Show and Tell is a popular way to engage EAL students in making presentations because they are talking about a topic that they care about. In my ESL Show & Tell presentation classes I ask students to write their own presentations and score the other class members presentations. This activity promotes language proficiency and enhances students' presentation skills.
This post contains affiliate links
I'm aware that EAL writing practice done at home is often done with online translation tools. I encourage students to critically evaluate their machine translations and remember that for presentations and performance tests it is not the written English that we are assessing but the final performance. This helps students focus on their spoken English skills and fluency.
Peer Assessment Keeps Students Engaged
After the written presentation is checked by a teacher, it is returned to the students and it is then rehearsed and performed. I like whole-class performances and feel that students prepare more thoroughly when it is for an audience of their peers.
How to keep non performing students engaged during ESL performance tests
Presenting to the whole class however does require some classroom management and teaching around how to be a good audience member.
Firstly, non performing students should not have their own scripts anywhere near them when they are watching other performances. The temptation to take one last read over their own presentation is too great.
To keep the non performing students engaged I ask students to think of questions to ask about the presentation. This develops their active listen skills and keeps them focused. Constructing thoughtful questions while listening is a challenging skill for language learners which makes it an excellent a way to build critical thinking.
How to create thoughtful questions in English
I started very simply by playing a speaking game called "If this is the answer, what is the question?" This activity helps students to practice question formation, a critical skill in English. Students are given the answer to a question such as "His birthday is November 5th" and they have to make the question, in this case it would be "When is his birthday?" Next students ask questions about photos and I continue to build the questioning role by asking questions based on a short bit of spoken information. See the Being A Good Audience Member lesson pack for more ideas on developing the questioning role.
I also ask students to award scores to each their peers. You can decide how much weighting to give the peer assessment 50:50 with the teacher and assistant language teacher? 70:30? or you can decide that it doesn't contribute to the official grade at all and give a peer prize to the highest scorers.
Peer grades should also be anonymous to the other students but not to the teacher. When I introduced peer assessment I was concerned about it becoming a popularity contest. But the real challenge was that students wanted to give everyone full marks. by asking students to defend their scores using the assessment rubric, they become more discerning and develop a better understanding of the evaluation criteria.
The first time you give the students power to grade each other and teach them how to be a good audience member does require some extra time in class. However, it sets the stage for much smoother future presentations and develops student autonomy.
I have a "Being a Good Audience Member" lesson pack which includes activities on how to ask thoughtful questions and a peer assessment rubric. These reources are designed to help EAL teachers create an engaging and interactive classroom environment while fostering oral communication skills.
Comments
Post a Comment