Professional Development Programme 2013/14English Language Education Section, Curriculum Development Institute, Education Bureau

New Senior Secondary (NSS)Learning and Teaching Series:Workshops on Catering for Learner Diversity in the English Language Curriculum – Reading and Listening

FacilitatorDean FisherLearning Connections

In which workshop do you feel you learned the most/you came away with the most?

What made that workshop successful for you in terms of learning?

https://sites.google.com/site/learnerdiversityhongkong/

The aim of this workshop is to

develop English teachers’ capacity to effectively address the issue of learner diversity in the teaching of reading and listening skills at the senior secondary level.

Intended Learning OutcomesUpon successful completion of the workshop, the teachers will:

•better appreciate the importance of designing activities that cater for diverse learning needs, diverse ways of learning and diverse motivations

• be better able to evaluate the appropriateness of classroom materials for the diverse needs of their students (particularly to differentiate testing activities from learning activities)

• be better able to identify opportunities for differentiated instruction for their students in reading and listening

• be better equipped to create reading and listening activities that maximize learning for the diverse students in the classroom

OBJECTIVE1.Name, spell and pronounce correctly all the planets in our solar system2.Recite all the planets in the correct order relative to their distance from the sun

1.How challenging will this be for you?

2.How interested are you in being able to do this?

3.How relevant is this knowledge to you personally?

4.How would you prefer to learn this information?

Working with others

Working alone Peer teaching and learning

Listening and taking notes

Being active Having more time to think

Studying from pictures

Reading Talking about what you are learning

Doing something physical

Having music in the background

Being creative

A few examples of different preferred ways of learning

Visual

Auditory

Kinesthetic

Analytical

Concrete

Sequential

Global

Reflective

WELL-KNOWN LEARNING STYLES

Readiness

Interest

Relevance

Preferred ways of learning

1.How challenging will this be for you?

2.How interested are you in being able to do this?

3.How relevant is this knowledge to you personally?

4.How would you prefer to learn this information?

Major Factors that Differentiate Learners and Affect Learning

What would be the most effective way of teaching to ensure that all your students achieve high marks in the test?

1)Give your students several past exam papers on this subject.2)Groups of students pretend to be the planets and stand in line according to their distance from the sun.3)Groups of students choose whether to do some research on the Internet, create a card game or listen to a story about the planets.

1. Look at pictures – size, colour, sequence

2. Listen to a story with the planets as characters appearing in sequential order

3. Match and order cards

4. Play a game

5. In groups pretend to be planets and stand in line

6. Learn about the mythology and how some planets are associated with days of the week

7. Listen to a talk by a scientist

8. Do some research on the Internet

9. Read an article about the planets

10. Learn some interesting facts about the planets, e.g. How much would you weigh on each one?

11. Create a mnemonic

12. Memorize a list

13. Compare and contrast with the Chinese names of the planets

SOME DIVERSE LEARNING ACTIVITIES FOR THE SAME OBJECTIVE

http://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanisMnemosyne.html

Richard of York gave battle in vain is a mnemonic to remember what?

The colors of the spectrum, in order, are

red orange yellow green blue indigo violet

ROYGBIV

“Whenever a teacher reaches out to an individual or small group to vary his or her teaching in order to create the best learning experience possible, that teacher is differentiating instruction.”

Tomlinson, Carol (2000)

CATERING FOR LEARNER DIVERSITY

The effort made by the teacher to respond to the varying needs among learners in the classroom.

No. of students

Abi

lity

1. Jumble the text – Vary the number of pieces for different levels.

20. Graphic Organisers organise ideas and examine relationships.Examples are:Story maps, Character IDsSense chartsEvents sequencesInference chartsBefore/during/after chartsFact and opinion tablesCause/effect chainsCool fact chartsFlow chartsHierarchy chartsArgumentation diagramsSpidergramsVenn DiagramsMatrices

17. Students create comprehension tasks for each other.

2. Reference – Students highlight pronouns and identify the referents.

3. Write a letter between characters in the text.

4. Write a dialogue between characters in the text.

5. Interview a character in the text.

19. Provide a moral to the story.

9. Headline – Give the article a more interesting headline/title.

11. Grammar – e.g. Underline all the verbs in the past simple and past continuous forms.

18. Ranking according to e.g. degree of responsibility, the most interesting characters, etc.

14. Summaries – Students create a one or two-sentence summary. Each group chooses the best one and presents it to the class. The teacher feeds back.

15. Imagined scenarios – What if?Imagine you were ..

16. Diary entries – Write a page in X’s diary beginning e.g. “This was the strangest day of my life!”

10. Vocabulary – Students highlight words they don’t know and create a list of possible meanings from the context. They check with their peers and try to come to an agreement about the meanings.

21 WAYS TO PROCESS A TEXTAll of these activities and tasks help students to work with texts in different ways and each prioritises different reading strategies. Different activities can be given to different groups of students depending on the students’ readiness levels and learning preferences. Each activity can also be adjusted, or tiered, to vary its difficulty for more or less advanced students. These particular activities do not require teachers to spend time designing worksheets for students of different levels. It is essential, though, to be prepared in the following ways:1.To be very familiar with the text;2.To anticipate challenges for the students and the kinds of support they will need;3.To decide on the differentiated tasks and how students will be grouped.

6. Exploiting questions in the textbook – e.g. a) Use flexible groupings. Allocate different questions to different groups. Students collaborate to find answers. Hand out answers for groups to check. Groups ask questions to solve their problems in an open class or privately with the teacher. b) Team competition - Team leaders collect a question from the teacher. Groups answer the question and return to collect another question.

13. Pictures – Use the pictures that accompany the text to activate your students’ schemata before they read.

8. Students circle their favourite new word or phrase – Why do they like it? They write a sentence about themselves or Hong Kong using the new language item.

7. Connect the reading to the students’ lives – Make the text relevant to students by asking groups to relate the content to anything they know about Hong Kong or to something about their own lives. Ask students to justify their ideas.

12. Dictation – Dictate one or two sentences from the text first so that students may be able to predict some of the content. Students mark their own work and the teacher does not judge.

21. Jigsaw reading.

1. Jumble the text – Cohesion – paragraph hooks, reference. Text/Generic structure, flow of ideas

20. Graphic Organisers - Strategy focus depends on what the teacher would like to prioritise.

17. Students create comprehension tasks for each other – Strategy focus depends on what the teacher would like to prioritise.

2. Reference – Pronoun reference

3. Write a letter between characters in the text – Inferring attitude, feelings, what was said, identifying main/supporting ideas

4. Write a dialogue between characters in the text - Inferring attitude, feelings, what was said, identifying main/supporting ideas

5. Interview a character in the text - Inferring attitude, feelings, what was said, identifying main/supporting ideas

19. Provide a moral to the story – Main ideas

9. Headline – Main ideas

11. Grammar – e.g. tense, aspect, verb forms, verb structures

18. Ranking – Reading for detail, evaluating

14. Summaries – Skimming, main ideas

15. Imagined scenarios – Understanding details, connecting

16. Diary entries – Main and supporting ideas, connecting

10. Vocabulary – Inferring vocabulary

21 WAYS TO PROCESS A TEXTAll of these activities and tasks help students to work with texts in different ways and each prioritises different reading strategies. Different activities can be given to different groups of students depending on the students’ readiness levels and learning preferences. Each activity can also be adjusted, or tiered, to vary its difficulty for more or less advanced students. These particular activities do not require teachers to spend time designing worksheets for students of different levels. It is essential, though, to be prepared in the following ways:1.To be very familiar with the text;2.To anticipate challenges for the students and the kinds of support they will need;3.To decide on the differentiated tasks and how students will be grouped.

6. Exploiting questions in the textbook – Strategy focus would depend on the types of questions accompanying the text.

13. Pictures – Prediction

8. Students circle their favourite new word or phrase – Why do they like it? Inferring vocabulary, connecting

7. Connect the reading to the students’ lives – Connecting

12. Dictation – Prediction, listening, grammatical accuracy

21. Jigsaw reading – Cohesion – paragraph hooks, reference. Text/Generic structure, flow of ideas

1. In your group decide on one activity to help your students develop their reading comprehension skills.

2. What reading strategy/strategies does the activity focus on?

3. What adjustments would you make to the activity to cater for both advanced and less advanced students?

1. Appropriate graphic organisers for this text might include:

• A timeline• Fact vs opinion chart• Cause / effect chart• Before/during/after chart

HOW I BROUGHT VIRGIN COLA TO THE WORLD

Product launch OppositionConceptualisationMarket research

Conceptualisation → Market research → Product launch → Opposition

a) b)

2. Divide the text into 5 parts. Task – Identify main idea + relevant details

3. Jumbled paragraphs – Less advanced students have fewer pieces

4. Students write a letter from the English lady in the Head Office of Coca Cola to the Management.

5. Students write this as a conversation in direct speech.

6. Students interview Richard Branson.

7. What stories have students heard about businesses in Hong Kong using ‘dirty tactics’? Students might compare the rivalry between Virgin Cola and Coca Cola to the rivalry between Apple and Samsung, for example.

8. Warm-up dictation – “Initially, Coca-Cola head office didn’t take Virgin Cola seriously as a threat, so they had been giving us no opposition. What I didn’t know was that in Atlanta, in Coke’s head office, an English lady was working in a senior position for Coca-Cola.”

9. Imagine you were working in the head office at Coca-Cola? What ideas would you have suggested to compete with Virgin Cola?

10. a) Imagine you are a student at one of the schools in which the Virgin Cola company held a blind tasting event. Write an entry in your diary about what happened on that day. b)Imagine you were standing in the crowd in Times Square watching the US launch of Virgin Cola. Write a journal entry about what you saw that day.

11. Ranking – If you went into a 7/11 store in Hong Kong to buy a Coke and on the shelf next to each other you saw cans of Coca Cola, Pepsi and Virgin Cola, which one would you buy and why?

a) How do you help your students to improve their listening skills?

b) What approach do you take when using a coursebook or exam listening?

c) What do you do (or could you do) to address the diversity of abilities, interests and preferred ways of learning in your classroom with respect to teaching listening?

DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ LISTENING SKILLS

Motivation

Differentiation

Support

Collaboration

The differentiated classroom

Tomlinson, Carol Ann. The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners. 1999

Traditional classroom arrangement

Clusters or groups

http://everybodyisageniusblog.blogspot.hk/

Adapted from Raymond C. Jones, “Making Sense in Social Studies.” ReadingQuest.org

MY CLOCK BUDDIES

Source:Garmston, Robert, and Bruce Wellman. The Adaptive School: Developing and Facilitating Collaborative Groups. 4th ed. El Dorado Hills, CA: Four Hats Seminars, 2002, page 2.

Ask your students

Observe your students

Assess your students

informally and formally

Assessing readiness,

interests and learning styles

The differentiated classroom

Tomlinson, Carol Ann. The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners. 1999

You are going to listen to a short poem and to work out what you think the writer is trying to communicate to the listener.

Which of these activities would you like to do first?

1.Listen and tick words you hear

2.Listen and draw pictures

3.Listen and write a brief summary of the poem

Demonstration – Listening 2

shout shoot

come comb

would wood

roam room

scent sent

crime climb

cellar seller

hurt heart

The words that occur in the poem are highlighted in blue.

I Just Stepped Out…Where am I? — Oh, I just stepped out,No need to make a fuss, or shout, No need to comb the nearest wood Or roam about the neighbourhood.  Call off the dog— she’ll find no scent, Please don’t worry where I went, And do not climb the garden tree, My dear, you’ll catch no glimpse of me.  The attic steps will pinch your thumb, The cellar will be dark and dumb, Yet should you search your heart with care, Though I am gone, you’ll find me there. Felix Dennis (2007)

http://www.felixdennis.com/poetry/%E2%80%98i-just-stepped-out-%E2%80%99-4/All images from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/

I Just Stepped Out…Where am I? — Oh, I just stepped out,No need to make a fuss, or shout, No need to comb the nearest wood Or roam about the neighbourhood.  Call off the dog— she’ll find no scent, Please don’t worry where I went, And do not climb the garden tree, My dear, you’ll catch no glimpse of me.  Now see if you can write another verse before the final verse.

The attic steps will pinch your thumb, The cellar will be dark and dumb, Yet should you search your heart with care, Though I am gone, you’ll find me there. Felix Dennis (2007)

Designing reading activities that cater for diverse learners

• You will be given a choice of two reading passages.• With your group plan a number of activities that motivate your

students to want to read the text and that cater for diverse learners.

• Within your class of learners, consider a mix of abilities, interests and preferred ways of learning.

• The activities you design should challenge ALL the students• Refer to the strategies and techniques we have looked at in the

workshop.• Work together on the large sheet of paper you will be given.• Be prepared to present your ideas to the other groups. • Hand your work to the facilitator so that he can add it to the

Learner Diversity Google Site.

WORKSHOP TASK