Understand project and agree to participate

This is a "learning contract" that gives an overview of the project and asks learner to commit to carrying it out.

Task Description:

This "learning contract" gives an overview of the project and asks learner to commit to carrying it out. In its current format it is most appropriate for an audience of adult learners.

Task Type:
driving question
Task Time:
5 min
Task Extension:

This document could be revised into a much simpler and visual format, or could be ELIMINATED in favor of a storytelling approach that would help learners understand the project through indirect means.

Technology Tips:

N/A, use paper

Potential Hurdles:

Too verbose and Englishy!

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Entry event

A discussion with an immigrant from China about cultural differences surrounding the use of public space.

Task Description:

Immediately following learners' completion of the Project Description & Agreement to Participate, the teacher sat down in front of the class with a Chinese speaker who had immigrated to Hawai‘i some years prior. The teacher interviewed the immigrant in English about what it was like as a newcomer in the US and whether she noticed any differences in people's perception of appropriate uses of public space. The interview successfully elicited some possible differences in appropriate public behaviors. While not essential, this Entry Event helped bring home to learners the significance of the Driving Question.

Task Type:
driving question
Task Focus:
reflection
Task Time:
10 min

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Language input! "A Good Place to..."

Through a narrated deck of slides, learners pick up five or six basic actions plus the syntactic structure to be able to express "A good place to [do activity X]."

Task Description:

This deck of slides is used as the first input source in this project before participants head out to take pictures of public spaces. The deck introduces the idea of linking a picture of a place with a caption characterizing the place as a "good place" to do a certain action, plus the idea of assessing such designations (agree/disagree using thumbs-up or thumbs-down).

Task Type:
need to know
Task Focus:
grammar
Task Time:
20 min
Task Extension:

The latter part of the slide deck introduces judgment tasks that query the viewer about the suitability of certain places for certain actions. The teacher should hang back and try to elicit agreement/disagreement.

Technology Tips:

If possible, teacher should accompany this slide set with live input in the form of a DIALOGUE with a native speaker in the form of "Say, do you know [place X that is visible in this picture]?" "Sure." "What can you do at [place X]?" "Well, you can eat there." "Eat?" "Yeah, eat." "Ohhh, so [place X is a good place to eat." "Yes, it's a good place to eat." etc.

Potential Hurdles:

Teachers skilled in provising comprehensible input will find this easy; teachers who are used to presenting words always with glosses, in lists, etc. or having a fixed lesson text may be pushed beyond their comfort zone.

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Exploring with your team, picture-taking

Learners fan out in teams for exploration and photography

Task Description:

Part of the Public Product is photos of public spaces that are "good places to" do certain activities. With this idea in mind, plus the idea from the Entry Event that there might be culturally determined differences in the perceotion of "good places to" do certain things, the learners fan out in teams / pairs to explore an environment (in our case it was a university campus that was new to most of the learners) and take pictures that could be used in the Public Product. No worksheets were provided for this portion, which was scheduled as a continuation of the lunch hour; participants were assigned to return from their expedition with some pictures ready for captioning.

Task Type:
need to know
Task Focus:
content
Task Time:
60 min
Technology Tips:

Participants can use handheld devices for this portion with the proviso that the photos should be easily transferable from the device afterward via email or other messaging, or transfer via physical media such as a thumb drive. 

Potential Hurdles:

Participants who are quite unfamiliar with the technology of taking pictures and then transferring them might need some handholding.

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(Teacher task) Contact language consultants and outline interaction protocol

Teacher provides to guidance potential consultants who will provide language input for the learners in the next step.

Task Description:

This letter to language consultants/informants would probably best be rendered in the target language. The idea is to orient the consultants to best practices for language teaching such as giving the learner a little time to struggle (not jumping in too fast), staying in the target language as much as possible, etc.

Task Type:
scaffolding
Task Focus:
interaction
Task Time:
15 min
Technology Tips:

Email may be the best medium for this messaging; alternatively, a phone conversation could serve the same function.

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Interview Chinese-speaking language consultants

Learners, scaffolded with a "cheat sheet," interview native-speaking informants to obtain the language pieces they need to write their picture captions.

Task Description:

Learners arrive at this stage having returned from their picture-taking expedition and at least one idea for captioning an image they have collected. The objective in this stage is for the learners to obtain the language they need to caption their picture as "A good place to..." First, the teacher goes over the scaffolding sheet and reiterates the limited objective of this stage, stressing the importance of coming away from the interview with BOTH Chinese characters and Pinyin for their desired caption. The teacher, having pre-arranged the availability of the native speaking informant(s) -- naturally, the teacher can also serve as an informant -- turns the teams loose to conduct the interviews.

Task Type:
need to know
Task Focus:
grammar
Task Time:
30 min
Technology Tips:

It might be possible to arrange for the interviews to take place via web conferencing technology such as appear.in or Google Hangouts; however, an alternative delivery method for the product (the Chinese characters and Pinyin) would have to be thought through.

Potential Hurdles:

Students may feel terrified at this "Berlitz phrasebook" approach to their first communicative use of Chinese. However, it works (for the most part) and you and the students may all be surprised at how successful the interviews come out.

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Work on first slideshow

Participants place their chosen image into the deck of slides and type a caption.

Task Description:

Working in a computer lab (or on laptops), participants access a common document -- in our case, a Google Slides deck -- that has been prepared as a "container" for the Public Product. Their task consists in (1) locating the slide designated for their team; (2) each team member placing an image on the slide and typing a caption for the image, relying on the written language artifact they obtained through their interview in the previous step; (3) team members supporting one another's work in real time. A technical guide is provided as support.

Task Type:
need to know
Task Focus:
content
Task Time:
30~45 min
Potential Hurdles:

Work by many contributors in a common cloud-based document an be tricky; for example, the addition of an extra slide may cause other viewers in the document to lose their place as the document view shifts suddenly. Patience and forbearance are key. Additionally, contributors need to be aware of the danger of inadvertently editing or deleting another's work.

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(Teacher task) Administer bi-national poll to obtain ratings on "Good places to..."

Student images+captions are ported to an electronic survey format and two groups of survey respondents (students' home country + target-language country) complete the poll to rate agreement.

Task Description:

In this very short (2-day) version of this project design, this step was completed by the teacher in between Day 1 and Day 2 so that learners could move quickly to the following step of "deeper inquiry," i.e., uncovering cultural differences. In an alternative version of this project, the building and administering of the survey could be made part of the student task set. The idea is that each of the paired images+captions in the student-created slideshow is ported to TWO versions of a survey -- one version in the target language for completion by respondents recruited in the target-language country, and the other version in the language of the learners' home country for completion by "locals." Each image+caption pair is presented with the prompt, "Rate your agreement." Respondents use a Likert scale or other rating device to rate their agreement that the place shown in the picture is "A good place to" do whatever activity the learner has labeled the picture with. In this version of the project, the survey respondents were recruited in advance and requested to complete the survey in a specified time window between Day 1 and Day 2 of the project. Results from each set of respondents (in this case, USA results and China results) were ported to documents for review by the learners in the next step.

Task Type:
need to know
Task Focus:
content
Task Time:
120 min
Technology Tips:

For surveys to be conducted in China, a Chinese survey tool is the best choice. Google services are not available in China.

Potential Hurdles:

This required some fancy footwork to line up sets of respondents and ensure their response in the correct time window.

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Tabulate survey results and add to captions

Learners view and tabulate survey results in two languages, then add the results to their slide deck

Task Description:

In this stage, learners work with the teacher to view and tabulate survey results that have come in overnight (see previous step). Then, working with a slide deck that provided technical guidance as well as a "Deeper Inquiry" language scaffolding sheet, teams collaborate to add the survey results for each image+caption to their slide deck, so that each caption now reads "Is this a good place to [do activity X]? Out of [number of] Chinese respondents, [number] agreed. Out of [number of] American respondents, [number] agreed." This step helps fulfill the potential of the Public Product to inspire reflection in the readership on differing cultural values.

Task Type:
need to know
Task Focus:
content
Task Time:
40 min
Technology Tips:

Paperless distribution of the survey results is an option; on the other hand, having a paper copy may facilitate viewing of the survey results and the Public Product slide deck simultaneously.

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Presentation of slide deck to native audience

The Public Product is displayed to at least one native speaker for feedback.

Task Description:

Having created this more sophisticated version of the slide deck that now includes information on the responses from members of the two cultures, the learners generate questions they want to ask a native speaker of Chinese via a group Skype call to that person in China. They are also offered the option to ask the question themselves orally during the Skype call. The instructor prepares custom cue-cards for these brave learners.

The Skype interview marks the endpoint of this mini-project. When this project was implemented, as a "thought experiment" connected to a possible expanded version of the project, the instructor recorded the Skype interview so that the videorecording could potentially serve as raw material for more language learning. In retrospect, the learners said that the footage would probably not be good "next step" material, so this idea should probably be rejected.

Task Type:
driving question
Task Focus:
feedback and/or revision
Task Time:
30 min
Technology Tips:

A web conferencing system or Skype makes a suitable platform for a "call" from the entire class to a native-speaking informant. Consider the time difference when making your appointment!

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Ongoing self-assessment

These documents are used for ongoing self-assessment as learners move through the stages of the project on Day 1 and Day 2.

Task Description:

"Worksheet: Evaluation and Assessment Day 1" and "Worksheet: Evaluation and Assessment Day 2" are designed to be completed in sections, block by block, as the learners move through the stages of their project work. The rubrics and other prompts for self-assessment are designed to assess

  • the learner's perception of value (=their evaluation of the project design)
  • their knowledge and skills as they gain language (proficiency and/or declarative knowledge about language)
  • their procedural work on the project, such as how well team members worked together (=21st Century Skills)
  • their reflection on their own progress.
Task Type:
scaffolding
Task Focus:
reflection
Task Time:
varies
Technology Tips:

N/A (use paper)

Potential Hurdles:

The teacher needs to remember to call attention back to the sheets as the project work progresses and to allot a few minutes for learners to complete the appropriate section.

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