Active Learning Strategies for EFL Learners PDF

Tanta University Faculty of Education Department of Curriculum& Instruction Active Learning Strategies for EFL Learners Level Two 1st Term By Al-Shaimaa Mahmoud Al-Rashidy...

Tanta University Faculty of Education Department of Curriculum& Instruction Active Learning Strategies for EFL Learners Level Two 1st Term By Al-Shaimaa Mahmoud Al-Rashidy Lecturer of TEFL Tanta University 2024  Chapter Two Active Learning Strategies Page 86  14. Minute paper Much like the One Sentence Summary activity, Minute Paper is best done towards the end of a teaching session. Ask students to consider what is the most important thing they learnt today, and which thing is the least clear. During the next lesson, discuss the issues students found less clear to aid their understanding. This provides students with the opportunity to actively think about what they have learned, as well as providing feedback about areas that may need covering differently.  14. Minute paper Have them write for one minute. Ask students to share responses to stimulate discussion or collect all responses to inform future class sessions. the minute paper typically asks “What was the most important concept you learned in class today?” or, “What do you see as 1 or 2 main points of today’s activities/lecture/discussion?”  15. Fish bowl To encourage participation by all students, a fish bowl is a good approach for discussing dilemmas or debates. Some of the students sit in an inner circle (the fish bowl) and the others are around the edge observing the discussion.  15. Fish bowl Allow the students in the inner circle a time to prepare ideas and questions in advance, while you brief the students who are observing what they should be listening for. The idea is that the participants in the inner circle are more likely to get involved than they would if it was a large group discussion, and the students observing learn from their peers. 16. Problem-based learning Problem-based learning reverses the ‘traditional’ teaching approach: students are provided with a problem to solve, and then have to work out which learning and research they need to engage with to solve the problem. This activity works best in group settings and creates individual learning paths as each group and student learns independently.  17. Posters & gallery walk Give groups of students an assignment that they need to work on together and present their ideas on a sheet of chart paper. Once they have completed their poster, have them display it on the wall around the classroom. One of their group will stay with the poster and help to explain it as the class circulates to look at all of the posters.  18. Chain notes Students pass around an envelope on which the teacher has written one question related to the class session. When the envelope reaches a student they write a brief response to the question, returns the response sheet to the envelope, and passes it to the next student.  18. Chain notes Teachers go through the student responses and determine the best criteria for categorizing the data with the goal of detecting response patterns. Discuss the patterns of responses with their students.  19. Focused listing In a given time period, students write down as many ideas that are closely related to a single important term, name, or concept. Useful in large & small courses in which a large amount of new information is regularly introduced.  19. Focused listing The simplest way is to sort the responses into “related” or “unrelated.” Then you as a teacher can classify the responses according to the type or degree of relation to the focus topic.  20. Application cards After teaching about an important theory, principle, or procedure, ask students to write down at least one context- specified application for what they have just learned. Then, teachers quickly read once through the application and categorize them according to their quality. They pick out a broad range of examples and present them to the class. 21. Approximate analogies To find out whether students understand the relationship between two concepts, complete the second half of an analogy – A is to B as X is to Y – for which their instructor has supplied the first half (A is to B). Quickly sort the responses into three piles, “good,” “poor/wrong,” and “in doubt.”  22. Insights / Clear skies As with the Muddy Point prompt, ask students to write a response to a single question: “What was the clearest point for you in ___?” What is an Aha! or insight you gained in _____?” The focus here could be a reading, presentation, in class discussion/activity, or class prep task. 23. Directed paraphrasing Students write a “translation” of something they have just learned for a specified individual, audience, or purpose audience to demonstrate comprehension 24. Background knowledge probe - Before introducing an important new concept, subject, or topic, students respond to questions that will probe their existing knowledge of that concept, subject or topic. - Classify responses into groups (e.g., prepared/non-prepared; no knowledge/erroneous knowledge/OK knowledge). Use the information to revise your plans for teaching this topic.  25. 3 – 2 – 1 response - As preparation for class: Students read/annotate assigned readings, review in order to respond to the following: - 3 things learned – ideas, issues, insights. - 2 examples of how to apply the ideas, issues, insights to a scenario or problem. - 1 unresolved “something,” which you can express as a question, name as an area of confusion, or point to as a difficulty.  25. 3 – 2 – 1 response - Teachers might collect each group-generated 3-2- 1 response to review and draw on as the basis for follow up full group discussion. Evaluate the individual and/or group writings to assess students’ critical reading acumen.