Teaching Active English

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• Teaching Active English
• Wu Ligao
• The Institute of Online
  Education
• Beijing Foreign Studies
  University

2
How to conduct DP tutorials in your view?

• Please discuss these questions in pairs
• What does an effective tutorial look like?
• What do we need to pay attention to when we
  conduct tutorials to our DP students?
• How to give tutorials on three courses(CE, ER,
  and IE) together?

3
How to conduct DP tutorials?

• Features of effective tutorials
• Additional features of DP tutorials
• A sample tutorial
• Words of notion

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Features of effective tutorials

• A tutor does not teach students about the units
  in the tutorial, rather students should have
  finished the designated units before they come to
  the tutorials.
• The tutorial time should be spent on helping
  learners review, consolidate and expand what they
  have learned in the unit.
• The tutorial time should be spent on helping
  learners solve their study problems in the past
  weeks.
• Autonomous learning tasks should be designed.
• The objectives of the tasks should be explicitly
  stated.
• Sufficient amount of time should be spent on
  listening and speaking.

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Additional features of DP tutorials

• In addition to the above features, some tutorial
  time needs to be spent on intensive language work
  due to the students language proficiency level,
  such as spelling check, passage dictation,
  sentence making, and sentence translation.
• Some tutorial time needs to be spent on grammar.
• Some tutorial time needs to be spent on teaching
  learners how to learn effectively.

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What shall we do in tutorials?

• To organize assessment-orientated activities to
  check students performance and to identify the
  support they need.
• To offer guidance to autonomous study skills
  using examples from the unit.
• To provide necessary background information.
• To answer students questions.
• To facilitate interaction between the tutor and
  the students and among the students.
• To give students encouragement and to inspire
  their desire to learn.

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A sample tutorial (1)

• Tutorial framework (please refer to the
  handouts) six sessions, a number of tasks with
  objectives clearly stated, duration of time of
  each task, and teaching aids.
• Tutorial procedure (please refer to the
  handouts) the whole tutorial consists of a
  number of tasks. The procedures for carrying out
  each task is described in great detail.
• Kinds of tutorial tasks
• Design rationale

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A sample tutorial (2)

• Kinds of tutorial tasks
• Focus on language spelling check, sentence
  making,grammar instruction
• Focus on skills listening, speaking, reading

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A sample tutorial (3)

• Design rationale (Cite examples from the tutorial
  plan)
• 1. Some tasks aim to review, some tasks aim to
  consolidate and some tasks aim to give some
  additional knowledge and expand what they have
  learned.
• 2. Some language work is very necessary for first
  year students.
• 3. Listening and speaking are given priority in
  the tutorial.

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A sample tutorial (4)

• 4. Authentic language input is very important for
  helping student improve their language
  proficiency.(e.g. Watching a video documentary)
• 5. It is very necessary to develop students
  abilities of reading a text and then synthesizing
  the information in their discussions.
• 6. It is very necessary to help students develop
  their critical thinking skill, formulate and
  express their own views.

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Words of notion(1)

• Make sure that students have finished the
  designated units before the tutorials.
• Make sure that most of the tutorial time is spent
  on engaging the students in doing the tasks.
• Avoid lecturing too long.
• Try to make your tutorial tasks interesting and
  instructive.(Spelling check ? asking two
  volunteers from each group to write on the
  whiteboard, the winner will get a prize
  translation/sentence making ? Ss do them in
  groups and then get a mark as a team role play
  information-gap and jig-saw reading)

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Words of notion (2)

• Always give students input before asking them to
  do anything. (e.g. Asking students to read the
  texts in the unit and then extract relevant
  information and use them in the discussion or
  giving students an input text and then start the
  discussion or asking students to watch a video
  documentary and then answer relevant questions
  about the video or fill in the missing words in
  the script.)
• Personalize the learning tasks. (E.g. Unit 2 of
  Active English series band 1 introduces about an
  American college student life, then in the
  tutorial, students are asked to compare the
  college student life in the US with that in
  China.)

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Video-based case analysis

• Task-based teaching
• Giving instruction
• Process
• Feedback
• Watch and comment

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Video-based case analysis

• Instructions
• We are going to watch several video clips of
  classroom teaching procedures. Please watch
  carefully and discuss in pairs your own opinions
  toward a specific point in the clips.
• What are they doing?
• Whats the problem?
• Whats your suggestion?

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Video-based case analysis a summary

• Clip 1
• a review activity practicing dialogue
• a step by step procedure guiding students in
  their learning
• ? Not adequate feedback

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Video-based case analysis a summary

• Clip 2
• A class beginning an introduction to todays
  tasks
• a brief introduction of todays tasks making
  students aware of a whole sessions arrangement
• a brief introduction to each of those tasks
  bridging past knowledge with incoming knowledge

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Video-based case analysis a summary

• Clip 3
• Group activities instructions
• giving specific and clear instructions including
  allocated time, means, and questions raised by
  the tutor.
• ? Questions raised by the tutor did not appear on
  the blackboard. Students might forget questions,
  especially when there are many questions.

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Video-based case analysis a summary

• Clip 4
• A group activity
• paying attention to individual student
• giving guidance and feedback according to the
  performance of individual students
• being encouraging

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Video-based case analysis a summary

• Clip 5
• A listening activity
• providing aids such as pictures
• lead the students to predict the content of the
  listening material
• ? Not adequate feedback

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Assignment and Test

• Study progress card (Unit-based, 5)
• Assignments (2 for each term, 15)
• Final exam (80)
• Exam-related resources on the platform

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Learner Support

• Introduce students to the resources available
• Motivate students
• Help students with their autonomous learning

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Group Project

• Make a lesson plan (AE3-U1)
• (pair work)

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Questions are welcome!

• Thank you!