. Genesee (ed.), Educating Second Language Children (pp. 129-158). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Macaro, E. (2001). Learning Strategies in Foreign and Second Language Classrooms. London: Continuum.

McKay, P. (2006). Assessing Young Language Learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Oxford, R. &. Shearin, J. (1994). Language learning motivation: Expanding the theoretical framework. The Modern Lanaguage Journal , 78, 12-28.

Piaget, J. (1967). Six Psychological Studies. London: London University Press

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Vygotsky, L. (1962). Thought and Language. Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press.

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Appendix I

STRATEGY/SKILL LOWER PRIMARY UPPER PRIMARY

Listening Use for both Use for bothTop-down strategies- background knowledge of the topic, the situation or context, the type of text

Raise awareness More able to access text

listening for the main idea Yes Yes and labelPredicting Yes Yes and labeldrawing inferences No YesBottom-up strategies are text based; the listener relies on the language in the message, that is, the combination of sounds, words, and grammar that creates meaning

Raise awareness Easy to do

listening for specific details Yes Yesrecognizing cognates Raise awareness Yesrecognizing word-order patterns

Raise awareness Yes

Reading Chose one strategy per lesson Choose one strategy per lessona) Develop a plan

before reading.Group collaboration Formal plan

Look at pictures and make guess about the story

Yes Yes

Look at the chapter

headings and analyze the

story

No Yes

b) Monitor their

understanding of text;

Not really Yes

make connections Raise awareness Yes

make predictions Yes Yes

make inferences No Yesuse context clues Raise awareness Yesc) Evaluate their thinking after reading

Teacher lead Yes

Reflect on strategies used- Ask if questions helped understanding

Ask if the strategies which will be explicitly taught helped

Cognitive/Memory Yes YesRehearsal- Repetition, copying, listing and underlining.

Yes Yes

Comprehension monitoring- Self-questioning to check for understanding and goal setting.

No Yes

Elaboration- Forming mental images, relating new

Raise awareness Yes

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information to known word. Word association not to a conceptAffective- Maintaining attention, time management and reducing anxiety.

No Yes

Positive self-talk- student uses positive affirming talk

Yes Yes

semantic mapping strategy;  It is a visual way to group words through association to a concept

No Yes

Examples of Lesson Plans

Lower Primary Strategy Lesson - Week One A:

I am using target language and structures that they are familiar with. I am only introducing some new

vocabulary and grammar. I will be recycling vocabulary as the weeks progress. This is to emphasis the

strategies. The upper primary will have more new vocabulary.

Strategy Outcomes: Predicting, rehearsal

Topic: Describing an animal.

Language structures:

Vocabulary- parrot, camel, falcon, alligator, snake, elephant, ape, donkey

What is this? It’s a____________. What colour is the_______. It is _______________and

______________. What do you see? I see a___, and a_______.

Start with a vocabulary exercise. ***(Do to the slowness at this age in their writing skills strategies such

as semantic mapping would be done on a white/black board together with the students.)

First Strategy – Rehearsal (oral and reading vocabulary):

Show seven new animal cards. Introduce the animals by checking first which animal names they know

already. Get them to repeat the names. Then play a version of musical chairs with the cards. This game is

to get them to repeat the new words. Moreover, it acts as a practice method that repeatedly exposes

students to oral as well as written language. The game acts as a spoken form of rehearsal but includes a

reading component as well. Teachers must explicitly nudge them to “repeat the words!!”. The cards will

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have both a picture and a word on it. Show the card to the students. Then they repeat the word over and

over saying;

Ss (all) “What’s this? It’s a________, it’s a ___________.”

Teacher shouts: “STOP”

The Ss sit down. They pick up the cards on the chair.

T asks “What’s on the card?”

The students look at the cards the teacher placed on their chair.

S: “it’s a____”.

Next the game continues but the teacher takes a chair away and changes the cards. The student without

the chair comes to the side and sits with the teacher.

They (S1) shout “what’s this ? It’s a________.” along with the other students.

The student who is out gets to shout “STOP”.

Then this student acts as the teacher and asks:

T: “What’s on the card?”

Ss: “It’s a ____.”

Then game continues in the same fashion.

Second Strategy – Predicting (listening):

Use Eric Carles’ “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” or 1,2,3 to the Zoo

Show the students the book cover and get them to predict by asking:

T “What is this?”

S “It’s a bear”

T: “Good. It's a bear” “What colour is the bear?”

S: “The bear is brown”

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T: “The bear is brown”

T: “So what will happen in the story? Will there be candy?”

S: “NO”

T: “Cars”

S: “No”

T: “WHAT??”

S: “There will be animals!” and (pointing to the brown and try to elicit colour)

T: “Will all the animals be brown?”

S: “No colour”

T: “Many different colours”

Have the students repeat many different colours.

Then T reads the story. After the story ask a few comprehension questions.

Lower Primary Strategy Lesson - Week One B:

Strategy Outcomes: Reviewing the strategies predicting, rehearsal.

Topic: Review of describing an animal.

Language Structures: Vocabulary- parrot, camel, falcon, alligator, snake, elephant, ape, donkey.

What is this? It’s a____________. What colour is the_______. It is _______________and

______________. What do you see? I see a___, and a_______.

Rehearsal Strategy Review:

Activity One:

The teacher starts with a review of the vocabulary using a rehearsal technique; getting the students to

draw the outline of the animal and word. Using the animal outlines from the above mentioned activity I

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will give a copy to each student. They will trace over the lines and will they are doing that repeat the

animal name. Then when finished tracing the first animal they will pass it to their neighbour saying:

S1: “Here is my elephant (or whatever animal they are tracing).”

S2:“Thanks, nice elephant.” (Then the student will trace the word ELEPHANT.

S2: (passes their traced animal and repeats) “ Here is my _______”.

S3:“Thanks, nice _______________.” (they will trace the word and finish their drawing.)

Predicting Strategies (Listening) Review:

Activity Two:

The teacher will use picture cards of crazy animal scenes (possibly from Dr. Suess’s Horton hears a who

and other stories). The students will guess what is and what will happen. I will cover most of the picture

and ask the students:

T: “What animal is this?”

S1: “It is an ape”.

T: “Good job” “What is the ape doing?”

S1: “It is ....”

T: “Is it running?”

4S2: “No”

T: “Is it pushing” (the scene is when the apes capture Horton and are pulling him towards the beezlenut

oil).

S1: “No (Japanese word***note if the students use their L1 I will translate and get them to say in

English)”

T; “In English pulling” (teacher signals for the class to repeat) ALL “Pulling”

After a few moments if the students seem confident the teacher will hand over the cards to the strongest

student to act as the teacher asking.

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S/T: “What is this?” (it continues)

I will not use the same story only the same vocabulary to test the students’ progress using the strategy.

Upper Primary Strategy Lesson – Week One A:

Strategy Outcomes: Predicting, rehearsal.

Topic: Describing an animal.

Vocabulary- largest, tallest, longest, fastest, slowest,

Language structures: What is this? It’s a____________. What colour is the_______. It is

_______________and ______________. Is it a tall/short _________? No why? It is______________

(provide vocabulary).

First Strategy – Rehearsal (oral and reading vocabulary):

The students will play a version of badminton to get them to repeat the vocabulary over and over.

Explicitly nudge them to “repeat the words!!” We are going to learn a strategy and the teacher writes the

word on the board. Giving an example of Judo and Go how to win? Oh strategy-

T: “Do you know what strategy is?” “If I want to remember a word what can I do?”

Teacher will model confusion and trying to figure out a problem using regalia example.

S: “repeat”

T: “Yes” saying and reading the word many times (miming again and again) will help you remember it.”

The class plays a game to remember these new animal words. Show them the pictures of the 7 strange

animals with the word giraffe is the tallest, sloth is the slowest, etc on written on the card. Show the card

to the students. The serving team must say the first half of the sentence for example “Sloth is the_____.”

The returning team must state “slowest” (etc.). Each card gets recycled. At the end of the game try to see

if the students first individually know the structure. Then all the students as a group will repeat each

sentence.

Second Strategy – Predict (listening):

Using National Geographic Animal Records show the cover of the book get them to predict by asking

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T:“What is this?”

S:“Its a _____”

T: good “Its a ____” “What colour is the ___?”

S: “The _____ is____”

T: “The _____ is_____” “so what will happen in the story? Will there be kids?”

S: “NO”

T: “Planes”

S: “No”

T: “WHAT??”

S: “There will be animals!” and (pointing to the weird parts of the animal and try to elicit word

association for weird)

T: “Will all the animals be same/ crazy?”

S: “No like crazy”

T: “All the animals are weird”.

Then T reads the story. After the story ask a few comprehension questions. Which animal was the

slowest? Which animal was the tallest? Which animal was the fastest? Where you surprised? (Feign

shock).

Upper Primary Strategy Lesson- Week One B:

Strategy Outcomes: Reviewing Predicting, rehearsal

Topic: Describing animals using comparatives. Vocabulary- largest, tallest, longest, fastest, slowest,

Language Structures: What is this? It’s a____________. Which is the_(tallest etc.)___. It is

_______________and ______________. Is it the tallest _________? No why? It is______________

(provide vocabulary).

Rehearsal Strategy Review:

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Activity One:

T: “Remember last class we repeated the animal words again and again?” “That is called rehearsal” “Can

you say it?”

Ss: “Rehearsal”

T: “Good” “Let’s do it again” “Let’s rehearse this time writing out the animal words” Teacher brings out

poster board for each student. If the lesson was longer, less specialized with no time constraints, I would

have the students draw the picture. Instead they will cut out pre-copied pictures of animals and place

them anywhere. Teacher instructs the kids to organize the animals from big to small, tall, short, fast to

slow. Then write the names and adjectives under the picture. Then the students tell about each of their

animal saying:

S: “The ape is the strongest but the parrot is the weakest”

“The falcon is the fastest but the donkey is the slowest”

The students will be writing in the animal name and adjective.

Prediction Strategy (Listening) Review:

Activity Two:

Using a video from National Geographic website. Get the students to see the first frame and GUESS

(teacher will write that word on the board) what will happen in the video. ,

Write on the board- first the ____did this. Next they did this(etc) . Simple sentences after every prediction

the students copy and repeat.

Next, show part of the video, just before the climax stop it and ask the students what will happen?After

showing the rest of the clip ask them did their guesses come true? How were the guesses same or

different?

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Cascading Workshop for MA TESOL (Rapid Response Funded)Designed and Delivered by Nettie Boivin

May 9-13, 2011

Teacher Training of Learning and Literacy Strategies for TEFL Primary Students3 hours –Monday

Learning Outcomes: Identify differences in social, cognitive and emotional factors between lower and upper primary Define Learning Strategies Analyse Learning Strategy Chart

Timing Section/Topic Activity Learning Outcome Materials10 mins.

Icebreaker & welcome Why are you here? Post it notes

40 mins

Brainstorming In Small group- assign each group one aspectAs a class collate informationExercise – create lesson outcomes for lower and upper – How are they different

Identify differences in cognition, socialization and emotional factores

Flip chart

10 mins

Theory notes on learning

Discuss various theories Power point

40 mins.

Learning Strategy Chart- Jigsaw

Collaborate to fill in all the answers for the learning strategy chart- each group is assigned a type of strategy i.e. meta-cognitive, reading

Analyze Learning Strategy chart

worksheet

15 mins

Class discussion What knowledge they have regarding learning strategies. What types can they indentify already?

Review of identifying learning strategies

30 mins

Missing strategy Each group will be given an activity from the research project notes. They must identify age and the strategy used. As a group relay what was the activity and strategy they have

Define learning strategies

Notes and activity sheets

20 mins

Creating learning Strategy Lessons

In pairs create a small activity using one of the learning strategies from the chart.

Part of defining strategies

Notepad

15mins Wrap up and homework

As a group we will facilitate peer review of the activities. After that homework will be assigned

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