Some time ago I had a twitter conversation about learning by rote and how to make it 'more pleasant'. Rote learning tends to get a bad press but I am of the belief that the more we can do to help our students free up working memory, the better. I then posted my thoughts on how it is indeed possible to make learning by rote a pleasant process that motivates and encourages learners because they have committed some vocabulary, some chunks, some idioms, whatever it may be, to memory. These, they can then draw on when producing language independently.
The conversation seems quite old hat given that, now, in Modern Languages we use Sentence Builders a great deal and have developed numerous activities that ensure our students have the chance to reuse content, thinking about it in a meaningful manner when manipulating language. Twitter is filled with examples of teachers' great work on Sentence Builders. Just check out Sentence Builders in the search bar on twitter ..
So these ideas come from 2014. I am a firm believer in the Pareto Principle whereby the impact for my students is high even though my input is low so these are generally low planning ideas with high gains for students.
I have added my reflections on these ideas asking myself if I would still do these things now. I have assumed that all the texts I am looking at would be based on Sentence Builders and areas that have been studied already and are not texts that are full of unfamiliar vocabulary and grammar.
Share the text
Take the text to be learnt and in pairs get the students to read through. First quietly, then partner A reads out loud to partner B and vice versa. Then in unison. Next fold the piece of paper in half. Partner A holds the folded paper up so that he can see one side and Partner B can see the other. Partner A can see the first half of each line, as follows:
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| Taken from Perfect Assessment for Learning |
Naturally, Partner B can see the second half. Now, Partner B starts by recalling out loud (and hopefully word for word) the first half of each line and Partner A does the same with the second half. There may be some prompting needed. The Partners can then swap round.
This will still play a part in my classroom. It encourages students to think about the language in a grammatical way, considering what type of word would come next. It can also focus the mind on particular words and encourage students to think properly about the text. This, therefore, becomes an activity that is not simply about learning something parrot fashion but about manipulating language.
Tennis
Partner A serves the start of a sentence Partner B responds without looking at the text. Score as in tennis.
Yes, definitely a keeper as in the activity above.
In the style of
Students should be challenged (or they can challenge each other) with the task of reciting the whole text or sections of it in the style of someone famous or with a different accent. It helps if it is someone a little bit out of character of the text. They can play this in pairs or groups. The groups could decide the characters or accents and place these in a hat. The person in the spotlight chooses their character/accent and off they go.
I would be concerned here about the activity descending into silliness and that the focus would come off the actual learning thus rendering the activity pointless. So, this is no longer part of my repertoire.
Speed (or not)
This can be done as a class, smaller groups, or in pairs. One person recites a section of the text and the rest of the class, group or the other person has to repeat it back at various speeds.
I do see virtue in this activity. I do it as a whole class activity when introducting chunks from my Sentence Builders and I believe it has a part to play in the learning process. If students worked on this in pairs or groups I would proceed with care and ensure that as I go round the classroom students are truly focused on the content.
Choir
You do not have to be musical to do this! Split the class into 3 or 4 sections. It is easiest to split them depending on the seating arrangement. Take one sentence of the whole text and break it up into 3 or 4 bits and allocate each of these bits to the different sections in the class. You are the conductor (or maybe one of your students would like to take on this role) and when you point at a particular section of your orchestra (class) they must repeat back to you their little bit of the text. You then point at another section and do the same thing. You can speed this up, slow it down, mix it up or do it in order.
I would definitely proceed with care here. However, it is an activity that I might do with my Year 7 or 8 as it is a good way to get tricky phrases into the long term memory. My experience tells me that when students repeat back their section of the text they are not really aware of the part that it plays in the sentence. Best, in my opinion, to get students to repeat the whole phrase.
Four in a row
Take the text, and insert small sections into a grid 5 x 5 or 4 x 4 (this depends on the size of your text and how big/small each section is). Again, students play in pairs or fours (or more). To win a square the player has to correctly say the line that comes before the text within the square (or the line after - that is up to you). The first person to win four squares in a row is the winner.
This has been a constant in my classroom. I have adapted it and added layers to it, such as making students translate the text. I often set this up with a referee who checks on accuracy.
Snakes and ladders
As above but on a snakes and ladders board.
Who's the quickest?
Get the students to time each other and see who can do it the quickest. The first round you could allow for one mistake a sentence and then reduce the number of mistakes made. The students judge each other.
This is not activity that I would undertake now in this form. Like the activity In the style of I think the point of the activity would be lost as students focused too much on delivering the content in a rush. They would not be thinking properly about the sentences. On the other hand, if at the end of a series of lessons working with the content, I added the layer of translating into or out of the target language that would be a beneficial task for my students and would naturally force the students to slow down as they considered their responses.
I wonder if you have any more ideas to add to this post? If so, I would love to hear them. Please leave a comment in the box below.
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