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A webinar on using LEGO and Cuisenaire rods in teaching English as a foreign language, held for IATET on 25 June 2014
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HANDS-ONExploring LEGO® and similar toys in teaching technical English
Anne Hodgson, 25 June 2014
IATET Webinar
Overview• Aims overall• Teaching communicative skills (generating language)• Teaching linguistic skills (modeling, focus on form)• Teaching communicative business skills (presentations,
problem-solving techniques)• Tips and reflections on developing the best activities for
your learners
When do you learn a language best? What about your students?
Two of the keys to effective learning:Inspired consciousness and hot cognition
“Inspired consciousness is sudden and intuitive, not deductively rational. It organizes experience, prioritizes understandings, changes our habitual ways of thinking.”
“Hot cognition can be tied Csíkszentmihályi's idea of flow, i.e., complete immersion in a task, along with merging of action and awareness, lack of distraction, subjective sense of joy and confidence, balance between challenges and competence, effortlessness, and intrinsic motivation.”
– Rebecca L. OxfordThe Psychology of Language Learners: What We Can Learn from Intercultural Learner Narratives,
Workshop Berlin June 1 2014
In their hands: What have you used to teach your technical students?
Lego, rods, blocks –manipulables, play
Realia, models – artifacts, show and tell
Mini whiteboard – blank slate, complex visuals
generating
describing
modeling
Skills: What do you want to teach?
Communicative skills
Linguistic skills
Technical skills
Business skills
LEGO® and Cuisinaire rods:A fun solution looking for a problem ;) ?
Emma Herrod:LEGO® in the EFL Classroom
Post on Teaching Village
27 May 2010 http://tinyurl.com/ljagpqt
1. Running ‘Bricktation’ w/ instructions pinned outside. Source: http://www.lego.com/en-us/creator
2. Build, write instructions (whole class, then pairs), then others build from instructions
3. Freestyle: Build a house together
Communicative skills
Communicative skills
“I’m a firm believer in the correlation between creativity and language development. I’m also sure than when
our students have the opportunity to become immersed in a cognitive and creative task, the
language will fall out of their mouths – I’ve seen it.” Emma Herrod
Mike Harrison
“Make a model out of Lego – the more complicated the better!
Place the model somewhere not all the students in the class can see. Screens or office dividers can be good for this.Divide the class into two teams. They then have 15/20/30 minutes to attempt to reconstruct the model!”
Comment on Emma’s post on Teaching Village
27 May 2010 http://tinyurl.com/ljagpqt
Communicative skills
Jason Renshaw
“For problems with L1 invasion of the activity, I have a sure fire way of dealing with that… Every time I hear the L1 instead of English, I confiscate a brick.”
Comment on Emma’s post on Teaching Village
27 May 2010 http://tinyurl.com/ljagpqt
Communicative skills
http://www.lego.com/en-us/technic/
1. Download visual instructions
2. Each team builds
3. Teams write out instructions
4. Teams exchange and rebuild each other’s model from the other team’s instructions
Write technical instructions
Could your groups generate language
simply because they need it here?
Pro: Merrill Swain, Comprehensible output: Learning takes place when a learner encounters a gap in his or her linguistic knowledge.
Communicative skills
Contra:Stephen Krashen: “Their method is to take someone who speaks no German, fly them up in a helicopter, and then threaten to push them out of the helicopter unless they start speaking German.”
In flow... what are they learning?
Communicative skills
Output:functions (instructing, checking)
Communicative skills
Modeled input: storytelling markers, narrative tenses
Storytelling timeline, Cuisenaire rods, look-alikes, learned from Mark Powell
Communicative and linguistic skills
The Silent Way Cuisenaire Rods
Caleb Gattegno (Alexandria, 1911–1988)
Visible & Tangible Math
The Silent Way (foreign lang.)
Words in Color (reading)
Method:• Phonemes assigned to
colors.• Words mapped in those
colors.• Teacher points to words,
elicits
Demonstration Diane Larsen-Freeman/ Donald Freeman http://youtu.be/xqLzbLCpack
Usage on en.wikipedia.org Silent Way
Linguistic skills
Use LEGO® like Cuisenaire rods
Emma Herrod, Teaching Village, Part 2, 27 May 2010 http://tinyurl.com/mjjwhgl
1. Compare syntax
2. Visualize sentence stress (prominence) and word stress
3. Visualize collocations: yellow verb + pink noun or blue adjective + pink noun
Linguistic skills
Communicative skills
What I‘ve done...
1. Timelines for “how long” (connecting blocks) and “how often” (separate blocks)
2. Reducing clauses
3. Distinguishing defining from non-defining clauses, adding ‘comma blocks’
4. Visualizing details of connected speech, weak forms, contractions
5. Replacing words with other collocates or colligations
Linguistic skills
... and you?
Presentation skills with Hans Rosling
1. Lego, rods, blocks...
Global population growth, box by box – Ikea boxeshttp://youtu.be/fTznEIZRkLg The Guardian: Population growth and climate change – LEGO http://tinyurl.com/ktjl8tk
bar charts, visualize dimensions, proportions...
method limited to size
Communicative business skills
Presentation skills with Hans Rosling
2. Realia, models, artifacts
The magic washing machine http://youtu.beBZoKfap4g4w
Communicative business skills
Use the power of realia in stories:
concrete, evocative, connotations
Presentation skills with Hans Rosling
3. Blank slate/ Complex visuals
Presentations using Gapminder
Communicative business skills
Flexibility
draw (a concept, a thing) first
define variables or other aspects
then explain overall
LEGO® Serious Play
www.seriousplay.com
http://seriousplaypro.com/tag/serious-play-case-studies
Think with your hands
Facilitated problem-solving by building metaphors.
Creative, social, hands-on, reflective.
Core process:
1. Facilitator poses question
2. Individuals build their models
3. Individuals tell their story
4. Questions and reflections
Communicative business skills
1. Practice building
• Build a towerMount a mini-figure at the top
• Build a bridge A football must pass underneath
• MetaphorsFollow instructions to build, then discuss the figure.
2. Develop storytelling
• Make up a story, then build a model to explain an aspect
• Explain itGet 5 bricks, select 10 more, use to build a model
• Promote itBuild a simple model, write 5 words that capture what you want to say about it
Communicative business skills
LEGO®Serious Play
Tips for working with LEGO and Cuisenaire rods
• Introduce them matter-of-factly• Explain your aims, not why you are using these tools• Agree on meanings and stick to them• When building, create a big clear space• Use the learners‘ stories, build them into whatever you
are modelling• Give clear instructions, have learners repeat • Leave lots of room for play, allow for flow, feedback lightly
Visual Kinaesthetic
Abstract Concrete
Reflections:How do visual and kinaesthetic, concrete and abstract learning differ? What activities could generate flow?
Develop a conceptual model /explain using a metaphor
Build a model, explain how it works
Think with your hands / create before you speak /
Show/ describe / color-code / explain pictures / give instructions in writing /
LINKSEmma Herrod, More Than Five Things to do with LEGO® in the EFL Classroom,Teaching Village, 27 May 2010, http://tinyurl.com/ljagpqt
Lego instructions http://www.lego.com/en-us/creator
Lego Technic instructions http://www.lego.com/en-us/technic/
The Silent Way demonstration, http://youtu.be/xqLzbLCpack
Serious Play www.seriousplay.com http://seriousplaypro.com/tag/serious-play-case-studies
Hans Rosling presentations
Global population growth, box by box – Ikea boxes http://youtu.be/fTznEIZRkLg
The Guardian: Population growth and climate change – LEGO http://tinyurl.com/ktjl8tk
The magic washing machine http://youtu.beBZoKfap4g4w
Gapminder: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen
THANKS FOR JOINING US
Anne Hodgson, anne.hodgson@t-online
