Phase 3.2 TESOL
Phase 3.2 TESOL
Phase 3.2 TESOL
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).
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
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
Communicative ways
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
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:
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.
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.
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
Should the teacher group them or should the students be organized themselves?
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
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
sure students know where they will be talking, who they will be talking to, and why
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
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
Pair work: Monitor, interrupting only if students really get stuck. Monitor in order to:
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.
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
lesson actually unfolds will always be influenced by the students themselves. It pays to be alert
and flexible.
Monitor.
Storytelling
Jokes narration
Group discussion
Role reversal
Communicative games:
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
Then, tell them to put the first letters of each object in the correct order so as
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.
Do you like … Why ? Yes , I do (Give name and No, I don’t (Give name and
reason) reason)
Sausage
Coffee
Orange Juice
Sandwich
Cake
Spicy food
Chicken curry
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
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
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
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,
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
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
(comparative location) of words and phrases in the body of language, which communicates the
· 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.
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
It means that lessons will predict the student’s interests by including things that are familiar and
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
there? This does not mean that you shouldn’t introduce new things, but do so with caution
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, the locations that she mentioned
were not common, it was 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
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
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
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.
AT THE CLINIC
B: It’s Ok.
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
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
EXAMPLE
In modeling the context for NEIGHBORHOOD the teacher might use the following steps.
Ask the students to close their eyes and take a mental trip around the neighborhood
The poster paper would show a neighborhood familiar to the students. – i.e. around the
This models the place names and the concept of the locations, but to model the location
words 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
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.
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.
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 no 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.
Sounds for Modeling: A collection of sounds can brighten up modeling and add interest.
Vehicles
Sounds
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.