Projekt OBOGATENO UČENJE TUJIH JEZIKOV 2013-15
Enriched Foreign Language Learning PROJECT 2013-15
Foreign/EFLL Teachers‘ Monthy CPD Meeting
Current Project Issues, CURRICULUM
CONVERGENCES and STORY SLAM(s)
CPD MEETING #5
Zavod RS za šolstvo, March 11, 2014
Katja Pavlič Škerjanc, katja.pavlic@zrss.si
Operacijo delno financira Evropska unija iz Evropskega socialnega sklada ter Ministrstvo za izobraževanje, znanost in šport. Operacija se izvaja v okviru Operativnega programa
razvoja človeških virov v obdobju 2007-2013, razvojne prioritete: Razvoj človeških virov in vseživljenjsko učenje; prednostne usmeritve: Izboljšanje kakovosti in učinkovitosti sistemov
izobraževanja in usposabljanja.
CPD Meeting AGENDA
Time
Content
CURRENT PROJECT ISSUES:
1. Bimonthly Status Reports
2. Teaching Philosophy & Teaching
09:00 - 09:30
Portfolio
3. Project E-Portfolio
4. School Research Project
Performers & Format
Katja Pavlič Škerjanc
Foreign teachers
Plenary presentation, Q&A,
discussion
Katja Pavlič Škerjanc
Plenary presentation
Petra Založnik
Plenary presentation
09.30 - 10.00
Curriculum convergences
10.00 - 10.30
Why tell stories?
10:30 - 11.00
11:00 - 11.15
Coffee break
StorySlam as an integrative
language learning activity
Katja Pavlič Škerjanc
Introductory presentation
WORKSHOP 1: StorySlamming Principles and rules
Foreign teachers Group
work & presentation
WORKSHOP 2:
Foreign Teachers' Presentations
Samuel Farsure
Demará Ivanič
Plenary presentations
and discussion
11:15 - 12.00
12:00 - 13.30
•
•
CURRENT
PROJECT ISSUES
(30 min)
Multitasking can reduce productivity by
approximately 40-percent according to some
researchers.
Switching from one task to another makes it
difficult to tune out distractions and can cause
mental blocks that can slow down your progress.
Current Project Issues
1.
2.
3.
4.
Bimonthly Status Reports
Teaching Philosophy & Teaching Portfolio
Project E-Portfolio
School Research Project
1. BIMONTHLY STATUS REPORTS
Submission dates:
- Monday, March 31 ( January & February 2014),
- Monday, May 19 ( March & April 2014)
- Thursday, July 10 ( May & June 2014)
 2014/15 Yearly/Annual Teaching Plan, Draft
Submission date: August 31, 2014
Current Project Issues
2. Teaching Philosophy & Teaching Portfolio
Submission date:
- Friday, April 18 (open issues to be further discussed at the April
meeting, i.e. on Tuesday, April 15)
- NEI templates and supporting jaterials to be sent to FTs by the end
of March
Current Project Issues
3. Project E-Portfolio
To be discussed at the school PTs‘ meeting on March 18, 2014.
Any suggestions, tips, pointers?
4. School Research Project
To be discussed at the school PTs‘ meeting on March 18, 2014.
Any suggestions, tips, pointers?
LIFE
CURRICULUM
CONVERGENCES
(15 min)
Definition
of curriculum
Levels
of curriculum
• myriad of definitions - difficult
to keep a clear focus on its
essence
• etymological origin: Latin
'curriculum' refers to a 'course'
or 'track' to be followed
• in the context of education,
where learning is the central
activity, the most obvious
interpretation of the word
curriculum is then to view it as
a course or 'plan for
learning'
• system/society/nation/state
(or macro) level
• school/institution (or meso)
level
• classroom (or micro) level
• individual/personal (or
nano) level.
• Curriculum development at the
system level is usually of a 'generic'
nature, while 'site-specific' approaches
are more applicable for the remaining
levels.
• The process of curriculum
development can be seen as narrow
(developing a curricular product) or
broad (comprehensive and ongoing
improvement).
Currriculum Perspectives, Jan van den
Akker, University of Twente, The Netherlands
Curriculum representations and analytical
perspectives [Curriculum typology]
INTENDED
IMPLEMENTED
ATTAINED
Vision (rationale or basic
philosophy underlying a
Ideal
curriculum)
Intentions as specified in
Formal/Written curriculum documents and/or
materials
Curriculum as interpreted by
Perceived
its users (especially teachers)
Actual process of teaching and
learning (also: curriculum-inOperational
action)
Learning experiences as
Experiential
perceived by learners
Resulting learning outcomes of
Learned
learners
Curriculum components
• One of the major challenges for curriculum improvement is creating
balance and consistency between the various components of a
curriculum.
Rationale
Why are they learning?
Aims & Objectives
Toward which goals are they learning?
Content
What are they learning?
Learning activities
How are they learning?
Teacher role
How is the teacher facilitating learning?
Materials & Resources With what are they learning?
Grouping
With whom are they learning?
Location
Where are they learning?
Time
When are they learning?
Assessment
How far has learning progressed?
Curriculum components
• The rationale (referring to overall principles or central mission of
the plan) serves as major orientation point, and the nine other
components are ideally linked to that rationale and preferably
also consistent with each other.
• For each of the components many sub-questions are possible. Not
only on substantive issues (what knowledge is of most worth for
inclusion in teaching and learning), but, for example, also on
'organizational' aspects as:
o Grouping:
o How are students allocated to various learning trajectories?
o Are students learning individually, in small groups, or whole-class?
o Location:
o Are students learning in class, in the library, at home, or elsewhere?
o What are the social/physical characteristics of the learning
environment?
o Time:
o How much time is available for various subject matter domains?
o How much time can be spent on specific learning tasks?
Substantive choices
• The eternal curriculum question: What to include in the
curriculum? (or even more difficult as well as urgent: What to
exclude from it?)
• Search for a balance between three major sources or orientations
for selection and priority setting:
o Knowledge: What is the academic and cultural heritage that seems
essential for learning and future development?
o Society: Which problems and issues seem relevant for inclusion
from the perspective of societal trends and needs?
o Learner: which elements seem of vital importance for learning from
the personal and educational needs and interests of the learners
themselves?
• Answers to these questions usually constitute the rationale of a
curriculum.
Convergences between languages (as subjects)
as a contribution to quality education (CoE)
The chart below illustrates the different statuses of languages in school
and the relations among them: the languages taught are first or
second/foreign languages for learners; they are studied as a specific
subject or serve as an instrument of learning in other subjects.
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/langeduc/le_platformintro_EN.asp
Convergences between languages, Mike Fleming, CoE
• „We use categories (groupings of objects, concepts, ideas etc.) in
all spheres of life in order to operate in the world. Without categories
the world would present to us as ‘one great blooming, buzzing
confusion’ (William James ,The Principles of Psychology, 189)
• Categories help us to divide the world up in order to understand and
manage it. However, they are not fixed and universal but vary
according to purpose; their appropriateness invariably depends on
context. We know that the categories we use are for the most part
context and culture bound.
• However, we tend to operate in the world as if categories are fixed
and universal in order to bring order and stability. For that reason it
is sometimes hard to make the imaginative leap necessary to see
that the categories we use are determined culturally and may in
some cases actually limit our thinking.
Convergences between languages, Mike Fleming, CoE
• In a research project described by Nisbett (Nisbett, R. The Geography of Thought,
2003) children were given three pictures of a cow, a chicken and
some grass and asked to place two of them together.
• The researchers found that American children preferred to group the
cow and chicken together but Chinese children were more likely to
group the cow and grass. This is one of the many different research
findings in Nisbett’s book indicating a tendency to see the world
more in terms of objects (the West) or relationships (the East).
• In another example American mothers used twice as many object
labels with their children (‘here is a car’) as Japanese mothers who
engaged in more social routines of teaching politeness norms (‘give
me the car – thank you’).
• A myriad of other research findings led the author to conclude that
cognitive structures are not universal as is often thought but differ in
different contexts due to contrasting ecologies (hence the title of the
book The Geography of Thought).
Convergences between languages, Mike Fleming, CoE
It is easy to have our thinking unwittingly limited by the
categories we use.
One way of looking at Languages in Education, Languages
for Education is to start thinking about the categories we
habitually use in two broad ways:
• to see links and convergences that before have not
been sufficiently emphasised
and in other cases
• to identify more refined categories where before
none were discerned.
Curriculum convergences for plurilingual and
intercultural education, Francis Goullier, CoE
Apart from the adoption of the CEFR scale of proficiency levels for
all modern language teaching, a number of CoE initiatives help develop
„curriculum convergences for plurilingual and intercultural education“:
• adoption of a single syllabus for all modern languages;
• development of a generic curriculum on which the syllabus for
each language is based;
• grouping all language teaching in the same subject area (for
example, “language and communication”);
• adoption of a common terminology for all language teaching;
• development of training standards, especially for assessment
procedures, establishing principles common to all language
teaching;
• recommendation of shared methodological approaches to create
links between the languages learnt;
• inclusion in the syllabus for each language of cross-cutting skills
to be developed, convergences to be utilised and crosslanguage transfer strategies to be taught (metalinguistic transfer, etc.)
Cross-Language Transfer, Jim Cummins, 2005
Depending on the sociolinguistic situation, FIVE TYPES
OF TRANSFER are possible:
1. Transfer of conceptual elements (e.g. understanding the
concept of photosynthesis);
2. Transfer of metacognitive and metalinguistic
strategies (e.g. strategies of visualizing, use of graphic
organizers, mnemonic devices, vocabulary acquisition strategies,
etc.);
3. Transfer of pragmatic aspects of language use
(willingness to take risks in communication through L2, ability to
use paralinguistic features such as gestures to aid communication,
etc.);
4. Transfer of specific linguistic elements (e.g. knowledge
of the meaning of photo- in photosynthesis);
5. Transfer of phonological awareness (the knowledge that
words are composed of distinct sounds).
STORYSLAM AS A LANGUAGE
LEARNING ACTIVITY
(15 min)
March 19, World Storytelling Day
• World Storytelling Day is a global
celebration of the art of oral
storytelling. It is celebrated every year
on the spring equinox in the northern
hemisphere, the first day of autumn
equinox in the southern.
• On World Storytelling Day, as many
people as possible tell and listen to
stories in as many languages and at
as many places as possible, during
the same day and night.
• Participants tell each other about their
events in order to
– share stories and inspiration,
– learn from each other and
– create international contacts.
“Stories have
to be told or
they die, and
when they
die, we can't
remember
who we are
or why we're
here.”
Sue Monk Kidd, The
Secret Life of Bees
Telling stories …
• increases students‘
willingness to
communicate thoughts
and feelings
• enhances listening
skills
• increases oral
proficiency
• encourages use of
imagination and
creativity
• encourages active
participation
• encourages cooperation
between students
• …
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articl
e/storytelling-benefits-tips
Performance techniques
Telling a story can captivate an audience…that is, with the right
techniques and a little practice:
Remembering and retelling the plot:
• map the plot as a memory technique
• use story skeletons to help you remember the key events
• think of the plot as a film or a series of connected images
• tell yourself the story in your own words
• create your own version of the story (adapt and improvise)
• retell it numerous times until it feels like a story
Performance skills. Remember to...
• vary the volume, pitch and tempo of your voice (enunciate
clearly and exaggerate expression)
• use your face, body and gestures (let your body speak)
• make your body and face respond to the tale
• have a clear focus and maintain concentration
• maintain engaging eye contact with the audience/
individual listeners
• create a charismatic presence (make the audience believe
in you)
• use different, exaggerated character voices
• use your space/ be dynamic
• remember to pace yourself
• always remember to regain your style as a narrator
• use silence and pauses to add dramatic effect
March 19, 2015:
EFLL project
national/interschool STORYSLAM
Overall purpose and goals:
• enhance intra-project (and
inter-school) mobility
• set up interschool project
activities [not only at
teacher, but also at student
level]
• set up activities that
promote [foreign] language
learning, plurilingualsim &
interculturality but also the
EFLL project
School year 2013/14:
 design STORSLAM
organizational format
 establish ground rules &
judging procedures,
define scoring criteria
 select/define overarching
theme(s)
 prepare students at
schools
 organize school
storytelling tournaments/
preselections
STORY SLAM
The GROUND RULEs
a) your story needs to
be true and told
without notes.
b) your story needs a
beginning, middle
and end.
c) your story needs to
stay on theme.
d) your story should be
5 minutes or less.
What is a Story Slam
Competition?
• It is a competition based on
who tells the best story.
• It puts a dual emphasis on
content and performance,
encouraging storytellers to
focus on what they're saying
and how they're saying it.
• It is an exercise in crafting
stories within a set time
limit.
• Storytellers are judged by
panels/judges who give
numerical scores [?] (e.g. on a
zero to 10 or one to 10 scale)
based on the storyteller s'
content and performance.
STORY SLAM
Who gets to participate?
• Students wishing to
participate enter their
names into a drawing on
the evening of the event.
• Eight to ten students
are selected based on the
time allotted for the event.
• Pre-Selection criteria:
• e.g. each class or teacher
may select their teller …
• ???
What are the rules?
The basic rules (Example 2):
• Each story must be of the
storyteller’s own construction.
• Poetry is not encouraged unless the poem is original, 5
minutes long and tells a story.
• Each storyteller gets 5 minutes
(plus a 1 minute grace period)
to tell a story.
• If the storyteller goes over the 6
minute time, 1 full point will be
deducted from the total score.
A warning timer can be rung at
4 minutes.
• The storyteller may not use
props, costumes or musical
instruments.
.
Workshop Prompts
School Story Slams: Ground Rules and Scoring Criteria
• Working in groups of 3, discuss the activity,
concentrating on its language learning values
(advantages), organization (including the
preparation of students) and scoring criteria.
• Decide on the ground rules and the necessary
steps for the preparation of students.
• Prepare a brief plenary report.