Task-based Instruction in Social Studies and Chinese Teaching

Qian Zhang_TE894_Spring 2019

Michigan State University

Task Conceptualization and Design

My topic for this project is the influence of technology on people’s daily life. I choose my topic

by combining Social Studies curriculum with Chinese speaking and writing. My students are

sixth graders who have been participated in Chinese immersion program for at least five years.

They focus on economics learning for Social Studies currently, of which the standard is

described below.

6-E3.1.3 I can explain how the development and advancement of technology has changed

how and where people work.

It’s always challenging for me to encourage more Chinese input and output in Social Studies

lesson. I used more teacher-centered instructions than student-centered for Social Studies

teaching. I think using task-based instruction would be a good way to encourage students’

initiation to obtain information of Social Studies topics and collaborate with Chinese.

The whole unit was separated into three parts, which are introduction of technology, pros and

cons of technology, Chinese writing of opinions. The learning objectives are described below:

• Students can give examples of how technology affect our lives from education,

communication, transportation and lifestyle.

• Students can list the pros and cons of technology’s influence in our lives.

• Students can tell classmates his/her opinion of technology’s influence in Chinese.

• Students can write his/her opinion of technology’s influence in Chinese with examples.
The activities I designed for the first part of the task include brainstorming technology in our

lives, and key vocabulary study. For the second part-pros and cons of technology, students were

assigned in groups with different learning activities to learn about the positive and negative

influence of technology. They did a simple Chinese writing to put down the pros and cons with

an example. For the last part, students chose their own opinion of the positive or negative

influence and wrote in paragraphs of the evidence to support their opinion.

Task Implementation

Pre-task phase

I used the introduction of technology as a hook to start this task. I posted the word“科技

technology”on board and asked students to brainstorm the technology in our daily lives.

Students were able to give me examples of “电脑”“电视”“手机”“iPad”“汽车”

“火车”“飞机”“聪明板”. We discussed together and organized these examples into three

categories: communication 沟通, transportation 交通, education 教育.

Then, I showed them a diagram (figure 1) of how transportation makes our world “smaller” to

discuss the influence of technology. And I posted the three questions below on board and invited

students to share their ideas.

Questions:

“为什么地球越来越小？”

“这些变化会影响（influence）我们吗？怎么影响？”

“你觉得这些影响是好还是不好？为什么？”

While listening to their sharing, I retaught the structures they need to express ideas and wrote

them down on board, which are “因为…, 所以…”, “我觉得…”, “我同意/不同意你。”

 Figure 1 Figure 2

Afterwards, I prepared another example to talk about the influence of technology. I showed them

a timeline (figure 2) of the development of communication and introduced the key words in

Chinese. Students were asked to use the information on the timeline to make their own

communication-based diagram similar to the transportation-based diagram they analyzed.

I added the new examples appeared in these two figures to our brainstorm list and made a poster

of the table with three categories and examples. And practice the new words in Chinese with

students.

Transportation 交通 Communication 沟通 Education 教育

汽车 电视 聪明板
火车 电脑
飞机 手机
轮船 Ipad
电报 telegraph
广播 broadcast
因特网 the Internet
After the introduction of technology, I told students that we will complete a Chinese writing of

their opinion of the influence of technology and the structures and vocabulary will be needed for

their writing.

During-task phase

In order to complete the writing, students need more evidence to support their opinion and the

examples we brainstormed and learned are not enough. Therefore, I used a group activity to let

students find more information by themselves. The objective is to find information about the

pros and cons of technology. Students were separated into three big groups with six members in

each group. Group one is to search information online and record their findings, thinking and

questions using a “I see, I think, I wonder” sheet. Students from Group two will read articles and

highlight the key information and record their thoughts as well. I prepared three different articles,

two of which are overall introduction of the pros and cons of technology, one focuses on

communication. Group three will watch videos (two focus on education and another talks about

AI) to know about the advantage and disadvantage of technology and summarize information

from the video. I walked among groups to talk with students what information they obtained and

helped to locate information for some students. Students shared what they obtained in whole

group and I recorded all the information in a chart (see attachment).

Students were asked to share their opinion after they searched or read all the information. There

were 11 students who stand for the positive influence of technology and 6 students who stand for

the negative influence. They started to write their opinion and evidence down in Chinese.

Post-task phase

After students completed their writing, I invited them to present in whole group of their writing.

Students were given time after presentation to ask questions.

Reflection and Evaluation

During this task, students actively received the information through group work instead of being

lectured. They participated and really thought when they searched, read or watched the videos.

Compared to sitting on the rug and listened to my delivery, they were motivated to find

information and process them. The lesson went more smoothly and efficiently than I expected.

Students had a chance to work on ICT (Information Communication Technology), summarizing,

thinking skills as well. I think the objective of obtaining the content of the topic was well-

completed.

However, through the whole task, students were not communicative enough using the target

language. Most of the Chinese interaction happened between teacher and students. And even

sometimes, it’s hard for me to explain in Chinese. It’s more challenging in the writing part.

Students kept asking me a lot of new words when they think about providing the evidence for

their opinion. The words I introduced before were not enough for students to express their

thoughts. And this is always the frustrated part of teaching Social Studies. The form of language

limited students’ expression of content.

Attachment 1:

利 弊

Save time Roberts replace human

节省时间 机器人代替人
Remote education opportunities Create a lack of privacy
远程教育机会 缺少隐私
Engage students Lead to health problems
更多参与性 影响健康
Better Communication Destroy environment
更好的沟通 危害环境
Incredible Medical Care Advanced weapons
先进的医疗 制造武器，带来威胁
Allow us to experience new cultures ……
体验不同文化
Easy access to more information
获得更多知识
……
Attachment 2: