Session 1 Skills Sentencebuilding Core Language Every Lesson

Session 1: Skills Sentence-building Core Language, Every Lesson and Creativity Core Language The concept here is making a distinction between language that is essential to sentencebuilding and (spontaneous and planned) communication across topic areas and in most contexts and, having identified this language, using it time and time again so that students can eventually draw on it and recall it quickly from memory, seeing how to use it in a variety of different communicative situations. This is the language they should learn from memory and really know inside out. The sheet itself can be: a) Stuck in student exercise books for reference b) Used as a resource for differentiation (e. g. students can use it to create new sentences and be rewarded for their independent meaning making c) Given to parents at parents evenings and involved in the process of memorisation at home with their children On your CD you have the French, Spanish and German versions of these that we use in the department. Every Lesson The example in the presentation of linking colours and opinions serves to show that, even in lessons where the main aim is to introduce a set of nouns or adjectives, it is still desirable to lead learners on and up to sentence level by the end of the lesson, showing them how to recycle core language and use it in conjunction with the new language learnt. This means that students get a much more ‘joined up’ experience of language learning in the classroom and also that the levels of cognitive challenge remain high. This is a principle that can inform every lesson when the main objective given in the text book is apparently just to introduce a set of new nouns or adjectives or verbs. Creativity Encouraging creativity in language learning essentially means enabling students to create new meanings within the ability to manipulate structure that they have at any one time. It doesn’t mean only using the words they know, because as long as they are able to use a dictionary they can find new words to use. It does mean setting the structural boundaries of a creative task so that they can make new meanings successfully without overstretching the limits of their grammatical knowledge. Sometimes this means setting up a poem task that has a clear structural framework that limits the sentence building (but not the ideas!)