Post on 21-May-2015
Tiziana Dodds
• School: Genazzano FCJ College
• Language: Italian
• Year Level: 8
Context
• A class of Year 8 students who had been studying Italian for 18 months were chosen for this investigation.
• The purpose of the investigation was to examine different quality and thinking tools in order to engage all learners and enable students to understand how language works.
What did you do?
• I commenced with a class survey- the question asked was How clear I am about why we have studied and learnt the things we have in our language classes
• The students gave individual responses to this question
Pre survey.How clear I am about why we have studied and learnt the things we have in our language classes.0 -----------------------------------------5----------------------------------------10Not clear sort of clear absolutely clear
Results of survey:
Ratings 0 -4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Studentresults
0 1 1 10 1 4 6
Total students present: 23
Process • After the survey had been conducted a class
discussion followed which focused on the following questions:
• What do we use language for?• How do we communicate?• The answers to these questions were listed on
the board and the word sentence was isolated• The class created a Sunshine Wheel answering
the question - What makes up a sentence?
Discussion questions and answers.Why do we use language? (What purpose does language have?)
To travelTo understand
To communicateTo talk with people
To travelHow do we communicate?
TalkingWriting
GesturesListeningReadingSinging
What form does language take in all of these? What do we use?Sentences
- sentences are made up of words which are put together in a certain way.
Construction of Sunshine Wheel
Sentences-are made up of words
Subject
verbs
articles
prepositions
nouns
adjectives
conjunctions
punctuation
• After a discussion of the Sunshine Wheel the students added the Italian concepts that they had learnt to the wheel thereby creating a Spider Map
• They summarized rules that they knew onto the map
• This created a sunshine wheel expanded into a spider map
Process continued
Sentences Made up of words
Subject
verbs
essereavere
fareandare
-are-ere
-ire
nouns
adjectives
masculine
irregular
regular
articles‘o’ group –has 4 forms- o, a, i, e-
Masculine and feminine, singular and plural
‘e’ group – has 2 forms – e, i.
Singular & plural only
ill’
definite lola
l’indefinite
i
gli
le
un uno una un’
io tu lui, lei noivoi
loro
conjunctions
e
ma
feminine singular
plural
prepositionsa
conin
da
punctuation
Adjectives usually follow the noun
What did you learn?
• The students enjoyed the activity and felt they were more in control as they understood why they had been taught the various grammatical concepts
• They said that it now all made sense as before it was in pieces and now they could see how it all fits together
• They now refer to this wheel / map when they complete tasks – it has become another tool for them
• It is very worthwhile to unpack the learning for the students so that there is a real purpose in what they study
• I have started the Sunshine Wheel in a Year 7 class – I hope to build the wheel with them so that they are aware of how the taught language parts fit together
Showcase Presentation Instructions
• Please bring this Powerpoint to Day 4 saved on a USB stick
• If possible, please bring your own laptop
• Customise the pages to reflect your investigation – maybe try some photos from www.flickrcc.bluemountains.net
• The presentation only needs to be 5 minutes long 5 minutes for questions