It has been an invaluable experience as I have learned so much about how to apply techniques about vocabulary building to a whole class. Usually, in my EAL/D position, I am working either one on one or in small groups. When I suggest activities to classroom teachers they look at me and say "Well that is fine for small groups, but not really practical for a whole class".
The techniques I have been learning are being used with the entire class and it is having a major effect on the student's writing and comprehension of texts. Sadly, I am never there for the full cycle of learning - just the vocabulary building, and I very rarely get to see the finished product being produced (but see it after it is finished).
At the moment the class have been learning about bears. They have completed a literary unit on 'The Very Cranky Bear' and are now working towards gathering factual information about bears.
In the lesson prior to yesterday (when I worked with the students) the class had watched a Youtube clip about bears (from what I can gather from their work it was a clip about Brown or Grizzly bears). They participated in an active listening session. The session involved watching the clip all the way through - uninterrupted. Then the students briefly discussed what they saw. Following this they watched the clip again. This time they were looking for 'nouns'. The teacher stopped the clip at particular spots and asked a variety of students for a noun they had heard. These nouns were recorded onto individual strips of paper and were given back to the students. This happened all the way through the clip.
Following the active listening part of the session, the teacher asked the students to stand and say their 'noun'. Then, as an example to show me, she asked all of the students with nouns about what bears eat to enter the circle. Those students then read aloud their noun. I made the comment that already these students had enough words to build a good paragraph about what bears eat.
However, the aim of Thursday's lesson was to work on 'elaboration' - not simply noun gathering.
So, on Thursday the students watched a clip about Polar Bears.
They watched it all the way through without stopping.
Then they watched it again, actively listening for nouns. The teacher, once again stopped the clip at particular points to record down nouns.
Then I worked with the class on building elaborations for the nouns.
Firstly I made sure each student had a noun - there were only two who hadn't found a noun during the active listening and so I gave them a noun.
We then went over what an elaboration was (they had done this with the teacher the day before so most of them knew).
Then the students found a partner. They read their noun to their partner. They were then given two minutes of 'thinking time' to come up with an elaboration for their noun. They were told their elaboration could not be a short sentence and that it must be linked to the topic of bears. For example a student with the noun 'grasses' could not simply say something like "Grasses grow on the ground" as the elaboration must be linked to bears. It needed to be something like "Bears eat a variety of foods, including grasses and fish. This food is important as it gives them energy, especially after hibernation".
Once the thinking time was over they had to turn to their partner and say their elaboration. Their partner's job was to critically listen to the elaboration and give feedback. They had to consider if the elaboration was long enough, if it gave enough information and if it was linked to the topic of bears.
Once the partners had agreed that it had met the criteria then they made their way back to their desks and wrote their elaboration on the back of their noun piece of paper. We then, as a class, listened to the elaborations and discussed whether we thought each elaboration fit the criteria - if it didn't we suggested ways it could be changed to meet the criteria.
This activity could easily be adapted to any stage and any topic. The skills of active listening are so important. This class, at the beginning of the year, were terrible at listening and gathering information. They simply watched a clip for enjoyment, not to gather information. However, by breaking down the clip into small chunks and focusing the students on looking for particular types of words, the students have learned to be fantastic active listeners.
Last term the students completed a similar task on a unit about water. The students were grouped according to their words, into expert groups. These words were then used to create sentences, then paragraphs and finally a whole text. They showed a much more sophisticated level of understanding about water and its uses. They also used a wider array of vocabulary.
I love working in this year 2 room. I am learning so much. As I learn more I will share it with you. Perhaps you can try some active listening in your classroom.