CEC FIPP Activity Report
Name Loretta Klonecky
Date November 15, 2010
Department Humanities
FIPP Partner Greg Walker
Class title & section # ESL3C Sec.9124
Name of Activity/Strategy Information Gap
Category: (Please select only one.) (Reminder: You will submit one report from each of
the categories.)
Classroom Activity
Classroom Environment
Classroom Expectations
Feedback & Evaluation
Homework & Out-of-Classroom Learning Experiences
Briefly describe the activity/strategy, providing enough detail so that a colleague can
replicate the activity/strategy.
1. Introduction I prepared four stories about an accident changing some details,
such as time, color of car, eyewitness, speed of car, and reason for accident.
2. Set-up & Supplies I assigned a letter (A,B,C,D) to each story and made enough
copies of one story for one-half of the class and enough copies of another story
for the other half of the class.
3. Directions The class was divided into two groups. One group was given
reading A and the other group was given B. There were differences in the
readings which the student had to elicit through questioning his /her
partner.The other partner had to do likewise.They were instructed to use a
reporter's method of questioning, namely, who, what, why, where, when, how.
On the surface this sounds easy but it is a difficult exercise for intermediate
ESL students to form the necessary questions to elicit the information they
need. After they had composed their questions (approximately 20 minutes),
they formed a partnership with one of the students from the other half of the
class and then asked their questions to determine how the two stories differed.
We then came back together as one group and students from the A group
stated the differences and then group B did the same.This seemed difficult for
them so I wrote some questions on the board that I thought would be useful for
them the second time we did this exercise. One week later we repeated the
exercise with stories C and D. This time the students understood the
methodology and worked more quickly on forming the questions and asking
them. This time the students feedback was that it was much easier and they
understood what to do.
What worked well? The second time the exercise was used it was far more effective and
tested the students recall. It was amazing to watch the difference in their level of
understanding.
What would you change? Perhaps I would begin with more examples of possible
questions that they could use.
Would you use the activity/strategy again? Why or why not? Yes, I would use it again and
add more differences to the stories now that they understand how to do it.
Please describe any student learning and/or changes that you observed after the
implementation of the activity/strategy. As I stated above, they recycled the information
and were able to complete the exercise in a more timely manner.