This is a sequel to my first post on “Teaching Grammar in Context Using Authentic Resources” posted on April 13, 2018.

In that post, we explored several of the approaches for teaching grammar in context:

• Concept Attainment
• Using an Inductive Approach
• Discovery Technique
• The Flipped Model
• PACE Model

Many of the above mentioned strategies allow students to use an inductive approach to figure out the “why” and “how” of grammar in context.  Some have more structured protocols than others.  Which one you choose depends on your students, the particular grammar point you want to highlight, and what works best for your teaching.

As we know, ACTFL’s Core Practices for World Language Learning include “guide learners through interpreting authentic resources” and “teach grammar as a concept and use in context.”

For this post, let’s turn our attention to examples of how authentic resources that might be used to teach grammar in context, thus combining two of the core practices.

The most natural way for students to gain an understanding of grammar in the target language is for them to see it being used in context.  Context carries meaning for students in lieu of learning “about” grammar in isolation, often in English.

In no way do the Core Practices imply that grammar or structure are no longer important to language learning.  Looking closely at the NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements, beginning at the Intermediate High proficiency level (in the case below for interpersonal communication), students must be able to exchange information and interact across various time frames.  At those levels, language learners must have structural understanding to be able to communicate in a variety of tenses.

Memes and quotes

A great place to start with teaching grammar as a concept and using it in context through authentic resources is to use memes and quotes.

Memes (although they cannot always be verified as authentic) are examples of grammar in context mixed with humor.  Many of them involve cats, dogs, and characters from television and movies.

A series of memes that are examples of a particular grammar point can be shown to language learners to have them draw conclusions about how that particular structure works.

Here are some examples below for adjectives in French:

One way to approach this task is to give small groups of students one meme.  Students analyze the meme first for meaning.  What is the meme trying to say?  Students use the visuals, cognates, words they already know, and words that may be related to ones they know to help them unlock the meaning.  The teacher circulates in the classroom and assists students with guessing the meaning of words with which they are unfamiliar using target language examples, circumlocution, and visuals, etc. to reinforce their meaning.

Then, students’ attention is directed to the adjectives in each quote/saying and the students draw conclusions about:

• the gender of the nouns being described
• the position of the adjectives (before or after the noun)
• the endings on the adjectives and what they say about the nouns they are describing.

The teacher might follow up with asking students to change the nouns in the memes. For example, in the meme with the giraffe, students can rework the quote to include a noun that is feminine, plural, etc.

The small groups of students may then be asked to create a meme of their own using ideas from the examples.

Visit my Pinterest page to see collections of memes and quotes for multiple languages or click on the images below for particular languages (French, German, Italian, and Spanish):

Tweets and other social media posts

The tweets below are authentic social media posts that all demonstrate the comparative in Spanish.  The teacher searched for them in Twitter by inputting phrases like “más que” and “menos que.”  Consider how a teacher might initially have students interact with the tweets as an interpretive task (deriving meaning from them) and then use the same tweets to examine how the comparative works in Spanish.  Students may be asked to highlight or circle the items/ideas being compared in each sentence and draw conclusions about what determined the ending of each adjective.

Poems and song lyrics

Poems and song lyrics are types of authentic text that are very friendly to teaching grammar as a concept in context.  Many of our language colleagues have aligned popular songs and famous poems in the target language to grammatical structures that they demonstrate in context and have generously shared those lists/databases with the rest of us.

French:

Clarisse Les chanteurs français et leurs chansons (crowd-sourced database)

German:

Ten Songs with Hidden German Grammar Lessons

Spanish:

El mundo de Birch Spanish amazing music database!!!

For more links for target language music aligned to grammar points, go to:

An example of a poem that French teachers often use as a great example of grammar in context, is “Déjeuner du Matin” by Jacques Prévert

The entire poem is embedded with examples of the passé composé in context:

 

Example in practice:

In an intermediate German class, the teacher shows a meme “It’s enough for me that I know that I could if I wanted to” to gain students’ attention and to spark a review of the use of the subjunctive in German.  Students are asked to brainstorm descriptors of the frog (confident, lazy, smart, etc.).  The teacher asks the students to tell why they chose the various descriptors.  If necessary, the teacher models an example (I think he is _____ because _____.)

The teacher draws the students’ attention to the verbs in the meme and their tenses.   She tells them that they will be listening to a song with a similar title and theme, “Wenn ich könnte wie ich wollte,” by Howard Carpendale.

The students are given a cloze activity with the lyrics to the song where all of the subjunctive forms (and other phrases) are removed and the students fill in the verb forms.  As they listen to the song, they check their answers and fill in other missing phrases.  The students share their answers in small groups and then listen a final time with all lyrics complete.

The teacher then provides a chart where the students fill in the present tense, imperfect tense, and the subjunctive verb forms (the verbs in bold all appear in the song):

As an extension activity, students are led through a guided writing task where they plan, peer edit, and write the final draft of a journal entry entitled “If I could, I would…”

Authentic resources are created by and for the target language users either for information or entertainment.  They are texts that students can read, listen to, or view in the target language.  Much attention is paid to written authentic text.

For this post, let’s turn our attention to building students’ interpretive skills with authentic text for listening and viewing.

As indicated by the infographic below,  listening has many benefits which include increasing literacy, fluency and motivation.

https://ebookfriendly.com/improve-reading-skills-infographics/how-audio-increases-literacy-infographic/

When considering having students listen or view authentic text, we must first anchor ourselves in the NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements that describe what students can do in the Interpretive Mode at the various proficiency levels.

Novices can: identify words and phrases, some isolated facts, and the topic or gist of an authentic text that is composed of simple sentences that is listened to or viewed.

Students at the intermediate level can: identify the main idea and some details from short straightforward authentic text and conversations.

Here are some examples of novice-level listening/viewing activities:

1. Spanish- During a unit on the theme of school, students listen to and watch a 30 second commercial about back to school sales at Arrocha, a store in Panama:

During their listening/viewing, students are asked to:

• circle all of the words/phrases they hear in the commercial based on a word cloud of words created on Wordle or Tagxedo
• circle each vocabulary word/phrase they hear and draw a line to the backpack
• complete a cloze activity with the commercial transcript.

2. French- During a unit on the theme of describing people and things, students listen to and watch a Coca Cola commercial called “Du bonheur pour tous.”

While they listen to and view the commercial, in addition to bullets one and three listed above (circling key words in a word cloud and doing a cloze activity using the transcript) an alternative activity might be:

• Students are given two columns of adjectives/descriptors.  As they listen to/watch the commercial they connect the opposites.

For links to authentic commercials in the target language, go to:

Or, go to my Pinterest boards that have target language commercials sorted by language:

French:      

German:    

 

Spanish:   

Types of authentic text that might be listened to or viewed include:

• commercials
• podcasts
• songs/music videos
• video clips
• movie trailers
• news clip
• live or recorded interviews
• live or recorded performances
• animated short films
• fine art
• photographs

The approach for teaching students how to listen to or view an authentic text (with audio) is very similar to that of teaching students how to read an authentic text.  Students listen/view for words they know, words that sound like words they know (cognates), and figure out meaning of words based on context.

Students’ comprehension can be bolstered before listening or viewing (with audio) by using typical before reading strategies:

• Students make predictions about the authentic text
• Students brainstorm connections with and ideas and questions about the topic of the authentic text
• Students list what they already know about the topic of the authentic resource

Similarly, students can use during reading strategies for listening and viewing (with audio) as well.

• Students take notes about authentic text as they listen/view
• Students record new vocabulary gained from the authentic text
• Students use a graphic organizer to record ideas while listening/viewing

What makes listening and viewing very different from reading as an interpretive skill, is that the text (unless the transcript is provided or there are subtitles) is not visible to the student.  To overcome this challenge (of not being able to see the words), students can be taught skills for capturing ideas they listen to through the use of a variety of strategies.

Supports and Scaffolds for Students During Listening and Viewing Tasks

Cloze activities

Cloze activities are those that use the script for a text with words or phrases omitted.  The task of the student is to listen to the text and fill in the missing words and phrases.  A great source for cloze activities for Spanish based on music is Zachary Jones’ website called Zambombazo.  He calls the activities “Clozeline.”

Here’s an example:

Here’s a cloze activity example in French for the song by Gerald DePalmas called “Mon Coeur Ne Bat Plus.”:

Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers assist students in capturing what they have heard/viewed and classify those ideas into topics/themes.  A great example is a 5W’s (who, what, when, where, why) and 1H (how) graphic organizer.  Here are some examples in Spanish below:

And here’s an example in French:

Or, the organizer might be where students record events from the text in sequence.  Here is an example in French:

and one for Spanish:

For more examples of graphic organizers, click here

Visual Notetaking or “Sketchnoting”

Visual notetaking or Sketchnoting is a strategy whereby students draw symbols and pictures to indicate their understanding of a text.  The result is a visual version of the text that was listened to or viewed.

Here’s an example in Spanish:

For more on how to teach listening skills, explore the slideshow below:

Viewing authentic resources without audio

Included in the examples of authentic text are visuals like photographs and fine art.

How do we teach students to interpret text like pictures?

Some strategies students can use when “reading a picture” are:

• describe what they see (what is going on, who is doing what)
• make connections with the visual
• describe how the picture makes them feel
• express an opinion

A great scaffold/support for students to practice how to interpret a picture is a “Picture Description Frame.”  Here’s an example below for Italian.  Students lay the “frame”(with the center cut out) over the picture and use the expressions around the perimeter of the frame to help them describe the visual either through speaking or writing.

Here’s an example for French:

During a unit on leisure activities, students view the painting called “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” by Georges Seurat.

The students overlay their “description frames” onto the image.

Then, the students use the prompts around the frame to assist them with describing the picture either orally or in written format.

This tool and ones for other languages can be found at the link below by scrolling down to the bottom of the webpage:

https://www.grahnforlang.com/scaffolds-and-supports.html

To find out more about viewing comprehension strategies, check out the resource below: