Stackers to Assess Language Use in Any Situation

Imitate or create? Which would you choose? 

Are we teaching Languages so that young people learn how to put it together to say what they want to say? Or are we teaching them to parrot teacher led scripts, with minor variations? This workshop explores a technique for really enabling novel creative language use. It is swift, fun and clear.

The idea uses stacker cups as a visual manipulative to demonstrate the interplay between independence, variety and complexity as language use develops. It is highly motivating for all levels of students. It drives students toward their personal next step learning, and can be applied to any content thereby freeing language learning from textbook sequences and opening it to the interests in the room. 

Explicit teaching of knowledge interacts with effective application, supporting our learners to say what they want to say, work out where they are up to and choose their next steps. It is not just building knowledge in vocabulary and grammar, but “how to apply it effectively”. (Victorian Teaching and Learning Model 2.0)

This approach orientates a response to the Victorian Curriculum 2.0 for Languages; “to build communication skills”; to initiate and use strategies to maintain interactions (yr 6);  to interact and collaborate with others (yr 8); to initiate and sustain Japanese to exchange and compare ideas and experiences (yr 10). 

If the goal is to use language to communicate, let’s teach students to say what they choose to say, and to assess it?