Punctuation Kung-fu Black Belt Tournament 2023 #TPR #ActiveLearningMethodologies #TotalPhysicalResponse #literacyapproach

With certain TPR activities such as Punctuation Kung-fu our students are laying literacy foundations

Kung Fu Punctuation works on one of the earliest building blocks of the focus on the literacy approach to teaching a second language.

First the students worked out why punctuation is important (and they actually knew it very well!). I, as a teacher realised quickly that my students could quickly see that they knew what the importance of using accurate punctuation symbols is: We came up with theoretical ideas and examples that stemmed either from their previous knowledge or from their ability to critically think about a topic. My role as a teacher was only to write down in the board all the ideas that crossed their minds. One student, Víctor, for instance explained how the exclamation mark has feeling in it and exemplified it using intonation when speaking: ‘I’m very excited’ is pronounced differently if you use an exclamation mark you should say ‘I’m very excited!’’, Víctor pointed out. And he was quite right! Well done, Víctor!

We used that part of this activity also to scaffold vocabulary so that they could be experimenting with punctuation accurately and I could make sure everyone could name all of them and understood the way they're used. For that, we had to open our vocabulary notebooks for a short time, then we were ready to continue.

Time came up lo learn the moves so that we could later one practise them and apply them in motion!

There will be a Black Belt Tournament. Let's see their acquired proficiency in this topic!

Below there is a photogallery of the session and, if you scroll down a little further, there is a video showing the moves!

Practising the moves