Flipping

Advanced ESL

Grammar

Sections taught by Anne Agard at

Laney College

Fall 2008-Fall 2013

The

Old

Sys

tem

:

Students read a text that demonstrates a

grammar point.

The teacher explains the grammar point in class.

The students do some exercises in class to

show that they get it.

The teacher plans some more interesting

class activities, but often runs out of time.

The teacher assigns homework. Some

students do it and some don’t.

The teacher gives a

writing assignment that

incorporates the target structure.

The results are disappointing.

The teacher marks up

the papers and returns them. The second drafts are better.

The F

lipped

System

Students work at home

on a Moodle site.

They:

Read and listen

to the text.

Watch short YouTube

videos of the teacher

explaining the grammar.

Do online exercises to

test their understanding.

Access other online

sources about the topic.

Participate in

online forums.

Email the teacher if

they have a problem.

It ta

kes

a le

ast a

s m

uch

time

as th

ey s

pend

in

clas

s.

(At first, they complain.)

Now they go to

class.

The teacher answers

questions about the

homework.

Then they do the fun

activities that the teacher

didn’t use to have time for.

They receive a writing

prompt that requires use

of the target structure.

They do some

freewriting on the topic in

class.

They discuss the writing

prompt in small groups.

They finish the

writing assignment with

the instructor as resource.

They read each others’

papers and make

suggestions.

They do guided editing

of their papers in class.

Then they turn in their

work! The papers are

pretty good! The

teacher grades them.

Some preliminary data,

for what it’s worth:

Out

com

es fo

r Tr

aditi

onal

C

lass

es: A

vera

ge f

or

Thr

ee S

emes

ters

WDN/D/F/NP

C/P B A0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0.35

Com

parin

g F

inal

Gra

des:

Trad

ition

al C

lass

es w

ith

the

Spr

ing

2013

Flip

ped

Cla

ss

WDN/D/F/NP

C/P B A0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0.35

Com

parin

g A

vera

ge

Fin

al E

xam

Gra

des

F2011 S2012 F2012 F20130

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

At the end of the semester,

the students were shown this

data,

and asked why they thought

they had done better than

students in previous semesters.

Ano

nym

ous

quot

es:

“I can watch many times in order to

understand the grammar.”

Ano

nym

ous

quot

es:

(in class)“The teacher can focus on questions and

explain the grammar that the students don’t understand.”

Ano

nym

ous

quot

es:

(Class time) “is like playing with the

grammar that we have already learned.”

Ano

nym

ous

quot

es: “The online exercises are better

than the paper exercises because we can do (them)

many times.”

Ano

nym

ous

quot

es: “If we want a good

grade, we will do the exercise many

times because the grade is the average.”

Ano

nym

ous

quot

es:

“The students are well-educated and

work so hard.”

“We knew much grammar even before this class.”

Ano

nym

ous

quot

es:

“The teacher is (an) honest and humane person.”