Phase 3.

2 – CONTEXT SETTING

Objectives:

To recognize the relevance of setting the context for learning to take place.

To use varied and appropriate tools/methods for context setting for different language
levels (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced) and learner levels (Young, Adolescent, Adult).

To demonstrate the understanding of context setting in the classroom situation.

To evaluate ‘settings’ that have been used.

To plan ‘context setting’ based on self-evaluation.

The Current Phase:

The Language acquires meaning only in context. The same structures can be used in various

contexts to mean different things. Therefore a language lesson without a context can be

confusing for the learner.

A language class has to be communicative goes without saying because the purpose of

language, whether verbal or written is for communication. This Phase deals with the

importance of context and language modeling and shows some communicative methods that

can be used in the classroom.

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Communicative ways

What do we mean by "communicative activities"? These are fluency-based

activities. While such activities may involve students practicing a particular

grammatical form, they are likely to do more than just this. The key element is

that the activity is based around a realistic situation—an event that directly

relates to the student. This could be anything from an encounter in a

department store, to a group of friends discussing holiday plans. Within this

kind of context, the students should be required to negotiate for meaning. This is likely to
require multiple turn taking.

Most of us recognize that communicative activities are great opportunities for learning. But

what goes into making a communicative activity a success? The truth is, the success of

communicative pair and group work activities is almost always determined by the work the

teacher does before the students begin the activity itself. This includes both what is done by the

teacher before the class starts and what is done in class to set up the task.

Before Class

It is helpful for teachers to ask themselves several questions when preparing for communicative
activities:

What can I do to set the scene/create a context?

• Try to picture a realistic situation where the language forms you have been taught might

be used.

• Try to imagine both the location of the conversation and the relationship between those

involved.

What is the purpose of the task?

Within the context that you have thought of:

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 • Try to imagine why the participants would be talking.

• What would their objectives be?

• How do you think they would respond to each other? For example, if the task involves

giving advice to a sick friend, perhaps he or she has already considered some of the

friend's suggestions.

How can I generate interest in the activity?

Activities go better when students are interested in them. Depending on the activity, there are

various ways you can generate that interest. Providing personal examples may be helpful.

Modeling the activity in an enthusiastic way helps in generating interest. Having students

reflect on similar experiences they are familiar with will also work.

Will the students require preparation time?

Most research suggests that students will perform at a higher level if they have been given

preparation time. This is pretty logical when you think about it. Without preparation time,

students are required to multitask (which makes it look good working in a cubicle, but has

never been shown to produce higher results): use their English language resources effectively

and be creative. Preparation time reduces some of the pressure that comes with having to be

creative while using the language spontaneously.

What type of groupings will be appropriate?

The decisions you will make as a teacher include:

• Would the activity work best with students in pairs or groups?

• Should they be seated or standing?

• Should they be facing each other or not?

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 • Should the teacher group them or should the students be organized themselves?

What type of exchanges the students are expected to produce?

This may be the most crucial element of the planning process.

Perhaps the best way to gain a sense of the language the students will need to produce in order

to complete the activity is to write out a sample dialogue. Communicative activities often reveal

language needs for which the class work has not prepared the students. Writing out a sample

dialogue will highlight these needs. It can also enable the teacher to get a sense of potential

demands or pitfalls in the activity. This kind of planning allows the teacher to identify

potentially useful conversational gambits, and to consider what is needed to ensure a

reasonably natural flow to the conversation.

In Class

Once the teacher enters the classroom, the process of preparing the students for the activity

begins. Following are a few stages that teachers (and students) might find helpful.

• Set the scene and generate interest: For example, this might be the time to introduce a

personal anecdote related to the communicative activity. It is also important to make

sure students know where they will be talking, who they will be talking to, and why

they will be talking.

• Model preparatory task: If the teacher has decided to allow planning time, it might be

worth demonstrating how this time is to be used. For example, the teacher might begin

creating a list of suggestions for a sick friend.

• Student preparation time: The students write while the teacher monitors.

Modeling: T-S, S-T, S-S. This is THE most crucial element for successful communicative

activities. It can be used:

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 --To show target language in action and elicit relevant language.

--To clarify/illustrate the requirements or the objective of the task.

--To add useful/necessary conversational gambits.

--To highlight the type of conversational framework needed.

--To identify potential problem areas.

--To gauge the students' readiness to begin the activity.

--To build student confidence.

• Pair work: Monitor, interrupting only if students really get stuck. Monitor in order to:

a) Aid the flow of conversation when necessary,

b) Identify any common errors or areas of breakdown,

c) Offer encouragement, and

d) Recognize when best to change the pairings.

• Deal with problems: While you do not want to interrupt students in the middle of a

conversation, error correction can still be done effectively. Write typical problems that

you have heard on the board. After conversations have been completed, draw attention

to these problems. Encourage the students to offer suggestions for solving the problems.

• Pair work: New pairings. By repeating the activity with a new partner, students can

attempt to incorporate the corrections and suggestions made during the previous stage.

• Conclusion: Have students report on their findings. They can either report to a new

student or to the teacher. This final stage tends to bring a sense of closure to the

activity.

• Assessment: Provide an opportunity for students to assess their work.

Communicative Activities: Some Useful Ingredients

Every communicative activity is different. It will not always be necessary (or appropriate or

practical) to use all of these “ingredients". Finally, it is also worth remembering that the way a
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lesson actually unfolds will always be influenced by the students themselves. It pays to be alert

and flexible.

• Identify a "realistic" communicative context or situation.

• Identify a clear objective or purpose.

• Ensure there is an "information gap" or "opinion gap".

• Generate student interest.

• Allow student preparation time if necessary.

• Be aware of the likely conversational framework or format.

• Be aware of any useful/relevant conversational gambits.

• Model, model, model.

• Determine appropriate student groupings.

• Monitor.

• Involve students in the self-correction of errors.

• Provide a sense of conclusion.

A list of communicative activities

• Storytelling

• Jokes narration

• Taking turns in story telling

• Group discussion

• Role reversal

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Communicative games:

• Draw Your Name

One way to get your students to know your name may be this one, which they find challenging

and funny:

• Draw on the board as many objects as the letters that make up your name.

• The name of each object should begin with one of the letters of your name.

• Then, ask your students to tell you the names of the objects you have drawn

and you write them next to each object.

• Then, tell them to put the first letters of each object in the correct order so as

to form your name.

• Finally, students may do the same working in pairs.

Example: Draw a ring, an apple, a car, an elephant, a glove, an island, a lemon and an ant. If

you put in the correct order, the first letter of the name of each object, you get the name

Graciela.

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• Find somebody who likes to drink soda

Question: Do you like to drink soda? Why?

Answer: I like to drink soda because it is sweet.

Do you like … Why? Yes, I do (Give name and No, I don’t (Give name and
reason) reason)

Sausage

Coffee

Orange Juice

Mango Ice cream

Scrambled eggs

Sandwich

Cake

Spicy food

Chicken curry

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• Movie Riddles Worksheet

Make riddles about movies you have watched and let others guess.

For example:

It is a romantic movie, about a boy and a girl who fall in love aboard a large ship. The ship hits

an iceberg and sinks. The boy finds a piece of wood and offers it to the girl to stay afloat. In the

end, the boy dies saving the girl’s life. The girl is found alive and rescued. The movie is a story

of true love. Can you guess the movie?

Class Answer should be:

I think it is “The Titanic”.

Context based and language modeling

Context is setting the stage from which learners begin to predict meaning. Context is modeled

through pictures, symbols, gestures, charades, sounds or some other combination. Written

script is simply a convention that a language group agrees on to model the range of ideas
possible in human communication.
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It is important here to realize, however, that words, in themselves have no meaning.

Words exist in the brain, unless we consciously project them there. Thus, written or spoken

words are only models of language “form.” Models for meaning must come from the conceptual

level of thinking found in pictures or other things that we associate with to give them meaning.

Models are the ways that we try to ‘get the idea across,’ and, modeling is the dance step that

characterizes the process.

Modeling ideas and concepts is one of the most demanding challenges that a teacher faces. The

challenge is most obvious with beginner level students and young learners since they have

insufficient latent traces of the target language to call on. “Traces” are marks left by earlier

exposure to language that have undeveloped connections with both the conceptual associations,

and language form or manner of production. Using elicitation to develop a corpus of language

and ideas is common with teachers and classes above the beginning level – i.e. asking the class,

“Name some foods you eat at the beach?” The fact that this will actually work and produce answers

is proof enough that the “traces” are there. This leads to the mistaken idea among some

teachers, that it’s only necessary to ask the right question. The logic, however, is pretty obvious

that if the students can say it, they must already have learned it. Put in another way, models

and modeling is the process by which we get students to predict meaning, and connect it to

preexisting concepts. A further step is needed before they will be able to use this language to

communicate. Through using the language in natural situations, they will experiment and

refine their usage and form of language to express intended meaning.

In classroom terms, the context is a situation, preferably specified in time and space, which

allows learners to begin to predict language concepts that will follow. For example, At the Clinic

suggests things like doctor, medicine, nurse, and white coat. Further models of concepts and form

like, “What’s the matter?” will be needed to bring the language to the learner. Expanding this

language and vocabulary will require further modeling of ideas like, sore throat, headache, skin

rash, and cough to develop useful language practice in this context. The co-text is the collocation

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(comparative location) of words and phrases in the body of language, which communicates the

language situation – i.e. a conversation, dialogue, or reading selection – for example,

· What’s the matter?

· I have a stomach ache. (While the teacher rubs his stomach and grimaces)

With the above gesture, it will be clear to the students as to what is the context.

Therefore, we can say:

Contextualization means creating a communication situation that is so clear in the student’s

mind that he or she knows exactly what is said in that situation, just not in English. It is a

picture that the learner can see him/herself in, or imagine being part of.

Context means personalization. Asking questions which allow students to express their

interests to the teacher and each other

· WHAT SPORTS DO YOU LIKE?

· WHEN DO YOU GET UP?

· WHAT DO YOU DO AFTER SCHOOL?

· WHERE DID YOU GO LAST WEEKEND?

· WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE PERSON?

It means that lessons will predict the student’s interests by including things that are familiar and

relevant to their lives.

Context means localization. One place to start is with student–made maps. Students work

together to draw maps of the school, nearby locations, their neighborhood, the downtown, the

mall, and the region. Lesson material uses local place names, landmarks, modes of transport,

names, foods, etc. What do people do there, how do you get there, and what should you do

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there? This does not mean that you shouldn’t introduce new things, but do so with caution

under the conditions that:

• The new things are relevant to the students’ lives;

• You start with where the students are, and introduce the new things to them.

For example, a teacher once asked about teaching a lesson using a picnic at Hyde Park as a

context. She was anxious to impart some knowledge about her own culture and interests in a

context that the students would understand. The problem was that the locations that she

mentioned were not common but unknown, and therefore very hard to understand. It was

suggested that she utilize the fact that the local park was a prime picnic spot, and target her

lesson on that. This is an example of “localization,” and is not meant to say that there is never a

time to teach about one’s own culture and interests. However, start with where the students are,
and move slowly into new areas as indicated by the learners’ interests.

Context means communication that can take place between two learners and be logical. This is best

demonstrated by what it is not. For example, conversation between two Canadian speakers would be

highly unlikely and unreal if it goes like this.

· What kind of fruits are there in Canada?

· We have ……………………. in Canada.

While this is a perfectly natural exchange, it doesn’t make any sense for them to say this to each

other. Thus, it makes student-to-student conversations illogical and unreal. This conversation

can be made real by having one student “pretend” to be a foreigner.

Context means natural language that is not re-scripted to make a grammatical point – e.g.

consistent, but unnatural use of some grammatical feature. The grammar in a conversation is

directed by the “context” and not by the intent of the teacher to illustrate grammar. It is, thus,

more understandable since most of the meaning is heavily dependent upon context.

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Context has some definition in time and place. For example,

AT THE CLINIC

A : What’s the matter?

B : I have a sore throat and a headache.

A: How is your stomach?

B: It’s Ok.

A: Let’s take a look at your throat.

It is very predictable what will be said in this situation as it is well contained in time and place.

That is not to say that all conversations must be defined in this way, but it helps! Look at the

following picture.

This picture helps to narrow down the possibilities of what might be discussed between two

schoolmates, but a number of topics are possible.

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The speech bubble is needed to narrow down the context language, and the ‘thought’ bubble

suggests further possibilities. It is not necessary that context modeling suggests all the possible

language that might occur. As a matter of fact, it is sometimes important to be ambiguous with

models to allow the learner to speculate about the meaning. For example, to model a “Street

Scene” it would be better to have people posed in a manner that could be interpreted in a

variety of ways. Thus, in answer to the question “What is she doing?” The student could offer his

or her own interpretation. It would be illogical to ask the question if there were only one

possible answer. Picture “A” might be better than picture “B” since there could be various

interpretations for what he is doing?

What contexts could the pictures above suggest?

EXAMPLE

In modeling the context for NEIGHBORHOOD, the teacher might use the following steps.

Write the word in the board - NEIGHBORHOOD

• Ask the students to close their eyes and take a mental trip around the neighborhood

while the teacher narrates. (Imaging or imagining)

• Pass out poster paper and pens to groups of 3-5 students.

• The poster paper would show a neighborhood familiar to the students. – i.e. around the

school, downtown, a main road.

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 • This models the place names and the concept of the locations, but to model the location

names, the teacher needs to give students cards with the names of the places, and have

them arrange themselves according to the map – a “people map”, or lay the cards out on

a table in this manner.

Then, the teacher models, NEXT TO, ACROSS FROM, BETWEEN:

The clinic is ACROSS FROM the school. The shop is NEXT TO the school. Etc.

Context modeling does not only come at the beginning of a lesson. In the above example of
Neighborhood, the initial poster work begins to set the place names and the locations.

This might be followed by conversation practice focusing on,

A: Is there a bus station around here?

B: Yes. There is.

A: And, are there any shops nearby?

B: Yes. There are.

Modeling and practice for the locations in this conversation will be covered in the next section.

It is important to note that the poster work is followed by conversation work, which is then

followed by more modeling to set the concepts of location in the “people map” – i.e. NEXT TO,

ACROSS FROM.

To review: Modeling in context will be necessary whenever a new concept comes into the

lesson. Notice that it is “modeling in context.” While NEXT TO and ACROSS FROM can be

modeled by having students notice the position of other students in the classroom as designated

by the teacher, the context here is In the Classroom. To assure understanding of the location,

prepositions in the Neighborhood context, it is best to model the locations In the Neighborhood

since it seems highly likely that this is the way we remember them.

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The Neighborhood example can be extended to other contexts, and we might go further to bring

in associations, which will add to the specification of the context. Specifically, we want to

involve as many ‘senses’ as we can in the definition of the context – sights, colors, sounds,

smells, feelings, hot/cold, what clothing, time of day, time of the year, place, with whom and

including the emotional engagement of the learner in that situation. The mind and the body are

collectively involved in our memory process and the more associations we can specify the

better. Of course, this is different for every person, but it does not matter, since this is also part

of the personalization process.

For example, RESTAURANT.

Imagine Colors? Smells?

Sounds? Feelings?

Clothing? Time?

People? Mood?

Transport? Later?

The amount of English used and produced here depends upon the learners. The learner’s

response can be one word, pointing to appropriate picture models, or drawing pictures.

Through guided elicitation, the teacher can assist the learners to recognize the language forms

in English.

The teacher tries to get the learners to connect with these feelings throughout the learning

process, but it is extremely critical in the context setting stage since this allows the learner to

‘invest’ in the process. When building context with dialogues, the teacher can:

• Have students practice the dialogue silently, acting out the roles.

• Use gibberish instead of the words to develop the ‘feel’ for the context without the risk

of making mistakes.

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Sounds for Modeling: A collection of sounds can brighten up modeling and add interest.

Nature Machines/ People Places Outside

Vehicles

Sounds

rain cars sniffing classroom dog barks

sea motor cycle laughing street scene cock

crowing
cricket Typewriter crying restaurant

traffic
thunder buses sneezing supermarket

ice cream
birds mobile phone coughing department
man
store
wind fan ouch!!!
walking
internet cafe
hot day cash register burp
running
traffic jam
wet day Hey!
skipping
bus station
A KISS!
playing
market

Sound models are under used. A small sound recorder taken to real locales is an obvious

beginning.

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