Low-tech and hi-tech ways to liven up the KS3 Mandarin classroom Low-tech and hi-tech ways to liven up the KS3 Mandarin classroom. Ben Stainer Wilmington Grammar School for Girls

Aims of workshop To share some key games and techniques I use to keep the classroom interesting and lively at KS3. To give teachers of Mandarin an opportunity to experience some of these in a foreign language environment. To give teachers a useful starting point for expanding their own repertoire of games.

Activity 1. Rock Paper Scissors Practicing tricky vocabulary – providing opportunities to get hold of the sounds in a very simple game. Pupils have a thin strip of paper and race from different ends of the paper to try to reach their opponents end. They must do Rock Paper Scissors wherever they meet. Losers go back to the beginning and winners restart. It can be modelled at the front to reinforce the vocabulary before pupils do it, or they can go straight into it if this support is not needed. It is wise to have some support for weaker pupils in the form of pin- yin.

Chuugoku Kankoku Beikoku

nihon igirisu doitsu

Kankoku Chuugoku Igirisu Nihon Doitsu Beikoku

Activity 2 - Tarsia – how to use the program to create puzzles.

Activity 3. Bar-Code Treasure Hunt activity. (requires mobile phone) This can be used as an ice-breaker for teams involving children of different language and culture. Or simply as an active task if you want to keep the pupils moving. Spread the bar-codes over the hunt site. Use QR codes to encode the description of the places where all the different tasks are. I normally avoid encoding the Mandarin in the bar-code as many QR readers pupils have here cannot decipher it. Use the text printed next to the bar-codes for the actual language tasks. Ensure you work out the team arrangements so that one pupils is in charge of the phone – see rule sheet.

Activity 4. Quizlet Audio Faculty – Requires Quizlet teacher to author. Using a teacher Quizlet account make highly portable listening tasks , using the cards to give hints to the meaning of the audio or to inform about specific grammar uses.

Put the name of the Set you are searching here. Bstainer WGSG Y8 Colours&Clothes Pick the set you want From the options Pick Cards Apologies for the Japanese – my phone set to Japanese here

Pick this options toggle. Use this to Change the Term/ definition As initial reveal. This switches the random Question selection on/off.

Activity 4. Quizlet Audio Faculty – Requires Quizlet teacher to author. Using a teacher Quizlet account make highly portable listening tasks , using the cards to give hints to the meaning of the audio or to inform about specific grammar uses. Advantages of this format Details can be drip-fed through the face of the cards to help illustrate the audio. This allows the teacher to plan some higher-level differentiation into the cards. Pupils can listen to the nuggets of information as many or as few times as they want. Your Hanban assistant can make the resources if trained. It is very easy to make and set up. There is no file download for pupils, and the format is targeted at mobiles – giving very rapid access.

How to make the Quizlet Audio Tasks Sign up to the Quizlet Teacher features – you have to pay a small fee to create cards with Quizlet Audio, but then it works for a year with unlimited usage. In the Create interface, after you have written the details you would like on the card – which may just be a command such as “Translate”, go to the microphone icon and click on it. Hold down the spacebar and make your recording. A standard set of interactive headphones, or a laptop is sufficient. You can check it straight away and move directly onto the next card or the Back of the same card.

Quizlet Audio Faculty Disadvantages Longer passages of text cannot be toggled as they can in Powerpoint. It is better to stick to short phrases. You can see the disadvantages of this in the High Level task. Make sure that you have the pupils beginning with the correct side of the card.

Activity 5. Chatterbox – A simple template that can be manipulated to get all pupils talking. get pupils extending their questioning and answering techniques. Coaching of the different levels of responses as well as requesting pupils to do the chatterbox in a self-diagnostic way can help them explore more authentic-seeming answers and responses to questions before they come across more formal speaking exams/ tests.