Task based learning - is it?!

As I keep saying, I'm not an expert! I'm not sure if this classroom activity actually meets the methodological definition of "Task Based Learning" (TBL) or not...but it felt like a task, looked like a task, and resulted in something tangible which the students really enjoyed doing...so, whatever it might be labelled, it was a win in the classroom.

I went to see a presentation about TBL on Sunday, at the ETJ event in Tokyo. Another one of many presentations that was 'talk to the people around you' variety...very frustrating as I want to learn from someone whose abstract suggested knowledge would be imparted. Instead, I'm floundering with other audience members unknown on a vague topic with no idea what the outcome should be. After that, given a task which I was 100% unable to do. The first was annoying, the second actually made me think that as a student, I'd be angry & humiliated in this sitution.

Both these situations made me think about where my learners were on Saturday afternoon. 

• They know each other well
• They have the language they need (I know)
• They have practiced , because they wanted to
• They can manage the tech (app on my iPad) intuitively (I know)
• They're a bit shy & reluctant to speak up (I know)
• They want to do something 'safe'... within their capabilities
• Very different artistic 'skills'

The 'task' had been a follow up to 'finishing' their graded reader -  draw a picture of your favourite animal as homework. This takes the 'performance anxiety' out of drawing, and can be done in 2 minutes or half an hour (not a classroom time management problem waiting for perfection or "I'm done"). The language aspect = answer some questions about your animal. The result had been one word responses (predictable) which we 'repaired' together, building full sentences & reviewing structures from the reader on the way (so, it did involve grammar, it did involved syntax, it did involve spelling).

I've posted before about using Chatterkids, and the benefits of anonymising student output...here are the results of my students using each others' work to personalise their work. They controlled the device, blinged up their work, re-recorded if they wanted to & agreed with each other when they were done. As you can see & hear, I think a great pay off which got a lot more language flowing than I know they'd usually not be keen to do :)

Students get to keep their work - parents can also see the outcomes as we shared to their Google Classroom. Genuinely happy faces...what do you think? Task based learning?

My Tropical Rainforest Project - Kokona

 

Orang-Utans live in Indonesia's rainforest. Orang-Utans sleep in nests in trees and eat birds, insects, some frogs. 

Bali Mynas live in Indonesia's rainforest. Bali Mynas eat insects and fruit. 

Atlas moths eat smaller insects. Atlas moths lives in Sarawak.

Meet Moe's (talking) pet dog!

 

Check out Moe's project from her reading book (OUP's "Read & Imagine" series 'Crocodile in the House'). In this Chatterkids talking photo, she's interviewed by her classmate to read her own answers from the prompts provided. Yes, one word answers would 'do' but why not 'go for it' and fully exploit the chance to say more?!

Cute drawing, and lovely pronunciation = great job Moe!

 

Haruki's after reading project

Listen to Haruki being interviewed by his classmate Moe, about his original artwork & description of his favourite animal!..Unusually for most japanese kids his age, he likes snakes...budding herpatologist?

This is a project derived from an after reading task, following up 'completing' his OUP Read & Imagine graded reader "Crocodile in the House". I'm a big fan of getting 'more from less' - here exploiting the Chatterkids app to anonymously add audio to a picture, and to have to hurry up within a 30 second limit. Thus, no teacher pressure to get on with it - a timer. Ideal, as this means students can practice, restart, retry before agreeing that they could do it to their own satisfaction (not the teacher's!).

Great practice for Cambridge exams or any speaking activity; personalised and with a peer, importantly not getting interrogated!

 

A talking platypus

Check out Minami's unseen platypus project, as an after reading piece for her graded reader (OUP Read & Discover) series. She narrates her illustration beautifully :)

 

 

Kenshin's platypus project

Check out Kenshin's description of Australia's very shy platypus (an animal he's never seen( but we read about in an Oxford Read & Discover graded reader - we can travel in our minds!
 

Yushin's snow animal

Check out Yushin's after reading project! How cool is his snow animal (in the middle of summer - we're melting!)

 

Yukihi's snow animal

 

Check out Yukihi's lovely after reading project - created with Chatterpix in a matter of minutes. Student's own design on paper, descriptive writing & then reading own work fluently :)

Talking text - Chiharu's Snow Rabbit

 

Listen to super Chiharu describing her "Snow Animal", an after reading project from OUP Read & Imagine graded reader "In the Snow". Extensive reading really works for our students' four skills and is an excellent outside of class  learning component; boosts language (grammar as well as vocabulary recyclying), imagination, reading large chunks of text & coping with comprehension questions quickly > great exam preparation too.

Creating this work = loads of fun as well - self & class as a group proof-reading & practicing, encouraging and giggling :)

Our Amazing Picnics - after reading project from young learners

Reading is a crucial part for any language learners' path to vocabulary acquisition/activation, familiarity & flexibility with grammatical structures, coping with long texts, exploring new as well as familiar topics...and letting imaginations run away (a bit like the robot character does in this yarn when it gets supercharged by 'fantastic' lightning!).

This after reading project page, in an Oxford Read & Imagine level 2 graded reader (The Big Storm),  was all about personalising the background story to the adventure > going for a picnic. Sub-topics here recycle vocabulary sets of food (likes & dislikes), friends (physical descriptions), weather, places to go around town...we all love recycling language! (This is approx CEFR A1; 450 Headwords at this level, 689 words in this title)

As with all young learners, some love drawing & in Japan, have ninja-like skills - others (like me) have a complete phobia about blank drawing spaces and will produce the bare minimum as quickly as possible (and only after considerable cajoling!). NB This was not an arts/crafts lesson - rather, get us some content to work off, with the writing aspect my targetted outcome. (As with any open-ended task like this in my classroom in Japan, I try hard to minimise the use of erasers...a quick correction or fine tune is fine; rubbing out/erasing 20 minutes-worth of work & starting over is not!).

Regardless of artistic skills, we all needed encouragement to look back through the book to get 'more' ideas...and the same applied to finding the words we subsequently 'needed' to produce the written output. Importantly, don't cramp the artwork with this 'news' in advance (otherwise you'll end with carefully chosen/limited drawings!)...so then to find the words/structures we need to describe our work. From the story already (quizlet set of the glossary here by the way!)

 

Rina's African animal🦓

My favourite African animal is a zebra. 

My zebra runs in Africa. 

He goes to the jungle to find food, and he can find the grass. 

So he's happy!

Ruka's African animal☆

 One day a giraffe.The giraffe was very beautiful. 

She fell into a trap. 

She was sad, but tonight many
animals helped the giraffe. 

She was happy!

Arisa's African animal

One day, a zebra heard tales of a rare grass, deep within the forest.

So, she started to go to the forest. 

She met a lion, and she was scared so she run away, but at last she found the rare grass. 

She overcame her shyness.

A little bit of Project Based Learning

How do you make pentagons?

Just because you didn't turn to the next page in the text book, does not mean your lesson went nowhere!

Learners need a change of gear, a change of task, a change of procedure...whilst they can recycle the language they've been exposed to & need another way to exploit (they don't know they want to do this, by the way...they do know they want to do something not English, maybe, involves some art and yes please, a game on top :)

The basic premise, nicely embedded in Everybody Up 2 is an arts & crafts detour to review learning in units 1 & 2. Themes/topics = jobs, the five senses, and places around town. Some drawing, review of spelling & flipping back & forth through our text books = priceless refreshment of learning. None of this explicitly teacher directed, but rather, learners realising what they need to do & help each other out & find 'short cuts' (aide de memoire?).

The hardest part = how do you divide a paper plate (left over from our BBQ!) into equal fifths?

End of the day, don't sweat the details (we do not have protractors...and bannish erasers from any task like this!); just get on with it - primary objective is the language output (next week, conveniently open/observation week at Luna). 

We're ready - bring in the parents :)

So, what we actually accomplished is a nice little ambush; students "have" all the language embedded  into their paper plate, subliminal cues & rehearsed structures etc.

All I have to do next week is arrange the extra chairs & maybe provide the odd prompt, notice if we've got something to fine tune (the week after open week, without parents critiquing) and give high 5s.

 

Tundra Biome project - taking a text book project home

 

Check out this original work from three of our junior high school students, as a project extension to our class studies in Everybody Up 5. Class one = collecting ideas & googling for images, making notes, with my initial visualisation being a copy & paste job. However, as everyone was already using the PC in my classroom, I decided to let go of the mouse & keyboard & assist from the back of the room, leaving them with a Jamboard canves to populate instead. Two lads in class, sharing typing duties with a third collaborator online chirping in with editing ideas etc. I'm not 100% sure about their animal identification skills!

Biome research - googling!

There is not as much English content as I would have liked, but the task got the boys working together & thinking creatively, adding sticky notes & checking spelling, and learning how to collaborate with this online whiteboard tool. Class two: learning PC skills never did anyone any harm - it always dismays me how little Japanese students can do with tech. Regardless, this output was a personal mission for them & I am sure will settle the 'biome' concept into their memories.

Well done lads!

Expanded horizons - biome take away

Young Learners - Can Do by themselves!

 

 Yuuna introduces her family...

Meet Shuma and his family...

 This is Mashiro and her family...

Emika inroduces her family...

I'm sure you'll agree these young learners have drawn lovely portraits of their family members, and can talk really confidently about them as well! Well done Emika, Mashiro, Shuma & Yuuna: termendous project

Young Learners & graded readers: win win!

Supplements to class books

I think graded readers have a place in every language learning environment; they certainly play an important part in our learning goals at Luna, and have proven their worth many times over as our students have blossomed from learning first words to biting off big chunks in Cambridge exams - be it entry level Young Learners (pre-A1Starters) to B2:First with us here at JP004.

Young Learners are rarely independent learners, so we use our readers in class to form good habits; get used to the format & style, find the audio or read along with the teacher narrating - we love correcting the teacher if he/she 'makes a mistake'! We exploit the artwork to predict or reflect, recycle & repeat. We get used to the kinds of tasks that are included in the puzzle pages, and understand that we absolutely can turn the pages back to find what we are looking for together (is it a team race? are we working in pairs? are the books on the table even? which pages do we need to look at?) Follow the directions (which are also in English). Stuck? Ask peers or the teacher for help, of course it's OK!

Exploit the glossary

Good choice of reader will mean you can easily suppliment/compliment your regular course books, be it in terms of vocabulary or target structure. Working on animals or numbers...prepositions or suggestions...culture, values, social studies or science? 

Use your readers for much more than 'just reading' and instead a launch pad for inquisitive minds & project work in all shapes and forms - a talking picture of a favourite character being interviewed maybe...a poster or illustration personalising vocabulary & self...scaffolded writing eg focussing on personification, localisation or prediction...use the 'hard' or new words imaginatively not as 'test' items.

Make a meal out of the level of language, and the repetitive nature of graded reader titles? Notice, for

pronunciation mining

example, when you can take advantage of regular past tense verbs. Make it a listening task & colour code your -ed endings and then organise them - organise them into sets in side the front cover (invariably blank real estate there!). Can your learners match up the (probably limited number of) irregular past tense verbs with their dictionary form - another reason to re-read (but this time scanning) & quickly.

Collaborating on a project

Reading out loud? I really think this is a bad idea for so many reasons (stage fright, fear of mistakes, "I'm too slow", not confident with big words, wasn't in class last week, didn't hear the audio etc)! Instead, narrate the story yourself (model good pronunciation/intonation, speed) and only have your students speak particular roles each. This encourages them to read ahead & identify direct speech and to figure out who is speaking...this can take time but let them do that together & agree! What words in the text help us do that? How does the speaker speak (cry? shout? whisper?)...it has meaning! But don't flog it - save more for next week and only give 'homework' if they can do it/know how to do it. Can they actually access the audio components, for example.

Lastly for now, with digital versions of readers available (OUP did a fantastic job in 2020 offering their reading bookshelf titles available for free) it is not hard to cater for online learners as well as our F2F cohort to stay on the same page. Takes a bit of thinking about, but the room for even more exploitation of the materials is there - US or British narration as well as fast/normal/slow choices. Most importantly, enjoy. Reading will yield the best results over time, at a regular, steady pace, at 'not-too-hard' levels and with meaningful engagement/activities. Keep track of progress - not just word count or number of books read, or obsess over reading speed...but build portfolios for your students, give them the confidence to skip tough words & come back later with an informed guess over meaning if they have to; don't translate everything, and don't stuff it all up by making it a test.

Enjoy reading :)

Leading a horse to water; how to make it drink?

After a month or so of "I don't know", "I guess", "Yeah", "Maybe" & "Not really" responses to just about everything we have tried, Damian & I have been scratching our heads & thinking outside the box for this class, considering a project-based approach. Our learner is far too cool for school, and his English far too good for a traditional approach...plus we know he will start yawning & pull his hoodie back up as soon as we revert to type & try to start teaching. A follow up to an in-class brain-storming activity never got off the ground because the written product was so utterly bizarre I did not know where to pick up...man-eating carrots, flying volcanic robots & reincarnation. My efforts to flesh out the narrative had us going in ever-tightening circles of teen logic & reticence.

Clearly this kid plays way to many games. A Placement Test we rely on had given us our first 'false' reading (I think) in that he was about 2 CEFR levels below where we had pencilled him, so we are still trying to establish a baseline level we can work from. OK. Writing didn't quite work out, so let's see what we can do about a vocabulary exploration.

Word Up the tool of choice here, expecting a short 'it's too hard/boring' after 20 minutes...but no. "Can I use a dictionary" and "I'm gonna loose if I just use 3-letter words, aren't I?" revelations. Uncovered a will to win/compete with people (not just programmes) and thinking about strategy - as well as accepting tips/hints to do better (after outright rejection at first - couple of big scores from me vs 'dog' did the trick!).

So, introspective reluctant learner wants to win - games - and has an impressive vocabulary. Dislikes traditional classroom approach but mum wants him to be given essays for homework! Gamification might be an answer; I have seen a few presentations now of using games for courses, but I'm not a gamer myself...I really doubt I could become a Minecraft ninja in a hurry and build this into a strategy. Likewise, I have no interest in descending into the depths of Second Life and all the escapist/obsessive traits that seems to bring out in people. Last thing we really want to do is loose this learner into an even deeper layer of withdrawal from us! Not that we can play crossword games every week either (fun though that would be for me!).

Conundrum. Any suggestions, fellow teachers?