Headlines Routine

 “One of the biggest challenges is to get our students from receptive to productive use, in all its forms.”

Professor Norbert Schmitt, Professor of Applied Linguistics, Nottingham University, Www.norbertschmitt.co.uk

 

As teachers in the Israeli school system we need to assist our students to finish high school with knowledge of approximately 5,200 lexical items in English. According to Professor Batia Laufer, without massive input there will be low word gains. Furthermore, the input needs to be at the right level, and properly spaced.

I created this speaking lesson for my 10th grade ‘Keep Talking’ class, based on Laufer’s assertion that we need to ‘activate’ our students’ passive vocabulary. Firstly, I asked my students to recall the meaning of some lexical items previously taught. I presented the words in English, and asked students to recall and translate the words into L1 (receptive skill), and then use some of the words (productive skill), to complete the given tasks, based on picture prompts.

You can see an example of one pair’s work below, and then listen to an excerpt of their ‘Pair and Share’ activity, in order to see how engaged my students were.

צילום מעיתון הארץ   Photo from Ha’Aretz Newspaper, 20 October 2009

 

If you get a chance to do this activity with your students, I’d love to hear about it.

 

2 thoughts on “Headlines Routine

    1. Dear Erez,
      Thank you for your feedback. If you listened to the recording you would have noticed that my students had no idea who the man and the woman are.
      Jane

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