Challenges and Invitations

Challenges and Invitations
Andrew Wright

Copyright not Copy Wright
These notes are copyright not Copy Wright.
If you would like to use them with your own students, please do so without telling me. If you would like to publish them or part of them then email me and tell me about it. I am almost certainly going to say, Yes!
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andrew@ili.hu
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Summary of the idea
Some mechanical practice with minimal meaning is OK.
Also a generally motivated language learner can be expected to be interested in learning the language and willing to do mechanical practice…to a certain extent…
But…
Communicative activities can make the sts care about what they are saying.
It is not just the content but how the st feels, thinks and what he or she is expected to do which makes the activity engaging or not.
The st is a st of English for the traditional teacher but really is a whole person.
The ‘communicative approach’ teacher wants activities which engage the st as a whole person in such a way that he or she can take part with their English. In this way the new language is experienced, not merely studied.
A real litmus test: Would the student want to do this activity in his or her mother tongue?
Challenges and invitations are two of the ways of engaging people.
Broadly the concepts expressed can be subjective or objective.
The student can speak or write as him/herself or as someone else.
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Challenge and/or invitation to identify
Definition
The students are challenged and/or invited to identify something which is difficult to identify.
Examples
1) Slow reveal of a picture. 2)Flashing of a picture or text 3) Word by word reveal of a text 4) Miming 5) Hearing and identifying sounds.
Comment
‘Something’ means anything…any information through any of the five senses. Language is used to communicate hypotheses and to hear other peoples ideas.
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Challenge and/or invitation to describe
Definition
The students are challenged and/or invited to describe something so well that someone else is engaged and perhaps can do something eg identify, draw, make, choose, go to a place, imagine.
Examples
Describe an object or person or place…listener/reader identifies it. 2) Describe a route so that someone else can follow it on a street map and get to the place you intend.
Comment
Describe in writing or by speaking, subjectively or objectively, anything. The descriptive text can be a single word.
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Challenge and/or invitation to match
Definition
The students are challenged or invited to find a relationship between two bits of information.
Examples
1) Find an objective or a subjective relationship between two pictures. 2) Match half sentences given on strips of card. 3) Bingo. 4) True/false
Comment
Picture/picture. Picture/text. Text/text. Audio/visual. Text/life. Etc.
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Challenge and/or invitation to group
Definition
The students are challenged or invited to find a relationship between three or more bits of information.
Examples
1) Think of the people in the class…how many groups could you belong to 2) List four countries…dictate words/phrases…write under the appropriate country. 3) Page of scattered words or singular or plural forms…identify and group. 4) Odd one out.
Comment
The bits of information don’t have to be of the same type eg can be pictorial or audial or gastronomic…and remember they can be subjectively grouped or objectively grouped.
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Challenge and/or invitation to Sequence
Definition
The students are challenged or invited to find a sequential relationship between various bits of information.
Examples
1) Jumbled sentences…sequence to tell a story. objective 2) Twenty pictures…sequence to tell a story. Subjective 4) Grow a sentence/story word by word.
Comment
The subjective and objective difference extends this family dramatically.
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Challenge and/or invitation to Order
Definition
The students are challenged or invited to place various bits of information in order of value.
Examples
1) Write five things which are important about teaching and put them in order of importance 2) Favourite colours…in order of importance…for a car…for a dress for attending a wedding
Comment
A smaller family but a very useful one which is rich as a basis for discussion.
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Challenge and/or invitation to Remember
Definition
The students are challenged to remember various bits of information.
Examples
1) Pictures on the wall behind you. 2) Exact detail of what you did this morning…or how you brush your teeth. 3) Erasing and remembering a text word by word. 4) Whispering game.
Comment
Remembering is central to learning…different people remember different things in different ways…this family is worth exploring…some people can remember stories but not grammatical rules…or vice versa.
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