From Concept to Creation: Teaching Grammar That Sticks A session prepared for Central Florida TESOL Saturday, February 28, 2004 Kerry Purmensky Assistant Professor, TESOL Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures University of Central Florida Orlando, FL

Bloom’s Taxonomy (revised) Remember Elaborate, Encode, and retrieve information from long-term memory Understand Connect new learning to prior knowledge by interpreting, classifying, comparing, summarizing, etc. Apply Follow procedures to solve problems or carry out tasks Analyze Break down, relate parts and whole, organize Evaluate Critique or judge based on explicit standards/criteria Create Generate, plan, synthesize, produce the new

Conceptest – Remember, Encode Gertrude Ederle died on November 29, She was 98 years old. What did she do on April 6, 1926? Activity Without discussing, choose one of the following verbs to describe what you think she did. Write down one sentence below. GO SIT EAT FIGHT READ VOTE WATCH SIT SPEAK SWIM RUN STAND ROB TEACH CREATE WEAR WRITE PREDICT PLAY PRESENT SEEK CROSS SAY CALL DECIDE TELL IS BEAT HOPE HAVE WANT SING GET GIVE COVER STUDY HELP What tense did we use to describe her activity?

Think-pair-share – Understand and Apply Let’s guess some information about Gertrude. Write down what you think is the answer to the following questions. Then you are going to pair up with someone in the room and share what you have written. First, one person will ask the question and the other one answers, and then you can switch. 1) How old was she when she did it? She ____________ ____________ years old. 2) What did she wear? She ____________ a ____________ swimsuit. 3) What did she do while she was swimming? She ____________ ____________. 4) Who begged her to stop swimming? Her ____________ ____________ her to stop swimming. 5) What question did her coach ask her while she swam? Her coach ____________ her, __________________________________________?” 6) How did Gertrude answer her coach? She ____________ him, _______________________________________________.”

7) How long did it take her to swim the Channel? It ____________ her ____________ hours and ____________ minutes. 8) How far did she swim? She ____________ ____________ miles. 9) After she had finished, who did the mayor of New York compare Gertrude to? He ____________ her to ____________. 10) Afterward, what did the President of the United States call Gertrude? He ____________ her “________________________.” Think-pair-share – Understand and Apply What else are we teaching, other than just verb forms?

Hypothesize – Test – Confirm - Analyze You’ve written some simple past tense verbs in sentences and questions; let’s try to guess some rules about the spelling of these verbs. Let’s start with the verbs we used above. is - was wear - wore sing - sang beg – begged ask - asked answer - answered take - took swim - swam compare - compared call - called

Hypothesize – Test – Confirm - Analyze VerbSpelling in simple past tense Spelling RuleTest- Confirm with examples call ask called asked comparecompared is take wear sing swim was took wore sang swam begbegged answeranswered How did we create these verbs? What other kinds of rules could you study with this method?

Create-a-quiz - Evaluate Now, let’s evaluate what we have learned. You are going to create a quiz for each other to take over the simple past tense. Use the verbs from the list above and create 3 questions about yourself which must be answered in the simple past tense. Then exchange your quiz with a partner, answer the questions, and hand them back. After that, discuss the correct answers with your partner. (In your own class, you can make this simpler by giving models and ideas for questions, or you can make it more challenging by leaving it open - this should generate a lot of questions as they try to apply their knowledge to a new situation, and negotiate the correct answer). Example: What year did I graduate from high school?

Creative Writing - Create: Homework: Go to npr.org and click on audio archives. Search for Gertrude Ederle. Listen to the stories about her and write a story about Gertrude for your classmates.npr.org Homework: Go to biography.com and find some information about someone you like, hate, respect, or have an interest in. Use this information to write a story for your classmates. How can you make this activity accessible to other age groups and levels? You are going to divide into groups and create a similar lesson plan. You can choose any verb tense or grammar concept, plus any person you want to write about. Tasks: 1) Choose a person (try to stump us!) (I have some samples if you want) 2) Choose a grammar concept 3) Create a conceptest to capture our attention 4) Create a think-pair-share activity with about 1-2 questions 5) Create a hypothesize-test-confirm activity with one rule 6) Be prepared to share your activity with the group!

Gertrude Ederle