View Content #26796

By Leila Tamini Lichaei, CASLS Fellow

One of the speaking strategies that any language learner can use is asking for clarification during conversation. This activity provides learners with the opportunity to observe and practice interjecting in a conversation.

Learning objectives:

Students will be able to:

• Identify culturally and contextually appropriate phrases and sentences used for asking for clarification
• Demonstrate understanding of how to ask for clarification during conversation

Mode: Interpretive, Interpersonal

Materials: Sorting Activity Handout, Scenario Handout

Procedure:

1. Have students download the LingroToGo app. Direct them to watch the following videos:

• Asking for clarification: Work & school>At school>Asking about homework> Video: Asking for Clarification
• Asking people to repeat themselves: My Community> Sports and Leisure> Buying tickets to a sporting event> Video: Asking people to repeat them
• Asking for help in a conversation: Digital World >Communication > Ending a personal phone call > Video: Asking for help in a conversation

2. Use Think-Pair-Share to discuss the videos with your students. During each phase  of Think-Pair-Share, ask students to answer the following questions:

• Which of these strategies have you used before in your L1? L2?
• How prepared do you feel to try and use one of the strategies that you observed? Do you have any questions or hesitations?
• What do you need to know in the L2 to engage in the strategy that you don’t already know?

3. Next, provide learners with the first page of  the Sorting Activity Handout and give them five minutes to work individually and sort the phrases into the correct columns. If learners do not know the meaning of all of the phrases, direct them to  use semantic and linguistic patterns to guess the appropriate meaning of the phrases.

4. At the end of the five minutes, discuss the phrases with the learners and lead a think aloud to help learners discern the meaning of the phrases that they didn’t understand in Step 3. Also, make sure that they understand the situations in which those strategies and phrases can be used.

5. Next, have students engage in interpersonal interactions that align with your current curricular needs and direct them to  use the Sorting Activity Handout to support their selection of  strategies for asking for clarifications. Everytime they use a strategy, they  should make a note in some way.

6. At the end of class, have your students write a brief exit ticket in which they list the strategies they used in class and identify the ones they would like to practice more in the future.

Notes:

If you would like any examples of interpersonal scenarios to use in class, feel free to reference to this handout and adapt accordingly.