Using Information Gap Activities

 

Look at the following quote from Scott Thornbury discussing Information Gap activities:

The archetypal communicative activity is the information gap task ... where Student A has some information and Student B has some other information, and the task requires that they share this information in order to achieve the designated outcome 

Describe and Draw, Spot the Difference and Find Someone Who... are all examples of information gap activities that meet the criteria outlined above.

                               Scott Thornbury I is for Information Gap (no longer available on the web)

This article discusses the following questions:

a.  What are the principles that underlie the type of information gap activity described above and what are their uses and advantages? 

b. What criticisms can be made of this type of activity?

c.  What other types of communicative activities can be used in the classroom which    avoid these criticisms?

 

a.  What are the principles that underlie the type of information gap activity described above, and what are their uses and advantages?   

1. Principle/Advantage: Student talking time should be maximised in the classroom. Second language learning is facilitated when learners are engaged in interaction and meaningful communication as cognitive processing of the language is deeper. Information gap activities, being PW or GW based, achieve these aims.

2. Principle:  Communicative activities should be message focused. Learner attention should be on conveying meaning, not on the language. Focus on form and concern for formal accuracy should be temporarily “parked” in favour of fluency. This does not mean however that accuracy is unimportant, as lack of correction can lead to fossilisation of error. However, the T. can take notes of errors overheard, as well as other emergent language and correct them at the end of the activity.

3. Principle:  Communication activities should have a purpose – a pre-decided and recognisable outcome. Achievement of this goal will constitute communicative success. In information gap activities the information is generally not just swapped, but used to achieve an outcome – eg identifying all the differences, or drawing the picture.  Advantages: Achieving the task can be highly motivating for learners , whilst difficulties in doing so can draw their attention to the fact that they may be using the language inaccurately and need to reformulate their utterances comprehensibly. Swain (The Output Hypothesis) suggests that this realisation/reformulation promotes acquisition.

4. Principle:  Classroom activities should reflect the conditions of “real” communication, where we do not know what the other person is going to say but must listen, process the language and information, and respond in real time. It is only by practising this in the C/R that learners will be able to do it outside.  In the audiolingual period, when L. output was strictly controlled to prevent error, learners often found themselves having studied for several years but, if they went to the target country, unable to communicate fluently.

5.  Principle:   When doing information gap activities, learners will have equal rights in the discourse. Advantage: In freer info gaps activities such as those mentioned in the question, this will mean they need to negotiate topic, negotiate turns etc. This opportunity is essential as T- controlled discourse will tend towards an Initiation- Response – Feedback structure where learners are restricted to the response act (Sinclair and Coulthard).

6.  Principle:  Negotiation of meaning is important for language acquisition. Information gap activities, which allow for the use of clarification strategies, circumlocution etc provide this possibility.  I find, however, that these strategies are not used automatically but need to be taught explicitly. For example, circumlocution strategies can be practised by first teaching phrases such as “it’s the thing which you use to…” and then providing an activity where eg Ls have six pictures of items in front of them learner A says “it’s the thing which you use to plant flowers” and B points to the picture of a trowel. They then swap roles

7. Use: to ensure the participation of all learners. As some of the information is known to one learner only, this learner has to participate and can't be a silent observer. Advantage: This "pushes" weaker or shyer learners into communicating, but also ensures that stronger or more dominant participants don't "take over" the discourse, leaving no room for the others.

8. Use: to allow for differentiation between weaker/lower level learners and the others. For example, jigsaw activities start with a stage where learners read or listen to a text from which they must extract the necessary information for the task. The difficulty and/or length given to the different groups can be geared to their needs- eg stronger learners receive a more complex text than weaker ones. Advantages: a) This allows all learners to work at their own level, maximising learning and creating a feeling of "success" for all; b) It ensures that this stage will take the same amount of time for all learners - stronger learners won't have to wait for weaker ones to come to terms with a text which is too difficult for them.

9. Use: to develop higher order thinking skills. For example, a jigsaw activity where different groups hear or read the accounts of different witnesses to a crime and have to work out "who dunnit" leads to the need to hypothesise and draw logical conclusions (eg The cleaner might have seen where the keys to the safe were kept while she was cleaning the bedroom.) Advantage: In eg a state school situation, the teacher must arguably be not "just" a language teacher, but also an educator.skills is therefore an important objective. 

10. Use: To provide a reason for communicating in cultures where it is not usual to share personal information. Eg Chinese learners may be unwilling to talk about personal achievements and experiences, or even daily routines. In information gap activities the information usually has no personal element (Find Someone Who... is an exception here). Advantage: This allows learners to feel "comfortable" while participating in the activity. (However, see also

11. Use: to increase engagement. Information Gap activities often have a game-type format which can be fun for the learners - eg Spot the Difference, Describe and Arrange etc. When learners enjoy this type of activity it will lead to greater engagement, which in turn leads to greater depth of processing of the language and ultimately greater retention. (However, see also point 12).

12. Use: To develop text mediation skills. Some Ls need to convey the content of a text (in either L1 or L2) to others – eg EAP Ls need to be able to summarise ideas found in their reading and cite the sources conventionally, both in writing and in speech during tutorials etc. Jigsaw reading activities can be used here: each L in a group reads a different article on the same topic (possibly in English but also in their L1). They then discuss the articles to find out what each said – whether they had the same or different information/opinions etc. Finally, they write a short essay discussing the topic and combining the information. Advantage: the learners can see how the task relates to their needs outside the classroom, which increases motivation.

c. What criticisms can be made of this type of activity?

13.    With the exception of the task type described in point 12 above, the task types are not authentic, in that they don’t always reflect a communicative task that we might perform outside the classroom (eg Spot the Difference).  They might therefore be resisted by eg learners with a pragmatist learning style (Honey and Mumford) who would want all activities to be closely tied to external needs.

14.   As mentioned above, with the exception of Find someone who… information gap activities often don’t allow for much personalisation – Ss are swapping the information that they have been “given”. The advantage of this was examined in point 10. However, for other learners it may mean that the language being used is processed with little cognitive depth, resulting in it being less memorable.

15.   Similarly, information gap activities, being based on the transmission of given information, often don’t allow for much creativity or imagination. Ss are not coming up with “meanings” or “messages” of their own, but are simply putting into words what is on their handout. This may be an issue in eg an educational setting where the development of creativity is an aim…

16.    …and, together with the lack of cognitive engagement (see point 13 above), may also make them less interesting, for the Ls.  This negative affect might have a detrimental effect on learning (Maslow, Stevick, Krashen and many others have emphasised the importance of positive affect in promoting learning)

17.    Most information gap activities focus on speaking and listening rather than reading and writing, while the listening involves Ss listening to other Ls – and in a monolingual classroom all ss will have the same accents. Information gap activities do not therefore prepare ss adequately for other skills.  This would be true of all the activities named in the quotation from Thornbury and many others of the same type – eg Describe and Arrange.

18.    Interaction in information gap activities is generally organised around short turns. They do not therefore give students the opportunity to develop the skills needed in order to take longer turns. This might be essential for eg Business English learners who need to give presentations as part of their work.

c. What other types of communicative activities can be used in the classroom which avoid these criticisms?

19.    Simulations : these could be designed to reflect the communicative situations in which the learners might find themselves and would therefore resolve the objection in point 13 above. Eg. Business English learners can be asked to simulate a negotiation or other meeting that they will actually take part in.

20.    Anecdote telling sequences (where learners plan and tell a story of a personal experience) can be used to personalise the TL (see point 14 above).  Eg : tell your partner about a time you were caught in bad weather, to personalise weather lexis and past verb forms. These also help resolve the problem of needing to provide practice in long turns (point 18).

21.    Drama activities can also be used to add an element of creativity to the activity  – eg improvisation of a situation based on the learners' interpretation of an ambiguous photo (see point 15 above).

22.    Drama activities can be used to add fun to the activity (see point 16 above) – eg Maley and Duff’s Hotel Receptionist game. St. A is a hotel guest who has lost her voice. She has to mime a problem given to her on a card, while st. B (the Hotel Receptionist) has to guess what the problem is : You want a plastic duck for your bath?? Oh you mean there’s a real duck in your bath!

22.    Presentations, debates and games like Just a minute can be used to help learners develop the subskills needed to take longer turns effectively. (See point 18 above).  Learners such as Business English learners who need to give presentations for their work, can focus on the typical language used in the various stages of a presentation and then, instead of being given an artificial presentation to work on, can be asked to apply the language studied to a presentation that they have actually given or will need to give in their work

23.    Jigsaw reading and listening activities are a specific type of information gap activity which can be used to give practice in other skills than just speaking, and to integrate skills use, thus meeting the objection in point 17. In jigsaw activities Ls in the group each read or listen to different information which they must then communicate to the others in order to complete a task. Eg : Ss A, B and C want to go on holiday together. each read a brochure describing a different hotel. They then discuss which hotel best meets their needs and wants.

Using Different Dictation Techniques

This article focuses on Dictation and asks….

a) What are the beliefs about second language learning that underlie the techniques known as Dictogloss and Running Dictation?

b) For what purposes could a traditional dictation technique, where the T. reads a few words at a time while Ls write down exactly what was said, be used?

 

a) Beliefs underlying the Dictogloss/Running Dictation  techniques

1. Belief: They are consonant with a constructivist approach which  believes learning occurs not through passively taking in information provided, but by working actively on assimilating and accommodating (Piaget) new knowledge – in the case of language learning and dictogloss by formulating the language needed to reconstruct the text either verbatim or paraphrased  (or possibly on elements of discourse such as organisation of information, the use of topic sentences etc.)

 

2. Belief : These techniques promote "noticing" (Schmidt) - ie conscious attention to form, use organisation etc, which increases the depth of cognitive processing of the language and leads to more effective understanding and retention. Learners have to read or listen attentively rather than just letting the language "wash over them", and at the end, if shown the actual text,  should ideally  “notice” the gap between what they know they understood but have difficulty reproducing in English.   

3a. Belief : In order to become effective learners, Ls need to develop higher order critical thinking skills (Bloom) – particularly in Young Learners’ classes where fostering these is a major educational aim. Dictogloss in particular is a collaborative activity which involves learners in critiquing and improving on each other’s ideas to come to the best reformulation they can.

This eg allows weaker learners to learn from stronger ones or learners with different L1 interference problems to point out errors made by others  – eg a Romance language speaker might point out to an Arabic speaking partner the need to include the copula BE in a sentence.

3b: Belief: Collaborative learning emphasises to the Ls that they are responsible for their learning and promotes an active approach to learning which again increases the depth of cognitive processing of the language and leads to more effective understanding and retention.

 

4. Belief : Learners will learn best if tasks are “doable” at their own level.   Dictogloss allows for differentiation of performance and final product dependent on the learner’s ability. It is not a memory test but learners are asked to reformulate the text in their own words and what they produce may be more or less complex.   Eg: if the text includes a ”third conditional” like If he’d understood the danger he wouldn’t have done it, stronger learners may enjoy the challenge of reproducing it, while weaker ones, who have the structure in receptive competence but are not yet confident with it, may simply say : He did it because he  didn’t understand it was dangerous. 

5. Belief : Collaborative learning  can create a positive classroom dynamic and rapport between Ls, establishing an atmosphere of co-operation and criticism of ideas rather than of people. This will enhance learning effectiveness in all classes as, in Krashen’s terms, it will “lower the affective filter” associated with the learning process.  However, it may be particularly important in YLs classes where the students are developing social and life skills as well as “just” learning the language.  

 

6.   Particularly when using dictogloss, when discussing the accuracy and appropriacy of their formulation of the text, learners have to restate rules of form and use, principles of organisation etc . Belief : This "metatalk" may also help to internalise those rules (Swain).

7. Running dictation gives a chance for movement to be added to the lesson. Belief: This is particularly important for kinaesthetic learners or those with special needs such as Attention Hyperactivity Deficit Disorder. However, it also helps break up a long lesson for all learners, giving them a chance to have a break from sitting still. This is liable to help refresh concentration levels.

b) Purposes of “traditional” dictation

8. Purpose : To recycle structure or lexis met previously: Stevick emphasised the need for “massed” then “distributed” practice of language  to consolidate it firmly in the Ls’ minds – ie the language must be met several times in the initial lesson, but then constantly recycled. The Lexical Approach, with its emphasis on lexical chunks (collocations, idioms, polywords etc) makes conscious recycling even more essential. A dictation can be created or chosen to do this. 

Eg : If the new language has initially been met in a text, as is common in many current coursebooks, an extract from the text can be dictated in a later lesson in order to contribute towards that recycling. (Obviously, the two techniques described above could also be used for the same purpose).

9. Purpose : To practise writing with learners who are learning the Roman alphabet for the first time. They  may benefit from traditional dictation activities in order to practise “writing down” the script – practising letter formation, spelling, punctuation and capitalisation.

10. Purpose : To practise spelling : Even if the learners do use the Roman script, the non-equivalence of sound and spelling of words in English may cause problems – just as it does for native speakers learning to read and write. The T. can “collect” a number of examples of words that have been misspelt by Ls in other activities, or which are generally difficult because of eg silent letters and build them into a dictation – again, either a connected text or individual sentences.

11. Purpose : To focus on bottom up decoding of phonological features. Eg (1) : Although dictation lacks construct validity as an overall test of listening, it can be used in a test-teach-test format to focus on specific features of connected speech such as elision. In the initial “test” section, the T. could dictate a short passage, or a number of individual sentences containing the chosen feature. In the follow up (the “teach” section) they would then focus on them, explaining any comprehension problems that the Ls had due to the feature. The final “Test” section would consist of the dictation of another passage or group of sentences containing the same feature.  Eg (2):  Similarly if learners have problems distinguishing between specific phonemes, sentences containing minimal pairs can be used – eg for Japanese learners or others who have difficulties distinguishing between  /l/ and / r/: She gave a long answer / She gave a wrong answer.

 

12. Purpose : As well as being used to teach the features of language and discourse described above, it can also be used to test them.

Storytelling in the EFL Classroom

 

When you think of using storytelling in the classroom, do you just think of young learner courses? This article is based on work originally prepared for our Delta Module One course, and focuses on the uses of storytelling in the EFL classroom for a range of different learner types and learning contexts, giving an example of each. 

1. Use: To increase learner engagement in listening .activities. Particularly relevant to YLs (primary) courses. Young children love listening to stories, often the same ones again and again, which can be usefully exploited in the YLs classroom, both to increase motivation and to constantly recycle and consolidate language.

Example: The T. can finish the class with a story – either using a “classic” such as “Where’s Spot?” or “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” which has language within the children’s grasp, or showing a video from You Tube – such as one from the Peppa Pig series which the children may well know and love in their own language. The language contained in the video may be too difficult for the children, but it can be played without sound, with the T providing a simplified version of the commentary and the characters’ speech.

 

2. Use: To develop the text mediation skills of listening, summarising what was heard and expressing a personal reaction to the text.  

Example:  (particularly relevant to lower level learners for whom there is not much extended listening available). The T. can choose a novel in the form of a  graded reader at the Ls’ level (and suitable for their age group) and read a chapter every lesson (or, if there is an accompanying recording, use that). Comprehension can be checked simply by asking the Ls to tell their partner what they understood, whether they enjoyed it and why, what they thought of the characters etc. In the next lesson, learners can recap the “story so far” (useful if there have been absentees and providing useful task repetition to help in developing fluency) before the story is continued.

3. Use:  To prepare Ls for exams where they will have to recount a story. Particularly relevant to exam-oriented YLs courses aiming at exams such as Cambridge Flyers, or First for Schools. In the exam, they may have to write the story, but it can be prepared orally first in PW, to give the Ls planning and speaking practice. 

Example: A group studying for First for Schools is given the same information as they would have in the exam – a first sentence and obligatory content. In small groups they brainstorm ideas for the story and gradually formulate it. The T. monitors helping with unknown or incorrect language. When they have formulated their stories they change partners and listen to each other’s stories, possibly making suggestions for additions or improvement, which can then be incorporated into the final writing stage.

 

4. Use: To develop fluency by giving the learners a chance to prepare and tell a story or anecdote  more than once (task repetition). Particularly relevant to teen and adult group courses. The approach uses the following steps : Silent planning - Language Input and T. model  - Task Enactment (PW) - Follow up (feedback and further language input) – Partner change –and Task Repetition - Feedback  - and possibly further repetition. Weaker Ls who need to continue “polishing”  their story can tell it again, while strong learners are given the challenge of telling a story they heard from one of their previous partners. This technique can therefore work well in mixed ability groups. 

Example:  Language focus – brainstorming of lexis in the field of bad weather. Model and listening practice  – the T tells an anecdote of a time s/he was caught in bad weather – comprehension check. Silent planning time – the Ls think of their own anecdote on the topic and ask the T. for any problem language. Speaking practice – they then tell the anecdote to their partner. Feedback – error correction, and upgrading of language overheard and a second chance to ask for any unknown language which “emerged” during the first telling. Ls then change partners and tell the anecdote again. Further feedback is done and there is then another change of partner.

 

5. Use: To give exposure to (listening practice) and speaking practice of common features of narrative texts such as narrative verb forms, especially past tense forms. This is relevant to all levels. At elementary level this may just be past simple and continuous; at intermediate level past perfect simple can first be incorporated, and finally at B2/C2, past perfect continuous. 

Examples: Any of the storytelling techniques described in other points can be used for this purpose.        

 

6. Use: To develop the coping skill of asking for clarification while listening. 

Example : The  Ls are divided into small groups, each with a bell or buzzer (if not available, then “hands up” works) The T. tells a story or recounts an anecdote, building in certain lexical items that s/he knows the ls won’t understand. When they hear them the must press their buzzer or raise their hands. The first team to do so asks What does XXX mean? or a similar exponent of asking fo clarification, the word is explained and the group receives a point. This is particularly relevant to elementary and lower intermediate learners, who often have difficulty identifying problems and interrupting to ask for clarification. The competitive element is particularly suited to YLs  (groups should be equally balanced between strong an weak learners, and there can be a rule that, after one person in the group has contributed, it must be a different member who asks. This stops stronger learners dominating.)

 

7. Use: To practise interactive listening. The T. tells a story or recounts an anecdote and at certain points pauses. At that point, a learner has to ask a question or make a comment before s/he continues. Particularly relevant to intermediate learners who, as stated as stated above, often have difficulty “interrupting” another speaker, and therefore in participating in primarily interactional discourse.  

Example: A business English learner who I taught 121 said that his most important problem was not participating in meetings, presentations etc where the topic was predictable and the discourse structured, but in the “social conversation” in coffee breaks, at lunch and dinner etc. He often had difficulty following what the speaker was talking about, and when he could, by the time he had formulated a contribution, the discussion had moved on. This technique helped him by first giving him the extra “thinking time” he needed, As the course progressed, he gradually became more proficient at interrupting.

 

8. Use: To develop bottom-up decoding listening skills – eg: decoding features of connected speech and other features of the spoken language.  May be relevant to learners in a non-English speaking environment, who have little contact outside the class room with features of NS speech, but may need to understand it in the future, or learners in an English Speaking Environment who have to cope on a daily basis with such features.   

Example: The T tells a story or recounts an anecdote into which the features s/he wants to focus on have been built. After work on comprehension of the information has been done, a gapped transcript is given out. The Ls first predict what they think might be in the gaps and the T confirms whether their answer are or aren’t possible, and if not why not. The Ls then listen again for the words which were actually used and the T explains as necessary.

 

9. Use: To develop top down processing skills – eg interpreting non-explicitly stated meaning. The T. will tell a story where the “moral” is not explicitly stated but must be inferred, such as Sufi stories. (Alan Maley has termed these  “Wisdom Stories”.) Particularly relevant to intermediate learners.  

Example:  Eg (outline of story only) A village was suffering from severe drought – day after day the people went to the temple to pray for rain but the drought continued – cattle and crops were dying  - then one day a little girl went to the temple to pray – as she did there was suddenly a crack of thunder and the rain started to pour down. - smiling happily she picked up her umbrella and left.  I often use three or four of this type of story and start by giving one story to each group. They read it, then turn it over and from memory try and reconstruct it together. If they are unsure about something, one person can turn it over to check. When they are clear on all the details of the story, they put the text away, and then change partners so that each group has members who have read different stories. They each tell their stories to each other, working together to decide the “moral” of each.

10. Use: To teach effective storytelling and reading aloud skills (eg the use of word grouping, stress and intonation, weak forms etc) for learners to do actually have to tell/read stories in real life. This is particularly relevant to NNESTs on Language Development for Teachers courses, to enable them to improve their reading aloud skills and thus be able to use stories in their own classrooms in some of the ways mentioned above. However, ... 

Example: I have also had a 121 learner who was a grandmother, whose daughter had married an American, lived in the US and was about to have a baby - who would be brought up speaking English. My client, at A1 level, wanted to be able to play with her grandchild - and that included reading him/her stories. We therefore worked on the type of books for young children which she might use. like Where’s Spot? and others like it.

11. Use: To encourage and develop creativity. Particularly relevant to YLs for whom the teacher is arguably not “just” a language teacher but must be an “educator”. This role includes developing higher order thinking skills, of which creativity is the highest in Bloom’s Taxonomy. 

Example: Ls can be given an ambiguous picture – I use one with a photo of a woman and young boy asleep on a hard airport chair (planes can be seen through the window). Prompt questions such as Where are they? Who are they? Why are they there? What’s happened? are set and discussed in pairs. Answers are elicited and boarded. All ”banal” answers (eg a mother and her son; they’re going on holiday) are crossed out and the learners then change partners and see if they can come up with a more interesting story, avoiding “obvious” solutions.

An ELT Glossary: Task Repetition

Since the 1990s, the benefits of task repetition have been fairly widely discussed. However, they are generally limited to the discussion of the repetition of "tasks"in the technical sense of the term - a communicative activity which involves learners in exchanging information in order to achieve a specific objective. Willis, (1996:36), for example,  defines a task as “a goal-oriented communicative activity with a specific outcome, where the emphasis is on exchanging meaning not producing specific language forms." 

Several of the articles in the Notebook, though not necessarily following the other principles of task-based learning that Willis advocates, discuss the value of communicative task repetition in improving fluency. See for example here, here and here. All of these articles describe an approach using the following steps : Silent planning - Language Input - Task Enactment - Follow up (feedback and further language input) - Task Repetition - Feedback  - and possibly further repetition. 

This differs from some other writers' use of task repetition in that the task is repeated, sometimes more than once, in rapid succession within the same lesson rather than in later lessons. The communicative orientation of the task means that it can be enacted each time with different partners, which helps to prevent boredom - a new partner means new input. In the anecdote telling sequence described in the articles cited above, for instance, although learners are repeating their own anecdote, the new partner means they are listening to a different one. The challenge of incorporating the language they received in the Feedback/Language Input stages also means that they are aware of improving their own anecdote on each telling, while very strong learners, who might not need as much chance to "polish" their performance as others, can be kept involved by being given the extra challenge of telling one of the anecdotes they have heard (and thus needing to retrieve and use different language), rather than their own.

What most writers don't discuss is whether there is any value in repeating other activities - not necessarily tasks, but including "ordinary" exercises such as gap-fills, matching activities, word ordering activities, dialogue practice etc - and if so, when this should be done and again how boredom can be avoided. The only writer I know who touches on this is Thornbury (2010), who uses "task" in a much wider sense than the Willis definition above, to include any activity that occurs in the classroom.

Like Thornbury, I would support the repetition of all types of activity.  Rather than repeating these activities in the same lesson, however, I would argue that they can most usefully be recycled in the next, or even later lessons.

Why? The first reason is the importance of review. Many studies, eg Keely (1997) have shown the importance of review in ensuring retention of material. And yet, in my experience, few EFL teachers start the lesson with any sort of review of what was covered last time.  The repetition of an activity from the previous lesson or an earlier one can provide that opportunity. The possibility of boredom is lessened by the gap in time between the lessons, and there's the chance of motivation being increased if they see that they did the activity better the second time around. 

Another advantage is that it solves the problem of late arrivals. If you have a class where learners frequently "dribble in" over the first fifteen minutes or so, review activities mean that a) the activity is already familiar, so they can get started on them as soon as they arrive without needing any orientation , and b) by the time you start the "new" part of the lesson, where you don't want latecomers coming in and not knowing what's going on, everyone has arrived and has settled in.

Consistently starting the lesson with this sort of review could also have the advantage that it motivates some learners to review the previous lesson before they come to the new one - so that they are ready for whatever is repeated. But, particularly for stronger learners, doing it regularly could also result in boredom.  Thornbury (op.cit) suggests that the level of challenge can be increased the second time around. You can read his ideas on this for yourself (see the link below), but here are a few of mine.

1. A change in partners to create an increase in challenge can be achieved by manipulating who works together. Let's say that the earlier lesson was on connective expressions and the activity is a gapfill - learners have a text and  insert connective expressions given in jumbled order in a box above into gaps in the text. The activity develops their ability to recognise the logical connection between ideas in the text, and to choose an appropriate connective to indicate this. In the first lesson you may have partnered the learners weak with strong, so that the stronger learners could help the weaker learners. For the repeat, partner them weak/weak, strong/strong so that they are all working at their own level and the weaker ones now have to "do it for themselves".

2. For the stronger learners (or the whole class if they are homogeneous in level), make the activity more difficult. For example :

a) If you're using the connectives activity above, take the box away. The learners  now have to work entirely from their retention of the connective expressions learnt previously.  

b) If they were working on a text, give them the text again (or an extract if it was particularly long, with a mistake in each sentence. So if the text was a dialogue focusing on making suggestions, and the original sentence was Why don't we go out for a walk? the new version might read Why we don't go out for a walk? 

3. Change the format of the activity. Some examples : 

a) the original activity may have been an activity where they had a list of suggestions (or any other utterance type) and a jumbled list of the replies to those suggestions, and had to match them. In the follow up lesson, give each learner one of the suggestions or replies on a slip of paper, and do the activity as a "find your partner" mingle activity. 

b) if they were previously doing reading comprehension work on a written text, stick a paragraph on the wall and do it as a "running dictation". 

By varying the activities in these ways, material can constantly be recycled without the risk of the lessons becoming boring.



References and Other Related Reading

• Hawkes, M.L. (2009) Effects of Task Repetition on Learner Motivation, JALT Publications
• Keely, M. (1997) Memory and the Importance of Review  Bucks County Community College
• Thornbury, S.  (2010) R is for Repetition
• Willis, J. (1996), A Framework for Task-based Learning, London: Longman

An Easter Game

Looking for an Easter activity to do with your children’s classes? Try an Easter Egg Hunt and revise colours and numbers at the same time.

• If necessary, check that the children remember the names of the colours they’ve learnt up to that point, then give out the outline of an Easter egg and ask the children to colour it. Make sure the children understand that the eggs must be coloured with one colour only. The choice of colour can be left up to the children, or you can call the name of each child and say a colour – Tamara, blue. Stefano, red. If you have a very small class, give each child more than one egg to colour, or add some of your own. You are aiming to finish with different numbers of each colour egg – three red, six yellow, four pink and so on.


• As they finish colouring, get them to place their eggs somewhere around the room. The eggs mustn’t be hidden from sight, but can be in slightly non-obvious places – for example on the floor, or propped up on someone’s bag.


• Divide them into groups with as many children in each group as there are colours and give each child a colour to search for. They have two minutes to count how many eggs of that colour there are in the room. They then report back to their groups.


• Use a toy rabbit to introduce the chant :I’m the Easter Bunny,
  Come and play with me.
  How many (red) eggs can you see?


• In turns, each group answers while the others chant. For each colour egg that they’ve counted correctly they get a point (but don’t confirm the answers or reveal the points until the last group has answered).


• If the children have already learnt how to record numerical information graphically, they can then record the results in the form of a bar chart or pie chart.

Acknowledgement

Photo provided under Creative Commons Licence by Cyclequark via flickr


Recommended Reading 

Cameron, L. Teaching Languages to Young Learners, Cambridge



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Christmas Quiz

Looking for a "last lesson before Christmas" activity to use with your adult or teenage students? Try our Christmas quiz - which then turns into a webquest and presentation. Here are some questions which you could use from intermediate level up, with the answers below. To find out the background to the answers, just Google the key words - eg for question one - Christmas illegal Massachusetts. Or even better, get your learners to do it. If they've got their mobile phones with them, each learner can find out the background to one of the questions and then present it to the others.

1. Where was it once illegal to celebrate Christmas?

a. Scotland   b. Massachusetts   c. Bombay   d. Yorkshire

2. Since when has Christmas been celebrated on 25th December?

a. 1AD   b. 120AD   c. 320AD   d. 520AD

3. The historical figure who inspired the Santa Claus myth is St. Nicholas. Where was he born?

a. Britain   b. Germany   c. Russia   d. Turkey

4. When were electric lights first used to decorate a Christmas tree?

a. 1882   b. 1902   c. 1906   d. 1916

5. Who was the first British monarch to have a Christmas tree?

a. Queen Elizabeth I   b. King Charles II   c. Queen Victoria   d. Queen Elizabeth II

6. Which spacecraft was lost on Christmas Day 2003?

a. Beagle 2   b. Enterprise   c. Apollo 13   d. Mars Explorer

7. What did Harry Potter get for Christmas the first year he was at Hogwarts School?

a. Nothing   b. A magic potion   c. An invisibility cloak   d. Five pairs of socks

8. The Romans also had a mid-winter festival around the same time as Christmas is now celebrated. What was it called?

a. Invernalia   b. Saturnalia   c. Solstizia   d. Winternia

9. Every year another nation gives a Christmas tree, which is placed in Trafalgar Square in London, to Britain. Which nation?

a. Canada   b. Russia   c. Finland   d. Norway

10. Who was the author of the novel A Christmas Carol, in which a miserly old man called Scrooge is visited by the ghosts of Christmas?

a. Charles Dickens   b. Jane Austen   c. J.K. Rowling   d. D.H. Lawrence

11. Where does Father Christmas live?

a. Iceland   b. The South Pole   c. Lapland   d. Alaska

12. Which of the following is not the name of one of Father Christmas' reindeer?

a. Blitzen   b. Prancer   c. Rudolph   d. Bobtail

Answers

1b  2c  3d  4a  5c  6a  7c  8b  9d  10a  11c  12d

Acknowledgement

Photo (of the 2014 tree in Trafalgar Square) provided under Creative Commons Licence by Click! via flickr

An ELT Glossary : Personalisation Activities

Personalisation activities are activities which focus on the learners themselves, their own experiences and opinions rather than topics in the abstract. They became popular, and started to be built into Communicative Language Teaching, with the rise of the Humanistic Approach, which emphasised the role of positive affect on learning.

This article looks at a) their uses and advantages  and b) their disadvantages.


What are their uses and advantages?

General advantages include :


1) Engagement in the lesson: People often like talking about themselves. Learners are therefore likely to be more engaged by personalisation activities. This increased engagement will mean they enjoy the lessons more leading to greater motivation to participate, and therefore to increased learning.

2) This engagement will also mean that what they are talking to has more emotional significance for them. This will lead to what they are saying being more memorable, - the language they are formulating will be processed at greater cognitive depth and will thus be more likely to be retained.

3) They mean that learners find out more about each other as people and this can improve group rapport. For example,  I once had a class of learners composed mainly of rich, bouncy Persian learners (this was before the fall of the Shah) in their late teens and twenties, plus one elderly Japanese who the others virtually ignored and clearly didn't want to work with – until in a Find someone who activity focusing on the present perfect he was asked Have you ever climbed a mountain? and he replied Yes. When pressed for details, he shyly admitted, Everest. He was bombarded with questions and from then became a highly respected member of the group, who the others were more than willing to include.

4) It can also allow them to find out more about the teacher as a person, and thus help develop teacher/learner rapport. I'd argue strongly that if the teacher expects learners to revel information about themselves, then s/he should be willing to do the same. Teacher talk listening activities, where the teacher talks about eg something s/he did at the weekend, something that happened to them as a child, or whatever,  are in my experience far more motivating for the learners than the usual coursebook recordings

In addition, personalisation activities have a wide range of specific uses:

5) Grammar practice – eg activities like Find someone who (see the example above) can be used to practice most structures. Click on the link for more examples. 

6) Fluency development – eg anecdote telling: learners recount a true story about themselves. Again, follow the link for a more detailed explanation.

7) Engagement before listening/reading activities - allowing learners to discuss their own experiences of or opinions on a topic before listening to or reading about it, and then asking them to listen/read to identify whether what was said was similar or different (and how) a) provides an automatic gist reading/listening task, and b) motivates them towards concentrating on the text

8) This sort of activity also activates schemata before the learners meet the text, thus facilitating comprehension. Activation of eg social, content or situational schemata may help with top-down processing, while the discussion brings any topic related language to the forefront of their minds (and allows the teacher to pre-teach any key unknown words),  thus activating linguistic schemata and  facilitating bottom-up processing.

9) Listening practice - see point 4 above (and the link included) for the usefulness of personalised teacher talk listenings.

10) Encouragement of the use of English outside class using social media - for example, a  Facebook page (with restricted membership) can be opened for the class - or if it is a small class, possibly a group of classes at the same level. Learners can be encouraged to post there at least twice a week and to reply to at least two other posts each week. What they post about is entirely up to them. You can look at typical Facebook posts to analyse the language and content included and gear the post content to their level. If for instance they are studying the past simple, they can post about something they did the day before, whereas in higher level classes they might be encouraged to look at the English medium press and to link to and comment on articles they have read. Alternatively (and probably preferably) they can just be left to post about anything they want to. 

Disadvantages? 

There are, however, disadvantages to the activities which need to be considered before using them:

11) Even if the teacher avoids obviously controversial topics, it’s possible that by chance s/he chooses an apparently innocuous topic that has negative associations for a specific learner. The negative affect produced (the topic may have associations that make the learner feel upset, embarrassed, angry etc) will mean that they do not want to participate and the result will be exactly the opposite of advantage 1 above. This may be particularly important in classes containing eg refugee learners who have escaped horrific backgrounds where they may have been imprisoned, tortured, or lost their homes, friends and family members.

12) Even if no traumatic experiences are involved, some learners may simply not want to reveal personal information to the class. Cultural differences are involved here: for example, Chinese learners may be unwilling to talk about personal achievements and experiences, or even daily routines. 

13) In classes where the learners  already know each other well - eg teens in a state school class who see each other all day every day and probably socialise together too - they may already know so much about each other that the interest value of personalised activities is much lower than in eg a private language school where the learners all come from different backgrounds and meet only during lesson time. 

Acknowledgement

Photo from EltPics @yearinthelifeof - used under Creative Commons Licence

Further reading

Thornbury, S. P is for Personalisation

Moskowitz G. Caring and Sharing in the Foreign Language Class, Longman