Strategies for English Learning through Language Arts and Reading NET Section CDI EDB HKSAR
Developing Language Skills Progressively
By using poetry, drama, short stories and the language associated with these disciplines, students’ listening, speaking, reading and writing skills are developed. Students learn to use contextual and visual clues in reading. They learn text structures that are associated with particular text types in writing. They find a voice to show emotion and reveal character in speaking. They learn to identify the main ideas in listening. To extract information, students learn to use semantic and syntactical clues to work out meanings.
These language skills are built on over the 3 years and 12 modules of the programme and prepare students for the Senior Secondary English Language curriculum.
What is Stellar?
Stellar (Strategies for English Learning through Language Arts and Reading) is a three-year programme which started in the school year 2009/10. The programme has been taken up by 20 schools in Hong Kong.
Currently 2506 students in S1, 2611 in S2 and 2130 in S3 are participating in Stellar.
Integrating Language Skills in Tasks and Activities
Over the course of eight lessons, each Stellar module brings together a wide variety of literary and other texts. Using lesson notes for teachers and student-centred activities, the programme builds a structure where language arts materials and activities foster effective learning.
In Stellar, language skills are not taught in isolation but in the context of the module narratives. Students are given opportunities to practise and apply their skills and knowledge, and to experiment with specific concepts they have learnt. Activities are purposeful and related to the module, such as writing a letter, poem or a play for a particular reason - not merely to practise the skills.
Language Arts
Performance
Fun
Stories
Strategies for English Learning through Language Arts and Reading
Reading
Programme Programme Programme
Stellar
Stellar Stellar
Module
Just for Fun Glitz, Glamour and Movie Magic
Grandma Baggins relates how she became a stunt woman and met someone special in Hollywood, California.
Learning and Teaching Reading
The Stellar Programme provides teachers with structures that support the teaching of reading skills and strategies. Teachers help students develop a repertoire of their own thinking strategies to handle a variety of text types and guide students to be increasingly in charge of, and aware of their own thinking processes.
Module Structure
Each Stellar module has 3 cores and 3 optional extensions. All modules have elements of the 4 language skills of reading, listening, writing and speaking and provide a context for teaching vocabulary and grammar.
Stellar Workshops
English teachers face an on-going challenge to integrate the use of language arts resources into the General English programme. The Stellar Programme provides extensive professional development workshops to introduce teachers to the Stellar materials. The workshops demonstrate strategies and techniques to use in the Junior Secondary English classroom. An example of this is cooperative learning skills. Teachers are taught skills such as Think-Pair-Share, Jigsaw, and Round Robin.
By participating in such cooperative learning scenarios in professional development workshops, teachers have first-hand experience on how effective these techniques are. Teachers are able to take these cooperative learning strategies back to their own classroom for application and to guide students to effectively work in small groups and teams.
Core 1 Extension (activities about stage areas and stage directions)
Core 2 Extension (drama techniques and voice training)
Finish Core 1 – Core 3 OR
Choose an Extension (Core 3 Extension highly recommended)
Core 3 Extension (drama presentations) Core 3:
Get in Role!
● Character analysis
● Character posters
● Drama script
●●●●●●
Core 1:
Barbara in Hollywood
Character descriptions
Notes on characters
●●●●
Core 2:
Lights, Camera, Action!
● Drama script
● Recording
● Sequence of events
●●●●●●
Vocabulary
People who work in the movie industry
Stage directions
●●●●
Language Arts and Reading
Character descriptions
●● Drama script
●●
Grammar Features
Prepositions of movement
Comparative and superlative adjectives
●●●●
Tasks
Take notes on characters
Sequence events
Analyse characters
Read with fluency and expression
Present a stage play
●●●●●●●●●●
Core 1
Ext. 1
Core 2
Ext. 2
Core 3
Ext. 3
Narrative Progression
Skills Progression
Exemplar Module Overview for S2 Exemplar Module Overview for S2 Exemplar Module Overview for S2
Module 6 ‘Glitz, Glamour and Movie Magic’
Module 6 ‘Glitz, Glamour and Movie Magic’
Module 6 ‘Glitz, Glamour and Movie Magic’
Stellar Programme Stellar Programme
Student-centred activities
The Stellar Programme encourages student-centred activities where students take up more responsibility for their own learning. They are involved in more decision-making processes, and they learn by doing, rather than just by passive listening. Learning becomes more active and more memorable.
Quality Interaction
Students are encouraged to engage in the use of English.
Teachers’ questioning techniques and a variety of interaction modes guide students to deeper levels of understanding, i.e. from comprehension to inferential levels. They come to appreciate the artistic/mood/tone qualities of particular text types.
Drama
Students experiment with English in dramatic interpretations.
They practise drama techniques through acting, reading aloud, modelling by the teacher and other students, and by trying out the language for themselves.
They gain insight into, and reflect on, their own and others’ lives.
Through Reader’s Theatre and oral presentations of various supplied scripts, the Stellar characters come to life. Students also gain confidence in using the language and applying appropriate pauses and stress when speaking.
Integration
The Stellar Programme is integrated into the school-based English Language Curriculum and not an add-on or a stand-alone component. Teachers can balance the study of grammar structures as they teach the process of using a literary text. Students learn how language works, including how grammar features contribute to meaning and how texts are organised.
Learner Diversity
Teachers are provided with teaching strategies that cater for learner diversity. ‘Tips’ on how to make an activity easier or more difficult are offered. There is flexibility for teachers to select activities out of modules as well as freedom to modify worksheets and PowerPoint slides to cater for their students’ needs.
These topics are discussed in professional development workshops and quite often teachers share their modified learning and teaching resources with other Stellar schools.
Print-rich Environment
A print-rich environment with charts, word walls, labels,
displays of student writing, and co-created print stimulates
learning, imprints words into long-term memory and supports success in reading and writing. Visual displays of words serve as a
reference when students write.
Creativity
Creativity is an important but elusive concept. Imaginative contexts combined with a language-rich environment in the classroom encourage a climate conducive to creativity.
In the Stellar Programme, students work in collaboration to generate and share ideas.
They are encouraged to negotiate meaning and express their imaginative ideas.
The engaging texts motivate them by giving expression to their experiences and provide them with models of short stories, poems and plays.
Stories provide opportunities for reading strategies as
well as jumping off points for grammar, writing and language
arts. Imaginative contexts
combined with a language-rich environment
in the classroom encourage language arts
learning and create a climate conducive to
creativity.
Quality Interaction and Classroom Environment Quality Interaction and Classroom Environment Quality Interaction and
Classroom Environment
Stellar Programme
