American English
Teach and Learn
American English
Hi, and welcome to Teaching Tips from American English.
These short professional development videos
share current practical knowledge and classroom ideas
for EFL teachers around the globe.
In this teaching tip topic video,
Dr. Gena Rhoades will explore a cooperative learning technique called Rainbow Learning,
how Rainbow Learning can create effective and communicative classrooms,
and how to implement rainbow learning in your ESL or EFL classroom.
Welcome, Gina!
Thanks for that introduction, Amy.
I'm really happy to be here!
And, welcome to Cooperative Learning Techniques Part One- Rainbow Learning.
Today, I'll show you what Cooperative Learning is
the Rainbow Learning Approach, and some Rainbow Learning roles.
Cooperative Learning helps you smoothly move your classroom from a traditional classroom
to a cooperative classroom through structured student interactions.
It maximizes all the advantages of having your students work in groups and minimizes the
disadvantages of group work.
In the traditional classroom, a good class is a quiet class.
But, in a cooperative classroom, learning involves healthy noise.
In the traditional classroom,
keep your eyes on your paper becomes help your partner to solve it, from
talking is cheating to verbalize to learn.
Ok, let's watch a video. In the following video, you'll see me describing some
Rainbow Learning roles to my students.
While you're watching, try to figure out
what responsibilities I assigned to
red and green members of each group.
Okay, we have all the "Reds" standing up.
"Reds," tonight, you're going to be the volume monitor.
Okay, it's quiz time! What does the volume montior do?
Keep the noise of the group and make the group to the, to the topic, to the topic of the discussion.
Not the topic.
Nope, has nothing to do with the topic.
Noise.
Noise!
Yes, control the noise. Control the noise, right?
Yes.
Okay, you are the remote control like a TV, ok?
Alright.
Both "greens," stand up.
All the "greens," green one and two.
Alright.
"Green," you are the topic monitor.
Alright.
You know sometimes I - uh, no. Some of you are already teaching.
Yes
And, sometimes when you tell your students to get in groups, they forget the topic.
They start talking about everything else except what you want them to talk about, right?
Yeah, so your job then, as the topic monitor, is
make sure all the team members get involved in the activity.
Yes, on the correct topic, yes?
Did you figure it out?
The red member of each group was the volume monitor.
The green member of each group
was the topic monitor.
With Rainbow Learning, each color represents a specific role for a student in a group.
These are the roles I assign students
when I use rainbow learning in my
classroom.
Red is the volume monitor.
This student controls the volume of each team,
makes sure team members don't speak too loudly
or too softly and is also the mute button when
the team should be quiet.
This job is very important
because when you have a large group of students they
can go beyond healthy noise, if you are not careful.
Orange is the language monitor.
This student politely reminds the team members
to speak the target language, and reminds the group to speak politely.
Yellow is the participation monitor.
This student makes sure there are no hogs or logs.
Hogs are students who like to dominate the conversation,
and logs are students who don't participate much,
either because their level is lower or they are disengaged.
Green is the topic monitor and timer.
This student reminds the team to stay on topic if they forget,
and if an activity requires a timer,
this person is in charge, as well.
So, by assigning everyone in a group a specific color and a role,
the groups don't get too loud, practice the target language, participate equally,
and stay on topic.
Not to mention,
they are also learning to become
responsible for their own learning
and staying more engaged in the task.
Check out some helpful tips
for facilitating Rainbow Learning in your
classroom by pausing here.
Summing up, today we talked about Cooperative Learning, the Rainbow Learning
Approach, and assigning Rainbow Learning roles to each student in a group.
That's it for Part One.
I hope you learned a lot, and I hope you find it useful in your classroom!
See you in Part Two! Bye!
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