Take Virtual Field Trips with your English Language Learners to Give Language Context and Make Language Memorable!
One of my favourite magic tricks to pull out of my ESL teacher hat is a virtual field trip for my students who are English Second Language Learners. Not only is this strategy a quick and easy way to have a fun lesson (and no prep for me which is a major win!) but it helps give language context for students when they are experiencing new terms or concepts by creating concrete examples that are visual, memorable, and fun!
Language needs to be taught in context!
Why teach the list of animals or read them from a book when students can learn the words by going to the zoo? Far too often when I have taught my own class, or coached other teachers in ESL, I noticed students would learn all the words on the list, pass a test perfectly, and then seem to forget all the language learned. The list became just another jumble of new words to them that wasn’t attached to context or meaning and therefore never fully retained. Researchers have found this is far too common for second language learners and that the key to helping bring new words to long term memory is to teach in context and within the situation as often as possible. Dr. H Douglas Brown, from San Francisco State University, emphasises that meaningfulness and situational exposure and application of language is the key to successful second language acquisition.
This is why lessons like Amy’s reader's theater and stage plays and experiences like virtual field trips create meaningful learning opportunities for second language learners where learning is in context and students can experience the language rather than just memorise it.
New Language needs to be memorable!
If you think back to your own education experience I would be willing to bet (which is risky on a small teacher salary) that you don’t remember the spelling lists you had or the individual experience of memorizing each one. Full disclosure, I’m not against rote memorization (my own students can attest we do have spelling lists) but this is also just one strategy and can’t guarantee language learning when done alone. I’m sure we can all remember some of the many out of the box experiences from school like role play and theatre lessons or taking an exciting field trip. Think about the excitement of the morning of a field trip, waking up and getting ready for school, and how even today that feeling stays with you. To make learning move to long term memory, and to ensure the new language sticks with students along with these memories, make it fun, make it funny, and make it memorable!
How this looks in my classroom:
I teach in a mixed classroom with students who are native English speakers and many who are second language learners (or even third). I usually teach the new words and vocabulary to all students from a unit or lesson with spelling lists, introduction with pictures when needed, and basic direct instruction.
Next I use a virtual field trip from my collection (also in my store) that moves through the different levels of language acquisition and bloom’s taxonomy to start out with basic recall and then as students move into the field trip they work on activities that advance through the comprehension, application, and finally to the evaluation stage of learning. Students are seeing and hearing the new language, trying it out, matching it to meaning, applying it, and finally creating or evaluating with the new language.
Students need language input in multiple ways so the field trip links are mixed format to ensure that students experience the location (usually) in 360 VR, watch videos to hear and see the new concepts and language, and then complete readings to see and write the new language in written form, and finally they apply the language in a fun way with a game or simulation virtually.
Field trip funding has been cut but the FUN doesn’t have to go with it!
Field trips are such a fun way for students (and teachers) to experience new places and concepts and apply new learning. In all my years of teaching, I am yet to meet a student who doesn’t absolutely love Field Trips. I’m not going to try to claim that a virtual field trip will be exactly the same, but I can speak from my own classroom experience to say that students always get so excited for virtual field trips! We even instigated virtual field trip Friday each week just to help incorporate this idea further. Just like our students, the more fun we are having in an experience, the more engaged in it we will be. I don’t know about you but I know for myself, I am much more likely to be engaged and interested if I am doing a fun craft project or on a shopping trip than I am folding laundry for the 100th time this week. Shaking up the ordinary classroom day and doing something exciting, like a field trip trip or class play, helps students learn, be interested and engaged, and most importantly, it helps them have some FUN!
Go on your own virtual field trip!
Don’t just take my word for it! Try it yourself! Field trips and virtual field trips as well as other interactive learning experiences like Amy’s lessons from Love 2 Learn English really make a difference in any classroom but especially with students learning English. Putting meaning to the language is a key part of successful language integration but also provides a valuable and memorable learning experience to help the new language move to long term memory. Plus, best of all, no bus or permission forms required, so head out on a virtual field trip with your class today!
A little about me
I’m excited to be a guest blogger today for Love 2 Learn English! My name is Brianna and I am a teacher and curriculum and instruction designer and consultant with a background teaching English as a second language both in the USA and now abroad in Europe. In my own classroom I love to do field trip Fridays but when the pandemic hit (and now after with a lack of funding) taking my students out of the classroom to experience new things became a less common (or nonexistent) occurrence. Taking virtual field trips became a solution that seemed to solve this dilemma but I struggled to find field trips that were age (and language appropriate) for my students which led me to create my own and start my store TeachWithBri on TpT. I found that through the use of virtual field trips, students were able to put the language we learned into context and application while still having a meaningful and memorable learning experience. It’s become one of my favourite parts of teaching during the week and I hope your students can learn and have as much fun as mine do by taking a virtual field trip!
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