Investigation A

All of your students are learning new language. All of them are expanding their knowledge of English, and some of them are also expanding their use of a Pasifika or other language.

As your students work with you and with each other, look out for and record examples of what they are using their language output for, and of the kinds of language-related feedback described above (point 3, ‘Hypothesis testing’). It’s more interesting (and easier to record) if you can collaborate with another teacher and each observe in the other’s class.

	Focusing on meaning	Focusing on correct forms
Noticing
Metatalk
Hypothesis testing
Asking for feedback on language usage
Uptake of new language

You can promote more use of these important learning functions of output by having your students work in pairs or groups where all students need to communicate information that other students don’t have, through activities such as jigsaw reading¹ and other split information (barrier) activities . (See also the strip-story activity discussed in the inquiry What do students learn from interaction? .)

The simplest kind of split-information activity, which a teacher can use at any time with a small group, involves these easy steps:

1. Choose a text you want your students to work with.
2. Make a copy of it.
3. Cut the copy up with scissors so that each student has a piece of the text. (You may want to give specific bits to particular students.)
4. Give the students a shared list of questions about the text to answer, or a task such as a problem to solve, based on the text. Make sure most of the questions cannot be answered from one piece of text held by an individual student. The students have to share their information (without showing the written text) and integrate it to answer these questions or complete the task.
5. Give your students a specified short time for reading before they start sharing and answering questions.
6. Give each student the role of ‘expert’ on their own piece so that they feel a sense of responsibility for it.

It’s easy to arrange for students to do this kind of activity in Pasifika languages, based on Pasifika texts. You can ask a bilingual staff member to write the questions or set the tasks, or two groups of students can set them for each other using different texts. Students will learn just as much from setting the tasks as from completing them.

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