Blog 10 Language cycle and communicative moments

Hello, everyone ✌

For this new entry, I will discuss about two of the most crucial moments during the development of a class at the CCA: the language cycle, as the process of guiding students to learn/reinforce inductively a new grammar/vocabulary topic, and the communicative moments, as the spaces for students to produce language for developing their speaking skills. First, I will explain what is the language cycle and its function during a class. Second, I will describe how comunicative moments work throughout the class and their key aspects. Third, I will describe how both of these processes were seen during my classes. Finally, I will reflect on the importance of these two moments for the students' learning process, as part of the inductive approach of language learning at the CCA.

The guiding questions for this entry are:

How did I guide my learners through the stages of the language cycle (exposure, noticing, practice, and production), and which stage might need more support next time?”

During the class, when did genuine communication happen, and how can I create more opportunities for learners to use the language meaningfully?

What is the language cycle?

The language cycle is process in which new grammar and/or new vocabulary contents are introduced as part of the class content. The language cycle aims for students to learn inductively throughout a series of 4 steps that guide students thourgh their learning process. The language cycle is divided in exposure, noticing, practicing and production. 

1. Exposure: in this stage the new topic is introduced to students. It intends to be the first input in which students will start to see the grammar topic in context. Some posibilities include videos, songs, listenings or readings, but they have to be both authentic and comprehensible for students.
2. Noticing: in this stage students start to analyze and build their own rules. This step is the most important step as students are infering from the input they recieve to create their own rules and patterns. Teachers have to ensure understanding by strategies like deduction, comparison, and grammar charts. This step has to be student-centered and teachers most avoid being the ones who give the rules.
3. Practice: In this stage occurs the process of correction and confirmation that the student has adquire and can properly use the new grammar/vocabulary topic. This phase is directly connected to the production stage as they both share 3 moments when students are continually practicing: controlled, semi-controlled and free practice.
4. Controlled practice: it focuses on the linguistic criteria to check the full understanding of the student. These exercises include filling the blanks or fixed sentences. For example, teachers can use exercises from the textbooks or use a Kahoot activity.
5. Semi-controlled practice: its focus is still on the lingistic criteria, but its a little bit freer. For instance, students can be given prompts or already make sentences for a conversation and then they continue. This step is meant to function as a bridge between the controlled practice and the free practice.
6. Free practice: it is related to the production stage and its intended for students to use language freely focusing more on fluency, rather than accuracy. This part can be used as a communicative moment, but students need to be given a clear instruction and criteria, have a meaningful outcome and the activities must be interactive and fun. Some free practice strategies include impromptu conversations, debates and role plays.

What are the communicative moments?

The communicative moments are moments, at least 3 per class, in which students interact for developing their speaking and communicative skills. These are directly related to the communicative goal of the class. It is important to have clear criteria, clear instructions, and enough input for students to interact with each other. Teachers can use conversation models, prompts, conversation expressions and questions. This moments con occur in any moment of the class: warm up, global skills, learning moment, free practice or even for the project.

A good communication exercise has into account 3 core aspects: complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF). Complexity has to do with how challenging the activity is for the students. For example, the teacher could ask for using a specific tense, use a specific vocab, or invite students to debate a position they don't fully agree with. Accuracy is when the communication activity aims to work on a specific grammar topic in a suprasegmental level. These include filling the blanks or follow conversations models. Finally, fluency is related to the delivery of the student. It is not focus on how fast or appropietly speaks, but how can communicate and interact with occasional interferences that don't affect mutual intelligibility. 

Some other recommendations and tips are:

• Help students find the balance between accuracy and fluency.​
• Have students recycle the language they have learned. ​
• Be mindful about your students’ population.​
• Give them enough opportunities to speak and vary students.​
• Vary the patterns of interaction.​
• Use the resources we have (platform, videos, and other tech tools). ​
• Provide conversation models (upgraded, challenging, with room to personalize and expand)​

How are both language cycle and communicative moments seen at the CCA?

Communicative moments:

This saturday, I was in charge of the communicative moments, so I decided that I will do all 3 in 3 different moments of the class: warm up, global skills (in TB1 1.3), free practice, and project (in TB1 1.1).

In the case of TB1 1.3, the topic was: around the world, so, for the communication activities, I wanted my students to practice not only communication but also their critical thinking on culture. The first activity was a game of What Am I? country edition. Each student had to ask questions using vocabulary related to countries like is my country in Europe? or Is my country wealthy? And they had 1 minute to guess. The next activity was a discussion in pairs to define culture and stereotypes, they also saw a video about stereotypes and shared their insights with the class. Finally, for the free practice, they debated in pairs. I showed them 2 videos and randomly they had to defend video 1, which was a video to attract tourists to Colombia made by the government, or video 2, which was a comical video about some of the most common stereotypes/problems in regions around Colombia. 

In the case of TB1 1.1, the topic was movies. For the first activity the played find someone who, and they had to ask questions using past simple and past continous, which was the new grammar topic of the class. Then, the free practice and project were combine into one activity in which students in groups had to create their own movie as a insume for the next part of the project. They had to discuss, reach agreements and then present the plot of the movie using simple past and past continous.

I think that both courses enjoyed the activities and even my team teacher congratulated for my activities.

Language cycle:

Although this week I wasn't in charge of the language cycle, I was given an oustanding display of it by my team teacher.

I want to concentrate in TB1 1.1, because in TB1 1.3 there was no new grammar topic, just vocabulary.

In TB1 1.1, for the exposure, the teacher presented a text with some sentences highlighted in different colors and then she invited the students to think and answer: what where those sentences?, what would the mean?, what each color mean?. Then, the teacher used a flipped learning strategy and the student form two groups. Each group had to explain what was simple past and the other what was past continuos. The teacher acted like she was a student and asked questions for students to answer. The controlled practice was with a kahoot. The semi-controlled practice was done with some exercises of the book and, finally, I was in charge of the free practice.

Honestly, I want to really highlight the performance of my team teacher as it helped to understand how can I make student-centered activities for them to start infer the rules of a new grammar topic. I remember the previous class she told me that my language cycle in the analyze was teacher centered and I really didn't know how to do it, as all my life I have been taught that way.

Reflection:

I believe that both language cycle and communicative moments are crucial in the CCA's curriculum. Not only because they are both of the most complex and biggest activities inside the class, but they are the heart of the distintic way colombo teaches to students: make students the center of learning. I know that I still have many aspects to improve in the area of the language cycle, but thanks to my team teacher, I see things more clearly. Likewise, I'm pretty comfortable with my performance on the communicative moments and I feel they are one of my strongest points in my teaching practice. Both of this experiences where really meaningful for me and I hope to keep improving them in future moments of my practicum in this last track of the semester.