April Goals & Activities
April’s Theme: “Back and Forth”
April’s Goal: For this month’s goal, we’ll focus on Social Learning in the Interpersonal Mode. Helping students take the risk to use their newly acquired language skills to speak to others can be a challenge, but is often what students MOST want to learn to do when they take a language course. This month’s activities will provide students with the opportunity to interact with each other in one or more of their languages to build their confidence and grow their conversational experiences.
For recognition, submit projects by May 15, 2023
PREPARE - Educators
Learn more about the Interpersonal Mode of Communication. In true interpersonal communication, no two conversations will be alike, as each person responds to the unique comments of the other with follow up questions, interjections, etc.
This chart comes from the US 2015 Ohio Department of Education “Guide to Novice Interpersonal Rubrics” (page 3) reminds us that true “Interpersonal” is not a prepared skit or rehearsed conversation. It requires each participant to listen to and respond to the other(s).
Students at lower proficiency levels will benefit from a WORD WALL, poster, or printed out sheet with useful conversation phrases such as “gap fillers” (So / Well / You know / Really?), “general reactions” (I agree / You gotta be kidding me! / No way! / It’s okay.), “expressing opinions” (That’s interesting / That’s funny / That’s a shame), “sequencing words” (first, next, finally), “asking for clarification” (What? Can you repeat that?), and even “interjections” (Oh no! / Wow!) that demonstrate listening to the other person.
Consider a new seating arrangement that encourages conversation. A good resource is Kagan Cooperative Learning or just look for “Kagan Seating Chart”. Here are two ideas:
Train Arrangement: Place student desks in squares of 4 with 2 side-by-side desks and 2 facing desks. Students now have a “face partner” and a “shoulder partner.” They can now practice the same activity with two different people.
Bus Arrangement: Try a ‘bus’ format with two rows of desks facing one another. When the bus “stops,” half the students get off and get on the “other bus” (or row of desks).
SHARE
Think, Pair, Share – If your students have never had practice speaking to each other, they will need support the first few times. Consider having some practice activities. For example, post a prompt on a screen or pass out a “worksheet” (which you can collect later for accountability) and give students a minute to brainstorm and write down vocabulary they think they might use for the topic. They can then share their list with a partner and add any new vocabulary from their partner. They can then partner again or share as a class adding vocabulary to a master list. This prevents students from non-participation and creates a word bank to speak from. Once they have their list (security blanket), let them practice the prompt multiple times with random partners. Remind students to listen, respond appropriately, and ask follow-up questions.
Comic strip descriptions - Give each student a portion of a comic strip. Without showing their pictures to one another, the students should attempt to describe their image, and put the comic strip into the correct order. After about 10 minutes, the students can guess the order, show one another their portion, and see if they were correct. OR students create their own comics and then the other classroom prepares text for it. https://www.toonytool.com/#createCartoon
“Speed Friend-Making” – For this activity, the two rows of desks facing each other or “bus arrangement” works. Similar to speed dating, one side of the desks (or bus) will change desks every 1-3 minutes (you decide based on their level and topics). Each pair will discuss their topic for the time allowed, when the time is up, the student on the moving side stands up and moves to the next desk for a new conversation. (The person in the last desk will move to the front desk.) Teachers can announce the prompt, post it on a screen, or give students a stack of cards with topics. For accountability, students can audio record each conversation or write a quick summary of what their partner said before moving to the next desk. To do this with your matched class, students can be grouped in separate timed breakout rooms.
Improve with a Brown Paper Bag: For this activity, put “random items in a paper bag, and student pair must use the items that they draw out to create an interpersonal dialogue. To do this with your matching classroom, consider calling out two or three students (one from each class) and to make it even more engaging, add some items unique to your country or culture to the bag. This activity is also great for developing the skill of circumlocution or describing something you don’t know the name of in the target language. To do this activity online with your paired class, the "brown bag" can be virtual images.
Pretend you’re there… (or here): Each class can share a photo of a place in their city or country and students can share a fact or piece of information about the place(s). To make it more interesting, you can use Google Earth to locate the site and use the street view map for a 360 degree view. The students in the matched classroom must have a conversation with each other as if “they were there” in the photo or on the street map. Afterwards, allow time for some follow-up questions (by the visitors) and answers about the place (by the host that sent the photo).
Interview Pop: Identify several famous people (living or dead) that your students will know something about. Then provide students with a list of 10-15 verbs (sample list below) to select from to create 5 interview questions. Each question uses a verb from the list. In partners, students take turns role playing a famous person from your list and an interviewer. If you do this activity with your matched classrooms – one class could interview the other(s).
Sample list: Decide, Love, Offer, Prefer, Move, Win, Continue, Choose, Buy, Wait, Consider, Change
Sample questions might be:
How did you decide to become a singer?
Did you want to continue be famous?
What did you love about being the president?
What would you change about your life?
What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment?
Guess Who or What I am: This activity works for all levels of language learners. In pairs or as a large group, a student writes down a person or thing that they will pretend to be and the partner or group will ask questions trying to identify the person or thing. You can limit the number of questions asked (similar to the 20 Questions game) or assign one question per student. Questions can be Yes/No or open-ended as you determine. This activity helps students use describing words (size, color, etc.) or verbs (purpose, activity, etc.) and builds circumlocution strategies.
Would you rather …?: This activity works best for more advanced students, and is good practice of the conditional mood or verb forms. It’s a good idea to have 5-10 questions prepared in advance on cards for students to use. To build language skills, ask students to give a short reason or longer explanation (depending upon level) for their choice to expand text-type (how much they say and how organized it is). Here’s a link to a list of “Would You Rather Questions.”
Would you rather be able to sing beautifully or speak fluently in a chosen language?
Would you rather have more time or more money?
Would you rather watch a movie or go to a concert?
Would you rather dance with a sloth or a chimpanzee (great way to introduce new vocabulary)
Famous Duo Conversation - For this activity, you will need images of famous pairs or duos. A great resource are movie stills. Select a random pair of students (or one student from each matched class) to have a spontaneous interpersonal conversation as if they were the pair in the image. This is a great way to expand vocabulary and often requires circumlocution as students will want to replicate the conversation as they can. This results are often both funny and memorable. Famous pairs can be from Superhero movies such as Batman and Robin, Ant Man and the Wasp, Susan Storm and Richard Reed, Iron Man and Spiderman, etc. Find duos in Disney movies for younger students (even animal characters work). Pairs can be real famous people, fictional book characters (think Harry Potter series, for example, or can be partners, enemies, or romantic couples.