Formularios específicos del cálculo de cargas de nieve

According to the CAPS document, Grade 1 learners must be exposed to their L2 (or ‘first additional language,’ FAL, as it is called by the South African Department of Education) for a minimum of two hours to a maximum of three hours per week. The Department of Basic Education suggests that of this time 1 hour 30 minutes must be

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spent on listening and speaking and that learners are exposed to oral language in the form of stories, rhymes, poems, songs and oral instructions (Department of Basic Education, 2011a).

As described in Chapter 2, researchers have investigated various teaching strategies that are effective for vocabulary acquisition. The research revealed that vocabulary is best retained when storybook reading is accompanied by explicit and interactive vocabulary instruction (Hoffman et al., 2014). Amongst the types of interactive practices that have proven to be most effective are, asking questions, expanding on the responses, explaining the vocabulary and responding not only verbally, but also with non-verbal signals (Ard & Beverly, 2004). These activities incorporate various senses and reinforce vocabulary (Roberts, 2008). For the intervention, the researcher made use of the extensive body of vocabulary acquisition research, focusing on explicit vocabulary learning strategies (refer 2.6) and storybook reading specifically (refer 2.6.3.) to draw up a framework for the interactive reading lessons with the Experimental Group. The researcher came to the conclusion that learners must not be passive listeners, but actively participate in discussing the characters, events, plot and vocabulary of the stories they listen to (Dickinson & Smith, 1994). Reading lessons with the Experimental Group followed roughly the same framework. This framework involved recapping the previous story, introduction of the new story, a strategy check and reading of the new story (Dickinson & Smith, 1994:107). This was followed by post-reading exercises and follow-up activities. The guidelines for each of the stages are set out below:

 Recap the previous story

Start each reading session by welcoming the learners, enquiring how they are and giving a quick recap of the previous story. What do learners remember? Do they remember any particular character or event? What did they like about the characters and specific event? Try and engage leaners in English conversation and incorporate the vocabulary of the previous story into this discussion.

 Introduce the new story

Look at the cover and title of the storybook. Ask learners what they think the story will be about. Explain that the cover of a book helps readers to understand what the

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book is about. Look at some of the pictures in the book. Try to make predictions about the story. Look at the characters in the story. Discuss the characters before reading the story. E.g. How does the character look? Young? Happy? What are the colours of the character’s hair/shoes?

 Before reading

Ask the learners to show where we begin to read on a page. Ensure learners know that in English we read from left to right and from the top of the page to the bottom. This seems obvious, but is still important as an initial reading strategy. Emphasize the fact that print and words carry meaning. Point to the picture of, for example, the animal and ask learners to name the animal in their home language. Then ask learners if they know what the animal is called in English. If not, give them the word in English and ask them to repeat it.

 During reading

Read the story once, concentrating on the story line. Explain difficult words and words that learners might be unfamiliar with. As stated previously, learners must be actively involved in the reading process. If the story, for instance, contains animals ask learners to give names to the animals e.g. Spotty as a name for the dog. Ask if learners have a cat or a dog as a pet and if so what are their names? If the story takes place at the beach, ask if they had ever been to the beach? What did they do at the beach? Did they enjoy it? In other words, engage learners as much as possible. If learners are unable to understand the questions, questions should be asked in the home language. Stories must be dramatized by using gestures and props. Ways in which non-verbal communication can be used will be to ask learners to show what they look like if they are angry/scared/happy. Read the story a second time, now the storyline is familiar to learners and the focus must be on the vocabulary. When encountering difficult vocabulary, like the words already explained during the first reading, ask learners if they know the meaning of the word. Can they name it in their home language? Show learners how to use contextual clues, like illustrations, to figure out the meaning themselves. Ask leading questions that will help guide learners. Unfamiliar words must be explained in a short and easy way and

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thereafter learners are asked to repeat the word as well as to point, in the storybook, to the object or action. Oral vocabulary must be built with simple words like hat, dog, and girl. Learners must be able to identify and point to these object in the story.  After reading

Close the book and ask leaners to narrate the story. Praise the learners if they remember the story and the sequence of events as well as particular details of the story. Discuss the story with the learners. Ask learners which part of the story they enjoyed the most. Which part was the funniest? Which character did they like the most? And the least? Point out that there are no right or wrong answers and encourage them to express their opinion. Turn to any page in the story. Ask the learners to identify the character or the activity on that page, concentrating specifically on the vocabulary. For example: What do you see? Answer: A frog. What are the children building? Answer: A sand castle. Learners must be encouraged to answer only in English.

 Follow-up activities

After each reading lesson learners return to their workstations and are given a work sheet similar to the one in Figure 2. The teacher must explain to learners what is expected of them, at the same time emphasizing and drawing attention to the vocabulary contained in the lesson and repeated in the worksheets.

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Figure 2: Example of learner’s worksheet

While completing the worksheets, similar to Figure 2, learners listen to songs and rhymes. Learners are encouraged to make up rhymes or little stories of their own or to simply sing along. Ask learners to draw a picture about the main idea of the story. Posters and flash cards are also incorporated during these sessions. Learners are shown flash cards with illustrations of words and the target word written underneath. Learners are encouraged to ‘read’ the word, draw pictures of the words or for action words act out the word (Roberts, 2008).

In order to ensure that the Experimental Group teacher understood and could effectively apply the strategies in her classes during the intervention, the researcher conducted training sessions with her before the intervention.