May Goals & Activities

May’s Theme: “Global Awareness”

Our goal this month is to celebrate our diverse cultures and diversity using the Presentational Mode of communication. Unlike the two-way interpersonal mode of communication, the “Presentational Mode” is one-way communication. It is prepared, with opportunities to edit and rehearse, and is intended for an audience of readers, listeners, or viewers. In the real world, the presentational mode is used by actors, reporters, lawyers in jury presentations, sports commentators, tour guides, in a politician’s speech, for a sales pitch, etc. As a teacher, you use the presentational mode when you teach a lesson, but it is likely interspersed with the interpersonal mode when you do comprehension checks and ask or answer student questions.

For recognition, submit projects by June 15, 2023

PREPARE – Educators

• Your goal for this month is to help your language learners become “curators” of their language content. Think of ways they can display and show off their growing language skills. This may be easier for presentational writing (think posters, online posts, Padlet, a bulletin board of written work, etc.,) so here are some digital tools shared by Catherine Ousselin, a French teacher in Washington state, USA and Carmen Scoggins, a Spanish teacher in North Carolina, USA. You’ll also find tools on our Global Classroom Pair-Share ICT page.

  • https://www.catherine-ousselin.com/digital-storytelling

  • https://www.catherine-ousselin.com/digital-storytelling-1

  • https://www.catherine-ousselin.com/recording-tools

  • https://www.catherine-ousselin.com/curation-collaboration

  • https://scogginsc.wixsite.com/carmenscoggins/tech-tools

• For students new to presenting, it is helpful for them to use images as reminders of their talking points. Consider having them use PowerPoint or Google Slides but “no words allowed” – or for your matched classrooms, the language could be limited to 3 words per slide in one of their shared languages.

• Practice does NOT make perfect, but it is important. Students can practice with each other and provide each other constructive feedback. They could also record themselves and listen, reflecting on what they will do differently the next time. You can have students present to each other, to another class, or to their matched classrooms.

• NOTE: Student anxiety about speaking is real. Scaffold your practice and activities to ensure students have the highest opportunity for success. For students who are very nervous, ask them to “present” to their best friend(s) or to you, and record it. Be their coach, helping them to improve, but also their cheerleader when they face their fear and step-by-step, overcome it.    

SHARE

• Plan a magical trip.   https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/geography/countries 

  Younger learners can create a passport. Fold color construction paper into a booklet cover and fill with white paper cut and folded to an approximate passport size. Have students place stickers (or drawings) inside to represent the different countries in their dream trip around the world. What will they see and why? Then they can use the passport as their to tell about their trip to their partners or class.

• Cooking Demonstration. This is a great way to have students practice sequencing words (first, second, next, before, after, finally, etc.) as well as numbers for weights and measures. It can also give them an opportunity to share their culture with your matched class! Students can work singly or in pairs to teach how to make a popular food dish. They can make the food live, or use a video of the food being prepared and do the voiceover. If carefully coordinated, students in paired classes could meet online to make the same dish together. Afterward they can put the recipes in written form to create a class cookbook to be shared digitally.

• Performance: Prepare a script together and perform a play.

• Podcast-based activities: Come up with an interesting topic and record a video.

• Descriptive drawing activity: Pair up the students and give each student a picture, placing it face down so partners cannot see each other’s cards. They must describe the picture for their partner to draw. Encourage learners to describe at their targeted goal level, adding additional details. You may need to teach some vocabulary for this task such as prepositions (in front of, behind, next to, above) and depending upon the complexity of the pictures (background, etc.). This activity should be timed with a “time’s almost up” warning. To use this activity with your matched classrooms, try breakout rooms with a timer.  

• Share your culture! The goal of this activity is to give your students an opportunity to present information about your country and culture to your partner class(es). Ask students to share ONE activity, event, or concept that interests them. The language goal is descriptive narrative, the more details the better. For more advanced learners, encourage them to include an introduction (even if it is just a short sentence), 3-5 points or details, and a conclusion. Their topic could be a place, a holiday, a cultural activity, a popular sport, dance, or kind of music, etc. It will be of more interest to their audience if they present with images (use a tech tool above).

• All about ME. Students will record (or present live) their autobiography (or role-play as someone else) using the first person. For very low levels, you can create sentence frames, “I live in _____.” or “I have __ “ that they can customize. Sentence frames can also work to introduce new vocabulary or grammar structures students may not know but will want to use. For example, “I was born in 20--.”  Students can learn the sentence frame without studying the past tense. This activity can be just spoken or can incorporate images.    

• Cooperative Storytelling. This activity includes elements of interpersonal and presentational communication. Create groups of 2-4 students (use breakout rooms online) and ask them to write a story together. Students will use interpersonal (and a digital app or google doc) to co-create their story and presentational to read it to the larger group. Storytelling includes sequencing words (first, next, before, after), description of a character, place, weather, etc., and action verbs to tell what happens. Students will typically use the 3rd person (he/she/it/they). Depending upon your language and your students’ level, storytelling can use different time frames (past, present, future) so organize the activity so students have the language skills needed to be successful. It’s okay to use just present tense, give them a vocabulary list to work from, or sentence frames.