Activity Name:
Ranking & Sequencing
Summary in Thornbury:
P. 98: These activities require for learners to put words or sentences in some kind of order. Ranking is about putting items in order of importancy, while sequencing is more about putting back sentences/actions in the order in which they are done.
Principles involved:
The main principle involved is long-term memory. The learners need to transform a word from their "quickly forgotten" space in the brain, into the "never forgotten" space. By using repetition, we can attain that objective when playing a ranking and sequencing activity. That repetition process is practiced a lot because of the debates on ideas, during the activities, in order to have the right sequence or rank.
Level & circumstances:
The activity performed in class was set for the secondary level, cycle 2. It can be adapted and adjusted for any level. This activity is a good "brain work". There is no right or wrong answer, and the aim of this activity is to let the learners talk, by comparing their answers with classmates.
How you adapted and performed it:
Our activity was focused on the ranking aspect. We had the student rank food items in the order of importancy they thought was best. The concept was to help a family in need. We adapted this activity by, in the end, comparing answers from 2 different teams, and seeing which team the class agreed more with.
Post-lesson reflection:
We think that the practice was great. We could have definitely added words to the list, but we had no idea how much time we were going to have for this activity. Always prepare more than not enough! The strengths: A good way to learn vocabulary; it focuses on words; we used a lot of repetition; focuses on written/spoken form; very adaptable; fun and simple; no wrong or right answers. The only weakness feedback we received was about not forgetting to keep close monitoring of the L1-L2 usage.