ACTIVE LEARNING METHODOLOGIES 1

Active learning methodologies - I

3. Interactive groups

2. Communicative competence

1. What are they?

5. Some examples

4. Don't forget

6. Thank you

Index

01

What are active learning methodologies?

Main characteristics:

Team work and collaboration.

Learning is self-directed.

Learning as a constructive rather than a passive process.

Teaching is student-centered.

02

Communicative competence

Active learning methodologies as a key to improve students' communicative competence.

Content and Language Integrated learning

Successful educational actions for inclusion and social cohesion

Fllipped classroom learning

Some active learning methodologies:

Project-based learning

Task-based learning

Gamification

Cooperative learning

03

Interactive groups

Activities are short, around 15 minutes, and centred on instrumental learning.

Consists of grouping students into small, heterogeneous groups, each of them supported by an adult.

Interactive groups

A successful educational action that interests us as English teachers is:

Why IG are great for our classes?

Team work and collaboration.

Time restriction can be very challenging and motivating.

They are an inclusive strategy.

Teaching is student-centered.

04

When planning IG don't forget

reachable goals

prior knowledge

take your time

Take these factors into acount:

voice level

4 skills

scaffolding

Classroom set up possibilities:

2 activities + 2 teachers

4 activities + 2 /4 teachers

05

Some examples of IG English activities

You can adapt any board game to practise the specific language students have been recently working on in your classes (developing language accuracy). You can find many language board games ready to print online on different websites. or you can create your own.Click on the image to download this "what's the time" board game from isl.collectivecom

BOARD GAMES

Dominoes are also a great opportunity to create language interactions. You can use only image or image and word dominoes with the little ones or you can introduce some grammar (matching sentences according to the subject) or do a CLIL dominoes with your older students. You can find many ready to print dominoes online or you can create your own if nothing online suits you. Click on the image to discover a website with many ready to print dominoes.

DOMINOES

Traditional card games like Snap, Kim's game or memories are an all times favourite. Although there's also other contemporary games you can adapt like UNO. When playing card games students have fun whilst they're communicating in Enlish, developing their basic interpersonal communicative skills. For those of you who'd like more card games ideas you can click on the image to discover more card game options.

CARD GAMES

You can give students images or words cards and ask them to build as many sentences as they can with the given words either orally or in paper. With the older students you can give them only word cards and ask them to order them to build complete and correct sentences. Or you can add an element of fun by creating silly sentences and using lego pieces instead of laminated cards.

BUILDING SENTENCES

On the other hand, you must also provide students with opportunities to be spontaneous with their language, developing their fluency. You can do it with questionnaires like this one. You can laminate it and write different questions on it every time you're going to do an IG session. Click on the image to download it from "class class yes yes" TPT account.

ROLL AND SPEAK

Guessing games like "what's up/what's on my head" are also a wonderful opportunity for students to formulate questions and answers. You can buy plastic headbands and image/word cards, you can create your own headbands with some card or you can just stick post-its with word written on them on your students fore-fronts if you're short on time.

WHO AM I? /WHAT AM I?

From using digital or physical story cubes bought on a store, to roll a story or printable story cubes you can download from the internet, storytelling has an endless list of possibilities we can benefit from when doing IG both in a written or oral way.

STORYTELLING

We all use songs and stories in our English classes so if we think about it there's a good deal of stories and songs our students are already familiar with. So why not reminding them of some songs/stories they've listened to in the past and ask them to work in groups and put the sentencers or paragraphs in order? It's a fun reading & speaking activity they will enjoy to do. You can download and cut this "Happy" activity by clicking on the image.

UNSCRAMBLE A SONG/STORY

In this activity 4 students are given the same blank paper and a random letter. In a selected time they must complete the grid with as many words as they can. They have to help each other and share their knowledge to increase their punctuation. You can use an online alphabet wheel and a timer to add an element of fun. Download the template by clicking on the image if you wish to use it. Laminate it in blank so students can reuse by writing over it.

ONLINE CLASS TIMER

ONLINE ALPHABET WHEEL

4 AGAINST THE CLOCK

When doing IG with a big group it's great to have at least 4 tablets and make sure students develop their digital and communicative competence in at least 1 out of the 4 planned activities.There's a wide range of educational apps and websites students can explore on their own. Also, we can link specific digital activities we want our students to do on Aules. We'll learn all about the most useful educational apps along this course.

USING TABLETS TO DO DIGITAL ACTIVITIES

Thank you!