Making Sales Calls. Watertown High School, Watertown, Massachusetts. 1 hour, 4 5 days per week

Transcription

1 Making Sales Calls Classroom at a Glance Teacher: Language: Eric Bartolotti Arabic I Grades: 9 and 11 School: Lesson Date: April 13 Class Size: 10 Schedule: Watertown High School, Watertown, Massachusetts 1 hour, 4 5 days per week Video Summary In this lesson, high school students demonstrate their ability to use basic greetings and express likes and dislikes through a role-playing activity. To start, Mr. Bartolotti reviews with students what they have been learning in this unit and explains the day s planned activity. Next, students arrange their desks in two rows and pair off, assuming the roles of telemarketers and prospective customers. During a simulated phone call, telemarketers must politely greet customers and then try to sell their products. Students change partners, and once all students have spoken with each other, the class determines the best telemarketer according to criteria Mr. Bartolotti has set. To wind down and end on a relaxed note, students vote on a song to sing as a class before leaving. Standards Addressed Communication: Interpersonal Communication Read about these standards at the end of this lesson. 1

2 Key Terms heritage speaker informal assessment role-playing Definitions for these terms can be found in the Glossary located in the Appendix. 2

3 Class Context That s the ideal, that kids are teaching each other. When that happens, it s awesome. I'll put this student who s good at this subject with this student who s not so good at this subject. The good student will help teach the lower, lesser-skilled student. They ll both benefit because the skilled student is teaching and learning through teaching, and the other student is learning from a peer. Eric Bartolotti School Profile Eric Bartolotti teaches three Arabic courses at Watertown High School in Watertown, Massachusetts: Arabic I for students with no formal instruction in the language, Arabic II for students who came from a middle school class the previous year, and Arabic III for students with two years of high school Arabic experience. The school is located in a suburb to the west of Boston with about 32,000 residents. Ninety-one percent of Watertown residents are white, 3.9 percent Asian, 2.7 percent Hispanic/Latino, and 1.7 percent African American. The school is more diverse, with about one-quarter of its 700 students identifying as nonwhite. Of those, 12.7 percent are Hispanic, 7.1 percent Asian, 3.3 percent African American, and 0.4 percent Native American. Year at a Glance The Alphabet; Pronunciation; Introducing Myself Asking Questions; Singing the Alphabet Classroom Objects; Who Am I?; Numbers 1 10 Colors; Expressing Wants and Needs Possessions How Many/How Much?; Numbers Making Phone Calls; Using Numbers to Describe Distances; Responding to Requests Describing Objects; What I Like Schedule of Activities Students speak a number of languages, including English, Arabic, Pashtu, and Urdu. In addition to Arabic, which has been taught at the school for three years, Watertown High offers Italian, Spanish, and Armenian. 3

4 Class Context, cont d. Lesson Design Mr. Bartolotti is in his first year of teaching Arabic. His primary focus is to get new learners to speak as much as possible. In the early stages of learning [a] language, the most important thing is being able to talk with people, he says. For authenticity, Mr. Bartolotti emphasizes the incorporation of colloquial Arabic in his classes. My decision to focus on colloquial Arabic in the classroom has to do with the fact that I believe that it s more natural for this environment. In other words, different registers are appropriate for different tasks. Because many of his students are stronger in reading and writing than speaking and listening, Mr. Bartolotti integrates reading- and writing-based games into class time to build confidence. For his Arabic I class, Mr. Bartolotti organizes the year into topics that help define major monthly goals and drafts Can-Do Statements that align with these goals. He thinks most of his role as a teacher is to provide a structure for the students and keep the atmosphere productive. By his doing this, students know what to expect in class. By structuring activities, Mr. Bartolotti enables students with different backgrounds and strengths to work together. In these situations, students with stronger Arabic language skills, especially those who may have experience speaking Arabic in their families or with friends, can help teach those students with minimal Arabic language skills based only on their experiences in this class. Still, he is cautious about using heritage speakers in this role; he doesn t want the latter to feel that helping classmates is a chore, or for the others to feel as though the heritage speakers have an unfair advantage. To support his teaching, Mr. Bartolotti likes to use authentic music, poetry, or short stories as the basis for his thematic units. For me, the most important thing in having unit- or theme-based learning is that you bring back the old stuff constantly, but in a way that doesn t bore the students, he says. It s finding ways of taking what we did and using it differently and finding new situations that they can use it in. 4

5 Class Context, cont d. The Lesson Students in Mr. Bartolotti s Arabic I class are primarily of Pakistani and Lebanese heritage. As a whole, his Pakistani students have been exposed to written, but not spoken Arabic, whereas the opposite is true for his Lebanese heritage speakers. In the videotaped lesson, grade 9 and 11 students from Arabic I and II classes came together. There were six religious heritage speakers, two heritage speakers, and two nonheritage speakers. Prior to this class, students had taken a written test on basic greetings and likes and dislikes. This lesson was conceived as a way for the teacher to informally assess students ability to express the unit s targeted functions and structures in spoken language. Students prepared for this activity the night before, making up a company, logo, and product to sell. Mr. Bartolotti had explained to them what was going to happen in class, and the students knew they would be conducting the speaking activity in the target language. At the beginning of class, Mr. Bartolotti used a projector to review the worksheet that the students would be using and to explain the activity setup. He then demonstrated with a student who is a strong heritage speaker what the class would be doing. Half of the students would be telemarketers and the other half customers. The telemarketer s job was to politely greet a customer and then inquire as to whether the customer liked the product the telemarketer was selling. The customer responded to the telemarketer s questions. To introduce a competitive aspect to the activity, Mr. Bartolotti had students grade one another on their performance as telemarketers. The customers used a worksheet to keep track of both their own answers and the telemarketers performance. Telemarketers would work their way down the row of customers, and in this fashion all classmates would get to speak with one another. Mr. Bartolotti listened to make sure that they were on task, completing the curriculum objectives and staying in Arabic as much as possible. Using the collected data, the class decided on a winner for the best telemarketer in the class. Mr. Bartolotti employs a brief ritual that typically involves music to start and end class. At the end of this lesson, students voted on a song they wanted to sing, and everyone sang it together. Opening and closing each lesson with a song provides structure for the students and a regular opportunity to practice and reinforce high-frequency vocabulary. 5

6 Class Context, cont d. Key Teaching Strategies Appealing to Multiple Intelligences: The teacher incorporates different Challenging Native Speakers: The teacher adapts instruction for native speakers so that they pursue tasks that recognize and build upon their competencies in the target language while their peers do more basic work. Establishing Routines: The teacher establishes clear, expected routines to maximize productive class time, increase student responsibility, and minimize distractions or opportunities for misbehavior. Examples range from consistent procedures to begin the class (from discussing the day, date, and weather for today, yesterday, and tomorrow to having students pair up to craft one comment about a prompt or a visual) to cooperative learning activities for language practice to routines for providing peer feedback. Role-Playing: Role-playing is an activity in which students dramatize characters or pretend that they are in new locations or situations. It may or may not have a cultural element. This activity challenges students by having them use language in new contexts. Theme-Based Curriculum: The teacher chooses themes as the organizing principle for a series of instructional activities in a unit, providing a meaningful context to explore through all three modes of communication. 6

7 Analyze the Video As you reflect on these questions, write down your responses or discuss them as a group. Before You Watch Respond to the following questions: What are some strategies you use to differentiate learning and accommodate the needs of different types of heritage learners and nonheritage learners? What is the main role of a teacher in a learner-centered classroom? On what basis do you decide if a homework assignment is meaningful and useful or not? Describe the characteristics of a successful homework assignment. Watch the Video As you watch "Making Sales Calls," take notes on Mr. Bartolotti s instructional strategies, particularly his use of a role-playing activity to facilitate language production and the type of support he provides for students with stronger Arabic language skills and those with more minimal Arabic language skills. Write down what you find interesting, surprising, or especially important about the teaching and learning in this lesson. 7

8 Analyze the Video, cont d. Take a Second Look Watch the video again, but this time, focus on the following teaching practices: contextualizing grammar and providing corrective feedback. Practice: Role-Playing Mr. Bartolotti leads a role-playing activity designed to encourage authentic language use. In what ways does the role-playing activity allow the students to be creative in the language? What are the benefits of giving the company design portion of the lesson as homework rather than as an in-class activity? What are some means that Mr. Bartolotti employed to encourage authentic language use during the role-playing activity? 8

9 Analyze the Video, cont d. Practice: Differentiation Mr. Bartolotti structures activities so that students with different backgrounds and strengths work together and learn from each other. What did Mr. Bartolotti do to differentiate the lesson for students at differing language levels? How can encouraging students to teach each other help both the students who learn from their peers as well as the students who teach their peers? 9

10 Connect to Your Teaching Reflect on Your Practice As you reflect on these questions, write down your responses or discuss them as a group. How do you modify the register of language you use with your students to fit the task at hand? Do you have your students use the same register when speaking as they do when they are writing? Why or why not? During what percentage of the class do you speak? During what percentage of the class do your students speak? What are some ways that you can increase meaningful student language production in your classroom? Watch Other Videos Watch other videos in the Teaching Foreign Languages K 12 library for more examples of teaching methodologies like those you've just seen. Note: All videos in this series are subtitled in English. Making Plans (Arabic) shows students engaged in authentic conversations about what activities they will be doing in the future. Touring a French City (French) shows students assuming the roles of tour guides and tourists and demonstrating oral proficiency. Sports in Action (German) illustrates discussion around a narrowly focused topic. 10

11 Connect to Your Teaching, cont d. Put It Into Practice Try these ideas in your classroom. Where it s not already evident, reflect on how to adapt an idea that targets one performance range for application to other performance ranges. Mr. Bartolotti had his students do a role-playing activity about selling products over the phone. Role-playing activities in general provide a great tool for encouraging your students to use authentic language in real-life contexts. They can be incorporated into each unit you teach and enhanced with realia. Here are some important things to remember when setting up role-playing activities: o Each time you do a role-playing activity, make sure to model the scene clearly yourself. Using an appropriate, authentic video of a similar conversation can also help set the scene. Choose scenarios in which students assume roles they are familiar with and know well so that they are not trying to think of what to say, but can focus on how to express their thoughts. Also, make sure the roles require real negotiation of meaning. Avoid one-sided exchanges in which one person asks all the questions and the other has to answer every time. o During the role-playing activity itself, try to use realia as much as possible to enhance the atmosphere in the classroom. If the role-playing activity involves money, print out pictures of money from your target culture to use. If the role-playing involves drinking tea or coffee, give students cups found in the target culture to help them act it out. Keeping and using a set of basic props in your classroom for role-playing activities and skits can help increase student engagement. 11

12 Connect to Your Teaching, cont d. Mr. Bartolotti connected the language across the curriculum with his novice students by having them create a business and sell their products. Extend this idea with your Intermediate and Advanced students as well by adding extra components to the activities. For example, in your Advanced classes, have your students write a mock business plan for the business they would like to create. Then have them record a commercial or write an advertisement for the products or services that they offer. Not only does this connect to a business and marketing curriculum, but it also provides students with the opportunity to practice their presentational skills and use persuasive language. 12

13 Resources Lesson Materials Telemarketing Activity Conversation Exercise* Instructions for completing the conversational activity featured in the classroom video, including worksheets for both the telemarketer and the person receiving the call to complete during the conversation. Telemarketing Homework* Instructions for work to be completed prior to the classroom activity, including telemarketer training information and a company information sheet. Arabic Fruit Song A YouTube video of the song students sing at the end of the class. * These lesson materials can be found in the Appendix. Curriculum References Massachusetts Foreign Language Curriculum Framework (Aug. 1999) Eric Bartolotti s Additional Resources Print Resources: Mr. Bartolotti is piloting the following high school textbook: Standish, Sarah, Richard Cozzens, and Rana Abdul-Aziz. Jusoor: Beginning Arabic for High School (tentative title). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, forthcoming. 13

14 Standards World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages The World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages create a roadmap to guide learners to develop competence to communicate effectively and interact with cultural understanding. This lesson correlates to the following Standards: Communication: Communicate effectively in more than one language in order to function in a variety of situations and for multiple purposes Standard: Interpersonal Communication Learners interact and negotiate meaning in spoken, signed, or written conversations to share information, reactions, feelings, and opinions. 14