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Friday, January 31, 2014

Freeze Frame

This is a great listening comprehension activity which I learned a few years ago at an ACL Summer Institute. It will require whiteboards - in my experience, I have found that students love any activity involving white boards. It is very similar to a dictatio but instead of students writing down the sentences, they will draw it.
  1. You, the teacher, draw a picture beforehand (using known vocabulary words and language structures) and then write a description of the picture in Latin. The more random the picture, the better!
  2. Explain to students that you are going to read a description to them, and their task is to draw a picture of what you read to them
  3. Inform students that you will read the description four times.
  4. Read the description slowly first without them drawing anything. Get them to formulate a picture in their own minds first.
  5. Then read the description three times slowly. By the third reading, students will almost be done with their picture, but inform students that during the fourth reading, they should confirm that their drawing is correct.
  6. After the fourth reading, ask students to show their picture to two other classmates and to describe the picture in Latin
  7. Ask students to hold up their drawing for you. Walk around the class, commenting on students’ drawings
  8. Using an overhead projector, project your picture for students to see. If the picture has been digitally scanned, project the picture onto a screen using a computer projector.
  9. Ask comprehension questions in Latin about the picture 
  10. If you have a document camera, then take a few students' whiteboards and project their picture onto the screen. This is actually very fun, as students get to see each other's work.
An example of a Freeze Frame picture and description:


est nox, et luna est in caelo. multi nubes sunt in caelo. tempestas quoque est in caelo. cantantes umbrae quoque sunt in caelo. interea, tres puellae sunt in silva. prima puella pecuniam in manibus tenet. avis in capite primae puellae stat. secunda puella a tertia puella trahitur.  
     

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for this write up, this sounds like an excellent variation on an activity I already do that will be very well-received by my students!
    Julie

    ReplyDelete