Effective Communication in the Classroom EJ 417

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Effective Communication in the Classroom EJ 417

• Year End Review

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Part 1 Word Skills

• Language teachers should be comfortable talking
  about words with their students.

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• We looked at words in a variety of ways and
  considered ways to discuss them
• . . . begins with . . .
• . . . ends in . . .
• . . . rhymes with. . .
• . . . is another word for . . .
• . . . is the opposite . . .
• . . . means . . .
• . . . is spelled . . .

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• Words skills are also important for our students.
  
• So our students should also be comfortable
  discussing words.

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• Words skills help our students to become
  independent learners since it gives them the
  ability to get the information they need when
  they dont understand something without having
  to rely on their native language.

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• Word skills are an important step towards
  conducting your English class in English instead
  of talking about English in your students native
  language.

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• When can we start teaching word skills?

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• Answer The earlier the better.
• The kids in the video you are about to see
  learned their word skills while going through a
  six month phonics course. They are in grade one
  and grade two and could not read CVC words at the
  beginning of the course.

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Part II Communication Strategies

• We also looked at communication strategies and
  ways to negotiate meaning.

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• Negotiating meaning included things like
• asking for clarification
• clarifying
• rephrasing
• checking comprehension

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• Again, these are valuable skills for language
  teachers AND language students.
• Communication strategies, like word skills, help
  to foster learner independence.

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• When teachers use these skills in class, they are
  providing valuable language input for their
  students.

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Part III Vocabulary Presentation

• We also looked at ways to present vocabulary to
  our students.

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• We discussed the advantages of defining
  vocabulary for our students in English instead of
  using their native language.

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• These advantages included
• Increased input for our students especially input
  with complex grammatical structure such as
  adjective clauses and adverbial clauses.
• Increased learner independence as students learn
  how to understand definitions given to them in a
  foreign language.
• Teachers can include commonly occurring
  collocations in their definitions.

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• We also looked at putting vocabulary in context.
• We discussed several strategies for putting
  vocabulary in context.

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• Again, being able to understand a vocabulary item
  based on context is a valuable skill that helps
  foster learner independence in our students.

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Part IV Hypothetical questions

• As teachers, we constantly challenge our
  students imagination, asking them to put
  themselves in situation that they havent been
  in.
• In order to do this, teachers must be
  comfortable using hypothetical modes of speaking.

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• So we looked at different ways to pose a
  hypothetical question using marker, the past
  tense, and subjunctive mood.

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Part V Elements of a Story

• Teachers should also be comfortable discussing
  stories with their students (especially since
  more and more programs are becoming literature
  based).

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• We looked at the elements of a story and ways to
  discuss these elements in English.

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Part VI Balancing Our Instruction

• We also considered the inherent problem of
  providing clear instruction versus providing rich
  input.

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• We looked at ways to balance these two goals
  using rich varied language such as noun clauses
  to provide initial instruction followed by
  rephrasing in the simple, clear imperative mood.

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Part VII Clear Explanation

• We also looked at using logic puzzles and riddles
  to help us produce clear explanations using a
  variety of logical arguments such as
• (a) the contra positive argument
• (b) the argument of elimination

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• Unfortunately, this was where we ran out of time
  so we were not able to spend nearly enough time
  to do this properly.

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• We also did not looked at
• Part VIII Correcting errors.
• Part IX Giving Feedback