Generate inquiry questions

The discussion of articles included Hans Christian Andersen’s "The Little Match Girl". In class, Tim raised two questions related to the Andersen’s story:

• "Why the little girl kept walking on the street rather than going home? What do you know about the daily life of the little girl?"
• "Why did the little girl strike the matches?"

F2F and online discussion

In order to further raise the students’ interest in learning, Tim used a video to help students relate what was learned in the article to real life in order to enrich the discussion.

Tim would post the outcomes of previous discussions in the classroom, so students could respond to those comments and ideas based on the deepened understanding of the theme.

Consolidation

Finally, the teacher asked students to reread the reflection notes on KB Wall, then write a new reflection note and post the post-it on the wall.

Students’ reflection notes on the KB Wall

In this phase, Tim conducted cycles of article discussion and reflection to gradually deepen students’ understanding of the theme, develop multiple perspectives on the theme and improve language skills.

Also, he often used movie clips for the introduction to the articles, which enabled students to understand the articles more easily. For example, clips about the rescue operations at the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and the film "Tangshan Earthquake" and clips about borrowing arrows with thatched boats in the film "Red Cliff"