Theresa Zanatta´s Blog

Classroom Language: Supporting and Celebrating Learning!

2010-10-06T02:58:00.000-07:00

The beginning of October marks the second month of the academic school year. By now, for many of us, we have gotten to know a little more about our students: their names, their likes and dislikes, their study habits and their linguistic capabilities. We have also probably established several classroom routines to provide opportunities for meaningful repetition, classroom structure, speaking and the development of study skills and habits.

No doubt, in addition to this, we will be thinking about the language we are using in the classroom. Our classroom language is critical for creating an atmosphere that both supports and celebrates learning! There are so many different kinds of language we can use in the classroom to do this. For example, there is the language of praise and encouragement: Good for you! Keep it up! Your work is excellent! You must be so proud of the work you have done! etc.

There is the language of classroom management: Let's help each other!
Let´s share what we know! Say what you know! Show what you know! Tell me more! I´m listening! How can I help you? etc.

There is the language of rules and classroom routines: Let´s begin the class with a song. What´s the weather today? Speak softly to your partner! Let´s play a language game! Can the classroom helpers hand out the glue, please? etc.

I find one of the most effective ways of judging how I am contributing to and in fact affecting my classroom environment is to record myself and listen to the language I use. My cell phone records short sequences easily and gives me a quick playback on what I am saying and how I am saying it. It provides me with lots of food for thought.

If you are a native or a non-native speaking teacher, you may want to look for more ways to create a positive atmosphere that is so essential for language learning. Here are two web sites that I like for 101 different ways to praise aand encourage our students to succeed: www.songs4teachers.com/101waystopraiseachild and www.youthonline.ca/101thingstodo/praise1-50b.shtml

Another great source is the book, "A handbook of Classroom English" written by . You can find the entire, super-helpful and complete book at www.scribd.com/doc/6909785/a-handbook-of-classroom-english if you don´t already have a copy.

If you are a university student studying teaching methodology and you would like to expand and build your classroom language, take a look at this powerpoint presentation which I have converted into a short video clip. You might find it helpful.

Write me if you have any questions, comments or stories about the language we use in the English classroom!

Happy teaching and learning :-)

Theresa

Oral English Communication Skills

2010-10-03T14:58:00.000-07:00

Oral English skills are critical when teaching English to children. I´m reminded of how many hours native children "hear" and "absorb" their mother tongue before actually beginning to speak their own first few words, anywhere from 2000 to 5000 hours of contact time!

Compare that with the 30 -70 hours most young children receive in preschool and early primary and it´s easy to understand why it takes a while before young children feel comfortable producing language in English.

I´ve always felt that teaching children English implies having a very good understanding of just how effective our own oral communication skills are. But how does one do this?

In business circles, companies use an interesting and effective tool for diagnosing the overall status of a particular situation. This tool is called a SWOT analysis: S for strengths, W for weaknesses, O for opportunities and T for threats.

The strengths and weaknesses analysis refers to the internal environment of the company or situation being analyzed. The opportunities and threats refers to the external ennvironment of the company or situation.

When I began to think about my own oral language skills, both in Spanish and Catalan, it occurred to me that the SWOT analysis could be a very helpful instrument in helping me to see where I was in terms of oral language skill development. It forced me to think about my own personal strengths and weaknesses as a language speaker and reflect upon the opportunities

and threats in my immediate teaching and learning environment.

Sometime later, I came across a language blog written by Neil Barker. He also had the idea of doing a SWOT analysis. Take a minute to visit his blog and see his personal SWOT analysis as an English language teacher. http://neilbarker.co.kr/2010/03/02/personal-teaching-swot-analysis/

In the university classes I teach, my student teachers are asked to do their own personal SWOT analysis as it relates to their oral language communication skills. The results are most enlightening and rewarding!

If you have done or would like to work with SWOT analyses in yor classrooms or with teachers you work with, drop me a line and let me know how it is going. If I can help in any way, just let me know!

happy teaching!

theresa

2010-06-09T03:33:00.000-07:00

The Big Sentence Searches Give Away!

2010-05-03T03:13:00.000-07:00

I´m giving away 3 complete sets of Sentence Searches!

One set includes 6 books of English language learning puzzles for children and 3 puzzle books for adults.

Sentence Searches are a fun and innovative way of improving English vocabulary and learning how to construct sentences.

Sentence Searches are now available to buy online at:

http://theenglishworkout.com/

http://www.theresazanatta.com/compras/compras.html

http://www.ebay.es

Just look up: Sentence Searches.

You can win a complete set if you enter this competition. All you have to do is answer the following question, in 50 words or less, and the best 3 answers will receive a pack of Sentence Searches, absolutely free!

What is your biggest challenge in the classroom?

Submit your answer as a comment to this blog or email it to info@theresazanatta.com

New Sentence Searches. Now available to buy online!

2010-04-23T01:28:00.001-07:00

Entretienen, retan, diverten, son interesantes, innovadores, interactivos y !efectivos¡

Van más allá del aprendizaje del vocabulario del inglés.

¡A los niños/as les divierte mucho hacer puzzles! Los puzzles son divertidos, entretenidos y una forma fantástica de practicar el desarrollo de las destrezas tanto en inglés como en su aprendizaje en general.

Los libros dirigidos a adultos también te háran utilizar los conocimientos que ya tienes, e irás desarrollando un mejor entendimiento del functionamiento de la lengua para formar frases, preguntas, párrafos y diálogos.

Para comprar haga click en el siguiente link...

http://www.canadianinstitute.eu/es/publications/compras.html

Good news! We have published 6 new books of Sentence Search Puzzles for children, and 3 for adults.

These puzzles are a lot of fun and help you to learn much more than just the vocabulary of the English language! Children will find them an interesting and entertaining way to practice both their language and learning skills.

Adults will use their existing knowledge and develop a better understanding of how words come together to form sentences, questions, paragraphs and dialogues.

You can buy online by clicking on this link…

http://www.canadianinstitute.eu/es/publications/compras.html

Towards an Understanding of Understanding!

2010-01-17T15:38:00.000-08:00

"Nurturing understanding is one of the loftiest aspirations of education and also one of the most elusive."

Tina Blythe and Associates, The Teaching for Understanding Guide, c. 1998 by John Wiley and Sons Inc.

There is no doubt in my mind, after more than twenty years of teaching, that I am most effective when I am teaching for understanding. But what exactly does it mean to be able to understand something? How can I know when my students are developing understanding? How do they develop understanding and what criteria can I use to choose and create activities that help my students develop understanding?

These are a few of the questions that I am continually seeking to answer as both a teacher and a parent. Tina Blythe´s book which I have quoted from above, has been and continues to be a wonderful guide to bring me closer to an understanding of understanding and how I can be more effective in teaching for understanding.

These questions and several more related to the nature of understanding, formed the backbone of study more than twenty years ago for Howard Gardner, David Perkins and Vito Perrone, three professors at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. It was 1988 when these three men brought together a group of colleagues who would work for the next five years to develop a research-based, classroom-tested approach to teaching for understanding.

It was an ambitious project. Blythe´s book explains that more than 60 school-based and 30 university-based educators researched and contributed to the work of the Teaching for Understanding Project. The culmination of this five year project was the presentation of the Teaching for Understanding Framework, a "tool for designing, conducting and reflecting on classroom practices that nourish student understanding." (Blythe, 1998).

Over the next few months, I will share with you what I have understood about understanding from Blythe´s book and how I have tried to create instructional practices that bring me closer to achieving understanding in my classes.

In the meantime, I encourage you to get a copy of Blythe´s guide. It is well worth the investment!

Yours in understanding,

theresa

Making learning visible!

2009-08-14T05:42:00.000-07:00

Part of the teaching for understanding framework that has been developed by educators including Howard Gardner and David Perkins at the Project Zero Group at Harvard, involves the notion of "making learning visible".

The essential idea here is 'if I can "see" what my students are learning, then it should be easier for me to determine what they do and don't understood'.

A key characteristic then of 'teaching for understanding activities' is that they contain a "make- learning- visible component", that they provide us with an opportunity to observe what students are understanding.

This makes good pedagogic sense to me. As an effective teacher, I want to know, as best I can, and at every possible moment throughout my classes what my students are understanding and not understanding. This knowledge provides me with important, information so that I can make better, on-the-spot teaching and learning decisions to help make my students' learning more effective. My choices about my instructional practices become better "informed" with this instant feedback!

I know that if I wait until the quiz at the end of the unit to see what my students have understood, it is often too late to help my weaker students. A poor grade, the frustration of failure, the humility of "not getting it", all this negative baggage just makes it more difficult to turn the situation around in the next unit. Intuitively, I can see how the 'damage' has already been done and that now my job is double! Not only do I have to provide new content and input now, but I also have to somehow remediate what has not been learned! Uggghhh!!!

Over the next few weeks, I would like to share with you my experiences and the activities I use, as a teacher and teacher trainer developing and experimenting with "teaching for understanding strategies, techniques and activities that make learning visible."

Theresa

Teaching tools for learning for understanding

2007-03-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

One of the very important ideas that form a part of the teaching for understanding (TFU) framework is the idea of creating opportunities to demonstrate learning in the classroom. David Perkins and the TFU group out of Harvard call these "understanding performances" or "performances of understanding". It occurs to me that perhaps I can create learning tools to use in my classrooms that help "make learning visible" (another idea from the TFU framework and working group), especially when I am working with young learners who aren´t so able to articulate what they have learned.

Welcome!

2007-03-21T11:35:00.000-07:00

This blog is written by me Theresa Zanatta, an English teacher who has been introduced to the "teaching for understanding" framework.

Two summers ago, the summer of 2005, I took part in an on-line course on the "teaching for understanding" framework offered through the Department of Education at Harvard University. I took this course because I have always been motivated in my teaching by a desire to help my students "understand" and not just memorize what I was teaching.

My teaching objectives have always been to help students understand how they learn, what they are learning and why they are learning what they are learning. This to me is the "essence" of learning. Howard Gardner´s work has always interested me and a desire to better understand a pedagogy of understanding led me to this course in the summer of 2005.

Since that summer, I have continued to read about, explore, try out, and just plain experiment with this concept and how I can operationalize it in my various English classes with learners of all ages, here in Barcelona. This blog is about my learning experience and my exploration of a pedagogy of understanding.