Professional Documents
Culture Documents
S00168522
Sarah Fitzsimmons
3) Donut circles
5) A barrier Game
6) A cloze activity
9) Split dictation
11) References
Karen England
Marly Vietnam when Marly Marly is a student Marly moved to Marly doesnt really
was 2 years old. Australia to escape understand what a
Looks after the the conditions they refugee is
womens children were living in.
while they work Speaks Cantonese
Marlys Mum Came from Vietnam Sews clothes in the To escape the Spoke Cantonese
back shed for a conditions they
living were living in
Uncle Beng Hong Kong Owned a successful The government Was taken away
business took their business from his family
away
3.Donut Circles
Donut Circle is an activity designed to increase oral discussion for low level English learners
(Gibbons, 2015). This activity allows for practice and rehearsal of an idea or sentence structure
as they move through partners (Gibbons, 2015). Donut circles are two circles that are created
of equal size, with one circle inside the other. Students are given a topic in which they discuss
with the person in front of them for an allocated time. Students then move around the circle
using the same topic (for practice) or another topic. EALD students differ from mainstream students and it is
important to practice these types of discussions so students begin to distinguish the difference between
social conversation and structured conversation which is used in an academic setting.This collaborative activity
enhances student interaction between EALD and mainstream learners. In the text Meet Marly, it is explicitly
addressed that Marly is a refugee. Questions in a Donut circle may include:
What is a refugee?
Why do you think Marly found it difficult to make friends at school before she befriended Jessica
and Kylie?
Why do you think she got along so well with Hai?
Why did Marly have to explain to Hai what to do at school? Why do you think he was confused?
What was Marlys original thoughts and understanding of what a refugee was?
Variation: Students could have laminated cards with the question on it to refer to while moving around the
circle and to follow while the teacher reads out the question. The donut circles could be made smaller with
more circles and less children in each. Have one child facilitate the reading of the question, while the others
discuss. At the end, have the group of students report to the reader of the group what a summarised answer
of the question. This could then be shared with the class.
Extension: Ask students to write down new points every time they visit a new person. By the end they should
have a collection of notes. Ask the students to write these notes out using structured sentences.
Question
What is a refugee?
Notes:
A refugee is someone who may not speak the language
A refugee has moved to another country because they may be in danger
A refugee seeks refuge in another country because they are in danger
Tuyet,
Marly, Murly
Tiyet
5. A Barrier game
A barrier game is a resource designed to enhance receptive and
expressive communication skills (Stuckey, 2009). Barrier
games are played in pairs and incorporate elements of
problem solving to access higher order thinking (Gibbons, 2015). Barrier games are student lead and offer
opportunities for students to ask and answer questions (Department of Education and Early Childhood
Development, 2008). To begin, one student is given a complete piece of information and another student is
given the same information with parts missing- this is known as an information gap (Gibbons. 2015). A barrier is
placed between the pair (cardboard, desk) and students communicate by speaking and listening until each
person acquires the same information. In the text Meet Marly, there is a lot of dialogue between each of the
characters. Students record each other acting out pieces of dialogue from the text. The students then listen
to the recorded pieces of information and draw a picture on what they heard.
Variation: Students could be given a cloze activity and link this barrier game into it by recording the
information and then filling in the gaps from a cloze activity.
Extension: Students work pair vs pair to improve social interaction/ work collaboratively or individual pairs to
increase the level of interaction between students.
Examples:
Pung, 2015.
6. Cloze Activity
A cloze activity is a piece of text with excerpts removed (Gibbons, 2015). For
students who need additional help, a bank could be provided at the bottom with the
words that have been removed from the text for the students to refer to whilst
reconstructing their text. A cloze passage aids students in developing thinking, understanding, reading and
writing skills (Lu, 2006). Cloze activities are used as a reading strategy and sentence construction (Taylor,
1953). Cloze activities can be constructed in a variety of ways. For example, an open ended or multiple choice
cloze (Sadeghi, 2014). In the text Meet Marly, Marly becomes frustrated that her cousins are continuously
hanging around her at school. She wants to socialise with her own friends, but is torn between leaving her
cousins on their own. Students complete a cloze activity which is a class constructed diary entry from the
perspective of Marly. Students then use this same piece of work in a cloze activity by replacing all the emotive
language with words of their own. The words underlined in the
passage below would be removed to create a cloze activity.
Dear Diary,
My cousins are really
annoying me at school! They
keep speaking to me in
Cantonese which I hate!! Jessica
thinks they are being rude. It
makes me sad that my
friends dont understand. They think it is funny to talk
about my cousins and laugh at how we speak Cantonese.
Some kids at school keep calling and yelling at us
because we are different. I just want to have fun and be
happy with my friends and I want Tuyet and DaWei to do
the same (sigh). It is very frustrating- it took me sooooo
long to find some friends!! Now Im only going to have my
cousins to hang with. Anyways, I have to go now. Im
excited to watch the childrens shows on the new TV dad
got.
Marly
7. Text Reconstruction-
ICT integration
A text reconstruction is designed so that parts of a text
(paragraphs, sentences or phrases) are jumbled for
students to reorder and then justify why they have
chosen that particular order. It is a great activity for
focusing on the cohesive links across sentences, such as
pronoun references and conjunctions (New Zealand
Ministry of Education, 2012). Text reconstruction activities are particularly effective for focusing on text
cohesion and conjunctions (Gibbons, 2015). In the text Meet Marly, conjunctions are used to connect
sentences or clauses. A sentence/ clause is taken from a chapter in Meet Marly and is displayed on the
SMART board in the wrong order (The teacher can download segmenting apps to break up the words and move
Marly thought that the brown and green paisley print was horrible,
maybe Uncle Beng had no taste after being locked up for so long.
them around on the board as needed). Students rearrange the sentence and identify the conjunction.
It was so hot Marly thought you could break an egg on the cement
ground.
Aunty Tam:
Slender
Wore a pleated, sleeveless dress
Wispy, black hair like feathers
Large, brown eyes
Elegant and young
DaWei:
Has Large puppy- like eyes
Wears a Tan tracksuit and green running
shoes
Tuyet:
Long, black hair parted like a set of curtains
blinking, bewildering eyes
Wears purple pants and a knitted jumper
Her finger nails were painted hot pink
There is an extensive
amount of description
pertaining to Marlys family
but this is an example
which can be extended.
9. Split Dictation
Split dictation is a listening exercise/ barrier game where pairs have two
parts of an excerpt in which they collaboratively work together to fill out
the missing information. (Gibbons, 2015). Split dictation is designed to
promote meaningful communication between students as well
as to provide opportunities for sentence construction (Kidd,
1992). Split dictation promotes ordering and sequencing as
text is reconstructed (Department of Education and
Training, 1997). Students are given two cards labelled A and
B. Each card has the missing information of the other. Each card
holder must help their partner to identify the missing
information. In the text Meet Marly, Marlys cousin Tuyet is
commended on her advanced levels of sewing. The book explores
Tuyets skills as she recycles old toys and creates new ones. Students
bring in a toy of their choice and they use their toy to lead the split
Variation: Talking points/ debates should go for around 2 minutes, but could be adapted to talk for a shorter
or longer amount of time to increase the difficulty of the task.
n Marlys family gets a TV, she notices there arent many Asians on the shows. Do you think Australia was as
nty Tam and Uncle Beng, is Australian culture different to what they are used to? Use evidence to support y
ffort to fit in? Why/ Why not?
er to fit in?
true?
Questions may include:
References
Books:
Gibbons,P.(2015).Scaffoldinglanguagescaffoldinglearning:TeachingEnglishlanguage
learnersinthemainstreamclassroom.(2ndEd.).Portsmouth,NH:Heinemann.
Pung,M.(2015).MeetMarly.Brisbane:Queensland:PenguinRandomHouse.
Journals:
Caravolasa,M.(2005).Phonemeawarenessisakeycomponentofalphabeticliteracyskillsinconsistent
andinconsistentorthographies:EvidencefromCzechandEnglishchildren.JournalofExperimental
ChildPsychology,92(2),107139.Retrievedfrom
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096505000688.
deCourcy,M.,Dooley,K.,Jackson,R.,Miller,J.&Rushton.(2012).TeachingEAL/Dlearnersin
Australianclassrooms.PETAAPaper183.Sydney,NSW:PETAA.
Kidd,R.(1992).TeachingESLGrammarthroughDictation.TESLCanadaJournal,10(1),4959.
Sadeghi,K.(2014).PhraseCloze:ABetterMeasureofReading?.TheReadingMatrix,14(1),7680.
Retrievedfromhttp://www.readingmatrix.com/files/126u64c3r.pdf.
Taylor,W.L.(1953).ClozeprocedureAnewtoolformeasuringreadability.JournalismQuarterly,30,
415433.
Tuan,L.T.(2010).TeachingEnglishDiscreteSoundsthroughMinimalPairs.JournalofLanguage
TeachingandResearch,1(5),540561.Retrievedfrom
http://www.academypublication.com/issues/past/jltr/vol01/05/02.pdf.
Website:
AustralianCurriculum,AssessmentandReportingAuthority,(2012).Englishasan
AdditionalLanguageorDialectTeacherResource.NSW:ACARA.
DepartmentofEducationandTraining(1997).LanguageforUnderstandingAcrossthe
Curriculum.Retrieved20/5/2017,from
http://www.det.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/17338/LUAChandbook.pdf
Lu,G.(2006).ClozeTestsandReadingStrategiesinEnglishLanguageTeachinginChina.Retrieved
20/5/2017,fromhttp://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?
doi=10.1.1.577.4469&rep=rep1&type=pdf
ReadingRockets.(2017).WordWalls.Retrieved20/5/2017,from
http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/word_walls
Stuckey,K.(2009).BarrierGamesDoYouSeeWhatISee?.Retrieved20/5/2017,from
https://www.superduperinc.com/handouts/pdf/228_barriergames.pdf