Raising Awareness & Enabling Application

English Language Institute of Singapore (ELIS)

20 Oct 202208:29

Summary

TLDRThis video series focuses on how English language department heads and teachers can apply the six principles of English language teaching and learning in their curriculum planning. Two teachers, Miss A. Last Resort and Miss Some Common, discuss how they thoughtfully and flexibly apply these principles to support student learning. The video covers two processes: raising awareness, where students engage with sensory experiences, and enabling application, where teachers model skills and strategies for students. By breaking down tasks and guiding students step-by-step, teachers help build students' confidence and enhance their learning experience.

Takeaways

🎯 The video series focuses on how English language heads of departments and teachers can apply six principles of English language teaching and learning, along with six teaching processes, in their curriculum planning.
📚 Two teachers, Miss A. Last Resort and Miss Some Common, discuss their flexible and thoughtful application of these principles and processes.
🎥 The discussion begins with the process of raising awareness, which involves introducing the topics students will learn and guiding them on the skills they will acquire by the end of the lesson.
🧀 Miss A. introduces a multi-sensory experience, bringing in mini wheels of cheese to help students connect more deeply with the topic, including watching a video about a cheese rolling competition.
🗺️ Raising awareness also includes showing students a roadmap of their learning journey, highlighting the skills needed to reach their goals.
📖 Teachers emphasize that students should predict the content of texts, a key practice in becoming expert readers.
🔍 Miss Some Common breaks down complex topics and text structures into manageable pieces, specifying clear content, language, and behavior objectives for each lesson.
🛠️ The process of enabling application involves modeling the application of skills, helping students observe and learn from the teacher's demonstration.
🤔 Teachers model thinking processes, including how to deal with challenging words by asking questions and drawing inferences from the text, making thinking visible for students.
👥 The teacher gradually reduces support, encouraging students to co-construct tasks with peers, helping them build confidence in applying the skills on their own.

Q & A

What is the focus of the video series?
-The video series focuses on how English language heads of departments and teachers can apply the six principles of English language teaching and learning, along with six teaching processes, in planning their school's English-language curriculum, developing lessons, and making decisions about how to teach English.
Who are the two teachers featured in the video, and what do they discuss?
-The two teachers featured are Miss A Last Resort and Miss Some Common. They discuss how they applied the principles and processes of English language teaching, particularly focusing on raising awareness and enabling application in their secondary classrooms.
What are the two teaching processes highlighted in the video?
-The two teaching processes highlighted are 'raising awareness' and 'enabling application'.
How did Miss A Last Resort raise awareness about cheese rolling with her students?
-Miss A Last Resort brought in mini wheels of cheese for her students to see, touch, and smell while watching a video of a cheese-rolling competition. This multi-sensory experience helped students connect with the topic and better understand why people participate in such an event.
What strategy did Miss Some Common use to help her students understand the purpose of their learning?
-Miss Some Common used a 'roadmap' to show students where they were in their learning and where they were headed. She emphasized the importance of developing skills and applying previously learned skills to reach their goals.
What is the significance of predicting in reading, according to the video?
-Predicting is a key strategy that good readers use to have a sense of what they are going to read. It helps prepare students by engaging their prior knowledge and setting expectations for the text.
How does Miss A Last Resort structure her lessons for her technical students?
-Miss A Last Resort breaks down the lesson into three components: the specific content or learning goal, the language needed to achieve that goal, and the classroom behavior required to support learning.
What is the role of modeling in enabling application according to the teachers?
-Modeling involves the teacher demonstrating a skill or strategy while thinking aloud, allowing students to observe and learn from the teacher's process. This helps students understand how to approach tasks and develop skills themselves.
Why is it important for teachers to model reading strategies, as explained in the video?
-It is important for teachers to model reading strategies so that students can see how an expert reader approaches difficult texts, including how they think through challenging words or concepts. This makes the process visible and relatable to students, showing that even teachers struggle at times.
How does reducing scaffolding help in student learning?
-By gradually reducing the amount of teacher support, or scaffolding, students are encouraged to take more responsibility for their own learning. This builds their confidence and ability to apply skills independently.

Outlines

00:00

🎓 Introduction to Applying Six Principles of English Language Teaching

The video introduces a series for English language department heads and teachers on applying the six principles of English language teaching and six teaching processes in curriculum planning, lesson development, and classroom decision-making. Two teachers, Ms. Last Resort and Ms. Common, share how they applied these concepts thoughtfully to support student learning. They discuss raising awareness and enabling application, focusing on how to engage students with tactile experiences and contextual learning, such as bringing in a physical object like a cheese wheel to make lessons more relatable and multi-sensory.

05:00

🧀 Raising Awareness: Using Tactile Learning in English Lessons

The teachers discuss how raising awareness involves engaging students with multi-sensory experiences to enhance their learning. For example, one teacher introduces a cheese wheel to help students understand a cheese-rolling competition by engaging their senses of touch, smell, and taste. This approach helps students relate to the lesson content on a deeper level and encourages active participation. The teacher also explains the importance of helping students connect new knowledge with previous skills, guiding them through a roadmap of learning to become better readers.

📖 Guiding Students to Predict and Reflect in Reading

The teachers continue to explore raising awareness, focusing on helping students become expert readers. They use prediction as a key strategy, prompting students to anticipate what they will read. By reflecting on previous lessons, such as predicting content, the students are encouraged to think critically about the purpose of reading and how predicting enhances comprehension. The teacher highlights that this method helps students to engage more deeply with the text, and understand the importance of reading strategies.

🔎 Enabling Application: Modeling Reading Strategies for Students

The process of enabling application focuses on helping students acquire new skills or strategies through modeling. The teacher demonstrates how to tackle challenging words by breaking them down and using context clues, such as identifying the meaning of 'crevices' in relation to mountains. The teacher 'thinks aloud,' allowing students to see the thought process involved in deciphering difficult text. This method of visible thinking helps students empathize with the teacher's struggle, encouraging perseverance in their own learning.

🤝 Building Confidence Through Co-constructing Tasks

To further enable application, the teacher scaffolds the learning process by co-constructing tasks with students. As students grow more confident, the level of scaffolding is reduced, and they are given more responsibility for completing tasks independently or with peers. This gradual release of responsibility helps build student confidence and reinforces their ability to apply newly learned skills. The importance of modeling and shared responsibility in the learning process is emphasized, ensuring students understand how to apply strategies before working on their own.

📚 Conclusion: Applying Raising Awareness and Enabling Application

The video concludes with a summary of raising awareness and enabling application, two key teaching processes of Accolade, in relation to the six principles of English language teaching and learning (CLIPS). These processes guide teachers in making informed decisions to foster student learning. The use of multi-sensory experiences, prediction strategies, and co-constructing tasks are all highlighted as effective methods for helping students develop critical reading and language skills.

Mindmap

Keywords

💡Raising Awareness

Raising awareness refers to the process of making students conscious of the topic they are about to study, as well as the skills they will develop by the end of the lesson. In the video, it involves introducing students to both the content and learning objectives of the lesson. For example, the teacher uses tactile experiences, such as mini wheels of cheese, to help students better understand the subject matter, which helps them relate to the real-world context of the lesson.

💡Enabling Application

Enabling application is the process of helping students apply the skills or strategies they have learned. It involves modeling the application of these skills by the teacher and then gradually allowing students to take more responsibility for their learning. In the video, this is demonstrated when the teacher models how to handle unfamiliar words during reading, showing students how to think critically about meaning and context.

💡Modeling

Modeling refers to the teacher demonstrating a skill or thought process so that students can observe and learn from it. In the video, modeling is used to show students how to predict and infer the meaning of challenging words, such as 'crevasses,' by thinking aloud and making their reasoning visible. This strategy helps students become independent learners by showing them how to approach problems step by step.

💡Scaffolding

Scaffolding is the support provided by a teacher to help students learn a new concept or skill. It is reduced gradually as students become more proficient. In the video, scaffolding is evident when the teacher first models how to approach reading tasks and then reduces support, allowing students to work together or independently. This builds student confidence and promotes self-directed learning.

💡Six Principles of English Language Teaching

The six principles of English language teaching guide teachers in planning lessons and making decisions in the classroom. These principles focus on helping students acquire language skills in a thoughtful and flexible manner. The video references these principles, explaining how they influence the way teachers like Miss A Last Resort and Miss Some Common design lessons to support student learning in various types of classrooms.

💡Accolade Teaching Processes

The accolade teaching processes refer to six key methods that guide teachers in delivering effective instruction. Two of these processes, raising awareness and enabling application, are highlighted in the video. They help teachers make decisions about how to best engage students in the learning process, ensuring that lessons are both interactive and grounded in real-life contexts.

💡Predicting

Predicting is the skill of making an educated guess about the content of a text before reading it. In the video, the teachers discuss how good readers use prediction to prepare for reading. By predicting, students can engage with the text more actively and have a sense of what to expect, which enhances comprehension and retention.

💡Multi-sensory Learning

Multi-sensory learning involves using more than one sense to engage students in the learning process. The video exemplifies this approach when the teacher brings in mini wheels of cheese for students to touch, smell, and even taste. This tactile experience deepens students' understanding of the subject, making the lesson more memorable and meaningful.

💡Co-construction

Co-construction is a collaborative learning process where students and teachers work together to build understanding or solve problems. In the video, co-construction happens when the teacher and students engage in shared tasks, such as decoding difficult words, allowing students to contribute their ideas while guided by the teacher’s expertise.

💡Empathy in Learning

Empathy in learning is the understanding that both teachers and students can struggle with new concepts, and this shared experience fosters a supportive learning environment. In the video, the teacher acknowledges their own challenges with unfamiliar words, which helps students feel more comfortable with their own difficulties, creating a culture of empathy and perseverance in the classroom.

Highlights

The video series focuses on how English language heads of departments and teachers can apply six principles of English language teaching and learning.

The six teaching processes help in planning school curriculums, developing lessons, and making decisions about teaching English.

Two teachers, Miss Last Resort and Miss Common, discuss how they apply the accolade process thoughtfully and flexibly to support students' learning.

They emphasize the importance of raising awareness about the text topics and what students will learn by the end of the lesson.

Miss Last Resort introduces a tactile element by using mini wheels of cheese to make a multi-sensory experience, enhancing students' understanding of the lesson.

Raising awareness includes showing a roadmap of learning, where students need to acquire new skills or rely on previously learned ones to achieve objectives.

Engaging students in predicting what they will read next promotes active thinking and preparation for the text.

Teachers use breaking down content, language, and behavior to facilitate understanding in students.

Enabling application focuses on helping students acquire skills or strategies through thoughtful modeling and co-construction of knowledge.

Modeling involves demonstrating how to approach challenging tasks, such as understanding difficult vocabulary.

Teachers emphasize making their thought processes visible to students, guiding them in how to analyze and draw conclusions from texts.

Students observe teacher behavior and apply it to their reading strategies, learning how to approach challenges like an expert reader.

Scaffolding is progressively reduced as students gain confidence, moving from teacher-led tasks to peer collaboration.

Teacher modeling is critical for enabling students to apply skills successfully before taking on more responsibility themselves.

The accolade processes of raising awareness and enabling application are key for building student confidence and enhancing their learning experience.