Interactive Ways to Review Your Lesson

by Ms. Sari Karmina

Many teachers complain of doing the same things to review the lesson; it’s either asking the students typical questions like ‘What did you study in previous meeting?’ or ‘What did we discuss last meeting?’ or giving them quiz.  These activities result in minimum student-student interaction and less interesting practices. 

Involving the students in the review stage through collaborative activities may give both the teacher chance to figure out what his students have mastered  and the students chance to recall the lesson as well as share it with their peers.  Here are some of collaborative activities that can be used to make your review stage interactive:

1.       Rally Coach

-          Students are grouped in pairs.

-          Student A shares what she studied from the previous lesson.

-          Student B  watches and listens, checks, coaches and praises.

-          Pairs switch roles.

Note: Teacher makes sure that the pairs sit face to face to maximize the interaction and if possible put the high achiever with the low achiever so that the coaching runs effectively. Another way is put  the absent student (from the previous meeting) with the present student in order to share the information that the absent student’s missed during her absence.

2.       Paired-Heads-Together

-          Students are in shoulder partner pairs.

-          After teacher asks a question, pairs huddle to improve the answers they have each written. 

-          Teacher then calls for either A or B to share their best answer with their face partner.

Note: Teacher should prepare the questions in advance related to the previous lesson.

3.       Inside-Outside Circle

(Students rotate in concentric circles to face new partners for sharing, solving, quizzing.)

-          Put 2 groups together (inside and outside circles)

-          Questions or problems (about previous lesson) on flash cards and give to inside circle students

-          Inside asks while outside responds, inside listens, praises, or coaches (teacher can also ask the question and indicates whether inside or outside responds.)

-          Switch roles - outside asks while inside responds, outside listens, praises or coaches

-          Switch cards and inside or outside rotates (can also rotate two ahead, three ahead, etc.)

               

The above collaborative activities will make students interact more with their peers and at the same time reduce teacher’s talking time and the review stage will be  more lively and interactive.

Reference:

Brown, D.H. 1994. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language

Pedagogy.  Prentice Hall Regents. Prentice Hall Inc.

Jacobs, E., L.Rottenber, S. Patrick, & E.Wheeler.1996. Cooperative learning:

Context and opportunities for acquiring academic English. TESEOL Quarterly, 30:253–280.

Kagan, S. & M. Kagan. 2009. Cooperative Learning. San Clemente: Kagan

Publishing.