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I regularly use visualization with my English Language Learner students (and others) – plenty of research shows its effectiveness.  In our daily activity, students visualize themselves using English in various situations.

Links at the bottom of this post will lead you to specific descriptions of what I do, research backing it up, and pre-and-post assessments that I do with students.

Today, just as the students in my ELL World History class put their heads down and the lights went off, one student spoke up:

“Mr. Ferlazzo, can I lead the visualization today?”

I was quite surprised – no student has asked to do that in the ten years I’ve been using the technique.

And, I’m embarrassed to say, I hadn’t thought of inviting a student to do it, either.

Of course, I said “yes,” and he did a very good job – especially considering that he was an Intermediate English Language Learners who did no prior prep work (at least, as far as I know).

But the day still held more surprises.

As soon as he was done, several other students asked if they could lead visualizations next week and all, including the student who led it today, committed to carefully planning them in the future.

This is what I said in a tweet this afternoon:

How’s that for an authentic speaking task?

 

Here are posts I’ve written about what I’ve been doing this year:

HOW I’M USING VISUALIZATION WITH MY ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNER STUDENTS

UPDATE ON VISUALIZATION ACTIVITIES I’M DOING WITH ELL STUDENTS

ASSESSMENT REPORT ON USING VISUALIZATION WITH ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

MY ELL STUDENTS USE VISUALIZATION, AND SO DO MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL STARS

 

And here is the link to all my past posts on the topic:

Best Posts On Helping Students “Visualize Success”