Thursday, February 14, 2013

Integrating the Four Language Teaching



Integrating the Four Language Skills
Whole Language Approach:
          Language is not the sum of its many discrete parts.

ADVANTAGES
1.     It exposes ESL/EFL learners to authentic language and challenges them to interact naturalistically in the language.
2.    Learners rapidly gain a true picture of the richness and complexity of the English language used for communication.
3.    It stresses that English is a real means of interaction and sharing among people.
4.    It helps teachers to track students' progress in multiple skills at the same time.
5.    It promotes the learning of real content, not just the dissection of language forms.
6.    It can be highly motivating to students of all ages and backgrounds.
                (Oxford, 2000)

*MODELS:
1. Content-based Instruction (L2 is simply a medium of instruction), e.g. using
    English in teaching biology in RSBI classes.
2. Task-based LanguageTeaching (Focuses on the functional purposes for which  
      language must be used. Sources: narratives in Extensive reading classes,
       cartoon strips, poems, songs, menus; tasks classify, order; drama activities, 
       etc.). Example: “Who gets the heart” (ranking activity)
3. Theme-based/Topic-based Instruction (weaker version of content-based),
     e.g. 1984/1994 curriculums: health, technology, etc. Language is still the main
     focus of the teaching-learning process. For example, under the theme
     “health” for SMP students, we can take a text about students planning to see
     their classmate who is in hospital because of DB, followed by tips to protect
     ourselves from DB, producing posters, etc.
4. Experiential Learning (“Learning by Doing”, inductive learning, often
    psychomotoric), e.g. making something using English (procedure texts), English
    courses in the workplace such as in offices, role-play, CTL-“neighborhood
    walk”, information reporting, young learners producing a text together based
    on a picture of a cat, for example.

Some Types of CL Techniques that Work



Some Types of CL Techniques that Work
  1. Jigsaw
    This type involves four to six members in a team working on material that has been broken down into sections. Each “home team” member reads his or her section. Then, members of different home teams who have studied the same sections meet in “expert groups” to discuss their section. Next, the students go back to their home teams and take turns teaching their teammates about their sections.
  2. Jigsaw II
Unlike Jigsaw, students work in groups of four in a team working on the same material. Each member of the team has a different job to do concerning the material. For example, if there are 12 comprehension questions, student A does questions 1-3, student B questions 4-6, student C questions 7-9, and student D questions 10-12. Then, members of different home teams who have answered the same questions meet in “expert groups” to discuss their answers. Next, the students go back to their home teams and take turns teaching their teammates about their answers.
  1. Learning Together
    In this CL activity, the students are organized into teams that include a cross-section of ability levels. Each team is given a task or project to complete, and each team member works on a part of the project that is compatible with his or her own interests and ability. The intent is to maximize strengths of individual students to get a better overall group effect. Final assessment is based on the quality of the team’s performance.
  2. Numbered Heads Together
    In this CL type, students number off in teams, e.g. 1-2-3-4. As soon as the teacher finishes asking a question, the students in the teams literally put their heads together to make sure everyone knows the answer. The teacher calls a number. Students with that number raise their hands to be called on, as in traditional classrooms.
  3. Roundtable/roundrobin
    In a roundtable activity, a student in turn writes one answer as a piece of paper and a pencil are passed around the group. With roundrobin, the students say the words orally.
    Roundtable-roundrobin dictation
    Students work in groups of 4, each takes turn reading a sentence and all must write. When finished, peer correction is done by each of the team reading and correcting the others’ work.
  4. Think-Pair-Share/Think-Pair-Square
    Students think to themselves on a topic provided by the teacher; then they pair up with another student to discuss it. They then share with the class their thoughts.
In Think-Pair-Square students (1) think to themselves, then share with a partner to discuss the problem. After that they share with another group, so the two pair together become a square.
7.    One Stay-Three Stray
 The students form groups of four. Given a task such as a ranking or problem- solving task, the students discuss in groups. When finished, three students (“strayers”) go to different groups to learn results of discussion; one (“a stayer”) stays to tell his group’s results to strayers from other groups coming to him. Finally, the “strayers” return to their home groups and discuss their findings. Groups might want to change or improve the results of their discussion.
  1. Flip it!
    This is a picture description technique that can be generalized to any type of discussion. The key is that everyone has an equal amount of time to contribute to the discussion.
    Students  work in pairs. Each pair has a picture, including going beyond what can be seen to hypothesize about the people in the picture. Then, the teacher says, “Flip it!” and the other partner continues the description. This procedure repeats several times. Finally, students are randomly selected to share their pair’s description with the class.
  2. Graffiti
    The teacher and the class decide on a theme. The students work in groups of four; each group write a statement or a question on the theme. This is written at the top of a large sheet of poster/chart paper. Groups take turns adding responses to other groups’ statements and questions. At the end of the activity, groups review the responses they have received from other group.
  3. Strip Stories
    Students work in groups of 4-5. Each member has one or more strips of paper on which are written sentences from a text. Students read but do not show their strips to group mates. The group uses their knowledge of language and content to put the strips into a correct order.
  4. The Five Friends
    Students work in groups of four. The students take turns reading and answering the clues which are looped and linked in an intricate way. Students record information on the worksheet next to the appropriate person and category. If their answers are accurate, their will be four blank spaces in the table. Figure A lists 19 clues for students. The students’ worksheet (Figure B) is an empty chart with the four questions listed after it. After filling in the blank spaces, the students will know the answers to the four questions.
  5. Paired Storytelling
    A narrative text is divided into two parts. Students work in pairs; each member is assigned different segments of the text. After they read their own parts, they jot down key concepts found in the part. Each student is to list the key words/phrases in which they appear in the text. Then they exchange the list and relate the clues to the story part they have read. Each student develops and writes his/her own version of the story’s missing part. When they finish, they may read the original version of the whole story and conclude the lesson with a discussion. 

Still I Rise



Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Gifted Hands



1.        Introduction
a.         Title            :    Gifted Hands
b.         Genre         :    Biographical – Drama
                               Based on a true story of Dr. Ben Carson (world-renowned  neurosurgeon) from 1961 to 1987. It was also made into an autobiography about his life as a kid to a surgeon.
c.         Casts          :   
    Cuba Gooding Jr. as Benjamin “Bennie” Carson
    Kimberly Elise as Sonya Carson (Benjamin’s mother)
    Aunjanue Ellis as Candy Carson (Benjamin’s girlfriend/wife)
    Gus Hoffman as Teen Bennie (Teenage Ben Carson)
    Jaishon Fisher as Bennie (Young Benie Carson)
2.        Synopsis
GIFTED HANDS
The movie begins in present day 1987, where Dr. Ben Carson (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) goes to Germany to visit a couple named Peter and Augusta Rausch, who have twins conjoined at the head. Ben knows that chances of saving them both will be at risk, because one baby always dies in situations like that. Ben agrees to do the operation, but he will wait four months so he can come up with a plan to save them both.
While looking into some of his books, the movie flashes back to the year 1961, where 11 year old Ben Carson (Jaishon Fisher) starts out life as an African American child from a single-parent with failing grades at school. Ben has an older brother named Curtis. His mother, who dropped out in the third grade, starts making decisions for him. When her boys need to learn multiplication tables, she has them swear to learn them while she is gone to check herself into a mental institution. When she sees her two sons' success hindered by TV, she schedules timings to watch tv, boys show great interest in watching only a quiz show later on and commands them to read two books per week from the library and give her a book report, she also moves them to better schools.
Meanwhile as time passes, Ben learns how to multiply and to spell. He starts to explore the world of books, and he grows in it. He begins to show a temper; Ben almost hits his mom with a hammer while arguing with her about what pants he should wear for school and almost kills his best friend as a teenager. His friend was saved as the knife that he used to stab him broke when it hit the buckle of his belt.
Having almost killed someone because of his temper, he realizes that he can't do anything about it. He runs to his room and cries out to God, praying that He delivers him from his temper.
He becomes the top student in his eighth grade class, third in his high school class and with hard work and strong determination, he got a scholarship to college, passed the MCAT and went on to medical school. He meets his girlfriend Candy, whom he falls in love with. One day, when he struggles with a test study, she helps him out and Ben eventually passes and gets an A.
In the year 1976, Carson faced adversity from fellow doctors and students while working at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. It is here where he performed an operation as a resident without supervision, risking his medical career to save a man's life. Then in the year of 1985, he saves the life of a girl who has seizures 100 times a day, by removing only half of her brain that was responsible for seizures, procedure called 'hemispherectomy". Candy later becomes pregnant with twins, but loses the babies from a bloody miscarriage. Ben's mother later moves in with the family.
Then the movie goes back to where it began: the year of 1987. Ben is eventually convinced to operate on the two twins, and he manages to make the operation successful, and both twins are saved.
3.        The Elements of The Plot
a.    Exposition
·      In 1987, Dr. Ben Carson goes to Germany to visit a couple named Peter and Augusta Rausch, who have twins conjoined at the head.
·      Ben knows that chances of saving them both will be at risk, because one baby always dies in situations like that.
·      Ben agrees to do the operation, but he will wait four months so he can come up with a plan to save them both.
b.   Conflict
·      The movie flashes back to the year 1961, where 11 year old Ben Carson with his brother, start out life as African American child from a single-parent  who dropped out in the third grade, starts making decisions for them.
·      When her boys need to learn multiplication tables, she has them swear to learn them while she is gone to check herself into a mental institution.
·      Seeing her two sons' success hindered by TV, she schedules timings to watch tv, boys show great interest in watching only a quiz show later on and commands them to read two books per week from the library and give her a book report, she also moves them to better schools.
c.    Rising Action
·      As time passes, Ben learns how to multiply and to spell.
·      Ben starts to explore the world of books, and he grows in it.
·      Ben begins to show a temper; Ben almost hits his mom with a hammer while arguing with her about what pants he should wear for school and almost kills his best friend as a teenager. His friend was saved as the knife that he used to stab him broke when it hit the buckle of his belt.
·      Having almost killed someone because of his temper, he realizes that he can't do anything about it. He runs to his room and cries out to God, praying that He delivers him from his temper.
d.   Climax
·      In 1976, Carson faced adversity from fellow doctors and students while working at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.
·      Ben performed an operation as a resident without supervision, risking his medical career to save a man's life.
·      In 1985,  he saves the life of a girl who has seizures 100 times a day, by removing only half of her brain that was responsible for seizures, procedure called 'hemispherectomy".
·      Candy becomes pregnant with twins, but loses the babies from a bloody miscarriage. Ben's mother later moves in with the family.
e.    Anti climax
·      The movie goes back to where it began; the year of 1987. Ben is eventually convinced to operate on the two twins, and he manages to make the operation successful, and both twins are saved.
4.        Character and Caracterization
a.    Protagonist
1)   Dr. Ben Carson: a patience, tough, smart, loving and caring guy with a good sense of humor.
2)   Sonya Carson: a strong single parent, loving, tough and has a mental problem.
b.   Round character
1)   Candy Carson: a patient, caring wife
2)   Teenage Ben Carson: a tempered, smart teenage
3)   Young Benie Carson: smart, patient young man
5.        Plot
The plot of the movie is a close plot. It is strictly chronological.
6.        Setting
·      Setting of time: around 1987 and flashback into 1961, 1976 and 1981
·      Setting of place: Germany, Maryland
7.        Theme
The toughness of a struggling woman (a single parent) to get a better life for her sons.
8.    Style
Gifted Hands, The Ben Carson Story is told in the first-person perspective. Ben Carson tells this autobiographical story of the African-American boy from the Detroit ghetto who rises to stellar achievement as a world-class pediatric neurosurgeon. With this personal perspective, we are able to key in on the emotions and events that touches and impacts this gifted man's life. Ben tells of his pain and anguish when he learns that his father left them and will not return. He relates the hard times he, his mother and brother endured after being abandoned emotionally and financially by his father. The audience learns how important his mother's influence is to his eventual success. Even though Ben does not start out as a good student, his mother instinctively knows he and his brother, Curtis, are smart and can excel.  
9.        Tone :
·      Sadness (when Sonya and her sons struggled to achieve a better life)
·      Happyness (when Dr. Ben Carson can save others’ live  )
10.    Symbol :
·         Books: it shows that books are the windows to see the world.
11.    Moral Lesson
·      There are some miracles that we can achieve in our live if we believe in it, we should not give up no matter how hard the situation is.
·      We should see inside us, if we want to be optimistic in catching our destiny.