Remedial Instruction for Secondary School English Language Classrooms Workshop at TFM Connect_ED (2014)

for Secondary Sch. English L. Classrooms
at by a
14 June 2014Presented by Jarod Yong (SMK Katibas), the frog under the coconut husk
REMEDIAL INSTRUCTION WORKSHOP: TFM CONNECT_ED BY MR YONG (14 JUNE 2014) 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 in fantasy?
A. Fantasy
B. Realistic
3. Are you better at recognizing and remembering names or faces?
A. Faces
B. Names

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

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.

12. Do you often produce humorous thoughts and ideas or serious thoughts and
ideas?
A. Humorous
B. Serious
Calculate Your Score
A Right-Brain
B Left-Brain
Which brain is more dominant? Left
or Right? Or are you the freak in the
middle?

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

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

FOCUS ON THE VOCABULARY
More important than Grammar???
Reading requires at least 75
sight words
Communicating requires 500-
2000 high frequency words

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.

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.

THE LEARNING BURDEN
keep in mind when planning your lessons
 If you want to teach a NEW concept, use OLD vocab.
 If you want to teach NEW vocab, use an OLD concept.
New Concept
Old Vocab
Old Concept
New Vocab

DEADLY GRAMMAR ERRORS
messing these up messes with the meaning
People can’t
make sense of
Sentence
Structure Errors
Pronunciation
Errors
Preposition
Errors

SENTENCE STRUCTURE
the most important Grammar rule you can teach
Subject
noun/pronou
n
Verb
action/state of being
Object
noun/pronou
n

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

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.

 Show pictures of articulation point & tongue position.

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

 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

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
was
was
were
Present
am
is
are
Future
will be
will be
will be

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.

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

READING
learn to read by reading
 Model of a Reading Programme
 Stage 5 – Synthesis
 Stage 4 – Relationships & Viewpoints
 Stage 3 – Reading for Meaning
 Stage 2 – Fluency
 Stage 1 – Initial Decoding
 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).
Advanced
Learners

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 finish.
 Students can read it aloud once they finish their essay.

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.

JAROD YONG
jarodyong@outlook.com
ahkamkoko.blogspot.com

Remedial Instruction for Secondary School English Language Classrooms Workshop at TFM Connect_ED (2014)

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