Purposeful Communication with Movement: A Collaborative Blog Post with Eric Richards

This is a continuation in my series on purposeful communication.

This is my first of what I hope are many collaborative posts with Eric Richards. I first met Eric at the 2023 CI Summit in Savannah. Both of us were assigned to serve as team members/trainers for the same cohort (woohoo - go Cohort 2 with Gary DiBianca and Andrea Schweitzer!). Although I had never formally met Eric before, I did know of his name (and that he was an ACTFL Teacher of the Year Finalist for 2021!) and had seen him present digitally at the 2023 Voces Digital Spring Conference - I was very impressed with both his presentation and very comfortable online demeanor and delivery. When Eric and I were on the same team, we hit it off, and since he teaches German and I am a Latin teacher, we were the ones tasked with doing the cohort L2 demonstrations since the majority of teachers in the cohort were Spanish and French teachers. I always learn so much about CI/ADI pedagogy from taking part in/observing L2 demos where I do not know that language, so I was able to see Eric daily demo PQAs in German (and a later presentation on writing) - all of Eric's demos/presentations were so good that I have now "Latinized" his first week PQA lessons for my own classes!

Anyhow, Eric recently wrote up a post on his own blog about his reflections on my presentation on purposeful communication at Comprehensible Iowa this past summer (read his post - it is a good one!). He had also emailed me about how he implemented a purposeful communicative activity involving movement with his classes similar to my pizza topping bellringer, which in turn motivated me to facilitate one based on his list of PQA questions. 

As a result, I asked Eric to write up his experience for this blog, and in turn, I would then add my own activity inspired by this. I hope that you will enjoy and learn from our posts here!

Eric Richards - Four Squares for more Purposeful Communication 

This school year, I’ve been considering the role of communication in the classroom, how I deliver content, and how I engage with my students. As I gave thought to this, I realized that I need to adjust the way I communicate and how I approach some activities in class. I need to be more purposeful in my communication and engagement with my students.

That is, I need to communicate (more) in a way that allows me and my students to:

• learn about each other and ourselves (build our relationships through language)

• learn about the world around us (learning information)

• entertain/create with language in fun, engaging ways (language play)

But why?

According to Bill Van Patten, “Language use without purpose is not communication.” That is, we may be using the language, but without purpose, communication may not be happening – and I definitely want communication to happen in my classroom!

(Let’s fast forward a bit.)

As I adjusted lesson plans for this school year to better meet my goals, I started thinking about if there was a way to get a little extra “bang for your buck” with the activities. After a bit of reflection, it hit me – incorporate more movement with the activities!

But, before we move on, let’s quickly review a few reasons why movement in the classroom is beneficial (for both students and teachers):

• Increased Focus and Attention: Short movement breaks or incorporating physical activity helps students refresh their minds, improving focus and concentration.

• Enhanced Learning and Memory: Movement activates multiple areas of the brain, which enhances learning, memory retention, and cognitive function. 

• Improved Behavior and Reduced Disruptions: Regular movement opportunities help reduce restlessness and behavioral issues. (Plus, it supports kinesthetic learning.)

• Increased Engagement and Enjoyment: Incorporating movement makes learning more engaging, which can help increase student interest.

So, with that in mind, I began incorporating movement into my lessons. Note: I kept it simple! I was not about to reinvent the wheel, and I sure was not going to throw all my lessons out and start over! As they say, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”

Here is what I did: 

I made a quadrant in the middle of the room. (I have a deskless classroom, but you can simply label 4 corners/areas in your classroom to substitute the quadrant, if you don’t have space.)

That’s it!

Then, I started incorporating movement into activities that helped me achieve more purposeful communication. Note: I sometimes incorporate movement activities at the beginning of class and sometimes at the middle or end. It just depends.

Also, did I mention that I kept it simple?

Here are some examples of the activities:

I use this one the second day of German I. We are focusing on (very) good / (very) bad.

• This is another activity from the first week of German I. Once they are comfortable the structure, e.g., “Can you play ____?”, you can incorporate a new vocabulary word (using both text and pictures):

• Again, don’t reinvent the wheel! Use what you have and simply build on it! In this example, I simply added “good (well)” to an already familiar structure. It allows you to build in new vocabulary while also changing the “feel” of the question.

Here is another example of how you can level an activity. In this pizza topping activity, which I stole from Keith Toda, I had them sort the toppings on their note sheets (paper) according to how each student liked – or disliked – a topping. Then, they got up and moved accordingly (in the quadrant - good or bad -) as we had a discussion. Again, I repeat, don’t reinvent the wheel! Take what you have and level it up and down where you can!

As this was in German II, I led the discussion and questions at a more appropriate level. Obviously, they know “good” and “bad”, so I incorporated vocabulary like "majority" and "minority", e.g. After they moved, I would say, "Oh. The majority of the class likes pepperoni on their pizza." This scenario also gives you the chance to level up and introduce a structure like, “Would you eat ….”, e.g., “Would you eat a pizza with broccoli on it?” Or, introduce a relative clause like, "Would you eat a pizza that had broccoli on it?"

Not only did this provide a chance for oral input - because they had to listen to which topping I said and what questions I asked – it also gave the chance for students to respond and answer ‘why’, e.g., “I don’t like onions. They taste bad.”

Observations

1. This is a simple, effective, and well-received activity. The students enjoy it, and they appreciate the opportunity to get up and move around. In fact, when we do different activities that don’t involve movement, they ask if they can get up and do something similar. (And when I say ‘no’, I see plenty of frowns.)

2. Also, using a quadrant for movement is simple to incorporate into existing activities; in other words, it is low prep! It can easily be used to implement question and answer responses. Plus, you can adjust the level of the questions to fit the appropriate level of target language. That means, you can use the same activity for different levels! 

3. In addition, incorporating four squares and movement into your lesson gives students the chance to learn about others and use the language in an enjoyable, engaging way – both non-verbally and verbally. In other words, they are (literally) moving with purposeful communication.

Lastly, I will give you a couple of things to consider. Students will sometimes move to quadrants where their friends are, even if it isn’t their true answer. This can lead to side chatter (not in the target language) between peers and cause distractions. It also can bring about a lack of attention to the oral input that you are giving (in the target language). To help with this, you need to model the activity. You need to work with students and set expectations from the beginning – and stick to them! Don’t forget to explain to them that you are trying to make this enjoyable and effective for everyone!

Tip: It is okay to make them sit back down and get back up and do the same activity again until they meet expectations. 

Also, some students can be hesitant to get up and move. They are sometimes tired, “not in the mood”, etc. In this case, you’ll need to decide if you want to encourage them to participate or let them sit this one out. You just need to find the balance that works for you (while also not abandoning your expectations!)

I hope this helps get things “moving” in the classroom! Please let us know how it goes in the comments below!

Keith Toda - Moving Purposefully with Four Corners PQAs

When Eric had contacted me about how he was using movement with PQAs, especially with the pizza topping bellringer, I had never thought about connecting PQAs and purposeful communication with movement. However, I thought that this was a great idea! My PQAs were definitely getting rather stale (both teacher and student were hitting a wall when it came to academic motivation), so I decided to try out asking PQAs as a Four Corners activity.

At the time in my Latin 2 classes, I had just given a purposefully communucative, cultural lesson in Latin about popinas (restaurants), so the next day, I decided to ask students a series of questions related to fast food restaurants in a "Four Corners" kind of way (where student would respond by moving to that corner of the room which corresponded to their answer). Each corner of the room was numbered accordingly, and I projected the first slide. 

After students moved to their corners, I would then ask invidual students opinion questions:  "tua sententia, estne Carlos rectus? Taco Bellne optimum cibum Mexicanum habet?" After asking this a few times about different students, I then revealed my pick: "mea sententia, Chipotle optimum cibum Mexicanum habet." Then I proceeded to the next question and repeated the process.

Observations

1. I love these kinds of PQAs, because EVERY student has an opinion about fast food! I loved it that students would "argue" with each other and with me about which fast food restaurants had the best food!

2. Students really wanted to hear my opinion on which fast food restaurant had the best X - maybe they wanted to learn about me, or maybe they wanted adult validation for their answers!

3. I loved it when a particular corner would just have 1-2 students - I am glad that they felt safe enough to "voice" their opinion even if "unpopular." They were usually the ones whom I would ask the follow up opinion questions.

4. Because this involved every student moving, students got to see others' responses (which is different from a traditional PQA where I may ask individual students or ask for a show of hands). 

5. This activity definitely shows that purposeful communication does not always have to be verbal - we can still learn about ourselves and each other non-verbally. 

6. As a teacher, I learned a lot about my students, even if it was just about their favorite fast food restaurants!

7. This activity lasted about 10 minutes.

***************************************************************************************************************Anyhow, Eric and I would love to hear your experiences in the comment section - hope you can use these in your classrooms!