The journey towards contextualisation may seem daunting because it is. Nevertheless, it is a rewarding process that benefits both the teacher and the learner.
Here are five steps to contextualizing language lessons.
- Identify the skills you want your students to display by the end of a term or lesson.
- Determine the goal language ability you want the students to achieve
- Decide which literature would help your students learn the skills and reach the goal.
- Determine which language concepts would most likely help your students learn the skills and reach the goal.
- Ensure the literature you pick aligns with the interests of your students.
- Identify the specific skills you want your students to display by the end of a term or lesson
Be specific about the skills you want the learner to display as language learning involves several skills.
Here are the two core groups of language skills:
- Reception (listening and reading), and
- Production (speaking and writing).
These skills are self-explanatory, but if you would like an explanation, head on over to this site.
It will not be easy to develop all four skills equally in the classroom so you may have to prioritize the ones you find most essential.
It may seem like most classroom activities really just focus on enhancing one group of school, such as reading and writing skills, but this is not entirely true. The development of all four skills often occurs concurrently, with exposure to one skill fostering the growth of others.
If you teach a child to read, you are simultaneously teaching them to write even though your goal is the ability to read. This is because exposure to various texts can form patterns in the brain of what an acceptable text looks like. There will certainly be an extra need for writing practice, but teaching to read lays the groundwork.
If there are activities based on the reading sessions such as asking comprehension questions and having the students answer, you are also developing other skills such as listening and speaking. This is an encouraging fact of language learning.
Therefore, cherry-picking skills to focus on may not necessarily harm your student’s language development.
2. Determine the goal language ability you want the students to achieve.
According to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), there are six metrics for determining language ability. They are: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, and C2. Here is a brief explanation of all six levels.
Based on this information, it is clear that by Year 6, students should ideally feel quite comfortable with displaying language skills at the A2 level. If a baseline assessment reveals the entire class falling below this benchmark, it’s crucial to adjust literary resources accordingly. This involves starting with language opportunities aligned with A1 vocabulary and structures, progressively advancing towards the A2 level. It is undoubtedly a considerable effort. If you are looking for assistance in selecting texts, ChatGPT can help, and various online forums offer guidance tailored to your grade.
Notably, a significant challenge in Nigerian education lies in the tendency to choose texts that are either too simplistic or overly complex for the classroom.
3. Decide which literature would help your students learn the skills and reach the goal.
As educators, the crucial task is to determine the literature that will effectively nurture language skills and propel students toward their language proficiency goals. This entails a strategic approach encompassing the four fundamental language skills: reading, listening, speaking, and writing.
In navigating this selection process, consider the following tailored recommendations for a Year 6 class:
1. Writing Skills: Encourage students to delve into various text types, including diary entries, creative essays featuring animal characters, formal letters of appreciation, and narrative essays recounting special activities and occasions.
2. Reading Skills: Expand literary exposure beyond writing tasks. Integrate age-appropriate autobiographies, children’s books, comic books, and other engaging materials to foster a love for reading.
3. Speaking Skills: Foster oral proficiency through purposeful conversations on personal experiences and topics of interest. Guide students in practising the art of recalling and summarizing information acquired through listening or reading activities.
4. Listening Proficiency: Choose literature that enhances the recognition of higher A1 (and later A2) words and refines pronunciation.
In selecting literature, aim for texts that resonate with the developmental stage of the class. Incorporate age-appropriate novels, short stories, and informational texts that capture their interests. Strike a balance between fiction and non-fiction to provide a comprehensive language learning experience. Leverage technology, such as audiobooks, podcasts, and interactive online platforms, to enrich listening and speaking skills. The goal is to transform literature into a dynamic tool for language learning, tailored to the unique needs and capacities of the class, ensuring a meaningful and effective language education journey.
4. Determine which language concepts would most likely help your students learn the skills and reach the goal.
To attain the language skills and proficiency goals, we must teach key language concepts:
1. Vocabulary Development: Progressively introduce and reinforce vocabulary aligned with writing tasks, moving from basic A1 to advanced A2 levels. Expand vocabulary through diverse reading materials relevant to selected text types.
2. Grammar Proficiency: Emphasize grammatical structures for different text types, ensuring proper grammar and tense in diary entries, creativity in essays, formality in letters, and coherence in narrative essays. Reinforce grammar through targeted reading activities.
3. Speaking and Listening Strategies: Teach effective speaking strategies, including clear expression, appropriate language use, and engaging conversations with proper intonation. Enhance listening skills by focusing on higher A2 words, pronunciation, and discerning spoken nuances.
4. Reading Comprehension: Develop strategies for understanding various text types, emphasizing main idea identification, inference, and recall.
5. Writing Mechanics: Emphasize writing mechanics such as punctuation, sentence structure, and paragraph organization in each task. Apply learned language concepts to enhance clarity and coherence in written expression.
By incorporating these language concepts, educators provide a solid foundation for skill development and proficiency, ensuring students grasp linguistic elements essential for effective communication.
5. Ensure the literature you pick aligns with the interests of your students.
The final step is to connect the handpicked literature and language concepts to the students’ interests.
In our previous post, we recommended collating a list of the student’s interests. This is where we will see the use of that collation.
First off, choose career paths for each week. The career paths will be inspired by the career paths of the students.
Next, consider structuring lessons (featuring the literature and concepts) around career paths for the week. For instance, for my class, I create characters exemplifying different career paths. If the goal is to teach the student how to write diary entries, I show my students kids their age producing fictional diary entries about fictional experiences, building an entire narrative to create communicative opportunities. But I also go a step further.
Two weeks ago, I introduced Anu, a girl who manages a farm. She journals her farm activities, writes formal letters to order farm supplies, creates invoices, and even sends text messages to her friends. I told the entire class that we were all farmers just like Anu and so would get to do the same.
Learning how to journal or write letters became a meaningful adventure, contextualizing skills in a pseudo-world activity. The result? Kids learned steps to writing formal letters, what an invoice is, and how to write awesome text messages!
In another class, I taught a student how to write emails by teaching her how to write a fan email to her favourite gymnast. Gymnastics was the chosen career path for the week. She wrote a draft in her notebook, and we designed the email using Canva.
We actually sent it to the gymnasts (the Gardirova twins) in real life! I found their email on their Instagram page. My student has been asking me if they have responded. I cannot bring myself to say they have not.
In the future, I plan to teach her basic research skills by having her look up bios of her favourite gymnasts and recording her findings. This approach to teaching language is great because it engages the students with topics of interest that matter to them.
Ultimately, the goal is to foster engagement, improve metacognition, and inspire learner autonomy.
We must teach English to make English users, not English students, making language learning applicable to their lives.
