Transcript From Concept to Creation: Teaching Grammar That Sticks

From Concept to Creation:
Teaching Grammar That Sticks
A session prepared for
Central Florida TESOL
Saturday, February 28, 2004
Kerry Purmensky
Assistant Professor, TESOL
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL
[email protected]
Bloom’s Taxonomy (revised)
Create
Generate, plan, synthesize, produce the new
Evaluate
Critique or judge based on explicit standards/criteria
Analyze
Break down, relate parts and whole, organize
Apply
Follow procedures to solve problems or carry out tasks
Understand
Connect new learning to prior knowledge by
interpreting, classifying, comparing, summarizing, etc.
Remember
Elaborate, Encode, and retrieve information
from long-term memory
Conceptest – Remember, Encode
Gertrude Ederle died on November 29, 2003. She was 98 years old.
What did she do on April 6, 1926?
Activity
Without discussing, choose one of the following verbs to describe what you
think she did.
Write down one sentence below.
GO
SIT
EAT
FIGHT
READ
VOTE
WATCH
SIT
SPEAK
SWIM
RUN
STAND
ROB
TEACH
CREATE
WEAR
WRITE
PREDICT
PLAY
PRESENT
SEEK
CROSS
SAY
CALL
DECIDE
TELL
IS
BEAT
HOPE
HAVE
WANT
SING
GET
GIVE
COVER
STUDY
HELP
What tense did we use to describe her activity?
Think-pair-share – Understand and Apply
Let’s guess some information about Gertrude. Write down what you think is the
answer to the following questions. Then you are going to pair up with someone
in the room and share what you have written. First, one person will ask the
question and the other one answers, and then you can switch.
1) How old was she when she did it?
She ____________ ____________ years old.
2) What did she wear?
She ____________ a ____________ swimsuit.
3) What did she do while she was swimming?
She ____________ ____________.
4) Who begged her to stop swimming?
Her ____________ ____________ her to stop swimming.
5) What question did her coach ask her while she swam?
Her coach ____________ her, __________________________________________?”
6) How did Gertrude answer her coach?
She ____________ him, _______________________________________________.”
Think-pair-share – Understand and Apply
7) How long did it take her to swim the Channel?
It ____________ her ____________ hours and ____________ minutes.
8) How far did she swim?
She ____________ ____________ miles.
9) After she had finished, who did the mayor of New York compare Gertrude to?
He ____________ her to ____________.
10) Afterward, what did the President of the United States call Gertrude?
He ____________ her “________________________.”
What else are we teaching, other than just verb forms?
Hypothesize – Test – Confirm - Analyze
You’ve written some simple past tense verbs in sentences and questions;
let’s try to guess some rules about the spelling of these verbs.
Let’s start with the verbs we used above.
is - was
answer - answered
wear - wore
take - took
sing - sang
swim - swam
beg – begged
compare - compared
ask - asked
call - called
Hypothesize – Test – Confirm - Analyze
How did we create these verbs?
Verb
Spelling in simple past
tense
call
ask
called
asked
compare
compared
is
take
wear
sing
swim
was
took
wore
sang
swam
beg
begged
answer
answered
Spelling Rule
Test- Confirm
with examples
What other kinds of rules could you study with this method?
Create-a-quiz - Evaluate
Now, let’s evaluate what we have learned.
You are going to create a quiz for each other to take over the simple past tense.
Use the verbs from the list above and create 3 questions about yourself which
must be answered in the simple past tense. Then exchange your quiz with a
partner, answer the questions, and hand them back. After that, discuss the
correct answers with your partner. (In your own class, you can make this
simpler by giving models and ideas for questions, or you can make it more
challenging by leaving it open - this should generate a lot of questions as they
try to apply their knowledge to a new situation, and negotiate the correct
answer).
Example:
What year did I graduate from high school?
1.
2.
3.
Creative Writing - Create:
Homework: Go to npr.org and click on audio archives. Search for Gertrude Ederle. Listen to
the stories about her and write a story about Gertrude for your classmates.
Homework: Go to biography.com and find some information about someone you like, hate,
respect, or have an interest in. Use this information to write a story for your classmates.
How can you make this activity accessible to other age groups and levels?
You are going to divide into groups and create a similar lesson plan. You can choose any
verb tense or grammar concept, plus any person you want to write about.
Tasks:
1) Choose a person (try to stump us!) (I have some samples if you want)
2) Choose a grammar concept
3) Create a conceptest to capture our attention
4) Create a think-pair-share activity with about 1-2 questions
5) Create a hypothesize-test-confirm activity with one rule
6) Be prepared to share your activity with the group!
Gertrude Ederle