COA - Lesson 10

This lesson was a follow up from the previous lesson on Manaiakalani Google class on Air. In this lesson children have come up with ideas on how to lift people's spirits in an event of a natural disaster.

My reflection - 
It was a good lesson as students could think outside the square. They came up with some very original ideas like - making something from debris, singing songs together and playing music to calm themselves. It was great to listen to one of the students who came up with an idea of staying together as it symbolises strength. When I further questioned on how they could show this through Art, they had several ideas to share like - painting people together, families together and a bunch of flowers. I am very excited about how students can now easily relate to Art and try to represent their ideas through Art.

One of the ideas was to paint a tree of togetherness. Just as the leaves of the tree stick together, we should also stay together in times of disasters because together we can remain strong and can overcome all difficulties. The black colour represents hard times and the white represents strength.

Click here to view the extended lesson plan and complete episode.

COA Lesson 9

This term we have been learning about Natural disasters. In this lesson we have learnt about how people feel when they are in a natural disaster. Children have created a word mural to share what they see, hear, smell, feel and taste during such times.

The learning outcome for the lesson was - Understand how natural disasters affect the life of people and those around them.

Reflection - It was really great to see one of the groups plan to make a piece of Art to share people's emotions. This idea was liked so much by the class that they all pitched in to make a big mural with all sense words. They decided to paint a slip in the middle of the mural to show an earthquake.

Here is a word mural that we made.

Click here to watch the complete episode.

Manaiakalani Google Class on Air - Episode 4

Some of my students give me one word answers and it is really hard for anyone to understand them. This is mainly because they do not have the words to explain what they want to say. I wanted them to be really aware of this shortfall so they realise how important it is for them to learn new words everyday and to also to use these words in different contexts till it is part of their repertoire.

You can view the full lesson here.

At the end of the lesson, children did realise that they needed to use specific words to say tell their story.

Manaiakalani Google Class On Air - Episode 3

View the complete lesson here


Reflection

Lesson Content :- Students were very engaged and learnt new words quickly. They tried to use these words in their oral paragraphs and helped each other to use them when needed. More support is required as students need to continue to form oral paragraphs on a daily basis in order to learn and use new words. 

Lesson Pacing :- I have used oral paragraphs for the first time so the pacing was not great but will improve as we work more on them.
Lesson Delivery :- This session was a part of the whole lesson where students were learning to use specific words to orally tell their stories. Three students out of the group of five achieved this where as the other two still need support.
Student Understanding :- Students understood what was being asked to do. They were very motivated to write their stories using new words. Most students understood the purpose of the lesson. Their understanding will improve as I continue to plan for more such lessons on writing where deliberate opportunities are provided to create oral paragraphs.
Student Outcomes :- Students understood what was expected and were ready to give it a go. My students need a lot more time to orally say out things that they need to write. I also need to work on strategies to not make it tedious or maybe split the lesson into more comprehensible shorter lessons.

COA - Teaching Pepeha

This week I taught my class to say their Pepeha. The lesson was deliberately chosen as a reading activity to link with the topic studies. Through this lesson students were encouraged to critically think about place they live in and what connection they have with the natural landmarks around the community.

I used a matching word activity to help my students  learn the Maori words that they needed to say their Pepeha.

View the complete lesson on by clicking here

My Reflections

What went well.

Lesson Content :- Students had to learn to write their Pepeha and then rehearse saying it confidently and clearly. They understood what natural landmarks are and what significance they have in people’s lives.

Lesson Pacing :- The pace of the lesson was good as they had already learnt a bit about pepeha. However understanding the connection between the land and the people was a bit difficult for students.

Lesson Delivery :- This session was a part of the whole lesson where students learnt about the iwi, hapu, waka, mounga and moana ( extended family, close family, their canoe, their mountain and their sea). In this lesson students had to identify the natural landmarks around the community they lived in and why they were important to them and I was able to help them understand it.

Student Understanding :- Students could talk about the natural landmarks and their significance really well. I was very impressed the way they had picked up on the maori words to explain their understanding. The side activity ( Matching activity) helped students to learn maori words quickly and easily.

Student Outcomes :- Students understood the significance of a pepeha and could include the elements required in a pepeha.They rehearsed and could narrate their pepeha meaningfully.

What still needs work.

Student Outcomes :- My students need a lot more time to orally say out things that they need to write. Having to work with them individually over and over again to make them understand the difference between formal and informal occasions was like a signal to me that children need to use the vocabulary a number of times in meaningful contexts before they are ready to write. I will continue to allow more time to my students to have a go at using new vocabulary.

COA - Lesson 1- Providing Comfortable Learning Environment

In my last blog I had set some goals for myself the first one was to ' provide a comfortable learning environment for my students.'
I had noticed that students in my class did not speak and were very shy to share their ideas in front of the class or within groups. I have very few fluent speakers of English Language and most of the students have English as their second language.
Proficiency in spoken language is essential for language development. It is very important that students are immersed in Language at all times in the class. 
In my class most students are receptors of language and not really the users of language, where they involve themselves in interactions with peers or adults.

So foremost, I needed to create opportunities for my students who could interact without being scared of loosing their self esteem. I noticed that some of my students did not gather the courage to speak because they spoke in phrases, words or grammatically incorrect sentences. If I started to correct them and point out to their incorrect English, it would further diminish their esteem. So I decided to pick up a lesson where they would be forced to speak.

View the video below to see how I started the lesson.

After introducing myself,  I asked students to introduce themselves. They had to do this by sharing something about their culture. I put them into ethnic groups. Since they did not know much on the top of their head, we researched. Then I went to each group and inquired about about what they had researched.

' There is considerable evidence to suggest that a major factor in academic success of linguistic minority groups is the degree to which learning takes place in an interactive rather than a passive environment'. ( Skutnabb-Kangas & Cummins 1988).

By leaving the onus of talking about their culture to them,  the ball was in their court and they had to explain me about themselves. This forced them to talk- even if it was in broken English. One of the major outcomes was that everyone felt valued and the ice was broken. Children now engaged in meaningful context. It allowed them to think and formulate ideas. I encouraged them to speak in their own language when they wanted to clarify ideas. They became very enthused and excited when sharing food/ items from their culture. There was a sense of pride and they felt respected. They became more and more less conscious about not having specific words to explain their artefact and their confidence to share shot up immensely. I gave them lots of positive feedback and they were totally engaged in their learning.

Watch the video below to see them interact.

The next task was to write their introduction to share with the class. For my less able students, I provided sentence starters so support them with their writing.

My Reflection

The purpose of the Lesson
The purpose of this lesson was to encourage students to talk and share ideas.
Lesson content
I deliberately chose this lesson as I wanted to begin with something that they already knew and could talk about. The Task was to introduce themselves with a brief description about their country and an artefact from their culture.  This worked well as all students who had common experiences in terms of their culture supported one another to add detail to describe things from their culture. The sentence starters provided  helped them to write their introductions with greater ease. Me modelling and the video on their class site also gave them an idea of what was expected from the lesson. 

Mixed ability grouping
 I chose to pick one fluent speaker in the group. This allowed the others to listen to the vocabulary that they needed to explain similar ideas from their culture.

Lesson pacing
I gave lots of time to students to tell their stories about their culture.The main idea was to give them opportunity to express themselves.  They did this endlessly and the excitement grew every minute. They wanted to tell me everything about themselves.

Student Engagement and Confidence
Students were engaged throughout the lesson right from the word go. In my introduction video you will see that most students got hooked right from the beginning. They wanted to know more about me. This set the tone and we were at the initial stages of building relationships with each other.  The confidence level of students was raised immensely through this lesson. I believe I have build good rapport with my students and I hope they will discuss and ask question when they get stuck in future. The purpose of the lesson was accomplished amazingly. 

Student outcome 
Students first wrote their introduction and then introduced themselves to the class. They were scared in the beginning and asked if they could use read from the script  when speaking to the class.
I am very proud of my students who learnt a lot about explanation through this lesson. They used some specific vocabulary and heaps of describing words when talking about their artefact or food from their country. Even the ones who were not active participants, said something little.  The collaboration was huge when students discussed with each other to make things clearer for me to understand. They became more engaged as I encouraged them to use their own language to describe things. When describing their artefact/food students could feel the  attention and respect that they received from their audience and this became quiet contagious by the end of the lesson. As they spoke, they also shared some stories that they remembered when talking about an item, food or artefact. Both me and my students enjoyed this lesson.  This was the first step towards  building strong relationships with my students and also among students.

Next Steps
Since the goal this year for Manaiakalani CoLs is on language acquisition and my TESSOL study is a lot about how we can teach language to our ELL ( English Language Learners), I will be focussing more on oral language and plan for lessons that will be more creative, enjoyable and the ones that can connect students to their experiences. 
This lesson also gave me an insight into what limitations my students had in terms of language. They were every excited to tell me all about their culture but fell short of words except for one fluent speaker. It is now for me to plan to improve their vocabulary so they become confident when socialising and sharing their ideas. I also need to find ways to engage some of my shy students who were wanting to participate  but could not gather the courage to engage in the conversation. 

Click here to view more videos, lesson plan and student's work

COA - Art lesson - Expressionism

This lesson was inspired by the New Zealand artist Sheila Brown. Students in my class were learning about expressionism. Through this lesson students learnt how artists express themselves. They understood that colours chosen by the artist have a story to tell and that artists tell their story through the selection of their subject and shades of different colours.

I enjoyed teaching this lesson. The part of the lesson that excited me the most was when students related themselves to the subject they had chosen. Their writings were a reflection of their thinking and connections to the subject of their artwork. They could describe why their subject inspired them. They thoughtfully chose the background colours to express their feelings. There was a lot of critical thinking involved in the lesson. They not only learnt about the techniques that were used by the New Zealand artist Sheila brown but also made excellent connections with their own lives and express their stories. I am very happy with the outcome.

A complete lesson can be viewed by clicking the link below.

https://sites.google.com/a/manaiakalani.org/onair/sharma-15

COA - Lesson 12: Analysing writing

The purpose of this lesson was to encourage students to write narratives that will captivate the reader's interest. To do this I wanted them to analyse samples of writings using a rubric. The process allowed them to have a look at how teachers would be marking samples. It also gave them an insight into what they usually miss doing when writing as they were not aware of the progressions in the rubric. Now when having looked at the rubric, most of them have set a higher goal for themselves and are trying to achieve it.

The lesson is done in 2 sessions. Session 1 is on how good planning leads to good writing. The focus is mainly on collaborating ideas to give more depth to writing. The second session is on using a rubric to analyse writing.

Click here to view this lesson.

My Reflections

Through this lesson I have tried to extend students’ writing by encouraging them to write captivating stories for their audience. Till now most students in my class have been writing narratives without much detail. One of the reasons why I do not see the trend changing is because I need to focus more on vocabulary that children need for their writing. An attempt has been made to collaborate so that students get more ideas of each other to write a detailed narrative. I have also tried to extend them by using dialogue in their narratives.

At the end of the lesson, some students used the dialogue and some forgot, so I reminded them to use the dialogue they had written in their plans.

My students still need a lot of practice to fluently use appropriate dialogue in the correct place, in their writings. At present, they are randomly inserting dialogue anywhere they please. So I will read them books during Teacher read time. The purpose will be to draw their attention to how the author uses dialogue to enhance meaning. I would do this through a strategy known as 'think aloud'.

The second part of the lesson mainly captures their understanding of how to use the rubric and be able to analyse and give feedback to their buddies and themselves. To begin with, students have used three elements of the rubric. These are:

• Captivating audience’s interest
• Punctuation
• Character and setting.

I was pretty pleased with the group of students who had their  first attempt at analysing a piece of writing written by one of their classmates. I did not disclose the name of the student whose writing I had used for the purpose of moderation.

It was interesting to see how they collaborated and discussed with each other when moderating the sample. They all decided on a mark and gave reasons on why they think that mark should be given. This was a moment when I felt very successful as a teacher. I was proud of them. This exercise has also given me an indication that some of my students are ready for further extension.

Class OnAir - Lesson 11

For the last two weeks I have been teaching Narrative writing to my students. To begin with I gave
my students a picture prompt to write on. They were very familiar with narrative writing and so I expected to see some good writing. At the end of the writing session I realised that most of the students wrote scantily and did not have detail, describing words, extended punctuation or paragraphs in their narrative. So this prompted me to plan my lessons again...

I use the TOPS model for narrative

T- Title
O- Orientation
P- Problem
S- Solution

So I started by teaching how to write a good setting for narratives. First I used an exemplar from a Junior journal that they analysed. We focussed on sense words like what can we see, hear, smell or feel. Then students used pictures to write a setting for the different scenes.
Sequence of this lesson can be viewed on Manaiakalani Class OnAir



                                           Task 1 - Analysing a passage from a book

Reflection
I need to teach every little step of narrative writing in detail. My students would benefit from modelling, learning, creating, sharing, analysing and being able to give feedback to one another on their work. I need to keep revisiting what student learn during their writing sessions so that do not forget what they learn. I also need to provide them with a good bank of words so that they feel comfortable expressing themselves when writing.

Understanding Ratios- Lesson on Manaiakalani Google Class On Air

Last week I taught ratios to my class for the first time. My students had no idea of what ratios were and so I started by teaching them simple concepts to make them understand what was meant by ratios.
Click here to view my introductory presentation.

I gave them an example of beats in music and we also learnt the language associated with ratios like 2:3 is said as two is to three'. I also invited Mr. Caleb Strickland our music teacher to teach ratios. This was just awesome as students could make connections to how ratios are used in other areas like music. Then we moved on to problem solving.
It was a great lesson as all students in class understood ratios and have begun to look for examples of ratios in everyday life.

Click here to view my complete lesson