11

INSIDE/OUTSIDE CIRCLE

Instructions

Materials

• Teacher-generated questions or topics

• Resources such as sentence starters or graphic organizers

Similar Strategies• Walking Around the Room to Music, Line Ups

Ideas for Scaling Up or Down

1. For novice students, the teacher can supply sentence starters and sample responses.

2. For intermediate and advanced students, the teacher can use more open-ended, complex questions; students can formulate their own questions based on a theme provided by the teacher.

Classroom Background InformationLanguage, Grade, and Proficiency Level

• Mandarin Chinese, 2nd grade• Novice Mid to Intermediate High

School Background

• PS20 is located in the Lower East Side and is a diverse community with 14 home languages spoken by school families.

• The school has a strong committment to dual lan-guage immersion programs in both Mandarin-English and Spanish-English.

• The Mandarin program is a two-way immersion program from PreK-5th grade. The program follows a 50-50 model, where students spend half of the time learning in their native language, and the other half in the target language.

Teacher Background

• Ms. June Xie has been teaching the 2nd grade Mandarin Chinese dual language class at PS 20 Anna Silver School for five years. She teaches to empower her students to become global citizens.

Step-by-Step Directions

1. Half the students form a circle, and the other half make another circle around them.

2. Students in the inner circle turn to face a partner standing in the outer circle. It is helpful to have students shake hands with the partner facing them so that everyone knows who their partner is.

3. The teacher explains the communication task.4. Students talk with each other and complete the

communication task. Teacher asks students to raise their hands to indicate they are done with the task.

5. After students complete the task, the teacher asks the students in the outside circle to move one student to the right or to the left. Students may repeat the same communication task with their new partner or perform a new task.

6. At the end, the teacher asks several students to present.

12

Inside/Outside Circle

Implementation Guide

Keep the information below in mind as you are implementing this strategy in your classroom.

focus questions

Teacher Role

1. What scaffolds does Ms. Xie provide to set the students up for success?

2. How does Ms. Xie manage student movement and interaction?

Student Work1. How does this strategy build

students’ interpersonal skills and promote the authentic exchange of ideas?

2. How does working with multiple partners push students to expand their content knowledge and language use?

3. How does this activity capitalize on young learners’ enthusiasm and need for movement?

Application1. What are your next steps

for implementing this in your classroom?

2. What are some challenges you may encounter, and how can you avoid them?

1) SETTING UP THE ACTIVITY:When setting up Inside/Outside Circle, do the following:• Explain the Can-Do Statements, making clear what students will be

able to do with the language as a result of the learning that takes place during the task.

• Ensure students have proper content knowledge and vocabulary for the conversation they will be having with their circle partners.

• Provide reference materials such as graphic organizers and sentence starters.

• Set up and practice a clear system so that students know how to move around the circle.

• Remind students to stay in target language when working with their partner.

2) SUPPORTING STUDENT WORK: In order for students to be able to participate fully in the activity, do the following: • Ensure all students understand their role and the objective of the

activity.• Rotate through class and listen to conversations to confirm students are

on topic and to gather information for a formative assessment.

3) WRAPPING UP THE ACTIVITY: When closing the Inside/Outside Circles activity, do the following:• Refer back to the Can-Do Statements as a summation of the activity.• To maintain a positive classroom culture, encourage and thank students

for their comments.• Provide time for students to present information they learned from

their conversations.