Background
If you are a teacher who is unfamiliar with the use of sentence builder type knowledge organizers and/or the work of Gianfranco Conti , I suggest some reading before exploring further. Conti has written several books with Steve Smith, but I am linking a helpful blog post he did below for a quick glance at his method.
EPI/Sentence Builders approach - Gianfranco Conti
https://gianfrancoconti.com/2018/07/30/patterns-first-how-i-teach-lexicogrammar-part-1/
Simona Gravina’s Padlet with examples & explanations of EPI approach
https://padlet.com/simograv/svi55fluxeolisi9
My blog post about how I incorporate the EPI into US proficiency-based instruction
https://madamemichael.weebly.com/mon-blog
Twitter thread about importance of understanding the whole method and not just using a sentence builder in isolation: https://twitter.com/j_st_88/status/1384942779051167750?s=09
How To Videos
I created several demo videos to show how to use various aspects of the site.
- Premium resources (Language Gym)
- Community resources
- Private/School resource
- Import from a sentence builder you create
- Easily import terms from Quizlet
- Limitations & suggestions for teacher-created - work in progress on Martin Lapworth’s end - will be adding more functionality
- Sequences follow Conti’s Listening/Reading as Modeling approach
- Data analysis available
- Easy to differentiate for students - create different assignments with the same set
- US - easy to use along with stories and authentic resources (what I do)
Considerations
- Will take a while to learn how long students will take to complete activities for pacing
- Important to understand whole method - intentionality in your instructional design
- Cost - more teachers = better deal
- No packaging with Language Gym or other Lapworth sites - Textivate or TeachVid - not possible because of the way their businesses are set up
- Some overlap with Language Gym -I plan to use both
- If you are not full-in Conti method/materials and need something customizable, you may want to only choose Sentence Builders
- Tech support as a beta tester has been OUTSTANDING!
A votre service,
Dawn