Transcript Developing Sensory tasks for the languages Primary class

DEVELOPING SENSORY TASKS
FOR LANGUAGES EARLY
PRIMARY CLASSES
By Viviana Golding, LOTE Project Officer DEECD
BSW Region
OVERVIEW
Senses are physiological capacities within
organisms, which provide inputs for perception.
 Humans have a multitude of senses; in addition
to the traditionally recognised five senses of:
sight(ophthalmoception); hearing (audioception);
taste (gustaoception); smell (olphacoception) and
touch (tactioception), other senses include:
temperature (thermoception); kinesthetic sense
(proprioception); pain (nociception); balance
(equilibrioception) and acceleration
(kinesthesioception). (definitions of senses
and numbers of senses differ).
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QUIZ
Non human animals have other senses, which
humans do not possess...
 What are for example:
 Echolocation?
 Magnetoception?
 Electroception?
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A RICH DIET FOR LEARNING-A MULTI-SENSORY
APPROACH THAT NOURISHES ALL CHILDREN
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“Sensory integration is a natural part of the
growth and maturation process that occurs
during the early childhood years. Early childhood
classrooms should therefore provide lots of
experiences that support this growth process.
Children learn by doing and benefit from daily
experiences that provide a rich sensory diet as
well as hands-on play opportunities” (Blagojevic,
Kendrick and Maeverde, “Young Children and
Sensory Integration: Planning for Success”, 2003)
SENSORY TASKS IN LANGUAGES
Teachers need to have their linguistic teaching
intentions clear when they utilise sensory tasks
to produce learning/acquisition in languages.
 Teachers need to provide a varied diet of sensory
tasks to cater for all learners.
 Teachers need to realise that children grow
differently , also in relation to senses
development.
 Sensory activities/tasks need to be repeated often
to produce language acquisition.
 Sensory tasks work well also with adolescent and
adult learners.
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TASKS
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A Texture Book.
Teaching intention: to enable students to describe objects in
terms of texture.
Method: the teacher brings to school and displays a number of
materials like cotton balls; leaves; dry leaves; sandpaper; aluminium
foil; rubber gloves; velvet; soap; plastic, etc The teacher displays a few
baskets labelled with words like: soft; rubbery; smooth; velvety, rough,
etc The teacher picks up a few objects and describes them with
sentences like: this is velvety; this is very soft, etc. A few children, one
by one, are asked to come and touch the objects and to put them in the
baskets, as they see fit. No correction/change should be made by the
teacher. The sorting process can be done again and usually children
love to do it a few times. Children are then encouraged to look around
the classroom to add other objects to the baskets. Throughout these
tasks the teacher continues to provide support with the language.
After this task is finished, the teacher divides the children into groups
(as many as the baskets) and asks each group to paste the different
textured objects into big pages.
A book of textured pages will be then created, which will be used by
the teacher to reinforce the language and to work towards new
language structures.
TASKS
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It smells like....
Teaching intention: to enable students to describe objects in
terms of smell and to increase vocabulary ( using the sense of
smell in activities is a powerful way to encourage long term
memory acquisition).
Method: the teacher brings to school and displays a number of objects
like lemons; onions; garlic; banana chunks, peanut butter; vinegar;
rose petals; coffee beans; vanilla extract, etc also the teacher organises
some film canisters with pinholes at the top. In the canisters the
teacher puts parts of the objects on display and cotton balls for the
liquid scents. Each object on display has a sentence like: “garlic has a
strong odour”; “a rose smells sweet”, etc. The nouns should be written
in bold and emphasised in the teacher’s sentences.
The teacher then encourages the children to smell the objects on
display supporting the smelling experience with the sentences.
Children should then try to guess the objects in the canisters through
their smells. The process of guessing should be repeated and the
number of canisters with other “smells” should be increased.
TASKS
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Can you make your body into a....
Teaching intention: to enable students to understand sentences
in relation to animals, flowers; objects, etc.
Method: the teacher brings to school and displays a few pictures
or photographs of items, which may be related to a specific topic,
for example, flowers. On the pictures some specific parts of the
objects are also highlighted; e.g. in a sunflower picture, roots, stem
and petals are highlighted, maybe even the sun.
The teacher then shows the children the pictures describing them
with sentences like: this is a sunflower; here are the petals; here is
the stem and here are the roots.
The teacher then asks the children: “Can you make your body into
a sunflower? Show me your petals; show me your roots; show me
your stem...
The teacher can add some other elements to this task, like playing
music and asking: Can you move in the wind? Can you turn to the
sun? Can you grow from a little seed to a big sunflower?
TASKS
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I like it; I don’t like it; I like it a lot; a like it so so.
Teaching intention: to enable students to express likes and
dislikes in a kinaesthetic way (linked to the Total Physical
Response, by Dr James Asher, Learning Another Language
Through Actions-right side of the brain, which dominates early
years learning).
Method: at first the teacher stands in front of the children; when
she/he steps forwards she/he says: I like it; when she/he steps
backwards she/he says: I don’t like it; when she/he steps to the left
she/he says: I like it a lot; to the right, I like it so so.
The teacher then mentions to the children the name of a food, e.g.:
milk and invite them to move in the appropriate direction.This is
repeated many times with different foods; at some stage children
are also encouraged to accompany movements with language.
Food tasting can be added afterwards to reinforce the language;
small pieces of cheese, meat, vegetables or other foods can be
offered to students who are invited to express likes and dislikes.
TASKS
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Wonderfully Weird Words
Teaching intention: to enable students to familiarise themselves
with many different words in the target language not for what they
mean but for their sensory effect. This task will also enable students to
learn adjectives.
Method: the teacher selects a number of words in the target language,
which have an interesting sound and records them, either said by
him/her or by somebody else. No translation is given.
The teacher then mentions to the children that words are wonderful
and exciting and that there are different kinds of words: sweet words;
bitter words; stinky words; perfumed words, sad words, happy words
and so on.
The teacher puts these labels, in the target language, in different parts
of the classroom; the students (all or in small groups) stand in the
middle of the classroom; then the recording is played; students will go
to the side of the room where they feel that a word belongs. This
process should be repeated a few times. This stage can then be
expanded with the meaning of the words given; the students might
then change their minds to which side of the classroom a word belongs.
TASKS
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Big Leaves-Small Leaves
Teaching intention: to enable students to compare sizes (of
leaves) in the target language.
Method: the teacher brings some brown bags full of different kind
of leaves and keeps a bag for himself/herself. On the board the
teacher sticks the leaves from the biggest to the smallest or vice
versa using the language structures: this leaf is smaller than this
leaf or this leaf is bigger than this leaf and so on. He/she asks the
students to do the same with their bags full of leaves. The bags of
leaves can be swapped to allow students to repeat the process; one
or more students can do the process at the board in front of the
class. This task can be followed by the “quest for the biggest leaf”.
TASKS
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Language and Sounds (using music, rhythm, chants, sounds in
languages teaching in the early years is extremely important as
young students belong to the tribe of “oral cultures” and as such
the sense of hearing is extremely important).
Teaching intention: to enable students to remember languages
structures through sounds and/or music.
Method: the teacher reads a simplified text, which is well known
to the students (a fairy tale; a big book, a nursery rhyme); a
number of significant sentences have a special sound/special music
associated to them (castanets; clapping; whistle; drum, etc; at
times, depending on the text, the sounds can be onomatopoeic).The
reading needs to be repeated many times over a period of weeks.
Slowly the students will be able to say the significant sentences
when they hear the sound that is associated to them. The teacher
will help this process by slowly omitting the significant sentences
and playing only the sounds.
TASKS
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Navajo Stone Game
Teaching intention: to enable students to acquire linguistic
structures using sounds and movements
Method: the students are kneeling in a circle; each of them has in
their left hand a small stone or a small ball or a piece of material;
The teacher has created a short paragraph that is the text of the
game; this text can be as simple as: This is a funny game for us to
play; we only need a voice, a stone and we are away; if you give
your stone to him another stone you’ll receive from your kin. The
students. 1- this is a funny game: the students clap their hands
three times on their legs; 2- for us to play: the students clap their
hands twice on the floor in front of them and leave the stone on the
floor; 3-if you give: the students cross their hands and pick up the
stone with their right hands; 4- the stone to him: the students clap
their hands on the floor twice; 5- another stone: the students clap
their hands on their legs twice; 6- you’ll receive from your kin: with
their left hands the students take the stone from the student
sitting on their left side while at the same time pass their stone to
the student sitting on their right side.
TASKS
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Total Physical Response Activities
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Origami
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Cutting shapes
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Building with Lego
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Drawing and colouring under instructions
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Hockey Pocky
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5 steps as a......
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Swatting...words and sentences
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Telling stories through Drama
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Cooking and/or preparing food
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Having fun with words (tongue twisters; interesting rhymes, etc).