Hi all,

I'm going to be teaching a new class next term, one in which oral
presentation is a large part of the curriculum. My experience is that
oral presentations are a great experience for the students creating
them, requiring a nice mix of all kinds of skills. However, they seem
sometimes painful for their classmates to sit through, and take up a
huge amount of class time.

Although the presentation givers may learn a lot from the experience, I
question how much those watching the presentation are learning. Has
anyone found a way to make this experience a good one for *all*
students, not just those giving the presentations?

Best wishes,
Maggie Sokolik
College of Engineering
UC Berkeley, California USA

Nikki Ashcraft asks:
The questions then for each individual teacher are "How do you define
participation?" and "What behaviors are you going to measure to come up 
with
that participation grade?"

Here is a suggestion for a way of measuring participation.
Below is 4
Student proactively contributes to class by offering ideas and asking
questions more than once per class.
Student listens when others talk, both in groups and in class. Student
incorporates or builds off of the ideas of others.
Student almost never displays disruptive behavior during class.

3:
Student proactively contributes to class by offering ideas and asking
questions once per class.
Student listens when others talk, both in groups and in class.
Student rarely displays disruptive behavior during class.

2:
Student rarely contributes to class by offering ideas and asking 
questions.
Student does not listen when others talk, both in groups and in class.
Student occasionally displays disruptive behavior during class.

1:
Student never contributes to class by offering ideas and asking 
questions.
Student does not listen when others talk, both in groups and in class.
Student often interrupts when others speak.
Student almost always displays disruptive behavior during class.

Rich Flierl
Williamsville Central School District
East Amherst, NY. 

1.       Learners Fit as a teacher we must focus on the level of the student, did the material suitable for the student or not.

2.       Up-to-date although the website provide very good issue it will useless if the issues are not up to date people will left it behind.

3.        Meaning Focus we use the L1 of the learner so they can pick the meaning.

4.        Language learning potential to know whether the material hit the target or not

5.        Practicality, most people want everything to be simple, include website, if the website that they are visit to complicated they will log out from the site because they fill uncomfortable, the point is the site is easy to use so everyone can use it.

6.        Positive Impact, not only give the topic and material but also give another skill or strategies to add or improve their knowledge.

7.        Authenticity, the material is origina

8.     Credibility, the content of the of the site trust worthy or not.

Final Project

I. Introduction:

These tasks equip students with the sense of having fun while learning the material.   Students are required to have a good cooperation with their partner. They also demand to be able to have a competitive environment with the other students, especially to be the fastest and the most attentive person in the class. Hopefully this task will increase the student’s understanding and enjoyment in learning the material. They are requiring making use of their knowledge about vocabularies and in speaking to describe something. In teaching to make the students be able to learn the material easier, the jigsaw classroom brings a lot of benefits.  The jigsaw process encourages listening, engagement, speaking and writing by giving each member of the group an essential part to play in the activity. Group members must work together as a team to accomplish a common goal; each person depends on the others. No student can succeed completely unless everyone works well together as a team. This "cooperation by design" facilitates interaction among all students in the class, leading them to value each other as contributors to their common task.

II. Course Information:

Topic: jigsaw

Sub-Skill: speaking, writing

Function: cooperation, describe a picture

Learner: intermediate

Time: 45 minutes

          In doing the “what are the differences” task, the student work in pair. They asked to find the differences between their pictures. Both students have o find the differences by mention it one by one without showing the picture to their partner. This task encouraging student to be able to speak clearly and describe a picture correctly. The second task is encouraging students in writing. Teacher give different picture to each student in their computer so there is no opportunity for student to cheat from the other students. They have to write about the picture in their computer. It can be about scenery, an event, etc.

III. Technology requirement:

To obtain this course maximally, it is required:

1.     The copy of picture

2.     Computer

3.     Internet connection

In this task, to make the student become more motivating in this activity, the teacher has to provide an interesting picture. It can be a colorful copy of picture or an interesting picture which describe something attractive. The copy of the picture can make the student interested to do the task well so that they will be active in class.

The use of computer technology is also very important. The teacher should be able to provide appropriate picture for certain level and also create it into an interesting one. The use of computer can make the teachers easier in random the picture so that all student get different picture. Besides that, the student can be more interested in doing the writing because the colors and the interesting picture in the computer will not limited their creativity.

The student also can use the internet connection technology to find the instruction on how to the task. The students also can use it to find more activity and exercises.

IV. Activities planned:

1.   Divide students into pair’s jigsaw groups. The groups should be diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, race, and ability.

2.   Each student in one group gets 2 different copies of pictures. One is complete picture and the others will get picture with some parts missing.

3.   Each student has to find the differences from their picture by describing their picture to one another and asking question. They have to determine how many and what differences there are between them.

4.   The student is not allowed to show their pictures to their partner.

5.   When they think they have found all the differences, they tell the teacher that they have finished and ask the teacher to examine.

6.   If the teacher agrees that they already find all the differences, both show their picture and compare them.

7.   For the fastest group who can find the differences in 7 minutes or less, they will be asking to present their pictures in front of the class. They have to inform what picture they get, and what all the differences between both pictures are.

8.   At the end of the session, the teacher will give a quiz. She/ he will deliver a picture to the student’s computer and ask them to write a description about the picture.

V. Assessment for the students:

1. The teacher gives 7 minutes for 1 picture. The student should be able to find all the differences. The remark will be: all correct answer will get full points; the remark will be deducted according to the mistakes.

Each pairs of student who can list the differences faster than the others group will get the best grade.

2. For the quiz, the student’s writing should be saving in the document and the teacher’s assessment will be based on the grammatical mistakes, vocabularies being used, variety of sentences, etc.

VI. Activity Planner

Website                            : www.jigsaw.com

Skill                                  : speaking, writing

Sub skill(s)                        : exact description of picture, cooperation

Level intended                   : beginner

Topic                               : jigsaw task

Technology Requirements : copies of picture, picture on the computer,  website for more exercises                          :

.