E-learning with TEIP volunteers by KFPoland

FUNDACJA KOŚCIUSZKOWSKA POLSKA

Kinga Białek, PhD

THE TRANSATLANTICS HANDBOOK Your guide on how to use TEIP Youtube materials during language classes

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Contents Welcome to our Transatlantics Handbook!

Long-term units

Welcome to California! Welcome to…__________________________________________________ 8 All about...!__________________________________________________________________________ 10 A special thanks to FRSE (the Foundation for the Development of the Education System) for financing this year’s edition of Teaching English in Poland, and making this contribution to English teaching posible! About the author Kinga Białek, PhD, works at the School of Education of the Polish–American Freedom Foundation and the University of Warsaw. She is a tutor training Polish language teachers, as well as an academic teacher. As an employee of the Educational Research Institute, she has participated in project teams related to educational research (including SSM, K3 research, PISA and PIRLS). She is interested in everything that is related to the didactics of the Polish language and to modern, effective and quality education.

Single lessons in English

Silly song to sing along______________________________________________________________ 13 A tale of two cities/towns____________________________________________________________ 14 What to wear no matter where_______________________________________________________ 15 Using the films in CLIL

Polish Language Arts (PLA)__________________________________________________________ 17 Geography/natural science__________________________________________________________ 17 TEIP videos as a way to enhance extra-curricular activities

´ Teaching English in Poland © Fundacja Kosciuszkowska Polska

This is your source of inspiration for online and offline language classes based on materials recorded by American volunteers from the Kosciuszko Foundation's Transatlantics project. The Teaching English in Poland program has been the heart of the Foundation since the very beginning. As part of the program, American volunteers taught English to children during summer camp all across Poland. In 2020, the program was carried out online. As a result, we established a Youtube channel where we posted materials prepared by American teachers, who were supposed to spend the summer with us, but were forced to stay at home instead. Apart from webinars directly dedicated to teachers, the short films range from instructions on how to make a book or bake cookies, guides to getting to know Niagara Falls, California, and the geographical wonders of the U.S., history lessons, to visiting a stable in Florida. Summer is over, but the materials we’ve gathered remain a great way to bring new energy and new faces into the classroom. Spontaneity, positive energy, connecting Poles and Americans—this is what TEIP is all about, and this is the spirit captured by American teachers. Remember—language immersion is the best way to learn; this is where volunteer native speakers come to our aid. It’s going to be a long, challenging school year, so check out our Youtube channel and find corresponding lesson plans and ideas in our handbook. Good luck and have fun!

Long–term units Short films presented on the Foundation's channel might be used as inspiration or “sparks” to ignite longer projects. They might be treated as models—“we will prepare similar films”—or as a source of interesting data and information—“let’s find out about…”. Unit plans presented below are prepared according to a three–stage model—first students collect data, then analyze it and, finally, create something new. In this model of teaching and learning, students play various roles and apply various language skills. They are invited to read or watch a text where they learn to understand the natural language of a native speaker. They need to focus to find out important information. Students then work with the collected data—they compare and contrast it, draw conclusions and/or make inferences. They use not only the data, but also newly acquired skills to apply their creativity to produce something new. Every stage is also an opportunity to collaborate with peers. It is important to provide students with interesting sources and comment on them so that they can use them and transform into their own creations. As you may see, short films might present some knowledge or be more of a tutorial to the students’ own craft. However they are used, they develop the students’ command of English, as well as give them some important hints.

Transtlantics Handbook

Welcome to our Transatlantics Handbook!

Youtube: TheKosciuszkoFoundationPoland Facebook: KFPoland

´ Teaching English in Poland © Fundacja Kosciuszkowska Polska

Lesson title

Welcome to California! Welcome to… Aims and brief description In this unit students will: • learn about California (e.g. geography and natural beauty, history, economy, culture) • use collected data to transform it into commercial texts addressed to different target audiences • prepare an analogical informational film about their region in Poland This unit combines skills from different fields—English, history, geography, social sciences and Polish Language Arts—into interdisciplinary projects. Teaching and learning will take place in both online and live environments. It may be used as a part of compulsory general education or extra–curricular activities. Unit is based on the film by Marx Pilapil: www.cutt.ly/CaliforniaCulture Connections This unit introduces a theme of cultural diversity and learning about American culture. In the second part of the unit students will prepare their own film guide to their region.

Teacher sums up: “As you can see, different people looked for different things in California and they found them! They had different needs and California could offer each of them something different. Let’s focus on the beach lovers for a moment. What convinced people to come to California. What do you think?” Students discuss in pairs, then share their answers with the class. The teacher comments by connecting the arguments with information (e.g. “Beach–lovers like to surf and they can surf there”—“Yes, and we know it because of California’s geography, it’s by the ocean”). Teacher sums up: “As you can see, we used different information about California and connected it to what we know about beach–lovers. But it is not enough to inform people about some place to make them come there. You have to encourage them. In the 50s California became a very popular place to visit thanks to the song by The Beach Boys (www.cutt.ly/Beach-Boys)” Teacher asks students to discuss (in pairs) why this song became such great publicity. “So: let’s think for a moment—What makes good publicity for a region? Work in groups and note your ideas”. After a discussion students note the tips. A teacher might use some additional sources on this matter, e.g. www.frozenfire.com/5-tips-for-creating-an-effective-tv-commercial

Language focus • phrases connected with advertising (e.g. rhetorical, slogans) Student profile—age and language level The unit is addressed to B1–B2 students (aged 13–15)

Transtlantics Handbook Long–term units

Procedure This project is divided into parts, where students work individually or in groups.

Stage 1—data collecting Students work at home, online. They have to prepare for the next lesson watching the movie about Californian culture by Marx Pilapil. While watching the movie, they note important information about different aspects of the state: nature, history, economy, tourism. Having done their notes, students work online in groups of four and compile a shared document (e.g. Google Docs) with the collected information. They can go back to the movie and discuss some of its aspects. The teacher evaluates the shared notes. It is important to remember that before sharing their notes, students work individually and watch the movie at least once alone. You may want to aid your student by using some online applications (like EdPuzzle: www.edpuzzle.com) to prepare a video lesson (additional short questions to check for understanding appear in the specified time of a video). Stage 2—use of information Students work at the school, in direct contact. Teacher lets the students share the effects of their work with other groups. The teacher now introduces the next stage of the project. “In the film you saw there were many different groups of people who came to visit California or live there. Let’s make a list”

Stage 3—creating Students with the help of a teacher prepare similar films introducing their region. The next task is to transform the collected information into a TV commercial. Teacher introduces the task: “In the film we saw that modern California is a good place to start a business. Work in groups and create an ad (TV or magazine or radio or Internet) to encourage businessmen to come there and start a business.” Students plan their actions, use collected information, and prepare an ad. After that they present their products.

Technology • computer with access to the Internet • software to create films or posters • additionally: application to prepare video lessons Products/outcomes • ads and commercials about California • films presenting students’ region

Transtlantics Handbook Long–term units

• vocabulary connected with description of a region (natural phenomena, history, cuisine etc.)

Sharing Online or direct, in the classroom

Teacher and students together list the groups on the blackboard: gold–diggers, beach–goers, entrepreneurs, etc. They can add some groups not mentioned in the film to the list.

´ Teaching English in Poland © Fundacja Kosciuszkowska Polska

Lesson title

• pages showing different types of an animal

All about...!

• diagram presenting the animal

Aims and brief description In this unit students will:

• description of its natural habitat • additional info like interesting habits

• do a research on their favourite animals • write and publish their books • use an American tutorial to prepare a book Unit uses film(s) by Donna Stepien: • www.cutt.ly/How-to-Make-a-Book

Stage 3—creating Students work at school, live or at home individually. Students draw, write, number their pages. Then they watch one or all of the tutorials to prepare their own books.

• www.cutt.ly/How-to-make-a-glue-book or Anna Sendziak:

After that the books are “published” or publically presented in the classroom.

• www.cutt.ly/Ania-Sendziak-Book It may be used as a part of compulsory general education or extra-curricular activities.

Technology

Connections This unit focuses on students’ craft—writing a book about something interesting to them. Language focus • words and phrases needed in writing a description of an animal • understanding an instruction in the video tutorial

• computer with access to the Internet • paper, scissors, pens and pencils Products/outcomes • “All about…” books Sharing Live, in the classroom

Student profile—age and language level The unit is addressed to A2–B1 students (aged 10–12)

Stage 1—data collecting Students work at home individually. The teacher invites students to the task (in an e-mail or live): “We are going to write a book this week. It is a huge challenge, so we need to prepare ourselves. Do you feel like scientific authors yet? Do you know what do the writers do BEFORE they write a book? They need to decide on the topic of the book. We are going to write about animals so we need to find the most interesting animal to write about. Now you think about it—what animal do you like the most? What animal would you like to write ABOUT? Having that decided we might move to collecting data about the animals you are interested in. Search the Web, ask your friends and parents, look it up in books in the library.” Students then collect data, copy information from the books etc.

Transtlantics Handbook Long–term units

Procedure This project is divided into parts, where students work individually or in groups.

Stage 2—use of information Students work at school, live. Teacher starts with a book walk, showing the students different books (e.g. about various animals or plants). If you want to know more about the book walk check educational websites, like www.cutt.ly/book-walk After the book walk students and teacher list out the contents of the book/pages they would create. Usually “All about…” books consist of: • cover page • table of contents

´ Teaching English in Poland © Fundacja Kosciuszkowska Polska

Lesson title

Silly song to sing along Aims and brief description In this unit students will: • learn and sing a simple, silly song • write and compose a song by themselves Lesson uses a film by Barbara Huggins: www.cutt.ly/silly-songs Connections This unit focuses on students’ abilities—composing a song about something interesting to them. Language focus

Single lessons in English Videos prepared by the TEIP staff may also be the basis for single lessons during online education. Films are made in a fun way, they introduce students to the natural context for language use. What proved to be an issue during the distant–learning–era in our schools was the lack of variety of the learning materials presented to the students. Sometimes teachers based only on the handbooks and assigned students with tons of exercises to do. Using these short videos might be an alternative to this model of online teaching worth considering. Remember that during distant learning activities students need to maintain constant contact with the spoken English. Also, activities need to introduce language and communication skills in a fun way—and they are with these films!

• fun way to develop pronunciation skills • words connected with food Student profile—age and language level The unit is addressed to A1 students (aged 7–9) Let’s get started! This lesson can be used in online learning. 1. Students watch the film and repeat lyrics together with the moves as many times as needed to do it perfectly. 2. During an online meeting (e.g. Google Meet or Zoom, where you can see all the participants) they perform the song together. 3. Students work in groups to create their own silly song and perform it in the class. They can also record it! 4. The audience applauds the performers. Technology • online meeting application (Zoom, Google Meet) Products/outcomes • songs and/or recordings of performances

Transtlantics Handbook

Sharing Online

´ Teaching English in Poland © Fundacja Kosciuszkowska Polska

Transtlantics Handbook Single lessons in English

• computer with Internet access

Lesson title

A tale of two cities/towns

What to wear no matter where

Aims and brief description In this unit students will: • compare and contrast American and Polish towns/cities The lesson uses a film by Monika Chojnacki: www.cutt.ly/street-architecture

Aims and brief description In this unit students will: • talk about clothing and fashion The lesson uses a film by Dina Johnston: www.cutt.ly/what-to-wear

Connections This unit focuses on looking for similarities and differences between everyday life in two countries.

Connections This unit focuses on vocabulary connected to clothes.

Language focus

• words and phrases connected with comparing and contrasting

• words and phrases connected with clothes

• words and phrases used to describe buildings

• instructions to create collages

Student profile—age and language level The unit is addressed to A1–A2 students (aged 9–12)

Let’s get started! 1. This lesson can be used in online learning. Students work individually. They watch the film and write at least three sentences starting with: In my hometown, there is a similar… and at least three sentences starting with: In my hometown, there is a different... 2. Then, students are divided into groups of three during an online meeting (eg. Google Class or Zoom). They share their sentences with the group. In groups, they form conclusions: Life in this town is similar to life in our hometown because…, Life in this town is different from the life in our hometown because... 3. As an individual assignment, students walk around their town/city taking pictures or filming three building and describing them: What does it look like? What do people do there? Do you like it? 4. Students share their work with the others.

Let’s get started! This lesson can be used in online learning. 1. Students watch the first part of the movie (mins 1–16), individually at home. They try to answer the quiz questions introduced by the author. 2. Students watch the first part of the movie again. This time, they try to write down as many types of clothes as they can (e.g. sleeveless shirt) and create a word–map in groups. The latter might be done simply in a shared document (e.g. Google Docs) or in an application dedicated to creating mind maps (e.g. MindMup). 3. Then, they watch the second part of the film and follow instructions to prepare their collages. Collages may be then scanned/photographed and published online. 4. As a concluding exercise, students may do some additional research on the rules concerning different social conventions. Then, they might answer a question. What will you wear for:

• computer with Internet access

• an evening at the opera house? • garden party? • rock concert? Technology

• online meeting application (Zoom, Google Meet)

• computer with Internet access

• photo camera/phone to prepare their films

• online meeting communicator (Zoom, Google Meet)

Products/outcomes • short descriptions of the buildings Sharing Online

• catalogues, magazines, glue, scissors, pencils, paper Products/outcomes • collages Sharing Online

Transtlantics Handbook Single lessons in English

Technology

• an audience with HM Queen Elisabeth?

Nowadays, an increasing number of schools applies CLIL in their everyday practice. Not only does it enhance content learning, but it also helps to put language learning in a more natural environment.

Transtlantics Handbook

What is CLIL? In short, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is a methodology where developing a second language happens while learning different subjects. The main focus of the lesson is content knowledge, but taught entirely or partially in a foreign language. It is important to stress that it has to be genuine learning, not translating already known data to English. Using vocabulary and phrases in English is then incorporated into deep and true learning of the subject matter. This umbrella term covers a variety of practices, all founded in the need to make language learning more natural and, therefore, effective.

This approach is based on a few assumptions: • Developing language skills is more effective when it happens in a natural context of learning, just like it happens with the mother tongue. • Learning in a second language makes subject learning more effective and engaging for students. • The more students are exposed to a foreign language in different contexts, the faster they learn. Lessons prepared according to this approach have to be carefully planned due to the dual focus they require from both teachers and students. Nevertheless, experiences from the 2020 lockdown might have changed what we think of quality education. We were forced to search for new ways of teaching and learning—where direct contact between the teacher and students would be limited. What was a challenge at first, later proved to be an opportunity to try new approaches and methods. However, teaching English generally and developing communication skills specifically seemed almost impossible in distant learning. Switching to a CLIL approach in collaboration with other teachers could be one of the solutions to this problem. Giving students a chance to listen, read and use English more often while learning online could minimize negative consequences of being cut off from school. Collaboration between teachers of various specializations can be difficult at first—they need to be ready to share their skills and knowledge with each other. They also need to agree on developing students’ language skills as a shared goal no matter the subject they teach. It might be difficult, especially for a teacher whose main area of expertise is not teaching English. He or she might seek help in finding valuable materials or listing the main words or phrases to be taught in the lesson. On the other hand, English teachers will benefit from having their students practice all throughout the school day. Using short videos recorded by American and Polish TEIP staff can serve as a starting point for online CLIL classes. They cover such a wide range of topics that many teachers

POLISH LANGUAGE ARTS (PLA) Have you ever considered connecting PLA lessons with active English learning? This combination is not often seen in Polish schools. But it will be easier to imagine when we accept the fact that, in addition to content specifically connected to the Polish culture, language or literature, we also teach skills that are universally applicable no matter the language. First, take this instructional video for teachers into consideration: → www.cutt.ly/Danuta-Tylkowska-stories The author, Danuta Tylkowska, presents easy and fun ideas for introducing younger students to storytelling. This video might be used as a starting point for a lesson co–taught by two teachers: PLA and ESL. Your students may prepare bilingual stories in English and Polish in online classes. Students can record their performances. While practicing spoken English, they will also develop important skills of time sequencing, storytelling, theatre performance and presentation. Stories and performances can be shared with other students, in school or abroad! Another idea for a lesson is based on the video prepared by Ania Sendziak: → www.cutt.ly/Ania-Sendziak-Book Here, a video in English is not the main focus of the lesson, but adds a nice bilingual touch to the unit mainly in Polish. We strongly recommend planning long–term units on writing especially with younger kids, for whom it is probably not the most pleasant task (yet!). One of the genres we may practice with them is autobiographical pieces. Although it is difficult to write about yourself, it is also fun to prepare and publish your own book. The last part connected with the craft of book–making can be held in English. Following Ania’s instruction is easy and makes students use English while focusing on other activities (folding, trimming and glueing). That way, their learning can be more effective not only in the PLA area. GEOGRAPHY/NATURAL SCIENCE This idea for a lesson is linked to the most traditional way of applying CLIL in science lessons. → www.cutt.ly/geology-road-trip The author of the video, Barbara Huggins, presents the natural beauty of the state of Nevada and comments on the geological characteristics of the landscape. Students can see for themselves the variety of geological forms, like mountains, valleys and lakes situated alongside the famous 395 road. Students can enjoy watching the natural beauty of the South–West of the U.S. in an easy and friendly way. This can also be an inspiration for making similar videos by students. They can record video–replies presenting their own local landscape, both in English and Polish: for example presenting the effects of their work in Polish with English subtitles, or vice–versa.

Transtlantics Handbook Using the films in CLIL

Using the films in CLIL

might find them interesting. You will find some ideas of using them in your classrooms while teaching online below.

TEIP videos as a way to enhance extra–curricular activities Learning English, especially in online education, does not have to be limited to typical school settings. The idea behind the Teaching English in Poland program is to use the oppor-

Transtlantics Handbook

tunity of summer camps to develop Polish students’ skills in conversational English with the help of American volunteers. This year, it was impossible to organize camps in a traditional way because of the pandemic and limitations in transatlantic journeys, but the atmosphere of familiarity, openness and the will to share is visible in the videos prepared by American teachers. It is a wonderful chance to use it and help students immerse themselves in English, no matter what they do. One of the ideas is to invite students to engage in arts and crafts and learn English “by the way”. Videos recorded by American teachers are easy to understand, and students can follow instructions while watching a teacher perform a task. The main focus is then handicraft; language skills are developed thanks to listening to the instruction. It can be producing pillows, in a video by Patty Doyle: → www.cutt.ly/fast-crafts-pt2 or making initials with paint, in a video by Victoria Jeschke: → www.cutt.ly/arts-and-crafts or learning how to cheer like true American cheerleaders: → www.cutt.ly/cheerleaders Whatever the task is, students have fun while listening to English in a natural context. These videos may be used also by teachers, who usually teach in Polish but want to add an extra dimension to their lessons.

For more information, visit: www.thekf.org www.thekfpoland.org www.facebook.com/KFPoland

Editing: Zofia Jaworowska Graphic design, illustrations, and typesetting: Zofia Lasocka Warsaw 2020