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Verb Slam Activity (VSA) – 5
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14 thoughts on “Verb Slam Activity (VSA) – 5”
I’m always so tempted to do more than “This means that”. Doing more than that when establishing meaning only activates their conscious mind.
In April I started using b, and c after watching one of Ben’s videos and it really works well. Who would of thought such a little thing has such a big impact.
Though I had kids who whined about that. Hey, it’s a question everyone can answer! What’s the big problem, I don’t know, but I stopped with c. because of their bad attitudes. Yes, this was from my most difficult group (they just graduated).
I have a poster w/ 4 levels of gesturing “mastery” that I use to hold kids accountable for becoming proficient in the gestures. It’s leveled by difficulty, as I perceive it:
Level 1: gesture the word I say in the TL “Class, show me ‘vomita'”
level 2: give the meaning in English of the TL word “Class, como se dice ‘vomita’ en ingles?”
level 3: give the TL word for the gesture you see me do ” Class, como se dice en espanol?
Level 4: Give the TL word for the English word you hear “Class, como se dice ‘vomits’ en espanol?”
I like this scaffolded approach to building them up to speaking the word quickly and chorally. at any point during the year I give quick quizzes on the words we’ve created gestures for at any of these four levels – my word wall currently contains verbs, prepositions, verbal phrases like “se lo pone – puts it on” The verbs are color-coded blue with the 3rd person sing. ending in red while prepositions are green and all else are black.
This is super helpful. I going to make it a point to be more discerning when asking for gestures or translations in this way, Grant. Thanks.
You know, gesturing is such an important part of how students communicate with me and how they communicate their understanding, it makes me think about including gesturing, explicitly, as part of the non-verbal responses on the jGR/ ICSR. But, gesturing is an interpretation skill, right? Yeah, it’s an interpretation skill… But gesturing is unlike interpreting L2 to L1 because the gestures are like a L3. So, in a way, when asking students to gesture during a story retell, for example, we are not asking them to enter their analytical minds, right? … But, it’s forcing output. Ok.
After thinking aloud here, I’m thinking that gesturing can be placed on the jGR as a kind of response that we are looking for as we are communicating to be understood. I would have 3 kinds of responses on the jGR then, 1) non-verbal responses (like nodding, thumbs up… or are these just like gestures?), 2) gesturing responses, and 3) verbal responses in L2.
Sean, are you saying that asking for a gesture is forcing output? I don’t know if I’m down with that. I do include gesturing as a non-verbal response on my current iteration of jGR but don’t distinguish them like you did here.
Well, for example, when I put a written story on the overhead and I ask all students to stand and gesture as I read through it, that’s forcing output, right? Or, it’s more like forcing a translation. Instead of forcing them to verbally translate to English I am forcing them (of course, I really don’t “force” them… just nudge them along with some insistence) to gesture. Of course, gesturing to interpret is very different than speaking English to interpret. There is a greater element of play with gesturing.
Perhaps I sound like I’m riding a rocket ship right now. Nonetheless, gesturing is so crucial to having students feel the language in their bodies that I want to make it more explicit that I expect all students to communicate through gestures. Highlighting gesturing on my jGR is a minimal step I want to take.
I think that giving kids interpersonal mode credit for gesturing is a good idea. The Chris Lonsdale talk (see Ted Talk) hit on the importance of gesturing to express oneself to native speakers of L2.
As to the issue of forced output, I would say that the only concern is forced output of L2. Forced is defined as requiring them to do something before they are ready/able. Gesturing, responding sí/no, saying what an L2 utterance means in English are measures of comprehension. They are also (along with square shoulders and clear eyes) evidence of doing their 50% in the interpersonal mode. Are they being forced to do it? If they don’t they are not meeting the interpersonal standard for their level of ability. But they are not being forced to do something that their brain is not ready for.
And we all know that there is nothing quite as cool as seeing a kid, after we just flooded the room with reps of something for half an hour, mouth or gesture the word. It is like getting a momentary look into the unconscious process going on in that kid’s deeper mind. When you see kids not even being aware that they are forming the word in their mouth, or gesturing it, you know that you are doing Krashen based language teaching.
Grant, were you doing a tense thing on your word wall too – present, past, imperfect?
Chill, for the purposes of my wordwall, I treat derivative forms as individual words – so, I have va, fue, iba as separate entries.
I do have separate posters w/ highest freq verbs and tenses made into posters that my kids and I reference daily. See those here: http://www.brycehedstrom.com/shop-for-classroom-materials
The poster idea is a carry over from my time in immersion schools. It makes sense to get kids recognizing tense changes quickly.
…I treat derivative forms as individual words – so, I have va, fue, iba as separate entries.
Grant, how do you display these three tenses va, fue, & iba? I currently have just va and fue up next to each other under a visual representation of “going”. I hardly ever use the iba form so I don’t put it up.
Sean, I just have lists of color-coded words on paper. No pics. Perhaps I should have pics, but I suck at drawing and don’t have the time to go searching for the right picture on clip art. It would probably help my students, but I haven’t done it yet.
In my particular case teaching preliterate kids I skip (a) or draw a stick figure instead of words.
The stick figures add a touch of humor though they can be confusing.
Just like gestures, as a class, we agree on the drawings.
” This means that” has replaced “point and pause” since there isn’t an English word to point at.