View Content #19876

Stephanie Knight is the Language Technology Specialist for CASLS at the University of Oregon. This activity was developed in order to compliment this week’s Topic of the Week.

This activity aims to draw intermediate-mid, intermediate-high, and advanced-low students to consider authentic language use while researching and reflecting on topics that relate to their own interests. In completing this activity, students are engaged in interpersonal speaking and writing, presentational writing, and interpretive reading and listening. This activity has three major components: analysis of a written text, analysis of audio texts, and interpersonal communication with self-reflection.

Modes: Interpersonal Speaking, Interpersonal Writing, Presentational Writing, Interpretive Listening, Interpretive Reading

Objectives:

• Students will consider how language is used by expert speakers of the target language.
• Students will discover linguistic differences that exist among speakers of a target language.
• Students will critically analyze authentic texts in order to draw cultural comparisons outside of linguistic differences.
• Students will support analysis with specific evidence from texts.
• Students will engage in conversations with expert speakers of the target language.
• Students will consider their own use of the target language and develop a plan for improvement.

Resources: Student handout, list of possible resources, grading scale for student reflections

Procedure:

1. Discuss the student handout and its three components as a class. Make sure to emphasize the expectation that students focus on authentic language use and to clearly outline expectations as they relate to citing resources. If the students struggle with citations, recommend that they visit the Perdue Online Writing Lab (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/).
2. Connect students with possible sources to use in completing their research. Give time for the students to brainstorm additional sources as a class. Emphasize the importance of internet safety at this time. A good list of safety tips is found at http://www.nationalcac.org/prevention/internet-safety-kids.html.
3. Find a short written text in the target language and outline the response required on the handout as a class.
4. Find audio texts in the target language and outline the response required on the handout as a class.
5. If computers or other web-capable devices are available, give the students a chance to practice communicating with synchronous chat on www.livemocha.com or one of the other listed mechanisms.
6. Give the students at least 30 minutes to collect some sources so that you can help if they run into any issues. Remind students that the search terms that they use should be in the target language.
7. Give the students a due date for completing the activity.

Notes:

It is recommended that this activity be repeated throughout the school year. While the first run-through of the activity may require significant class time, subsequent attempts should be more and more autonomous until the activity is purely assigned as a homework assignment.  Given the considerable research and analytical efforts undertaken by the students, they should be given at least a week to complete all of its components.

When adapting this activity for students at lower proficiency levels, select less complex texts as your class examples. Also, broaden the texts to include more every-day items such as food containers, restaurant menus, and instruction manuals. While students at higher proficiency levels would be expect to write all of their reflections in the target language, students at lower proficiency levels should be allowed to write their reflections in the native language if needed.

Lastly, so that grading of the activity doesn’t become prohibitive, devise a quick method to check student reflections. For example, they could be graded with this scale.