REMEDIAL INSTRUCTION WORKSHOP

for Secondary School English Language Classroom

1
YOU TIME!!!
Left Brain & Right Brain Dominance Test

1. It's a Sunday morning. You're getting ready to clean your house and run some errands.
Suddenly, your friends call. They want you to accompany them on a 3-hour road trip to
pick up something they bought online. What do you do?
A. Heck, yes! I'm going on a road trip!
B. Sorry, but no. My laundry pile is getting out of control and I have way too much to get done today.

2. Do you like realistic stories or stories that deal on fantasy?

A. Fantasy
B. Realistic

3. Are you better at recognizing and remembering names or faces?

A. Faces
B. Names

2
4. Are you an organized individual or a spontaneous individual?
A. Spontaneous
B. Organised

5. You have a chronic medical problem. So far, the treatment your doctor has prescribed is not
working, but a friend with a similar problem saw an acupuncturist and experienced relief
from the treatment. What do you do?
A. Make an appointment with the acupuncturist.
B. Talk to my doctor and see if we can make some adjustments to my treatment together.

6. Do you consider yourself to be very creative or not creative?

A. Creative
B. Not creative

7. Do you spend more time thinking about the past or the future?
A. Future
B. Past
3
8. Which method do you feel is more effective for your own individual learning process?
A. Demonstrations, movies & experiments.
B. Lectures, notes & books.

9. You've decided to backpack across Europe. What are you more likely to do?
A. Get off the plane and go where the wind takes me.
B. Look up information on historical sites and hostels for each area you plan on going before you leave.

10. You have to fill your tax return forms. It's taking forever! What do you do?
A. Write a little. Check your email. Write some more. Update your Facebook. Write some more. Decide
to go get coffee.
B. Buckle down and get it done.

11. It’s time to go home. Where are your car keys?

A. Oh snap. Now that you mention it... *frantic searching*
B. Right here where I always keep them.

4
12. Do you often produce humorous thoughts and ideas or serious thoughts and ideas?
A. Humorous
B. Serious

Calculate Your Score

Which brain is more dominant? Left
A Right-Brain
or Right? Or are you the freak in the
B Left-Brain middle?

5
6
 LANGUAGE LEARNING THEORY
Professor J. Cummings

BICS CALP
Basic Interpersonal Years in Eng Years in Eng
Communicative Skills speaking speaking
Social English. The day- environment: 2- environment: 9- Cognitive Academic
3 10 Language Proficiency
to-day language needed
to interact socially with
Vocabulary: 1500- Vocabulary: English for Formal
2000 5000+ academic learning.
other people. Sentence Length: Sentence Length: Essential for students to
3-10 words 20+ words
succeed in school.
Required for HOTS.

7
YOU TIME!!!
Where do you spend most of your time?

Grammar? Vocabulary?

8
FOCUS ON THE VOCABULARY
More important than Grammar???

Reading requires at least

75 sight words

Communicating requires
500-2000 high
frequency words

9
SIGHT WORDS (DOLCH WORD LIST)
for reading

 Sight words = words you look at & know right away

 Sight Words (220 of them) make up approximately 50-70% of any general text.

) 10
HIGH FREQUENCY WORDS
for communicating

 More than 600,000 words in the English language

 13 words make 25% of the words we read
 100 words make up 50% of the words we read
 Sight words = know & understand right away

 Examples: the, to, and, he, a, I, you, it, of, in, was, said, his, that, she, for, on,
they, but, had, at, him, with, up & all.

 Explicit teaching is recommended.

 Practice/Drilling even more so.

11
THE LEARNING BURDEN
keep in mind when planning your lessons
New Concept

Old Vocab New Vocab

Old Concept
 If you want to teach a NEW concept, use OLD vocab.
 If you want to teach NEW vocab, use an OLD concept.

12
DEADLY GRAMMAR ERRORS
messing these up messes with the meaning

People can’t
make sense of

Sentence
Pronunciation Preposition
Structure
Errors Errors
Errors

13
 SENTENCE STRUCTURE
the most important Grammar rule you can teach

Subject

SVO
noun/pronoun

Verb
action/state of being
Object
noun/pronoun

14
PREPOSITIONS
the glue which shows relationships

 Prepositions are:
 anything a plane can do to a cloud
 squirrel can do to a tree
 rabbit can do to a fence

 Prepositions need to be taught with pictures = learn faster

 TRIVIA: Get ___ the bus. Do we use ‘in’ or ‘on’?

 in – physically enclosed/tight
 on – a very big transport (more than 5 people)

 TRIVIA: My house is ____ this street. Do we use ‘on’ or ‘at’?

 on – somewhere on a street
 at – the most specific preposition: exact

15
16
TEACHING PRONUNCIATION
things to keep in mind

 Use students’ words to teach Phonics

 Ask students for words they know from that sound

 Do these for better pronunciation:

 Students should close eyes. Shut off sight to focus on listening to input.
 Close eyes & focus on where the sound is produced in mouth.
 Close ears. Pronounce. Listen to echo in head.

17
  Show pictures of articulation point & tongue position.

REMEDIAL INSTRUCTION WORKSHOP: TFM CONNECT_ED BY MR YONG (14 JUNE 2014) 18

BACKWARD BUILD UP
best way to teach pronunciation

 Backward build up = pronounce from the back

 If students struggle to read a sentence…

 Example: I went downtown to shop last night.
 I/went/downtown/to shop/last/night
 night
 last night
 to shop last night
 downtown to shop last night
 went downtown to shop last night
 I went downtown to shop last night

19
 If students struggle to read a word…
 Example: Megalomaniacs
 Me/ga/lo/ma/ni/ac/s
 ------------------------------s
 -------------------------ac/s
 ---------------------ni/ac/s
 ---------------ma/ni/ac/s
 -----------lo/ma/ni/ac/s
 ------ga/lo/ma/ni/ac/s
 Me/ga/lo/ma/ni/ac/s

) 20
GRAMMAR NOTES
focus on form

 Present Tense is used the least in English.

 Teach Past Tense.

 Present Continuous Tense is used the most.

 Example: I am going to school.

 Teach tenses with time & a calendar

Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun

9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Past Present Future
was am will be
was is will be
were are will be

REMEDIAL INSTRUCTION WORKSHOP: TFM CONNECT_ED BY MR YONG (14 JUNE 2014) 21

LISTENING
drilling that doesn’t feel like drilling

 Listening & Speaking are natural skills. Reading & Writing are taught skills.

 Our students don’t know what is important & what is not so they listen to
everything as equally important.

 Listening for specific information. A real world skill.

 Students will raise their hands when they hear their assigned words.
 Listen for: numbers/verbs/adjectives/animals/names/emotions
 Read a story.

22
SPEAKING
drilling that doesn’t feel like drilling

 Conversation Cards
 What is your favourite subject? Why?
 Do you prefer strawberry or chocolate? Why?
 If you were a millionaire, what would you do? Why?
 go around asking people the questions on the cards

 Have students make 2 lines facing each other

 Teacher assigns communicative task.
 Line A asks first. Then, line B.

 Ask questions which involve emotions

 You will get more language. People talk/write more.
 favourite memory / funniest moment / scariest moment
23
READING
learn to read by reading

 Model of a Reading Programme Advanced

 Stage 5 – Synthesis
 Stage 4 – Relationships & Viewpoints
 Stage 3 – Reading for Meaning
 Stage 2 – Fluency
 Stage 1 – Initial Decoding
Learners

 Reading in the Brain & the Ear

 Good readers need to be fluent in all stages.

 Teachers should get students to evaluate (pre-reading) and then revaluate (post-reading).

24
WRITING
learn to write by writing

 Krashen: Students who read for reading do better at writing than students who read with
teachers

1. Use the last word as a subject for the next sentence. May change subjects after 3
sentences.
 Mary wants to buy a car. The car she wants is a Toyota. Toyotas are expensive, but last a long
time. A long time ago, Toyotas were cheap.

2. Progressive Essay
 First students writes a sentence.
 Pass to student. Write 1 sentence.
 Pass to another. Write 1 sentence.
 Again & again until finished.
 Students can read it aloud once they finish their essay.
) 25
LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE APPROACH
the bridge between learner & print

 “What I can say, I can write. What I can write, I can read. I can read what I
write and what other people can write for me to read.”

 How to carry out the LEA:

1. Take students out for an experience. Go somewhere or do something. Draw their
attention to unique items during the experience.
2. Back in class, tell them to draw pictures of their experience.
3. Ask students what they experienced. Write it down exactly as they narrate it.
(Grammar mistakes okay but spelling mistakes not okay.)
4. Take pictures they’ve drawn & attach to the narrative.
5. Cut the narrative up. Get students to sequence.
6. Finally, read the narrative & write it down.

26