Writing About the Pros and Cons of Team Sports

When I decided to explore the writing task on page 62 in the Full Blast textbook, I wanted to do a hands-on activity with my form four students. With 'social distancing' being practised in school, I had to think of doing activities without having my students to break the social distancing rule, at the same time I also had to make sure I have sufficient materials and tools for them to do an individual task. 

So, What I did was, a few simple but engaging tasks. As a starter, I asked my students to think about the advantages and disadvantages of doing things as a group in the class. Students were given 2 minutes to think and they were then asked to shout out their answers (of course with their mask on, I had a difficult time listening to their answers). I wrote all their 'shout - outs' on the whiteboard and save it for the discussion later. 

The next task, students were asked to read the text on 'The advantages and disadvantages of team project work at school'. I did not want to make it a typical lesson of students read and the teacher asks a few questions and then move on to the next part of the lesson. I found the text to be very useful and students could actually explore the text looking for useful details before working on their own writing task. So, I designed a diagram for them to fill in details while reading the text. This was just another 'information transfer' activity, but I believe by doing this students will understand how to layout the structure of the essay when they write about advantages and disadvantages. You may download the task sheet here. The following picture shows examples of students' work. 

In this task, students were required to identify the advantages and disadvantages of a team project, as well as the writer's own opinion on the issue discussed. Besides, students were also asked to identify phrases to express contrast, phrases that are used to give example, phrases to extend one's opinion as well as phrases that are used to summarise the entire write - up. 

After completing the diagram, students were then drawn to the next task. Their task was to design a diagram on the pros and cons of playing team sports. The diagram that they used to complete the earlier task was an example for them to understand how to design their own diagram. 

Before they began, they were given a few reminders, they were told to think about specifically on the pros and cons of team sports. They were not to give general ones such as the following : 

Pros of team sports : 

         

                           a) keeps us healthy 

Cons of team sports : 

                           b) takes our time away from studies  

I did not allow my students to give ideas as above as they were too general and applicable to all kinds of sports. I wanted to develop their higher-order thinking skills. So, I made them think the pros and cons specifically on team sports. The following are some examples of diagrams drawn by students :

    I put all the diagrams on the noticeboard in the classroom so that students could take turns to look at their friends' work and get some ideas on how to work on the topic as they were required to write an article on "The Pros and Cons of Team Sports" in about 250 words as their homework. In order to help them to write better, I also gave them a checklist to refer while writing their essays. The checklist is shown in the picture below and they are to submit their essays together with the checklist. 

 

My reflection : 

The lesson went well and I believe with the activities that were carried out throughout the lesson, students will remember how to develop ideas to write an essay on advantages and disadvantages. I also focussed on the grammatical elements while we were reading the text to help students to understand the tenses that were used to write this essay. So, it helped them with the writing part too. 

That is all for now. Thank you and Happy Teaching! 

Vocabulary Chart for Descriptive Writing

Recently, I used a vocabulary chart as a writing aid for my students to write simple descriptive paragraphs. The chart has a plethora of words that can be used to describe emotions. The reason I used this chart was to help them to explore and use various descriptive words to describe emotions. This chart is very helpful as mediocre students can explore and refer to the chart whenever they need to describe emotions to choose the right words. 

The wheel - of - emotions shown above, is the chart that I used for my lesson. Though there are many other wheels in different shapes and sizes, I find this to be helpful to build confidence among mediocre students to write essays. I wanted a chart where the vocabulary isn't too difficult for mediocre students to handle and this chart perfectly fits into my expectation. 

  

If you are interested to explore more about this chart you can just type 'wheel - of - emotions on google search bar and you will find a lot of wheels which you can choose from but remember to choose something that your students can handle. If you want to look at some examples you may click here to visit my Facebook page where I have uploaded some 'wheels of vocabulary'. You may also download the chart here. 

How did I use the vocabulary chart in my writing lesson? 

I decided to use the chart above for a lesson to condition my students to use  different words to describe emotions. Firstly, I gave them an example as shown in the picture below : 

 

Based on the picture above, students were shown, how the paragraph started with the word 'bad' and the idea got extended from one word to another.  I engaged my students in a short discussion and then gave each of them a copy of the chart to refer. 

Students were then asked to construct a short paragraph in simple past tense using the words given in the vocabulary chart. If you notice, the vocabulary chart is colour - coded with the seven most basic emotions such as sad, bad, happy, surprised, angry, fearful and disgusted. Students were asked to pick one basic emotion and use the words that are associated with that emotion in the same colour to construct their paragraphs. They were not allowed to pick words from other groups. For example, if they were to choose the word 'happy' which is in yellow, their paragraph must only consists of words that are associated with the word happy which is colour - coded in yellow. However, if you are working with weaker students, you may change and make amendments to the rules. 

To help the weaker students, I had also created simple writing prompts to get them started. The prompts shown below are a few examples that we can share with our students to help them. (We do not need to give this to the mediocre and good students)

    

The writing prompt can be used as a guide only if students want to use them. However, If they decide to construct their own ideas, we can just let to them try.  Students were given 20 minutes for the in - class activity. When all of them had completed the task, they were to leave their products on their tables, walk around while maintaining 'social distancing' and read their friends' work . They were assigned the ' Two Stars and a Wish' activity. They were to write the stars and wishes on a note pad and put them on their friends essays. The following pictures show some examples of stars and wishes given by students to each other. 

After completing the in - class task, I gave feedback and students were required to pick two other emotions and write short paragraphs as their homework.  They were also given a self - assessment checklist for them to assess their own work before they hand in their work to me. The picture below shows the self - assessment checklist used for this lesson. 

The video below shows examples of students work done in the classroom.

That is all for now and happy teaching!!

Understanding 'A Poison Tree' through Poetry Bingo!

In my previous post, I shared a poetry lesson I had with my students after the school reopened. As a follow up lesson to check how much they had understood the poem, I decided to do a poetry bingo with them. 

Zoe - Trying to get her first 'BINGO!'

The lesson was intended to check how much they had understood (formative assessment)  the poem from the previous lesson. This was done to ensure students' understanding of the poem 'A Poison Tree' and planning the 'What's next?".So, I decided to try out 'POETRY BINGO' with them. 

The reason I chose Poetry Bingo because I wanted to them to enjoy learning poetry. At the same time while maintaining social distancing in the class, they could do something fun.  

Ever since they came back to school on 24 June, they did not get the opportunity to move and do exciting activities as teachers were worried that they might be reprimanded for not following the S.O.P. and I also sensed growing restlessness and boredom as a result of being confined to their seats all day.  So, I decided to plan activities that were both fun and do not require them to move from their places.........   

......and I started looking for activities from the old literature modules. (they are really old. I mean who would still be keeping modules from 'The Drover's Wife' generation? I do as they come in handy at times) That was when I bumped into 'POETRY BINGO'. 

'Poetry Bingo' is not something new. In fact, teachers who had attended the 'CEFR- Aligned Formative Assessment Workshop' in 2018, would have come across this activity. Just dig your files and you may find it, just like how I found it in an old literature module.... 

So, this is how the lesson was carried out : 

Students were given an empty bingo sheet and they were required to fill in 9 words from a list of words from the poem A Poison Tree. The word list was given as well.  Once they had filled in the words, I read the meaning of the words and they had to identify the meaning. If you are teaching the weak or very weak students, you may discuss the meaning of the words with them and help them to identify the words but if you are dealing with above average group,  reduced support will do. 

Students were told that if there was a BINGO, they were to stand and shout out 'BINGO!'. They may continue doing so when they get the second, third and fourth BINGO. 

Kalai Malar- trying to make her 'Bingo' sheet as 
colourful as possible

I continued the activity till everyone got a BINGO, till the last word. 

After completing the word level BINGO, I continued with a second round, which was more difficult compared to the earlier one. In this round, they were given a list of lines from the poem and they were to choose 9 sets to fill in the bingo box. 

The second round was about making interpretations of the lines in the poem. So, I read the interpretations and they had to identify from the lines - whether they had written in the box or left them outside. In this round, I chose to read the interpretations of the 10 most difficult lines in the poem. This was because, I was very sure that they would only fill in the bingo boxes the lines they had understood the best and ignore the difficult ones; true enough, that was what they exactly did! I did not want them to shy away from the difficult lines, so I picked the difficult ones.

However, it was not completely difficult as I made the interpretations easier with 'clue words' for them to understand. There were more clue words for the weaker ones and less for the good ones. 

Some students got back to back bingos!

After completing this activity, I moved to the SPM based activitiy which was a breeze, students could answer the questions effortlessly.  You may download the 'Poetry Bingo' activity task sheet here. 

Chong Chi Rou - attempting the SPM type literature
questions after the 'Bingo' activity

The following video shows how the 'Poetry Bingo' activity was done in my class : 

Tips: 

Do not try a third round of BINGO. It will not work, the excitement dies after the second round. So stop after the second round and try something else. 

Happy Teaching!