Workshops Notes Institut für Waldorfpädagigik Witten-Annen 29 May - 2 June 2017

29.5.- 2.6.2017 Te/Institut für Waldorfpädagogik Witten-Annen

Teacher-Overload / Learner Under-involvement

Exercise 1

Standing in two concentric circles each participant gets to tell partner a story heard immediately before (17 Camels, Cradle, Needs, Idiot).

1. We practise listening and understanding
2. We discover stepping-stone way of remembering the story
3. We discover technical aspects of story-telling (inwardly, really seeing what one is saying)

Discussion:

Aural-oral basis for all language learning (Listening>Understanding, Understanding>Speaking;Speaking>Writing (inner hearing);Writing>Reading - inner understanding and picture building; reading aloud = a technically complex performance giving voice to text).

Something that comes with age: Presbycusis, difficulty hearing accurately in hubbub of voices; possibility of Auditory Processing Disorder.

Memorize beginning of story and end (punchline?).

Exercise 2

“Analysis“ (= cutting story into its elements)

Three groups dictate single words remembered from either story to their own “secretary“who writes these up on the blackboard.

1. All words are scanned for doubles and triples =first reading.
2. All words are checked for spelling (avoiding right-wrong-thinking we only see whether we all agree on spellings!) = second reading
3. T selects words and participants say what word came before/after it = third reading = grammatical thinking
4. Does anyone remember the beginning? The next sentence? Etc.
5. Does anyone remember where the words were on the BB? (Many children do!)
6. What words were new? (sheik – pr. sheek or shake! - potatoes, famine)

Exercise 3

Treating a reading text like a story told

Ziel: SuS sollen möglichst gute Erfahrungen mit Lektüre machen, damit viele bald möglichst dazu kommen, "to read English for pleasure" (Research has shown a statistic that 2300 pages of reading suffice to master English!)

Reading a text aloud (inwardly, really seeing what one is reading)– others listening without having text in front of them

(Discussion: For most children reading aloud is very hard thing to do – we need to treat this very delicately- it is performance that presupposes quite a number of competences; for some very hard to listen to let alone understand, build an inner picture of!

We compared this to reading a text silently („sinnentnehmendes Lesen“)

Discussion:

Some of us understand more when text is listened to.

Teacher could introduce /pre-teach / even read out part of text herself to enable (all?) pupils to build inner picture (Compare story-telling)

Exercise 4

Pencil exercise (A pencil changes its “meaning“ through actions to become toothbrush, comb, recorder, conductor`s baton, etc.)“Wortgleichungen“ (in „vocab“ booklets) are to be treated with circumspection: For children who are more ear-people than most grownups the following are not always the same bird: pajaro, oiseau, ptak, vogel, fugl, ptitsa, uccello, passer, poikstas usw.

Exercise 5

T asks L questions / LL ask T questions.

Discussion:

Good speaking incentive. Speaking is based on three competences: Having something to say, daring to say it and knowing how to say it. Children often lack two of these; if we focus on grammar we might be forgetting to practise to teach all three equally. Cf, rhetoric dialectics beside grammar).

Exercise 6

Experiencing hearing, imitating and speaking a new foreign language

(*kto ukral pirok is tarjelki?)

Exercise 7

Experiencing being encouraged to think again, falling back on own resources

(*ick hepp ön rode, oranje, chele, blaue blum)

Remember vs. Memorize

Unterrichtsablauf: Ballen und Spreizen, Einatmen und Ausatmen

Zuhören = seelisches Einatmen

Humor = seelisches Ausatmen

Gliederbewegung bildet Unterlage fürs (wache) Gedächtnis

(S. hiezu Meditativ erarbeitete Menschenkunde 3. Vortrag)

Gehörtes, Gelesenes schriftlich festzuhalten kann unterstützende Wirkung haben – ist individuell verschieden.

Wiederholung und Wieder-Hervorholen festigt das Gedächtnis.

Diskussion:

1. Was ist der Unterschied: Memorizing vs. Remembering?

2. An was erinnern SuS sich z.B. 10 Jahre nach Schulabgang?

3. Was für Erinnerungen machen ein Lernprozess aus? (Kompetenzen, Lernstrategien, Organisation)

- Langzeit- und Kurzzeitgedächtnis - wie SuS „Vokabeln büffeln“ und z.T. schnell vergessen

was einen emotional berührt, was man gehört hat, "sieht", plastisch vor sich hat, erlebt

- genaues Beobachten (Sinnerwahrnehmungsübungen) Voraussetzung fürs Gedächtnis

- Gedächtnis vgl. Gedenken / Andenken / Denkmal

- Sprache vielfältig bewegen (gefühlsbetonte Gedichte, rhythmische Sprache, Sprachgestik, Schauspiel, Zungenwetzer usw.); genaues, ruhiges, gut artikuliertes Sprechen wichtig für Sinneswahrnehmung / Denken

man „sieht, erlebt, usw“ etwas aufs Neue, wenn man sich daran erinnert; nicht „Speicher“

was einen emotional berührt, was man "sieht", plastisch vor sich hat, erleben kann:

bewegte Sprache (Gedichte, rhythmische Sprache, Sprachgestik)

es hilft, wenn SuS sich erinnern, wo, in welchem Kontext sie Ausdrücke gelernt haben

Aus der Forschung: Man erinnert sich:

- am Besten an was man selber referiert/erzählt/gespielt hat;

- an Diskussionen, an Demonstrationen, erinnert man sich etwas weniger;

- an was man bloss sieht, hört, gelesen hat, erinnert man sich hie und da mehr, mal weniger (depending on whether one is eye-person or ear-person NB most children are ear-people right into class 7)

Gedächtnisübungen

an was erinnert man sich zum Beispiel besonders gut? Aus dem Leben? Von der Schulzeit?

Wie war die erste Begegnung mit einem Pferd?

Learner-orientated concept of Grammar as linguistic phenomenon

zuerst allgemeine Betrachtung: die Notwendigkeit grammatischer Regel vs. Überladungsgefahr der Regelkultur des Grammatischen

S. hiezu Vietors "Der Sprachunterricht muss umkehren" (1886!) - S. Anhang "Mr Knockerbocker"

Grammatikverständnis wächst mit den Jahren

1. Eindruck durch Inhalte Jahr 1-3 (Nachahmung, Bewegung, gefühlsmässiges Erleben der Sprache
2. Erste Bewusstmachung von Grammatikregeln Jahr 4-6 – gefühlsmässige Handhabung und bildhaftes Erfassen von Strukturen
3. Begrifflicheres Festhalten von Grammatikregeln Jahr 7-9

Zusammenhang mit Reifung des logischen (Urteils-)Denkens (Urteilskraft) vom 12. Lebensjahr aufwärts – intellektuelles Verstehen via Bild, Imagination

(S. hiezu AMK 14. Vortrag)

Beispiele von bildhafter Behandlung a.H.v. indirekte Rede und "shifting of tenses". (Three steps in three pictures: 1. Show the relation between TENSE OF INTRODUCING VERB – „She says“ – to the STATEMENT – „that she was in the zoo many times“ – like two kids sitting on a see-saw in horizontal balance. 2. Draw out-of-balance see-saw with kid on the left pushed down from „She says“ to „She said“ i.e. present to past; and „ she was in the zoo many times“ hanging up in the air on the right. 3. We say: „The rule for English is to want the balance horizontal again!“. How? By pushing down „she was in the zoo“ as well. What happens: „She said“ on the left relates to „she had been in the zoo“ on the right! And the see-saw is horizontal again!).

Core characteristics of grammar:

1. A noun as determined by usage movements (See above) = “verb in a frozen state“
2. First noun is DOER, ACTOR; following noun is SUFFERER (that undergoes the action). The verb comes in between.
3. Verb form changes according to completeness, incompleteness, activeness, state etc.
4. A phenomenon of English is the falling trochaic rhythm of the ING-Form (schmiegt sich an das Vorhergehende, hat einen undergeordeneten Stellenwert) rising iambic rhythm of the INFINITIVE (carries more stress sounds more active, completed action): would you like to sail; remember to switch off the lights; tried to open a tin (but couldn´t!)
5. Sentences have shapes. Main thought is influenced, modifed or qualified by gestures of comparison, concession, condition etc.)

Sinneswahrnehmungsübung: a.H.v. diversen Pflanzenblätter (anschauen und beschreiben)
Kurzes Referat aus Meditativ Erarbeitete Menschenkunde 3. Vortrag (Erinnerung wachend, träumend, schlafend).

Zitat aus AMK 14. Vortrag (der Weg zum Intellektuellen über das Bildhafte, die Phantasie, Pythagorasbeispiel)

Teacher Overload (“I´m working harder than they are!“)

Pupil Under-involvement (“Lessons are boring, tiring!“)

Turn Classroom into Learning Centre of making life-changing experiences, where L discover reasons for their blockages and barriers; where they have little successes.

T encourages L to find strategies, preferred ways of learning (Girls A and B)

T avoids spoonfeeding, encouragesL to think again, fall back on own resources

LL listen to each other as much as to T (peer-learning)

Process-orientated learning (Words in context; meeting words three times in different contexts; tolerance of ambiguity)

L need self-access time and even private consultation time.

Homework = preparing for next lesson and going over things.

Tests = “Show what you can do“; chance to show what they remember (rather than what they have memorized; also self-assessment, peer-assessment.

Make L “Master“ rather that “Slave“ of the tasks and exercises, let them choose reading material etc.

Marking system: 

1. You have accomplished the task; 

2. You have made something special of the task; 

3. You have accomplished the task in a personal way.