Strategies-Based Instruction: A Teacher Training Video

This teacher-training video illustrates how strategies-based instruction has been applied at the University of Minnesota. The videotape contains seven different examples of strategies-based activities, taught by four university-level language instructors of Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, and Spanish. The video was created as a supplement to the Styles-and Strategies-Based Instruction: A Teachers' Guide.

Introduction: Susan Weaver
Hebrew Exercises: Introduction Jonathan Paradise
Hebrew Exercise 1: 'Simon Says' Using the game 'Simon Says,' this beginning-level exercise emphasizes repetition, physical movement, and sound/image associations to introduce students to the writing system of Hebrew.
Hebrew Exercise 2: Image/Sound Association This exercise builds on the first by including pictures and "slogans" to help students learn and remember the diacritical notations for the vowel sounds used in written Hebrew. The students use various strategies to match the appropriate body part with its written equivalent.
Hindi Exercises: Introduction Gabriela Ilieva
Hindi Exercise 1: Storytelling Advanced students of Hindi orally re-create a folk story from pictures presented by a classmate on the blackboard. This exercise emphasizes the responsibility of the student for taking control of his/her own learning.
Hindi Exercise 2: Picture/Text Matching Brainstorming and guessing strategies prepare beginning students of Hindi for a writing activity. Using pictures, the students generate vocabulary that could be used to describe each picture, listen to a description of the pictures, and guess which text matches each picture. As a follow-up, the students are asked to write descriptions that include the generated vocabulary words.
Italian Exercise: Introduction Titziana Albanesi
Italian Exercise: Vocabulary in Pairs A variety of strategies are discussed to help the students in this exercise guess vocabulary words in Italian. The words have been taken from a previous language activity to reinforce their use.
Spanish Exercises: Introduction Jane Simon
Spanish Exercise 1: Jabberwocky The teacher uses a native-language poem and short quiz to introduce the topic of reading strategies. The emphasis is on strategies students use when reading a text in their first language that contains words they do not understand.
Spanish Exercise 2: Total Recall This exercise builds on the first by having the students transfer the reading strategies from the first exercise to a target-language text. The students are asked to read the text, write down as much information as they can remember without referring to the reading, and then to discuss the strategies they used.
Closing / Credits