Objectives

While learning about stress patterns and identifying productive stress management techniques, students develop their reading, writing, speaking, listening, researching and presenting skills by:

Sharing experiences and brainstorming to identify research questions;
Searching for relevant information using given links;
Summarizing research results; and,
Synthesizing results and constructing a plan and oral presentation of their small group's findings.

Course Description

The course is an upper intermediate level non-credit English as a Second Language Listening and Speaking course. Students are engaged in developing their ability to listen to and understand English while practicing oral English language skills for fluency and accuracy. This level focuses specifically on preparing students for college-level academic work.

Recognizing and Managing Stress Jennifer Horton Benichou

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Pedagogically, I am most interested in exploring the use of visual input in language learning, inductive or inquiry learning, project-based or problem-solving learning, and encouraging the development of language skills in tandem with technological ease in online research, oral presentation skills supported by media such as PowerPoint, and use of Blackboard.

I am working on a series of four units for an intermediate ESL Reading/ Listening/Speaking course. Each unit bears a relationship to the general theme: Knowing Your Environment. The first unit is related to the natural environment and leads students to inductively learn to identify six common New York City street trees. The second and third units are related to stress and the physical environment; i.e., neighborhoods in New York. The fourth unit focuses on living in a cross-cultural environment.

This activity is from the second unit, "Exploring Stress," which is related to the impact of the environment on the individual. The goals of this unit are to use technology to support easy access to specific reading materials, online research, scanning, vocabulary development, and creation of a PowerPoint presentation. Students practice reading, speaking, listening, Internet research and technology skills in the process of learning about stress. They collaborate in small groups to produce a final project related to recognizing and strategizing about various aspects of stress in their lives.

This entire project takes at least two weeks with two hours of computer lab each week and perhaps two hours of class time. In addition, students are expected to do additional work outside of class. For teachers with less available class or computer lab time, perhaps the first portion of this project would still be useful. Developing research questions, providing links for research, and following-up with a Blackboard summarizing assignment would by itself be a valuable activity.

I recommend that you ask students to sign a release form so that you can use their work as educational technology samples in other forums. Also, choose a reliable method for saving student work, such as a CD-R or jump drive.

Activity Overview

I use a PowerPoint presentation that I developed to give students a visual introduction to the topic of stress. While eliciting responses, I show students related pictures corresponding to four main areas: causes of stress, effects of stress, reducing stress, and preventing stress. After students identify the areas, they work in small groups listing examples from their own experiences for each of the categories. Then each group chooses a category to research and writes research questions. I review each group's questions with them in class before we go to the computer lab.

We use the Group Discussion Board both in lab and at home so that students can easily exchange information and ideas. This process helps students to develop materials for a group PowerPoint presentation online, outside of class. I put links to good websites in the External Links section of Blackboard. Students can use the links I've selected to find answers to their questions and to develop new research questions without spending a lot of time in fruitless surfing. Dialogue and planning often continue in the classroom.

After I review the concept of outlining, students begin to develop an outline for their PowerPoint presentation or brochure. If a majority of the class is unfamiliar with PowerPoint, some lab time will be spent on walking them through the basics. Producing a brochure with Microsoft Publisher is an option for the more advanced class. The final activity is a group presentation of the project. Everyone must participate in presenting the project to the class.

Assessment is based on completion of the required collaborative research steps: research question formation, scanning and selective reading for information, summarizing in the Group Discussion Board, project creation and presentation.

Materials and Resources

Stress Management

Stress Definition, Who Is Susceptible to Stress?, Stress Symptoms http://stress.about.com/library/blstress101a.htm

Understanding and Dealing with Stress http://www.mtstcil.org/skills/stress-intro.html

British Health Magazine on Stress http://www.channel4.com/health/microsites/H/health/magazine/stress/gym_intro.html

Instant Stress Busters http://stress.about.com/library/weekly/aa112600a.htm

Managing Exam Stress http://www.adelaide.edu.au/counselling_centre/brochures/exams.html

Relaxation, Stress Busters, De-Stress Your Life http://health.discovery.com/centers/stress/audio/audiocalm.html

Recognizing Stress http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/healthy_living/health_at_work/emotional_recognisingstress1.shtml

Understanding Stress, Stress Management http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTCS_00.htm

Woman in Curlers Responding to Stress ://www.bbc.co.uk/health/mental/coping_stress.shtml

Signs of Stress http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/lifestyle/2003/01/stressbusters.shtml

BBC Site: for additional searching
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?tab=allbbc&start=2&q=stress+management&scope=all

Stress Management 1, 2, 3 http://www.sharedlearning.org.uk

Advice for Dealing with Stress

Go Ask Alice http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/Cat4.html

You Ask http://www.channel4.com/health/microsites/H/health/magazine/stress/youask_main.html

Dealing with Child Stress http://childparenting.about.com/library/prm/aa072601a.htm?terms=causes+of+stress

What's causing our stress today? http://www.mercksource.com/pp/us/cns/cns_gethealthsmart_template.jsp