Adapted Activities ⚖

In this Task, we have adapted some activities found in an English text-book to our students' needs. They have been changed taking into account gifted students, students with AHDH, and students who have repeated a grade. We have also improved the activities of the book as we thought they would be more engaging and attractive for our students.

UNIT 8 – STORIES WE TELL😊

VOCABULARY: Embarrassing events

1. In pairs, work with the flashcards playing a memory game. Shuffle all the cards – the ones with the written expressions and the ones with the pictures all together. Lay out all the cards face down on the table. Play in turns, choose a card and carefully turn it over. Then, select another card and turn it over. If the two cards are a matching pair (the picture of the action with its written expression) then take the two cards and start a stack. You are awarded another turn for making that match, if not, it is your partner’s turn. The player who collect more matching pairs will be the winner.
Materials: Cards with VocabularyCards with Vocabulary - Gifted Students

• Students with AHDH: Classify in two stacks the cards with the written expressions and the cards with the pictures. Lay out the flashcards face up on the table. Put the cards with the written actions on your left and the cards with the pictures on your right. Match each expression with its own picture until all the cards are matched.

• Students with High Capacities: Individually, work with the flashcards playing a memory game. Lay out the cards face down on the table. Turn over one card and then select another one and turn it over. Choose the word missing in the written expression. For example, “arrive late/soon”. Explain to your classmates why you have made this choice and why it is an embarrassing event.

• Repeat students: In pairs, work with the flashcards playing a memory game. Classify in two stacks with the written expressions and the cards with the pictures. Lay out the cards face down on the table. Put the cards with the written actions on your left and the cards with the pictures on your right. Take one card from the left and read the expression trying to guess its meaning, then select another card from the right and turn it over. If the cards are a matching pair, you have another turn, if not, it is your partner’s turn. 

READING: a story.

• Gifted students: in order to make this activity more engaging for these students, theteacher will give them an envelope which will contain several pieces of paper. A wordwill be written in each piece of paper. Students have to order these words so as to come up with the five comprehension questions. Then, they should answer these questions. Also, they should write two more questions on their own about the text and then answer them.

• Students with ADAH: in order to focus the attention of these students in the task, the teacher will give them an envelope which will contain five pieces of paper, and in each piece a paragraph will be written (the paragraphs of the reading text). Therefore, students have to order the paragraphs so as to build a coherent text. Then, they should answer the questions, but to do so, they should underline with colours the lines of the text where the answer appears. Then, they should do a poster. They will write each question in a flashcard and the answer in another. Later, they will paste in the poster the flashcard containing the questions next to the flashcard containing the answer. Therefore, in the poster will appear the five flashcards with the questions and next to these flashcards, the flashcards with the answers.

• Students repeating the year: in order to make this exercise more attractive for these students, they should read the text carefully (the teacher will help them with the vocabulary they may have problems with). Then, for answering the questions, the teacher will give them five pieces of paper. In each piece, the answer to each question will be written. Thus, students should associate each answer to the corresponding question. They will also do a poster in which they will write the five questions and then paste the pieces of paper containing the answers next to the corresponding question.

• Average students: for these pupils, the activity will remain as it is in the textbook.

LISTENING

The listening activity that we have created and adapted for all the students who are in the classroom will consists on watching and listening to a video with subtitles in English. Therefore, students with ADHD will pay more attention to the activity since they can watch both the images and the subtitles at the same time. Moreover, that will allow teachers to avoid distraction which is really complicated during the listening task.According to this, both pupils with ADHD and those who are repeating the course and have problems with the listening task will need to answer short questions which will be formulated in a clear and direct way in order to avoid distraction. In addition, ADHD students will do this activity orally. However, the teacher will show them flashcards with the questions written on them in order to catch their attention. On the other hand, gifted students will also do the activity mentioned before. However, as they are supposed to finish earlier than the rest of the pupils, they will need to continue the story of the main characters which will appear on the listening activity by writing four or five short sentences individually. Therefore, they will be developing their imagination as well as their creativity whilst practicing their skills regarding grammar and vocabulary.

WRITING

Regarding the writing activity, the whole class (except gifted students, ADHD pupils and those who are repeating the course and have problems with writing) will need to write about a general topic which is related to the reading activity they have done: “Write about a legend of your country”. (100 words)

Nevertheless, gifted students will do a more complicated writing task since they will need to write about a more specific topic such as the following one: “Write about a legend related to a traditional festivity in an English speaking country.” Thus, gifted students will not only need to write about a more specific and complicated topic but they will also need to search for information, acting as researchers while doing this writing exercise. Moreover, they will need to write 150 -200 words.

Paying attention to ADHD students and those who are repeating the course and who have problems with this skill, we have also adapted the writing task for their necessities. According to this, the teacher will give them a scheme which the different steps they must follow during the creation of the writing exercise as well as some connectors they may use. Furthermore, ADHD students will need to show the process of their task to their teacher. That is, when finishing the first step of the scheme, the student will show it to the teacher. Then, the teacher will correct it and the student with ADHD will be able to go to the second step of the scheme. Therefore, they will be more focus on the task.

GRAMMAR

• Gifted students: For this type of Student, a good modification would be presenting the words in the sentences in an incorrect order so that they correct them. Moreover, the verb to be transformed into its gerund or infinitive form would be left untransformed so they write its correct form (as in the original activity).
• ADAH: the verbs to be transformed and the elements to be added (i.e. “to” and “-ing”, as many of them as will be needed to complete all the sentences) would be presented in cards that students would have to match and include in the sentences, that would appear as in the original activity. This would allow them to complete the task in a more active and visual way, as they have to use instruments (i.e. the cards) to complete the task, something that helps with the focusing of attention and the memorization of the content. 
• Repeat students: in this case, students would have to correct some of the sentences (not all of them would be incorrect, so they have to analyse each of them in order to decide it) and give a justification for the correction, thus revising the grammar rules and observing its application. 
• Average students: the original activity would be helpful for the practice of grammar in the case of these students. 

ACTIVITIES:

AVERAGE STUDENTS

1. He admitted ________ (copy) the story form another book.
2. Have you finished _____ (read) that book I lent you yet?
3. I thought the story seemed ____ (end) a bit suddenly.
4. Traditional stories sometimes teach people ____ (behave) in the right way.
5. Why do so many Young people dislike _____ (write)?
6. I hope _____ (become) a full-time writer by the time I’m 30.
7. My parents advised my sister _____ (take) that job.
8. I want to avoid ___ (work) full time as long as possible.

GIFTED STUDENTS:

1. Story / another / he / book / the / from / admitted (copy)
2. Lent / that / have / book / I / you / yet/ you / finished (read)
3. The / I / a / suddenly / bit / a / thought  / the / story / seemed (end)
4. Sometimes / in / way/ traditional / teach / stories / right / the / people (behave)
5. So / Young / why / do / people / many / dislike (write) ?
6. Full-time / a / writer / the / I’m / by / I / time / 30 / hope (become)
7. Advised / that / my / job / parents / my / sister (take)
8. To / time / possible / as / as / long / want / full / I / avoid (work)

ADAH STUDENTS:

COPY	ING
READ	ING
END	ING
BEHAVE	ING
WRITE	TO
BECOME	TO
TAKE	TO
WORK	TO

REPEAT STUDENTS:

1. He admitted copying the story form another book.
2. Have you finished to read that book I lent you yet?
3. I thought the story seemed to end a bit suddenly.
4. Traditional stories sometimes teach people behaving in the right way.
5. Why do so many Young people dislike writing?
6. I hope becoming a full-time writer by the time I’m 30.
7. My parents advised my sister taking that job.
8. I want to avoid working full time as long as possible.

SPEAKING

The speaking activity about embarrassing moments would be noticeably changed because when people are asked to tell anecdotes, the anecdotes usually vanish from their minds. Thus, the teacher would provide the students with cards which give ideas about embarrassing situations. Having the main idea clear, they would have to invent a context with details to tell the anecdote as if it had happened to them.

The order to tell the anecdotes would not be clockwise. The teacher would bring a tennis ball that the students would have to pass to each other. The student with the ball would have to tell his or her anecdote. This way of giving turns is especially designed to keep the attention of students with ADAH in the game.

On the other hand, the teacher would have extra cards in case students who have repeated the course found their anecdotes too difficult to explain. If this happened, they could choose one of the remaining ones and with the help of the teacher (if needed), devise a story to tell.

Gifted students would be given the option to try and mix two different anecdotes into one. It is a very demanding task because they have to come up with a way of combining them so it requires a special effort. Besides, it can end up being very funny for everybody to listen to the result of the two anecdotes.

4. David Crystal 🤓

1. Which factors do you think that make a language to be 'global'? 🌍

According to what we have seen in David Crystal’s video, and as we see it, the are several factors that make a language to be “global”. One of the most important factors is that a global language must be worldwide spoken both as an L1 and as an L2.  Moreover, a language must be used in international organizations to be global. That is, a global language has to be applied in order to enable people from different backgrounds and societies communicate among them. All in all, a global language is usually developed in business and diplomatic relations since it is spoken by powerful people in powerful countries.💰 

2. What could be a definition of Global Language? 🗣

A Global Language is a language which is learned by a great majority of people as second language so it is spoken worldwide. Thus, its main use is to make communication between individuals and organisations from any country in the world possible. English 🇬🇧 is a global language, that is why it is used in many international organizations such as UNESCO, EU, NATO, etc.

3. How does David Crystal define Global language? 💬

“A Language achieves a genuinely global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country. This role will be most obvious in countries where large numbers of the people speak it as a first language. […] To achieve such a status, a language has to be taken up by other countries around the globe. They must decide to give it a special place within their communities, even though they may have few (or no) mother-tongue speakers” (David Crystal).

Listen to David Crystal and answer the following questions:

4. Do we need to the teach English as a ‘global’ language to learners? How can we do it?

According to David Crystal, we must teach English as a global language if we want to prepare students properly in order to face the “English-speaking world.” If we want to achieve this, we should pay special attention to the teaching of comprehension, that is, the practice of learning and reading skills through materials which reflect the varieties of English. 

5. Should we focus on the receptive skills? Why/why not? 👂🏻

Yes, we should focus on the receptive skills but not in the common way which is carried out among most teachers. That means, students cannot learnt the oral receptive skill by listening to their book’s audios in which the speakers have a British standard accent since this is simply not real. If they go abroad, they will encounter a hundred different accents which will differ a lot from the one they are used to listen in the classroom. 


▶ David Crystal - Should English be taught as a 'global' language?

3. Our collaborative project✍🏻

1. AIMS 🚀

Our collaborative project is about the linguist Dell Hathaway Hymes and our main aim is to present a general overview of Hymes’ principles and methodologies.

According to this, this project pretends to deal with some of the linguist’s personal issues in order to understand how these could interfere on his professional development as a linguist.

After that, our collaborative presentation shows the linguistic current in which Hymes is located so as to comprehend his theory which will be later developed.

Therefore, we discuss the main influences on our linguist’s work by focusing our attention on Chomsky’s linguistic competence since Hymes’ theory is a reaction against him.

The main purpose for doing this is to present Hymes’ theory in a comprehensible way as this is the most important part of our project.

After presenting Hymes’ communicative competence 💬 and the Speaking model🗣, we deal with the influences that Hymes’ had for developing later works to establish links among different linguists and researchers.

To sum up, this project is intended for understanding Hymes’ linguistic model trough critical thinking in order to show connections among different linguists before and after Dell Hymes.

2. The project was carried out in a collaborative way 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧: 

In the first place we held a meeting☝🏻in which we divided the presentation into different parts to be prepared by each one of us, as well as including ideas on its performance (in this case, the use of cardboards 📝 to explain Hymes’s SPEAKING model). After this, a research 🔍was conducted on Hymes’s context, influence received, theory and importance of his work as reflected on that of posterior authors. Moreover, each component of the group had to created a slide for the common PowerPoint presentation, with a clear organization and the necessary information to be displayed in front of the class. These slides were shared through a common file in Google Drive so as to be able to comment on them, correcting any possible mistakes and suggesting changes if needed. Finally, the Powerpoint was set together and sent to the teacher, and individually we prepared our part of speech 🗣in the presentation that we performed in class.

3. Write about the importance of collaborative learning/teaching 👩‍👩‍👧‍👧

• The term "collaborative learning" refers to an instruction method in which students at various performance levels work together in small groups toward a common goal🏆. The students are responsible for one another's learning as well as their own. Thus, the success of one student helps other students to be successful. Besides, according to Johnson and Johnson “there is persuasive evidence that cooperative teams achieve at higher levels of thought and retain information longer than students who work quietly as individuals”. In this way, it engages the students, makes them responsible for their own learning and they become critical thinkers🤔. Another positive aspect of this method is that it creates a relaxed atmosphere 😌in the classroom, since students are not competitors anymore but collaborative co-workers who in seek of the whole group’s success.🎉
• The term "collaborative teaching" on the other hand refers to the involvement of various educators working together in order to instruct groups of students. This collaboration usually takes place among professionals from different disciplines, such as core subjects, special needs education, guidance programs and so on. These educators work together to plan lessons, lecture and teach, do evaluations and manage the class✏. All teachers implied co-operate together, having the same weight in the class, so as to they are equals in the classroom. The main advantage of this method is that students get a more individual and personal attention, and they are able to discuss and compare different perspectives and ideas. An important point to be taken into account is that teachers should be flexible and open-minded 🙌🏻since they will need the other teacher's approval and opinions to work better together.

References:

• Gokhale, A. Anuradha (1995). ‘Collaborative Learning Enhances Critical Thinking’, Journal of Technology Education, vol.7, no. 1, viewed 13 December 2016, <http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/v7n1/gokhale.jte-v7n1.html?ref=Sawos.Org>.
• Johnson , R. T., & Johnson, D. W. (1986). Action research: Cooperative learning in the science classroom. Science and Children , 24, 31-32.
• Totten , S., Sills, T., Digby, A., & Russ, P. (1991). Cooperative learning: A guide to research . New York: Garland.
• Topeducationdegrees.org. (2016). What is Collaborative Teaching?. [online] Available at: http://www.topeducationdegrees.org/faq/what-is-collaborative-teaching/ [Accessed 13 Dec. 2016]
• Understood.org. (2016). Collaborative Team Teaching: What You Need to Know. [online] Available at: https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/treatments-approaches/educational-strategies/collaborative-team-teaching-what-you-need-to-know [Accessed 13 Dec. 2016].

 4. Say something about the linguist you presented and another one that may drew your attention.  👬

Hymes was the first linguist who developed the concept of communicative competence. 🔝

In other words, he highlighted the importance of the context when studying a language. When we learn a language, we need to take into account not only the formal code, but also its context. This is why he was one of the founders of sociolinguistics, and precisely for this reason he was a significant figure within the field of linguistics. However, Piaget was also an important figure in the field of psychology since he was the first who developed a theory about cognitive development, which can be approached from a linguistic point of view. He considered that human beings go through four stages of cognitive development.

2. Outside the box 📦

How can we improve the Spanish Educational paradigm?

Although in Spain Education does not enjoy an important role for society💩, as many laws have shown, we strongly believe that it is one of the most important pillars of society. It contributes to the promotion of critical thinking 🤔 as well as many other skills which will help students to become efficient citizens of the world. 🌍Many aspects of today’s educational system in Spain should be changed. Among them are, for instance, the teacher-centered model followed in the classroom throughout the last decades;  the traditional way in which state exams for teachers are carried out towards a much more practical rather than theoretical approach; a better teacher training📚, taking into account catering for diversity👫, problem solving💡, the use of ICTs💻, etc; encouraging collaborative projects among students as well as using methodologies in order to foster creativity🎨.

▶ Ken Robinson - Do schools kill creativity?

1. Why this course ❓

This course means to us the opportunity to prepare ourselves so as to become teachers of the future 😎, that is, innovative instructors with the capacity to use creativity 💡in order to help students in their study of the English language.🇬🇧 It enables us to become familiar with the theories that have influenced the path which English Language Teaching has followed throughout the years, as well as those which contribute to its renewal year after year. Moreover, it trains us to take part in that same renewal by enhancing our critical thinking🤔 and teaching skills 📚, leading us to our future position as English teachers but never leaving behind the idea of our role as cultural and social workers 👪.