At a Glance

Discipline

  • Languages

Instructional Level

  • College & CEGEP

Course

  • Langue française et communication

Tasks in Workflow

Social Plane(s)

  • Individual
  • Group

Type of Tasks

  • Solving problems
  • Analyzing
  • Presenting

Technical Details

Useful Technologies

  • Low tech Active Learning Classroom
  • 6 White Boards With Different Coloured Markers

Class size

  • Small (20-49)

Time

  • Multiple class periods (2-3 classes)

Instructional Purpose

  • Application & knowledge building

Overview

In this activity, students pick a homophone out of a hat and are asked to first analyze it then to prepare a short two minute teaching lesson (2 minutes) by preparing example sentences, fill in the blank exercises, and memory tricks.  

In class, two members from each of the groups stands up and moves to the next table. The students who switch groups are the “Students” and the ones who stay at their original tables are the “Teachers”. The Teachers present their homophones to the students when they come and give them examples and ask them questions to test their knowledge. This is repeated until the students have returned to their original tables and the roles switch.  

After the activity the instructor gives the students a short dictation to evaluate their improvement work 5% and has the students put their group work (sentences, analysis, and tricks) online for the class to have access to. Students then work on exercises on homophones in their workbooks. 

Instructional Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • Use new homophones in an example sentence
  • Describe tricks for memorizing new homophone
  • Explain new homophone to their peers

Workflow & Materials

Workflow

Activity Workflow

View on CourseFlow

Contributor's Notes

Benefits
Challenges
Tips
Benefits
  • Each student is able to find a role based on how well they already know the material either as a teacher or as a student 
  • The teacher is able to assess where everyone is finding trouble 
  • This activity provides students with strategies to improve their writing 
  • Some students develop the capacity to clearly explain and develop a strategy of teaching (ex. Preparing a fill in the blank for the Students to answer) 
  • The variety of tricks makes it versatile for different types of learners 
  • Helps students feel more at ease with their knowledge by putting them in a situation where they have to synthesize it into an effective 2 minute lesson
  • This is a good grammar revision on where you might look for/expect to find homophones in a sentence
Challenges
  • Tricks are not always imaginative 
  • Sometimes students assume that they already know a certain homophone well enough and so do not put as much effort into coming up with something creative or robust for it  
Tips
  • Get the Teacher to ask the Students a question to take them further (make them use it in a sentence with two homophones) 
  • This is good at any point in the semester (as a refresher or in order to prepare them right before a writing assignment) 

Feedback

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