Part 2:
Teaching With ICT

a. Structuring Lessons

In the case study we are dealing with, the teacher has a fairly regular pattern to his sessions. He tends to start with a teacher-led introduction to the session, outlining the area for coverage in the session. In an hour-long lesson, he might restrict himself to just one aspect of communication - in this context perhaps the concept of ambiguity or some work on sentence complexity. From the introduction, he will set pairs or small groups work to do, using either printed worksheets, a section of a CD or specific investigations on the World Wide Web. This work is structured, and he monitors progress around the class until he can get them to report back to the whole group on their progress, or summarise their progress in small groups to feed back in the next session.

Again, you might not work in exactly this way, but you probably do have a pattern that you favour as a teacher. Characterise this pattern to yourself now, and consider how the use of ICT as a resource might fit into it.

In our case study, over an introductory two-week phase of his programme, the teacher wants the pupils at this phase of their learning to be able to:

• Explain what a message route is, and the factors that govern the efficiency of message routes.
• Describe the features of linguistic communication that are most susceptible to corruption en route.
• Describe the likelihood of corruption in quantifiable terms, based on the nature of the original communication.
• Present a range of examples of corruption based on a variety of reasons.

Below is a summary of how the two separate weeks are structured to use ICT to meet some of these objectives. You will see that they are proposed as two distinct stand-alone sets of work. This is because the teacher needs to be flexible in when he can gain access to the ICT, and needs to be able to move the sessions around in consultation with other users of ICT in his school. Take a look at the summary and then produce your own account, and your own lesson plans, showing how you would use the ICT resources we have been discussing to do the same job on this area of work. You might wish to extend or contract the time, and to fit the plans, durations and work around your own experience of working with this or a similar area of work.

Case Study Lesson Structure

Week 1 - Use the worksheet to generate ideas.

• Class introduction and targeted questions - Introduce concepts:
  • Message route.
  • Ambiguity.
  • Role of sentence construction.
  • Use of translation engines to illustrate points.
• Small group work (groups of two/three:
  • Each small group around a single computer.
  • Group uses the supplied worksheet to create its own examples of sentences.
  • Group uses the PowerPoint presentation to create a presentation based on its own sentences - to be saved and filled in next time.
• Class discussion of points raised by group work - specifically the expectations pupils and the teacher have about the way sentences will alter when they go through the translation engines.

Week 2 - Use the Internet translation engines to re-model the messages.

• Class introduction - whole class discussion to re-cap the purpose from the previous session.
• Worksheet based tasks on previous session's work - same small groups:
  • Each group puts its sentences through the engines according to the models they wish to apply, but covering as much of the range as possible.
  • Each group considers the questions on the worksheet supplied as they apply to their own sentences.
  • Each group completes the PowerPoint presentation with their own examples and conclusions.
• Small groups feed back with responses to the activity - whole class discussion of reasons for changes, and responses to targeted questions to cover the objectives of the two sessions.

Note on timing:
I've packed the whole of this work into two one-hour sessions over two weeks. You could take a fair bit longer with this, of course, depending on the level of the group and the amount of theory learning you wanted to propose out of it. The sessions above would be fine for a Level 2/Intermediate group, but obviously they would only scratch the surface of the principles. With a Level 3/Advanced KS or Media group, or with a Media, Communications or English A/S group, you could spend a bit more time and illustrate many more detailed theoretical points.

b. Managing Learning in the Classroom