| Body | by Madi Collins, CASLS Student Employee
This activity was designed for learners of all levels, and asks students to direct their own learning by choosing a personal interest and creating a vision board in the target language about that interest.
Learning outcomes:
Learners will be able to:
- Identify a personal interest, activity, or hobby they would like to speak or write about in the target language.
- Identify new vocabulary to use related to the identified interest.
- Create a visual representation of that interest in the target language.
- Produce utterances in the target language about the interest.
Mode(s): Interpersonal, Presentational
Materials: Make a Vision Board video, materials for vision board creation (e.g., computer, printer, magazines and print media, paper or poster board, markers, colored pencils), space to display completed vision boards
Procedure:
- Ask learners to think about an interest, activity, or hobby that they want to speak or write about about in the target language. Learners may be asked to think about this outside of class as homework, or can use a few minutes of class time to do so.
- Ask learners to reflect on how well they are currently able to speak about their interest. Have learners, first, write down a list of target language words or phrases they already know about the related topic. Once they have written what they know, ask them to brainstorm what information they still need to learn to be able to engage. This brainstorm can be in the L1, depending on the proficiency of the learners.
- Show learners the Make a Vision Board video.
- Direct learners to search for images, words, and other resources that they can use to build their own vision boards about their chosen interest. Ask them to keep their reflection about what they need to talk about this interest in mind. What kinds of resources will they need to support what they want to learn how to say?
- Give learners paper or poster board to use as the base for their vision boards. Have learners gather resources for their vision boards. They can print out online resources, make their own resources, or cut out images or words from magazines or other print media. Once learners have gathered their resources, have them arrange the resources on their board however they wish. Remind learners to organize the resources in a way that helps them make connections between already known and newly learned words, phrases and concepts.
- Ask learners to pair up and share a sentence or two about their interest in the target language. Beginner learners can focus on producing short phrases with the new vocabulary, while more advanced learners can focus on creating more complex sentences or on stringing multiple sentences together.
- Hang the vision boards up in the classroom or lay them out so everyone can see. Invite learners to walk around the room and look at all of the boards.
- As a group, ask learners to volunteer either something they learned from making their own vision board or something they learned from someone else’s board. Were there similarities or differences in content between the boards they saw? Were there similarities or differences in how the boards were arranged?
- Encourage learners to continue to add to their vision board as they learn or discover new vocabulary or information about their interest. Classroom time can be dedicated for this, or learners can take the boards with them and make additions outside of class time if preferred.
Notes:
Modifications (technology) - for an online or hybrid class, learners can gather digital resources for their vision boards, or digitize analog resources. They can create their boards as digital documents and share them with each other using online platforms (e.g., screen sharing on Zoom, shared Google Jamboards or Google Docs).
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