Video 1: Students are NOT Empty Vessels

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Teach English Now! Lesson Design and Assessment

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Arizona State University

Teach English Now! Lesson Design and Assessment

1827 notes

Cours 3 sur 4 dans Specialization TESOL Certificate, Part 1: Teach English Now!

Learners will be introduced to designing lesson plans based on principles and knowledge of learning objectives, assessment plans, methods, materials, and learning activities. Learners will find and prepare appropriate teaching materials through careful analysis, adaptation and creation of professional resources. Learners will also reflect on the cohesion between lesson design and teaching philosophies.

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Activating Background Knowledge and Objective Discussions

In this module, learners are introduced to warm up activities, and how warm ups not only can introduce a lesson's theme but also can be used to connect that theme to previous learner knowledge and previous lessons. Objective discussions are also introduced, and advice about when and how to give objective discussions is given.

Video 1: Students are NOT Empty Vessels5:18

Video 2: Three Teachers: Warm Ups9:36

Rencontrer les enseignants

Dr. Shane Dixon
Senior International Educator
Arizona State University Global Launch
Dr. Justin Shewell
Senior International Educator
Arizona State University
Jessica Cinco
International Educator
Global Launch

[MUSIC]

Welcome back to Teach English Now.

As we get into more detail about lesson design,

one thing should become very apparent, students are not empty vessels.

In other words, there is a sort of layman's theory that would suggest that

students are cups without water.

A teacher is a sort of pitcher full water and that all a teacher needs to do is

nothing more than fill that empty glass until it is full.

Makes sense, but it just happens to be terribly wrong.

Sometimes, I hate metaphors.

The truth is that the human brain is not an empty cup or a blank slate or

anything that might suggest that it isn't already packed full of information.

Even for young learners of language, there are countless ways in which you

can use the information they already have to great advantage.

Thus, language learning is not something wherein a teacher simply has to teach new

information while students obediently learn it.

The truth is that the human brain has an intricate number of neural pathways

that are all interrelated and connected in amazing ways and

that a teacher who can engage that brain can use it to great advantage.

So, how do you engage all your learners right from the beginning?

And how do you use their current knowledge to your own advantage?

Now that can be a trick, but at least you are thinking about it.

You see, one of the biggest problems in education is that teachers don't recognize

the importance of engaging students and firing up those neural receptors and

introducing them to a theme that they will connect to already formed neural pathways.

In some sense, a lot of teachers just start a class without paying attention to

connecting the material to what is previously understood or known.

Jeone Brunner, another instructional designer and cognitive learning

theorist suggests that when curriculum is built in a spiral with many iterations

from simple to complex, learners can get better and better at what they do.

Think of it this way.

First, you learn to ride a tricycle, then a bike, then a car.

And then for some of you, perhaps a motorcycle, a helicopter or even a plane.

Now each of these are different from the other, but wouldn't you say that there is

a since of relying on past skills in order to gain new skills?

That there are similarities, even between your very first tricycle and

a jet fighter plane?

In other words, when you write your lesson plans, keep in mind that knowledge and

skills in language is not a one and done proposition.

Students who learn how to give a five-minute speech are not simply done and

have no need to speak ever again.

Students who learn vocabulary in your class don't simply keep that vocabulary in

their heads, because they got an A on that last test.

In fact, it is quite the opposite.

Students are very likely to forget information that isn't constantly

brought up again and again.

I guess this is all just a fancy way of stating an obvious point.

When you write your lesson plans, connect them to each other.

Your lessons aren't little chunks of knowledge on an island,

they should be interconnected and reliant upon each other and they should

help students practice again and again, previous material already covered.

Now, why am I bringing this up in a lesson about warm-ups?

So glad you asked.

You see, a warm-up is a perfect opportunity to accomplish two things.

First, it is an opportunity to bring up and introduce new ideas.

But second, it is also an opportunity to stir up past ideas, past thoughts and

past learning experiences among students and connect them to the new information.

In other words, one of the most important things you can do as a teacher is to

engage students's background knowledge by having those synapses fire and

providing connections between new information and

the neural pathways they have already formed.

Teachers aren't a pitcher of water, but rather they are a bridge.

Students have already traveled some distance and

you as a teacher can help them to go a bit farther.

In the next video, we will discuss some of the elements of a proper warm up and

have our three teachers give examples of ways

in which a warm up might be performed in the TESOL context.

See you there.

[MUSIC]

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