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At the Kiosk
A thematic unit for a course in Elementary Greek
Apostolos Koutropoulos
12/13/2009
Table of Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 4
Intended Audience .................................................................................................................................... 4
Target Demographics ............................................................................................................................ 4
Curriculum & Assessment ..................................................................................................................... 4
Student Interests................................................................................................................................... 5
Theme of Unit ........................................................................................................................................... 6
Instructional Objectives ........................................................................................................................ 6
Culturally Authentic Realia.................................................................................................................... 6
Theoretical Framework Overview............................................................................................................. 7
Linguistic & Cultural Objectives ............................................................................................................ 7
Listening Comprehension Sequence ............................................................................................................. 8
Video description ...................................................................................................................................... 8
Sequence goals ......................................................................................................................................... 8
Pre-Reading Activities ............................................................................................................................... 9
Activity 1: Schemata Activation ............................................................................................................ 9
Activity 2: KWL on Kiosks and Comedy ................................................................................................. 9
Guided Interaction .................................................................................................................................. 10
Activity 1: Silent Viewing..................................................................................................................... 10
Activity 2: “Name that Product!” – Activity for Video 1 ..................................................................... 10
Activity 3: “Well, if I had to guess…” – Activity for Video 2 ................................................................ 10
Activity 4: Comprehension Check ....................................................................................................... 10
Activity 5: Revisiting the videos .......................................................................................................... 11
Activity 6: Analyzing the visuals .......................................................................................................... 11
Assimilation ............................................................................................................................................. 11
Activity 1: KWL – part II ....................................................................................................................... 11
Activity 2: Semantic Map of Kiosks ..................................................................................................... 11
Activity 3: Dialogue Creation............................................................................................................... 12
Personalization........................................................................................................................................ 13
Activity 1: Discussion on Kiosk services .............................................................................................. 13
Activity 2: History of the Kiosk ............................................................................................................ 13
Grammar Sequence .................................................................................................................................... 14
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Purpose ................................................................................................................................................... 14
Explanations of Grammatical Features ................................................................................................... 14
Primary grammatical feature: Adjectives ........................................................................................... 14
Secondary grammatical feature: Review of έχω (to have) ................................................................. 15
Documents Foreshadowing Grammatical Sequence .............................................................................. 15
Structured Input Activities ...................................................................................................................... 16
Activity 1: Matching ............................................................................................................................ 16
Activity 2: Simon Says…....................................................................................................................... 16
Activity 3: The Venn Diagram.............................................................................................................. 16
Structured Output Activities ................................................................................................................... 17
Activity 1: Class survey ........................................................................................................................ 17
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................ 18
Appendix A .................................................................................................................................................. 19
Appendix B .................................................................................................................................................. 20
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Introduction
Intended Audience
Target Demographics
The intended audience for the course, that this thematic unit is part of, is college level students.
The course is intended for students who are trying to complete their language requirement for
graduation, and students who want to learn Greek as foreign language.
The course is called Greek for Travelers and it is the equivalent of Greek 101 and Greek 102. The
curriculum of the course is not dictated by the department so the instructor of the course does have a
degree of latitude with the materials. The only concern is that the course does not have a successor as
of yet, thus the instructor needs to make sure that the students cover certain grammatical points that
make it possible for students to pursue a more traditional intermediate Greek (201/202) with another
department or institution.
Students neither need to have any background in language learning, nor a background in Greek.
The interests of the students can vary considerably. Students who sign up for the course generally fall
into three general categories:
In this unit, there are many opportunities to use culturally authentic realia such as local currency
(Euro), newspapers, tickets, and local prepared food items just to name a few. In terms of linguistic
information, there are opportunities for students to learn and practice language related to purchases,
requests to see if items are available, and asking and receiving directions. During this module there are
some opportunities to achieve some of the 5 Cs (NSFLEP, 1999):
Communities
In Greece not everyone has access to a Kiosk license. If class timing allowed it, students could
do a mini research paper about who can get kiosk licenses and find language associated with this. This
type of activity however would be tangential to our communicative goal. This assignment could be two
or three paragraphs in blog format so that they can receive feedback, and possibility additional
information, from classmates in addition to the feedback from the instructor. This would not only be
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enriching to the individual who wrote the original article, but also the classroom community since each
student will bring their own research and possibly personal experiences to the table.
At the very minimum, students can use the Kiosk unit as a way to compare their own culture to
Greek culture in terms of how they have access to convenience stores and convenience services. They
can also compare the products available at these stores and the type of language used, hours of
operation, of special interest to tourists being late night and holidays, and the relationships that develop
between locals and their local kiosk-keeper. We’ll also want to explore where kiosks are available, how
densely packed are they within geographic regions and what sort of niche they provide that a local mini-
market or supermarket does not.
Communication
The whole thematic unit is about learning real life language required to negotiate encounters at
the Kiosk. This type of language can be borrowed and used in other commerce related situations, like
the super market for example. In addition, the Kiosk many times serves as the local watercooler. Locals
may develop a relationshiop with the kiosk-keeper and local news, information and oftentimes gossip
may be heard at or near the kiosk.
Student Interests
Student interests in this thematic unit can vary. At the very basic level, students will want to
know what is a kiosk, why is it important to me, and what type of services can I get there during my trip?
Some students may be curious about kiosks as a location and how one becomes a kiosk-keeper. These
students may have relatives in Greece that own or operate kiosks and want to get to know a little more
about their relatives’ lives. Finally, some students may be interested in the human interaction that
happens among locals at kiosks, such as gossip or jokes, and they may be interested in learning how to
pick up and distinguish factual information from jokes and gossip.
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Theme of Unit
Instructional Objectives
Upon the completion of this module, students will be able to:
• Identify and use vocabulary relating to Kiosk products and services.
• Identify and use vocabulary relating to origin (i.e. nationalities)
• Summarize the content of a video given a certain context.
• Describe the practical significance of Kiosks
• Describe the cultural background of Kiosks
• Compare C1 comedy to C2 comedy, within the context of politics
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Theoretical Framework Overview
The design of this thematic unit is based on the principles of Communicative Language Teaching
because, as we see in Richard’s & Rodgers, “people learn a second language more successfully when
they use the language as a means of acquiring information, rather than as an end in itself” (2001). This
thematic unit focuses on a staple of Greek commerce, the Kiosk. This is something that learners of Greek
that intend to visit the country will encounter fairly frequently and they might even utilize their services.
This naturally couples with the ACTFL standards for language teaching, because in teaching this thematic
unit learners will also be exposed to a great deal of Greek culture.
This unit also utilizes the principles of schema theory (Carell & Eisterhold, 1988) to help students
relate new knowledge to information that they already have either from their C1 or precious
interactions with C2. When it comes to grammar teaching it utilizes the principles of structured-input
and structured-output (Lee & Van Patten, 2003). To some extent principles of critical literacy
(McLaughlin & DeVoogt, 2004) will be used to explore Kiosks and compare and contrast them to the
learner’s C1. Finally, a small part of the class is devoted to getting students from BICS to CALP in their C1
(Cummins, 1980 in (Peregoy & Boyle, 2005)) in that we want students to go to the library, do research
and write a small research paper on the topic of Kiosks in Greece.
Liguistic Objectives
• Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express feelings and
motions, and exchange opinions (Standard 1.1)
• Students understand and interpret spoken language on a variety of topics (Standard 1.2)
• Students present information, concepts, and ideas to an audience of listeners or readers on a
variety of topics (Standard 1.3)
Cultural Objectives
• Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the practices and
perspectives of Greek culture (Standard 2.1)
• Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the products and
perspectives of Greek culture (Standard 2.2)
• Students reinforce and expand their knowledge of other disciplines through study of the Greek
language (Standard 3.1)
• Students demonstrate understanding of the nature of language through comparisons of the
Greek language with their native language (Standard 4.1)
• Students demonstrate understanding of the concept of culture through comparisons of the
Greek culture with their native culture (Standard 4.2)
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Listening Comprehension Sequence
Video description
There are two videos for this sequence with two separate difficulty levels. The first video1 is
about two minutes long, it’s comedic in nature and the comedy is more general slapstick humor. The
video is from a comedy show that ran in the 90’s. The video contains more repetitive dialogue which
may help learners who are not as comfortable with the vocabulary. In addition the individuals engaged
in conversation do provide some paralinguistic queues that assist the learner in negotiating the meaning
in the dialogue. An example of this would be pointing to a specific product and saying “that one!”
The second video2 is also around two minutes and from a comedy program, but this one is more
political in nature and it’s from the 00’s. This video deals a little more with the places and products that
we see in the first video but it’s more political in nature and students may have some trouble connecting
the dots. I’ve opted to show this video nonetheless because I think that I can guide the students through
the major points of the video, both humorous and political.
Politics, along with Sports, tend to be major topics of discussion and debate in Greece and it
would be helpful for the students to know a little about the sociopolitical landscape in Greece. This
video was done at the same time as the G.W. Bush Presidency. In Greece, as Obama was elected into
Office in the US, so was a new government elected in Greece. If students are interested in pursuing this
further, students can compare Greek and US political landscapes of the same time period. If they are
not, this video, with approapriate guidance, can provide a good primer into both Politics and Humor!
Sequence goals
In this sequence there are three elements that we want students to pick up. Grammatically we
want students to be pick-up grammatical structures for asking and receiving. Lexically we want them to
pick up words that deal with products and where those products are from. From a discourse
perspective we want our students to be able to pick up when something is overtly humorous and subtly
humorous.
Out of all these goals the humor aspect will probably be the most challenging. The lexical and
grammatical items have been encountered previously in some shape of form by the students, but humor
varies by culture. The first video tends to be more universal humor, while the second video, as
mentioned before, contains references to politics and society. This would make the first video a little
more accessible, while the second video would be a bit more challenging.
1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB9srTIwC5k
2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K05Kjv-BRPY
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Pre-Reading Activities
Activity 1: Schemata Activation
Video 1
Step 1: Ask students to think about…
• What services they get at convenient stores in their C1.
• Think of words in their L1 that frequently coincide with convenience stores and
brainstorm similar words in L2.
• Think of phrases in their L1 that deal with asking for and receiving services and
brainstorm the same types of phrases in L2.
• What types of comedic situations might you encounter at a kiosk?
Step 2: As a group share your observations with the class.
Video 2
Step 1: Ask students to think about…
• In their C1, what type of comedy would combine politics and public places?
• In their C1, if they spoke with a political figure, what would they say? What topics of
conversation would they bring up?
• What is the present political situation in Greece?3
• Provide students with brief Bios of Constantine Karamanlis (former PM – first
’customer’), and Georgos Papandreou (current PM – second ‘customer’) ans ask them to
get into the role of a comedy writer and think of situations that might involve them and
the common man.
Step 2: Students report back to the instructor and the instructor jots down the information on
the blackboard, in two separate KWL charts (one for kiosks, one for comedy).
Step 3: Ask students to jot down what they would like to know about kiosks and political
comedy in Greece and share it with the class.
3
This class/module would not be the first module in the class. In previous modules I expect to have covered some
basic political landscape issues about Greece. I also would have prepared the students with a selection of
newspaper articles (in English) about this topic a few weeks in advance.
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Guided Interaction
Activity 1: Silent Viewing
Step 1: In this step students view the videos silently. Students will pick out information from the
videos and share it with the class. This type of information will be information such as:
Step 2: Once the silent viewing is complete, students will share their findings with the rest of the
class.
Step 2: Using the group as a resource, we want to have students help each other figure out what
the unknown words are and to cross-check that their list is as complete as it can be.
Step 3: The class reconvenes and the students share with each other and the instructor what
words and phrases that they understood in the dialogue.
Step 2: Ask the students to come up with adjectives, in English, that describe the protagonists. If
students could come up with adjectives in Greek (from previous lessons) that would be
great as well. The point of the exercise however isn’t output in Greek, so there is no need
for students to worry and raise their affective filter.
Step 3: The class reconvenes and the students share with each other and the instructor what
they think has transpired and the words that could be used to describe the protagonists
Step 2: Ask students a set of comprehension questions for each video where the students can
answer with a True, or False answer.
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Step 3: Give students a matching activity where they will be asked to make sentences based on
the content of the videos. This activity will be done in groups.
Step 2: Students will view both videos (4th time) to see if they can pick out words that they don’t
know in the second video (.
Step 3: Students will view the second video again (5th time), and given the information from the
preceeding activities, students will jot down what they think is funny to them a C2
students.
Step 4: Instructor can choose to throw in his two cents of items that he thinks are important to
learn (such as sayings and other lexical elements)
Assimilation
Activity 1: KWL – part II
Step 1: Students will get into groups and discuss what they’ve learned viewing these videos. The
content can be cultural, lexical or grammatical
Step 2: Students share with instructor and peers what they’ve learned.
Step 3: Instructor takes notes on the blackboard, breaking the information down to three
categories (cultural, lexical, and grammatical).
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Activity 3: Dialogue Creation
In this step the instructor will ask the students to get into groups, on their own time, and create
a brand new dialogue sequence that they will have to re-enact the next time they have class. Students
will be paired up and have one week to work on the content, with guidance from the instructor if they
need it, and they will present in a subsequent class.
The students will be given queue cards that will assign them roles (tourist or kiosk-keeper), and
the tourist will have certain items that he is looking for, and the kiosk owner has certain items that he
has for sale (and some that are not). The intent of the queue cards, as it related to products, is to offer
some suggestions as to what the tourist might ask for. The students are certainly more than welcomed
to expand what products they are looking for, and the kiosks-keepers are certainly encouraged to offer
product substitutions in order to try and accommodate the customer.
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Personalization
Activity 1: Discussion on Kiosk services
This is an opportunity for students to go more deeply into a comparison of their C1 with C2 and
compare services of Greek kiosks to institutions that are similar in their C1. In this discussion we can talk
about things such as:
• Products offered,
• Familiarity with the kiosk owner (similar to ‘knowing’ your barber),
• Who works in kiosks,
• How many hours they are open,
• How much they are paid,
• Prejudices and Misconceptions and
• What to do to pass the time,
This activity comes from persona experience as an undergraduate student and not doing a lot of
research. In doing a mini research project like this students will not only be able to learn some cultulra
background of Kiosks in Greece, but also be further acquainted with library resources that can help them
with this and other courses. The instructor will provide the students with some pre-selected documents
to get the students started, and will provide additional help and expertise as questions come up during
this project.
4
A mini-market is what Greeks call a convenience store.
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Grammar Sequence
Purpose
The purpose of this grammar sequence is to teach learners some of the uses of adjectives in
Greek. Adjectives are useful in that they provide the speaker (or listener) with information about the
objects to which they are referring to. In Greek adjectives agree in gender, number and case with the
nouns that they modify, and quite often adjectives will be used alone when the noun has already been
mentioned or eluded to (i.e. “the green one”), therefore it’s important for students to learn about
adjectives and their use. Students, by this point, have already covered gender, number and case for
nouns, therefore this learning sequence should be an expansion on previous knowledge.
Examples:
Adjectives agree in gender, case and number with the noun they modify
Examples:
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• Το κίτρινο παπάκι (the yellow duckling)
o Neuter Singular Article (Το), Adjective Yellow (κίτριν-) + Neuter Singular Morpheme (ο),
Noun duck (παπάκ-) + Neuter Singular (Deminiative) Morpheme (άκι)
Example
5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB9srTIwC5k
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Structured Input Activities
Activity 1: Matching
Step 1: Students will view the video and try to listen in for how objects are described (i.e. “the
Greek cigarettes” or “the green matches”).
Step 2: Students will be given a matching exercise to match the noun with the adjective that
describes it (i.e. cigarettes Greek). The adjective in this exercise will be given in its generic
form (i.e. it is not going to be declined) so as to not tip off students prematurely. We don’t want
students to “cheat” by looking at the adjective ending and match it to the noun that way
because they won’t be attending to meaning.
Step 3: The instructor will asks students to share their responses with the class to verify that the
adjective does indeed go with the noun, based on the video that students viewed in the
listening comprehension sequence, and viewed again for the grammar exercise.
Step 1: Based on the correct responses from activity 1, the instructor will now show the class a
number of objects (as many as he can get that are listed in activity 1). The instructor will line up
the items and will show them to the class
Step 2: On the board there will be a list of adjectives in their general (Masculine) form (κόκκινο,
λευκό, παλιό) and adjective endings (-ος, -η, -ο, -α).
Step 3: Students will hear the instructor say a sentence which contains a noun (found on the
table) that is modified by an adjective. Students will be picked by the instructor to select the
object (noun) from the table and match it with the correct adjective and case.
Step 1: On the board there will be a big Venn Diagram and each circle will have an adjective
associated with it. On the table there will be cut-outs of objects that are identified by one or
more adjectives.
Step 2: The Instructor will say a sentence in Greek (example: the yellow ones) and students will
need to come up, pick up all the nouns that are characterized by that adjective and place them
in the right spot in the diagram.
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Step 2: Near the end of the exercise, once all objects are on the board, the instructor will
combine adjectives (i.e. the yellow and old ones) and subsequent students will need to make
sure that the objects are located at the appropriate circle intersections.
Step2: Students will use the cheat-sheet to create like/dislike questions that their fellow
students can answer on a 5-point likert scale (strong dislike, dislike, neutral, like, strongly like).
Step 3: Each student will interview two other fellow students and collect responses to these
questions.
Step 4: The instructor will create a grid on the board to collect the individual responses and then
with the help of the class analyze the results to create a general class atmosphere about the
different objects.
Step 5: The instructor will lead the class asking students to answer questions based on the
information that is on the board in multiple formats such as: Who likes _______ ? Does most of
the class like red jellybeans? What does the class dislike the most?
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Bibliography
Brown, D. (2007). Teaching by Principles: : An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (3rd ed.).
New York: Longman.
Carell, P. L., & Eisterhold, J. C. (1988). Schema Theory and ESL Reading Pedagogy. In P. L. Carell, J. C.
Eisterhold, & D. E. Eskey, Interactive Approaches to Second Language Reading (pp. 218-232). Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press.
Chamot, A. U. (1995). Learning strategies and listening comprehension. In D. J. Mendelsohn, A guide for
the teaching of second language listening (pp. 13-27). San Diego, CA, USA: Dominie Press.
Ciccone, A. A. (1995). Teaching with Authentic Video: Theory and Practice. In F. R. Eckman, D. Highland,
P. W. Lee, J. Milcham, & R. Rutkowski Weber (Eds.), Second Language Acquisition (1st ed., pp. 203-215).
Milwaukee, WI, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Lee, J. F., & Van Patten, B. (2003). Making Communicative Language Teaching Happen (2nd ed.).
McGraw-Hill.
McLaughlin, M., & DeVoogt, G. (2004). Critical Literacy: Enhancing Students' Comprehension of Text.
New York: Scholastic Teaching Resources.
NSFLEP. (1996). National Standards in Foreign Language Education. Preparing to the 21st Century.
National Standards in Foreign Language Education. Preparing to the 21st Century . Yonkers, NY, USA:
National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project.
Peregoy, S. F., & Boyle, O. F. (2005). Reading, Writing and Learning in ESL: A Resource Book for K-12
Teachers (4th ed.). New York: Pearson.
Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. S. (2001). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (2nd ed.). New
York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.
Shrum, J. L., & Glisan, E. E. (2004). Contextualizing Language Instruction to Address Goals of the
Standards for Foreign Language Learning. In J. L. Shrum, & E. E. Glisan, Teacher's Handbook:
Contextualized Language Instruction (3rd ed., pp. 40-64). Boston, MA, USA: Heinle & Heinle.
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Appendix A
Structured Output Questionaire
Όνομα:____________________________________
?
Μου Αρέσει Κάπως μου Έτσι κ’ έτσι Κάπως δεν Δεν μου Δεν Ξέρω
αρέσει μου αρέσει αρέσει
Σου αρέσει 1 2 3 4 5 ΔΞ
_________;
Σου αρέσει 1 2 3 4 5 ΔΞ
_________;
Σου αρέσει 1 2 3 4 5 ΔΞ
_________;
Σου αρέσει 1 2 3 4 5 ΔΞ
_________;
Σου αρέσει 1 2 3 4 5 ΔΞ
_________;
Σου αρέσει 1 2 3 4 5 ΔΞ
_________;
Σου αρέσει 1 2 3 4 5 ΔΞ
_________;
Σου αρέσει 1 2 3 4 5 ΔΞ
_________;
Σου αρέσει 1 2 3 4 5 ΔΞ
_________;
Σου αρέσει 1 2 3 4 5 ΔΞ
_________;
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Appendix B
Structured Input – Example Matching Worksheet
The following objects have a country of origin and different types of attributes. Once you’ve seen the
video once, view the video again and try and try to match the attributes to the object which they
correspond to.
E. Σφαίρες
F. Αλεξίσφαιρα
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