Skills Flow Activity

All those who have been following my blog know that I have been focusing on the 4 skills of Language. I just happened to talk to a PRT (Provisionally Registered Teacher) at our school who mentioned how he was using a lot of repetition into his programmes. This got me thinking.  Is repetition always meaning focused? How could we have a task that would allow repetition and help students learn the structures of target language and topic vocabulary. This is when a Skills Flow activity struck to my mind. I have done this a number of times in the past but not recently.  This is an activity that was introduced to me by my lecturer Marie Jurissen. This activity allows students to Speak, Read, Write and Listen to the contents of the text a number of times. As students engage in all the 4 skills of Language Learning, they get familiar to the structures and the content vocabulary of the topic.

To model this to my colleague I picked up my favourite book ‘Rainbow fish to the Rescue’. 

For this we need to have

• ·      Pictures of different events in the story that are not in right order.
• ·      Titles for the pictures.

     Appendix 1

Appendix 2 ( Teacher reads this while students number the pictures)

Once there was a school of fish that lived together in the reef. They loved to play flash tag.

One day a little stripy fish swam through their game of flash tag and asked if she could play too.

But the fish with the jagged fins said that it was necessary to have a special scale to play flash tag.

The Rainbow fish knew that the stripy fish was in danger. So she sped to save it along with the other fish. They all swarmed straight at the shark.

The little stripy fish floated all alone at the edge of the reef and sadly watched the other fish play.

Suddenly a shark shot like an arrow into the middle of the school. All the fish hid inside a narrow reef. They were all safe but the little stripy fish wasn’t.

The Rainbow fish knew that the stripy fish was in danger. So she sped to save it along with the other fish. They all swarmed straight at the shark.

This confused the shark and the Rainbow fish led the little stripy fish to safety.

When all the fish returned they cheered for the Rainbow fish.

Archana Sharma

 Appendix 3 (Used when students match pictures to the titles)

Once there was a school of fish that lived together. They were so happy together that they had no interest in other fish. They loved to play flash tag.

The Rainbow fish knew that the stripy fish was in danger. So she sped to save it along with the other fish. They all swarmed straight at the shark.

When all the fish returned they cheered for the Rainbow fish.

One day a little stripy fish swam through their game of flash tag and asked if she could play too.

This confused the shark and the Rainbow fish led the little stripy fish to safety.

Suddenly a shark shot like an arrow into the middle of the school. All the fish hid inside a narrow reef. They were all safe but the little stripy fish wasn’t.

“ You need to have a special scale to play flash tag” said the fish with jagged fins.

The little stripy fish floated all alone at the edge of the reef and sadly watched the other fish play.

 Steps to do Skills Flow

• ·      Read the story to the students. Ask lots of questions as you read the story to keep the students engaged into in the story. (Listening)
• ·      Provide students with the jumbled up pictures. Ask students to number the pictures in order as you read out the events in the story. Appendix 1. (Listening and thinking)
• ·      Ask students to glue the pictures in order. (Thinking)
• ·      Students now use their pictures that are glued in a sequence to narrate the story to their buddies. It is always good to be able to tell the story to at least 3 buddies. (Speaking)
• ·      Now ask students to look for the titles to each picture and glue them besides the picture. Appendix 3. (Reading and Cognitive thinking)
• ·      Students now write their story in their own words. You may provide sentence starters under each picture to support your students.

After modeling to my colleague the feedback was very positive. He enjoyed every aspect of the task and was eager to design such activities using other stories. I hope you enjoy doing this activity too. 

*All teachers interested are most welcome to use (Appendix 1, 2 and 3) provided in the blog for the purpose of teaching in their class.