2 Description

My Summary

Mr. Yang is an incumbent English teacher in Taipei Municipal Zhong Shan Girls High School（臺北市立中山女子高級中學）. He shared how he integrated four language skills when teaching informational texts, which are the most commonly seen articles in the high school textbooks. He analyzed the three stages of his lesson planning--warm-up, while-reading, and extension. Through demonstrating the materials actually used in the class, he provided multiple insights for activity designing, material collecting, lesson (co-)planning, on-stage teaching, and technology integrating that a preservice teacher should anticipate and prepare prior to starting their one-month school practicum in the last year of college.

Itemized Summary of the Talk

Online Technology

• PowToon: allows the content to be displayed as an animation

• Google Slide: presentation

• Adobe Express: creates your own magazine/online website

• Whiteboard.fi:

  • translation practice (showing Ss' ans on the screen and revising them right away)

  • brainstorming

• Newsela: same topic with multiple articles available for different levels

• Slido: Word cloud to solicit Ss' guesses about the words that might be included in the exam

• Liveworksheets: autocheck worksheet

• Once upon a picture: photos with open-ended questions

Warm-up (L, R, S)

• More interesting than the text per se, but also containing language learning elements

• Vocabulary of the lesson

  • Fill in the black after listening or reading a short clip

  • The clip should be carefully selected, with the words of the lesson included

• Speaking 

  • Provide sentence patterns to scaffold

• Quotes identifying/browsing if the texts are related to celebrities

• Picture book reading

While-Reading

• Graphic Organizer Presentation (mind map, timeline, sequence, or structure of the text)

• Collocation identifying

• Key information summarizing

Extension

• Be selected with the texts extended. (Don't do it on every text. You would run out of the passion.)

• Inform Ss with the rubric, or discuss with Ss what aspects should be evaluated.

• Group speech (with framework/sentence patterns provided)

  • Slides needed

  • Cheating sheet/Script needed (For freshmen, it's a must to have them write down everything they want to say. Don't let them improvise.)

• Imitative writing

• Gallery walk

• Mini Bio (for celebrities)

Generic

• Accumulate some trivial knowledge for small talk in the class to gain Ss' attention. E.g., Why tSMC has the first letter lower-cased in their logo? It means 出頭天.

• Follow some famous educators' social media to keep ourselves posted about the most recent issues in the education field, which might be beneficial when attending the oral test during teacher recruitment.

• Enable Ss to have a variety of attempts to train their mental strength. (Some Ss are likely to get frustrated when experiencing failure)

• Don't let Ss only listen/read once. Make sure Ss listen/read purposefully (assign 1-2 focus at a time)

• Form a co-planning group to design lessons or materials.