Simplify Language Teaching and Boost Engagement: One Resource, One Activity, Multiple Possibilities for Pre-Reading, Reading, and Post-Reading with Lisa McHargue

Great strategies and content can be repurposed and used in different ways, with slight tweaks that will feel new to your learners and help you simplify language teaching. You don’t have to create a new activity every day. You don’t need to be in front of the class, constantly trying to get your students’ attention.

Are you spending a ton of time trying to find new ways to read a text with your class, check for comprehension, or ask open-ended questions? Do you have great resources but find that many of the activities could use more movement and engagement?

If so, this week’s podcast episode is for you. Lisa McHargue joins me to share with us many different ways to do one good single activity with one good single resource.

We emphasize the importance of creativity in teaching, discussing how simple tweaks to existing activities can greatly enhance student engagement and learning outcomes. Sometimes, we just need to think outside the box and use these strategies to bring dynamism and innovation to our language classrooms.

You Don’t Need To Reinvent The Wheel Every Time

When Lisa first started teaching, she thought she had to have a million different activities to fill the time, and she was so stressed. Then, she realized that she actually just had to have one really solid piece and that there’s a lot of different things she could do with it. She also found that she didn’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. This is what we talk about in episode 61.

You’ll learn how you can use one simple text with activities that you may already have in your textbook, or you can find in our resources in TPT or in your textbook, or something that you may have already created. In our conversation, we used the resource “Mini Unit, Linda Caicedo y el Fútbol Femenino” in my TpT store as an example. 

Simplify Language Teaching with PQAs

First, I asked Lisa what she would do with the seven Personalized Questions (PQAs) that are in the resource that I ask my students about the topic. She started off by reminding us that you have to take the personality of your class into consideration when you want to create more activities. For example, Lisa explained, if you have a really quiet class that needs a lot of preparation, she might just give them a worksheet and say, “Hey, go through and circle it”. Then, you might partner them up and share it that way. Finally, they could share their answers as a class.

You could also make the questions a live action poll. There are many programs that can do this, and we talk about a few on the podcast. Lisa also shared the idea of cutting the worksheet apart into strips and hanging them around the room with color and symbol codes on them. Then, you tell your students to find the questions with the color or symbol that you assign to them. The students can write their answers down on paper or on the paper strip itself, that way they can see which answers were the most popular. Listen to episode 61 where Lisa shares another great activity for simplifying language learning by repurposing content. 

Simplify With Open-Ended Questions

With open ended questions, again, you have a lot of options. You can still do a worksheet or have them write it down. Lisa shared a creative option of giving each student a different question and kind of do a “speed dating” thing and have them change partners and walk around, or you might project the questions on a screen or project them one at a time. 

Sometimes, asking one student at time a question can be boring for the other students waiting their turn. But, what if you put the questions one at a time on a screen and had everyone write their answers at the same time? They become more engaged students. Lisa also suggests having students use mini dry erase boards. If you start to lose the attention of your class, have students draw their answers. To change it up even more, have students come to the board to draw their answers.

Reading Strategies Simplified

Students may struggle and panic when they are faced with a page full of text. To simplify language teaching during reading, break down the text into chunks that are less intimidating to your students. Lisa shared that she had reading resources that broke stories into comic book like chunks. One suggestion form Lisa is to have text under a blank box and have students draw what they understand the text to be.

Then, you can repurpose their drawings by cutting them apart and making it a matching  activity. If you’re using a more traditional page of text and paragraphs, try using stop light reading. This is where students highlight in green what they understand, yellow what they are struggling with, etc. Lisa also partners students to help each other with their reading and understanding.

A few days after introducing the text, when the students are comfortable with it, Lisa reads the text aloud to her class. However, she makes mistakes in her reading, whether it’s in the target language or English. For example, instead of reading aloud that Linda Caicedo is a soccer player, she would say a tennis player. The students are supposed to yell out when she makes a mistake with the reading. The key to this activity is to also point to the words as you read them. Students are listening for that mistake, seeing it, and really thinking about the text. 

Simplify Matching Activities for Language Learning

Instead of using up precious prep time, Lisa has her first class of the day cut up matching activities. One alternative to students individually matching is to have them walk the room to find the person with their matching half. Lisa had mixed reviews from her students when she taped one half of a sentence to one wall and the other half across the room on another wall. The students had to walk back and forth to match. Your students might like this activity though. Remember, all classes are different. 

When you want students to put events in order, instead of having them circling a worksheet, Lisa suggests cutting events up and use the same strategies as for matching cards. Remember, your strips of paper don’t have to be pretty, students just love to get up and move around the room.

Using Opinions And Activities To Simplify Student Engagement 

When using opinion questions with students, Lisa shared an idea to simplify language teaching by playing the classic game of four corners with a twist. Have students move to one area or side of the room depending on their opinion of the question you ask. To incorporate more movement, have them move around the room making tally marks on answers to the questions. This is great for students who don’t want to be called upon.

Next, we moved on to true and false questions. I have these also in the “Mini Unit, Linda Caicedo y el Fútbol Femenino“. I like to use a thumbs up/thumbs down system or electronic polling. Even though you want to simplify language teaching, it’s important to mix up the ways students work, whether it’s through standing, sitting, drawing, or walking while reading. Lisa suggested using the previously discussed strategy of having students walk around the room and answer questions in a “speed dating” style, with the teacher circulating to check answers.

Comprehensive Questions

For comprehensive questions, it’s a good idea to use whiteboards or paper to write down comprehension questions for students to answer during a lesson. Some simple ways to make comprehension checks more engaging and interactive is to add details to questions and have students create their own questions. Lisa explained how you can also have students pick five questions and add an additional detail to each one, either in the target language or in Spanish. 

I’ve also had students work in groups to compare and organize information from an audio transcript and a text, using index cards and a class discussion to reinforce understanding. Another activity is to use a hands-on manipulatives task or projecting images for students to match with the corresponding audio text, and then having them put the information in order.

How To Simplify If Classes Need Different Things

For teachers to simplify language learning, they should also know how to use activities for their other classes. We can have great activities, but our classes may need different things. Remember that some classes on some days need movement, some need quiet time, some need group work, some are stronger, so you need to allow that and take advantage of it. You do this by having activity options for your content. Listen above, on your favorite podcast player, or here to hear all the details of our conversation.