Learning Strategies and Activities
Free Voluntary Reading - Allowing learners to choose their own reading materials. This could be adaptable for online learning by providing learners with a choice of reading materials in an online environment. Learners could submit their own summary of the story to show understanding. At the lower levels, this could be in the form of a storyboard. At the upper levels, learners could submit a video of them summarizing the story in that target language.
Krashen on FVR: Free Voluntary Reading
"THE PATH OF PLEASURE It may be the case that we can best prepare our ESL students for academic success not with painful drills and exercises and demanding (and sometimes boring) informational texts but by providing them with easy access to reading material that they find extremely interesting. "
- Self-Selected Fiction: The Path to Academic Success? Stephen Krashen. CATESOL Newsletter, April, 2020, pp. 1-2. http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/articles/2020._self-selected_fiction_krashen__catesol.pdf
Listen and Draw - Learners listen to a description in the target language and sketch what they hear. This is adaptable for online learning and could be provided as a video in an online module.
Content-based Instruction - The instructor teaches language using thematic units or pre-planned vocabulary lists. To adapt to an online learning environment, it would be ideal to create videos that support comprehension of the language. For example, if teaching about home life, a video tour of a house would provide comprehensible input by combining compelling language and visual cues.
Read and Discuss - In an online environment, a story listening module would provide comprehensible input while learners could use a discussion board or video app, such as Flipgrid, to communicate about the story.
