Journey on Learning in Action: Innovation Cogitation

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Journey on Learning in Action Innovation-
Cogitation

• Are There Better Ways to Teach
• the Past Tense ?

Presenters Chan Sui Ki (La Salle) Primary School
Ms Lam Wai-ling Ms Kwok Yee-mei, Amy Mr Wong
Yuet-fai, Angus School-based Curriculum
Development Section Chan Yeung-ming, Eve
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Journey on Learning in Action Innovation-
Cogitation

• Are There Better Ways to Teach
• the Past Tense ?

Why do teachers at upper levels keep complaining
about students poor mastery of the past tense?
Why does the problem happen again and again
across schools?
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Students Problems

• What are your students problems in learning
  the past tense?
• Students did not remember/ could not master the
  concept of the past tense.
• Students did not use the past tense in speaking
  and writing.
• Students had difficulties learning the different
  forms of verbs especially irregular verb forms.

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Curricular Changes
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Pedagogical Changes
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Reading Week Input from Reader
Record in 2007 I was seven year old. I was 130
centimetres. I was 32.6 kilos.
Record in 2008 I am eight year old. I am 131
centimetres. I am 33.7 kilos.
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Reading Week Input from Reader
Interviews A What was your height last year?
What is your height now? B Last year I was
_______ centimetres and now Im _____kilos.
PresentationsLast year Ching Cha Yu was 134
centimetres and now he is 137 centimetres. Last
year Lee Chi Man was 128 centimetres and now he
is 130 centimetres.

• Main objective
• Student-student interaction to use past tense
• and present tense to talk about weight and height
  

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I learned the difference between the past tense
and the present tense from the story.
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Communicative ApproachDaily Speaking and
Listening Interaction

• The past tense is used regularly and naturally in
  the classroom
• rather than treated as an occasional special
  language item.
• What is the weather like today?
• What was the weather like yesterday?
• What day is today?
• What day was yesterday?
• What date is today?
• What date was yesterday?
• What did you have for lunch yesterday?
• What do you usually have for lunch every day?
• What do you usually do at weekends?
• What did you do last weekend?

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Regular everyday dialogue using the contrast of
present and past tense
Communicative ApproachDaily Oral and Listening
Interaction
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Communicative ApproachDaily Oral and Listening
Interaction

• Teachers meaningful interaction with students
  using the past tense

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Speaking about how you celebrate festivals every
year and last year
Do you usually eat moon cakes at Mid-Autumn
Festival? Did you eat one moon cake last
Mid-Autumn Festival?
Let students explore under what situations they
should use past tense.
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Tense Worksheet with reference to authentic
situation of the school

• In 2008, there _______(be) five primary 3
  classes in Chan Sui Ki (La Salle) Primary School.
  
• Miss Yu _______(be) the Principal of the Chan
  Sui Ki (La Salle) Primary School in 2008.
• The School picnic ______(be) on 19th December,
  2007.
• Chan Sui Ki students _______(have) a school
  picnic every year.
• All Primary 2 students _________(go) to Ho Man
  Tin Plaza to see the shops last year.
• All Primary 3 students _______(go) to McDonalds
  to use English to buy food in December, 2007.

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Tense Worksheet with reference to authentic
situations of the school

• All Primary 2 students _________(go) to Ho Man
  Tin Plaza to see the shops last year.

• All Primary 3 students _______(go) to McDonalds
  to use English to buy food in December , 2007

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Integrating the past tense and present tense
concepts in writing
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Diary writing about best classmate

• When and why you two
• became best friends?
• Shared food with you?
• Helped you with
• your problem?
• Lent you a pen?

What is the name of your best classmate? Where
does he/she sit in the classroom? What is
he/she good at?
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Letter writing about Easter
How do people celebrate Easter every year
How did you celebrate Easter in 2008 ?
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Dealing with students learning problems

• Difficulties of picking up the concept
  
• and
• Difficulties of learning the form

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Form-focused Activities
Help students to learn regular and irregular
past tense verbs
Design special verb tables highlighting verbs
with special spellings
Form-focused Activities
Use tenses progressively from sentence level
to text level WS 4 WS 5 WS 6
Emphasize time markers
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see
saw
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hear
heard
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say
said
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eat
ate
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drink
drank
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sing
sang
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write
wrote
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Go/come
Went/came
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saw
caught
said
ate
wrote
sang
drank
Went/came
heard
Prepared by Mr Liu Chun Lung
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Teachers Reflection

• We focused too much on the language form in the
  past. The new focuses on meaning and application
  facilitated learning.
• Moving the teaching of the past tense to the
  beginning of the term can make a difference in
  learning because of immersion.
• It is practical to let students learn the
  differences between the present and past tense
  not only through written texts but also speaking.
  This helped minimize the difficulty of learning
  the tense.
• Immersing students in daily life situations is a
  good practice. Students can use authentic
  language to interact with peers and teachers.
• Students showed interest in clicking the part of
  the body to learn the irregular verb forms. It
  was a good start to arouse the students interest
  of learning. However, it is very important for
  the students to recite the verb forms by heart
  and study very hard every day.
• When teaching other tenses, same principles could
  be applied.

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References

• Krashen, Stephen. D., and Tracy D. Terrell. 1983.
  The natural approach Language acquisition in the
  classroom. Oxford, England Pergamon/Alemany.
• Marton , F. and Runesson, U (2003). The space of
  learning. Paper presentation at the symposium
  Improving Learning, Fostering the will to learn,
  European Association for Research on Learning and
  Instruction, Padova, Italy (August, 2003).
• Shulman, L .(2004). The Wisdom of Practice
  Essays on Teaching, Learning, and Learning to
  Teach (JB-Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement
  of Teaching) (v. 1) San Francisco, USA

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Thank you !!