Friday, February 5, 2010
Is it the end or is it just the beginning?
First of all, just in case any of you was wondering what happened to me this past week, allow me to explain. There are two reasons mainly:
END OF SEMESTER
Well this does not really necessitate any explanation as I’m sure most of you are full aware how busy it gets at the end, preparing tests, collecting reports, marking and grading, both which I still haven’t finished, but will try to over the next two weeks.
SELF-ACCESS LANGUAGE LEARNING CENTER
It took me a year, but it’s finally coming to fruition – the university’s first SAC. Next week will be the trial opening, so a lot of my time was taken up with last minute preparations and meetings; actually, I’m still not quite ready, but tomorrow I will have one more meeting that should do the job. I will not really get into any detail yet as to what I’m doing because over the next two months I will not have any classes, so this will give me something to write about until then!
MONDAY’S LAST COMMUNICATION CLASS
This actually was my final class for the semester since the rest of the week was scheduled for tests. I started with the review as usual, and then did the listening comprehension with the textbook’s dialogue (the theme was leaving a party or a dinner). However, what I did next was different from what I had done in Friday’s class – I wrote on the blackboard the situation, ‘You are at a party or someone’s house for dinner’. I then wrote the following question, ‘What are some reasons you can give for having to leave?’ Now I chose to do the listening comprehension first in order to present the context more clearly, but also to give them some examples/ideas, unlike what I did in Thursday’s class, and which I should have done. I then gave them about 5 to 10 minutes to write down as many ideas as possible in pairs. As I walked around, I noticed that many students were using the same expression, ‘I have to’, so I wrote that on the board and asked them to think of different ways to say the same thing. When the time was up, I started asking students to write their reasons on the board, one per student. Once all the students had a turn, I went through the reasons correcting where necessary and by the time we finished this, the class was over. Now I corrected the sentences myself because this was our last class, but in the future, I could collect these and have them work on these sentences the following week. I was also thinking that using something like Facebook or Mixi could help facilitate the sentence collection as I could just have each student immediately post their sentence, something else to think about for next year.
MY TWO FAVORITE EXAMPLES
Although there were many different and good reasons, like feeling ill or an angry mother, the reasons that I liked were actually reasons that perhaps one shouldn’t use when a guest. These were:
I have to go because I’m bored.
I must go because there is a TV show that I have to watch.
Now, with friends, the second one could be possible, but I think for no situation would the first one be OK. These examples gave me an idea for next time – perhaps I could first ask them for good reasons, and then ask them for bad ones and maybe even ask them why those reasons are considered inappropriate. It may also be interesting to have students rank the good reasons in order from worst to best. Finally, I could have students make conversations based on these examples.
IT’S OK TO TAKE MORE THAN ONE CLASS FOR ONE LESSON
I think this is one thing I have learned from this class, and will try to consider in the future. Until now, I usually have one lesson for one class, with the exception of review which usually takes the form of a review test, but after this lesson, I realized that there is so much material and so many possibilities that it would be very difficult if not impossible to get through it all in a 90 minute lesson, and since I’m not under any obligation to finish a certain amount of chapters in a semester, I shouldn’t worry if a lesson goes over one class. Of course, I should probably avoid taking four or five classes for one lesson, but perhaps that could be possible. What do you think? Come to think of it, though, my composition class was something like that because students were continually working through the semester without really having a clearly defined end or beginning.
I think I will stop here because I really need to set a time limit for how long I write. Perhaps more shorter blogs might be the answer, but I really do have to organize my time or it’s game over. Next week I will talk about my impressions of my first year as a full-time teacher, my class evaluations that I received from students and the SAC. Until then, have a good weekend!
MESSAGES
Karenne, thanks for tagging me and your message about Martin's article, but I have question – for the tagging game, I am supposed to introduce two people I know, but I only know you and Darren, so what should I do? Can I introduce two people I don’t know?
Darren, thanks for the comment on commenting. I think my blog already has the functions you mentioned, but I will check again.
Charles, thanks for linking me. When I get the time I will visit your blog and link you to my site.
Cheers,
eisensei
Thursday, January 28, 2010
A Dogme ELT Play in 2 Acts
Could this be my first step into Dogme ELT? – ACT 1
General English - Thursday
So Thursday is now officially over. Today we looked at hopes and intentions. First, I gave them a review quiz, which took the students some time to finish on account of its length – the students had to put 20 sentences in order to make the dialogue that we did last week. Once finished though, I did something quite different - I told them to put their books away. I then had them choose a color marker, but I did not allow two students sitting together to have the same color. Once everyone had markers, I told them to find a partner with the same color. After everyone had done this, I wrote hopes and intentions on the board and introduced the topic. I then asked them to think of ways to talk about such things, ie the future. Immediately, many students started asking one another what they had to do, meaning that they did not exactly get it, or rather I did not explain it well enough, so I wrote an example on the board; I chose ‘will’ first because I thought that it would make things clear for them, but also I expected that they would write this one first, and I really wanted them to think of other expressions. I gave them between 5 and 10 minutes to think of different expressions, but really I should have only given them 5 (I think I will be a timer for next year because this will make keeping time much simpler) because the more time students have the more they will speak in Japanese although students were speaking Japanese from the beginning, something that we all have experienced and struggled with I’m sure.
Intermission 1
Actually, if there are any blogs or articles on getting students to use English more – I don’t expect students to speak 100% of the time in class, although there may be some teachers who can get their students to do this, and if there are, I would love to hear from them – I would greatly appreciate any links to such sites. Anyway, let’s get back to the story.
Intermission 2
Actually though, one more thing I have to mention, and I would love to hear from other teachers about this, but I am considering making it mandatory to bring supplies such as notebooks, pencils, pens, erasers and especially dictionaries and that if students fail to bring these things, I am thinking of docking points or some other kind of punishment. I know, I don’t like the punishment word either, but each semester I tell students in the beginning to bring these things, but still I see students come to class without such things, and some students even seem proud to have nothing, and it always makes me wonder, ‘What are you intending to do here if you don’t have the necessities?’ because even with Dogme ELT, such things are necessary, am I right? I suppose I could remind students each week, but I am not sure if that would really work. Of course, it’s not everyone, fortunately, but I can’t help feel that there are more students like this than there should be.
Could this be my first step into Dogme ELT? – ACT 2
While they were writing, I walked around observing what students wrote, helping them when necessary. For example, some students had written ‘I wish’, so I explained that we don’t use this for future hopes and intentions. After their time was up, I had students come up to the board and write down the different expressions. Some of them were the following:
I’m planning to…
I’m going to…
I’d like to…
I hope to…
I want to…
I desire to…
My dream is to…
Etc
I then gave them another 10 minutes, although I think they had more than that (again, I need to buy a timer) to write down their hopes, intentions, and dreams for the spring break, for next year and for five years later. Some students could not think of such things at first, but after some support they were able to. One student was struggling to come up with ideas, but I told the student that one’s hopes, dreams and intentions didn’t always have to be big, but even the little ones were important, and the student immediately started writing many things. Finally, I had each student come up to the front of class to present what they would like to do for each time period. Again some of the hopes and intentions were on a small scale, such as learning how to cook a certain dish, and others were on a much larger one, for example one student wanted to stop war. Once everyone had finished, I praised them for their ideas, and I repeated what I had told the student earlier about the importance of all dreams and hopes, big and small, because they were their dreams and hopes. I was then going to finish with a short dialogue that focused on hopes and intentions when one of my students asked me what my hopes and dreams were, a question that I greatly appreciated because it showed the student being active. Here is what I said more or less:
I would like to learn Italian. Honestly, I don’t know why, but I love the way it sounds. However, between Japanese and French and other things, I am not sure if I have the time, but it would be nice to know even a few words. My dream is to be a musician. Yes, I’ve said it. A long time ago I played for 200 people, some of whom cried when they heard my song (I am not joking), and ever since, I’ve wanted, and still do, to become a musician. However, my immediate goal is to read more and learn more about teaching so that I can become a better teacher.
By the time we finished, there was not enough time for the dialogue, so I talked about their test and then let them go.
Self-Feedback
One thing that I did not do was to note their mistakes. I think I did not do this because I wanted to focus on their ideas, and also it was the last class, but I think in the future, I would take in their posters, write out their sentences on a handout and the following week have them look at their sentences to see if they could find their mistakes, and then correct them together. Another thing I should have done was to ask them explicitly to try and use the new expressions because not many of them did so far as I could tell. Many used ‘want to’, ‘will’, ‘going to’ and ‘would like to’, but I think they already knew these, so unfortunately we missed a good opportunity to practice the new expressions. Of course, there were the time limits, too, which should have been enforced better. I probably should have been clearer about their posters telling them explicitly just to write the phrases because many just read their sentences straight from their posters. Another thing that perhaps could have been interesting was to have the students write an example for each expression as a way to practice the expressions before they presented. I’m also thinking that maybe I should have done the listening task first as it would have given them a better context for hopes and intentions. I’m sure there are many other things I could say, if I thought about it long enough, but I still have some work that I must finish for tomorrow, so I will have to stop here. I think in the end though, that this lesson went fairly well, and I think the students enjoyed it, which is important, but that there are some bugs to be worked out, but as with most new things, that is to be expected.
Cheers,
eisensei
General English - Thursday
So Thursday is now officially over. Today we looked at hopes and intentions. First, I gave them a review quiz, which took the students some time to finish on account of its length – the students had to put 20 sentences in order to make the dialogue that we did last week. Once finished though, I did something quite different - I told them to put their books away. I then had them choose a color marker, but I did not allow two students sitting together to have the same color. Once everyone had markers, I told them to find a partner with the same color. After everyone had done this, I wrote hopes and intentions on the board and introduced the topic. I then asked them to think of ways to talk about such things, ie the future. Immediately, many students started asking one another what they had to do, meaning that they did not exactly get it, or rather I did not explain it well enough, so I wrote an example on the board; I chose ‘will’ first because I thought that it would make things clear for them, but also I expected that they would write this one first, and I really wanted them to think of other expressions. I gave them between 5 and 10 minutes to think of different expressions, but really I should have only given them 5 (I think I will be a timer for next year because this will make keeping time much simpler) because the more time students have the more they will speak in Japanese although students were speaking Japanese from the beginning, something that we all have experienced and struggled with I’m sure.
Intermission 1
Actually, if there are any blogs or articles on getting students to use English more – I don’t expect students to speak 100% of the time in class, although there may be some teachers who can get their students to do this, and if there are, I would love to hear from them – I would greatly appreciate any links to such sites. Anyway, let’s get back to the story.
Intermission 2
Actually though, one more thing I have to mention, and I would love to hear from other teachers about this, but I am considering making it mandatory to bring supplies such as notebooks, pencils, pens, erasers and especially dictionaries and that if students fail to bring these things, I am thinking of docking points or some other kind of punishment. I know, I don’t like the punishment word either, but each semester I tell students in the beginning to bring these things, but still I see students come to class without such things, and some students even seem proud to have nothing, and it always makes me wonder, ‘What are you intending to do here if you don’t have the necessities?’ because even with Dogme ELT, such things are necessary, am I right? I suppose I could remind students each week, but I am not sure if that would really work. Of course, it’s not everyone, fortunately, but I can’t help feel that there are more students like this than there should be.
Could this be my first step into Dogme ELT? – ACT 2
While they were writing, I walked around observing what students wrote, helping them when necessary. For example, some students had written ‘I wish’, so I explained that we don’t use this for future hopes and intentions. After their time was up, I had students come up to the board and write down the different expressions. Some of them were the following:
I’m planning to…
I’m going to…
I’d like to…
I hope to…
I want to…
I desire to…
My dream is to…
Etc
I then gave them another 10 minutes, although I think they had more than that (again, I need to buy a timer) to write down their hopes, intentions, and dreams for the spring break, for next year and for five years later. Some students could not think of such things at first, but after some support they were able to. One student was struggling to come up with ideas, but I told the student that one’s hopes, dreams and intentions didn’t always have to be big, but even the little ones were important, and the student immediately started writing many things. Finally, I had each student come up to the front of class to present what they would like to do for each time period. Again some of the hopes and intentions were on a small scale, such as learning how to cook a certain dish, and others were on a much larger one, for example one student wanted to stop war. Once everyone had finished, I praised them for their ideas, and I repeated what I had told the student earlier about the importance of all dreams and hopes, big and small, because they were their dreams and hopes. I was then going to finish with a short dialogue that focused on hopes and intentions when one of my students asked me what my hopes and dreams were, a question that I greatly appreciated because it showed the student being active. Here is what I said more or less:
I would like to learn Italian. Honestly, I don’t know why, but I love the way it sounds. However, between Japanese and French and other things, I am not sure if I have the time, but it would be nice to know even a few words. My dream is to be a musician. Yes, I’ve said it. A long time ago I played for 200 people, some of whom cried when they heard my song (I am not joking), and ever since, I’ve wanted, and still do, to become a musician. However, my immediate goal is to read more and learn more about teaching so that I can become a better teacher.
By the time we finished, there was not enough time for the dialogue, so I talked about their test and then let them go.
Self-Feedback
One thing that I did not do was to note their mistakes. I think I did not do this because I wanted to focus on their ideas, and also it was the last class, but I think in the future, I would take in their posters, write out their sentences on a handout and the following week have them look at their sentences to see if they could find their mistakes, and then correct them together. Another thing I should have done was to ask them explicitly to try and use the new expressions because not many of them did so far as I could tell. Many used ‘want to’, ‘will’, ‘going to’ and ‘would like to’, but I think they already knew these, so unfortunately we missed a good opportunity to practice the new expressions. Of course, there were the time limits, too, which should have been enforced better. I probably should have been clearer about their posters telling them explicitly just to write the phrases because many just read their sentences straight from their posters. Another thing that perhaps could have been interesting was to have the students write an example for each expression as a way to practice the expressions before they presented. I’m also thinking that maybe I should have done the listening task first as it would have given them a better context for hopes and intentions. I’m sure there are many other things I could say, if I thought about it long enough, but I still have some work that I must finish for tomorrow, so I will have to stop here. I think in the end though, that this lesson went fairly well, and I think the students enjoyed it, which is important, but that there are some bugs to be worked out, but as with most new things, that is to be expected.
Cheers,
eisensei
What will the autonomous learner think of next?
Last Thursday Reading and Writing Class and How to Get Students to Ask Questions
Well, today was the last reading and writing class for the year, well not really the last because we have a test next week, but I never really count test day as a class. The activities for the lesson included a final worksheet on the indefinite and definite articles, a reading exercise, a sentence correction activity, a worksheet on ‘be going to’ and a writing task which asked the students to talk about what they would do during the break. After they students received their package and started working, I walked around telling them that if they had any questions, they could ask me; only one student did though. Of course I could add the adverb unfortunately, but the fact that one student asked me a question would be enough to end the previous sentence with fortunately, I think. Also, at the end, two students asked me about the difference between ‘a’ and ‘the’ and when it is needed. Now, this was written in Japanese on the handout, but as I’ve come to realize, perhaps a more direct approach to teaching the articles may be in order. However, that said, I think that students should try to ask more questions, even if it is after class. If I continue this lesson style next year, I will try a modified version of Karenne’s advice (again, thanks Karenne!) of having students ask me questions. However, as the students choose the order in which they do the activities, it may be difficult to ask students after each activity for questions if they don’t understand, especially if you have almost 40 students, so what might be a good idea in this class would be to have students email me, or write questions down and submit them before leaving (an idea that stemmed from Karenne’s advice). Perhaps in this way, students may feel more comfortable asking me things.
Was this really learner autonomy?
I am asking myself this question because it is a valid one, and perhaps some or maybe all of you are thinking that just giving the students a choice in what order to do the activities does not really constitute learner autonomy, and after conducting such a lesson for a year, I would probably agree with you. However, if we consider this as the first step to fostering learner autonomy, then maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. Of course, I now have to ask myself, ‘Ok, if this was the first step, then what next?’ to which I do have some ideas, such as giving students complete freedom in what they write about or having students choose what they would like to focus on/review next class and prepare that for them. However, these ideas still seem to be teacher focused to me, the latter more so than the former I should say, as they all come from me and not from the students. The more I think about it, though, perhaps what is really needed is a compromise between complete autonomy and complete teacher control. I know that it is important for students to take control of their learning in order to become fully autonomous learners, but I also know that not all students are interested in such control, let’s be honest, so maybe giving them the choice, with the guidance of the teacher, of course, of what to focus on based on materials provided by the teacher may be an idea to try, and by encouraging students to make opportunities for learning such as going to a library/SAC, going on-line etc, might just be the next step needed for fostering more learner autonomy in this class.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Would you like to come over for some Dogme ELT? Maybe you could ask me about disappearing sounds after?
Monday Foreign Communication
Today's lesson followed Friday's plan. We started with review, and then I dictated some questions. After looking at their answers we practiced the conversation and then the key expressions together. Next, we did task 2, a fill-in-the-blank task, which I had them practice in pairs afterward. Once finished, we did the conversation construction activity. After that, we moved on to Part B of disappearing sounds, which asked them to find the linking sounds. While they were working I wrote the sentences on the board and then had them come up to write in the answers, again making sure beforehand that their answers were OK. I finally had the students repeat after me first slowly with all sounds present and unlinked and then more quickly including all disappearing and linking sounds.
A hint of Dogmeism at the end of the tunnel
I think I had my first Dogme idea in class today (I should mention that I may have had ideas in the past, but at that time I had not known what Dogme ELT was, or wasn’t really thinking about it.). Today’s unit focused on inviting, making excuses, reasons for not going and finally making plans. I was going through the unit when it occurred to me that perhaps instead of having the students go through the expressions in the book, maybe I should have them first think of ways to invite someone, and make excuses for not being able to go. Now, I am not exactly sure where I was in the unit, but unfortunately, I did not try this out, and I think the main reason was that it was not part of the lesson, it would have been spontaneous, and since I had certain things to get done, I did not want to jeopardize that. I know that I may have missed a good opportunity to try something new here, but on the bright side, I think I may have something to try in the future, especially if I go with this book again, and if I am worried that such an activity may take up too much class time, I can always assign some of the book for homework. What do you think? Was this a Dogme moment?
After class
As I was cleaning the board, one of my students asked me a great question. One of the examples that was a tag question, went as follows:
John and Mary are coming, aren’t they?
Now, in class I did not mention that the ‘g’ could disappear, I am not sure why, but maybe it had slipped my mind, although since today was the sixth time to use this handout because this activity took two classes to finish, and I used it in three classes, I am really not sure how it could have slipped my mind, or why no one had mentioned it until now, but anyway, she asked me if in fact the ‘g’ could disappear, which I answered yes, but added that it was less common than say the ‘d’ disappearing from the word ‘and’. However, I am thinking that I probably should not have said that because perhaps the disappearing ‘g’ is in fact just as common as the other disappearing sounds, although personally, I would probably omit the ‘d’ from ‘and’ or the ‘t’ from ‘right’ for example more often than I would omit the ‘g’ from ‘talking’ or ‘studying’. Anyway, I am getting away from the point I am trying to make, but what I am trying to say is that I wish my students would come out more and ask questions during class and not wait until the end of class, although I do appreciate questions at any time because it shows me that they are interested, curious and active in their learning. I know it must be hard when there are 30 or 40 people in the class, but it would be nice to be asked questions more often. Unfortunately, from my experience, most students tend not to do so, and despite me asking them explicitly to ask questions when they don’t know or understand something, they hesitate. I am sure I am not the only one who has experienced such a class, but how have you dealt with this?
Today's lesson followed Friday's plan. We started with review, and then I dictated some questions. After looking at their answers we practiced the conversation and then the key expressions together. Next, we did task 2, a fill-in-the-blank task, which I had them practice in pairs afterward. Once finished, we did the conversation construction activity. After that, we moved on to Part B of disappearing sounds, which asked them to find the linking sounds. While they were working I wrote the sentences on the board and then had them come up to write in the answers, again making sure beforehand that their answers were OK. I finally had the students repeat after me first slowly with all sounds present and unlinked and then more quickly including all disappearing and linking sounds.
A hint of Dogmeism at the end of the tunnel
I think I had my first Dogme idea in class today (I should mention that I may have had ideas in the past, but at that time I had not known what Dogme ELT was, or wasn’t really thinking about it.). Today’s unit focused on inviting, making excuses, reasons for not going and finally making plans. I was going through the unit when it occurred to me that perhaps instead of having the students go through the expressions in the book, maybe I should have them first think of ways to invite someone, and make excuses for not being able to go. Now, I am not exactly sure where I was in the unit, but unfortunately, I did not try this out, and I think the main reason was that it was not part of the lesson, it would have been spontaneous, and since I had certain things to get done, I did not want to jeopardize that. I know that I may have missed a good opportunity to try something new here, but on the bright side, I think I may have something to try in the future, especially if I go with this book again, and if I am worried that such an activity may take up too much class time, I can always assign some of the book for homework. What do you think? Was this a Dogme moment?
After class
As I was cleaning the board, one of my students asked me a great question. One of the examples that was a tag question, went as follows:
John and Mary are coming, aren’t they?
Now, in class I did not mention that the ‘g’ could disappear, I am not sure why, but maybe it had slipped my mind, although since today was the sixth time to use this handout because this activity took two classes to finish, and I used it in three classes, I am really not sure how it could have slipped my mind, or why no one had mentioned it until now, but anyway, she asked me if in fact the ‘g’ could disappear, which I answered yes, but added that it was less common than say the ‘d’ disappearing from the word ‘and’. However, I am thinking that I probably should not have said that because perhaps the disappearing ‘g’ is in fact just as common as the other disappearing sounds, although personally, I would probably omit the ‘d’ from ‘and’ or the ‘t’ from ‘right’ for example more often than I would omit the ‘g’ from ‘talking’ or ‘studying’. Anyway, I am getting away from the point I am trying to make, but what I am trying to say is that I wish my students would come out more and ask questions during class and not wait until the end of class, although I do appreciate questions at any time because it shows me that they are interested, curious and active in their learning. I know it must be hard when there are 30 or 40 people in the class, but it would be nice to be asked questions more often. Unfortunately, from my experience, most students tend not to do so, and despite me asking them explicitly to ask questions when they don’t know or understand something, they hesitate. I am sure I am not the only one who has experienced such a class, but how have you dealt with this?
Leavin' so soon? But we just started learning about linking and disappearing sounds.
Friday Foreign Communication
I am only getting around to posting Friday’s class because I was quite busy on Friday. This was our last class for the semester, as the next class will be the final exam. As usual, we started with a review test, and then we looked at unit 15, the last unit in the book, which focused on the end of an evening when it’s time to go. I dictated some questions, and after answering them, I had them repeat after the CD. We then practiced several expressions in the textbook covering the basics on how to end an evening, how to keep a guest longer and how to finally say goodbye. I first had them repeat after me, and then I had them read and repeat after each other. By the time we finished we only had about 30 minutes left, so I had them do task 4 in the textbook which was a conversation construction task similar to the ones I had been making. I gave them about 7 minutes to practice and remember the conversation, but as the time was almost up, I noticed that some students were still having difficulty remembering the dialogue, so I gave them a couple extra minutes before having several pairs present. Finally, as we did not have enough time to look at the pronunciation activity – contrastive stress – I gave them the outline of the test.
Pronunciation
Thinking back to the contrastive stress worksheet, it made me reconsider what I had been doing this semester with regarding to pronunciation teaching. I have come to believe that what is really important for them is not so much word stress or contrastive stress, but rather linking and disappearing sounds because they are more pertinent for listening comprehension in that they are ubiquitous in all utterances whereas something such as contrastive stress is not. I also think that having only one class a week is not enough really to help students understand the rules because they are in fact rules and once you know them or at least are fully aware of them, I think listening to English can become easier for some students. Of course there are still things such as slang and vocabulary which need to be dealt with, but perhaps if a student can grasp such topics as linking and disappearing sounds, he or she may be able to catch these words better, and thus further their understanding. I think therefore that next year, I may focus more of my lessons on those two aspects of listening comprehension. I could focus on these things in class, and then assign listening homework, or have the students find something they like, and ask them to try to highlight those links and disappearing sounds for next class. It may be an idea that just might work.
I am only getting around to posting Friday’s class because I was quite busy on Friday. This was our last class for the semester, as the next class will be the final exam. As usual, we started with a review test, and then we looked at unit 15, the last unit in the book, which focused on the end of an evening when it’s time to go. I dictated some questions, and after answering them, I had them repeat after the CD. We then practiced several expressions in the textbook covering the basics on how to end an evening, how to keep a guest longer and how to finally say goodbye. I first had them repeat after me, and then I had them read and repeat after each other. By the time we finished we only had about 30 minutes left, so I had them do task 4 in the textbook which was a conversation construction task similar to the ones I had been making. I gave them about 7 minutes to practice and remember the conversation, but as the time was almost up, I noticed that some students were still having difficulty remembering the dialogue, so I gave them a couple extra minutes before having several pairs present. Finally, as we did not have enough time to look at the pronunciation activity – contrastive stress – I gave them the outline of the test.
Pronunciation
Thinking back to the contrastive stress worksheet, it made me reconsider what I had been doing this semester with regarding to pronunciation teaching. I have come to believe that what is really important for them is not so much word stress or contrastive stress, but rather linking and disappearing sounds because they are more pertinent for listening comprehension in that they are ubiquitous in all utterances whereas something such as contrastive stress is not. I also think that having only one class a week is not enough really to help students understand the rules because they are in fact rules and once you know them or at least are fully aware of them, I think listening to English can become easier for some students. Of course there are still things such as slang and vocabulary which need to be dealt with, but perhaps if a student can grasp such topics as linking and disappearing sounds, he or she may be able to catch these words better, and thus further their understanding. I think therefore that next year, I may focus more of my lessons on those two aspects of listening comprehension. I could focus on these things in class, and then assign listening homework, or have the students find something they like, and ask them to try to highlight those links and disappearing sounds for next class. It may be an idea that just might work.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Do Canadians really say 'aboot' for 'about'? And other general stuff.
Thursday General English
Today's lesson followed the same format I've been using recently, namely review of last week, followed by comprehension questions on a dialogue, a pair work conversation task and finally pronunciation practice.
The unit's theme was Life Stories, ie learning how to talk about one's life, however, I think if I were a teacher trainer, I would have failed myself because I did not get the students to talk about themselves and despite the other chapters being somewhat distant from the students, eg restaurant talk and shopping, talking about one's life up to now could have been interesting, and at the same time easy for them to do because they would have known most of the vocabulary necessary considering it's about their hometowns, schools etc. Obviously, they would not have been able to practice all the vocabulary considering the book looks at one's life from birth to death, with things such as marriage and children, but they could have talked about where they were born, what their hometown was like, what they think of the place they live now etc. I am not sure why I only thought of it now, perhaps I was too focused on the usual lesson plan to think of including something like that. Although I haven’t decided on whether or not to change books next year, if I do continue using this one, I will definitely include that activity, although I will probably have them ask each other questions and perhaps present their partner at the end because if not, the students may revert to Japanese thus rendering such an opportunity less effective for speaking practice.
Contrastive Stress
The pronunciation today was contrastive stress. I think everyone knows what this is, but just in case, and hey, it gives me a chance to try to explain it in my own words, simply put, it’s the stress we use to signal the contrast between elements in an utterance or a dialogue, so for example,
A: Is this my pen?
B: No, it’s MY pen.
The extra stress, or prominence as it is called falls on MY in order to highlight the fact that it is not your pen but mine, the two items in opposition.
The task was quite straightforward – students had to underline the word that received the most stress in the responses to various statements and questions. After having them write the answers on the board, I had different pairs practice aloud the short dialogue, and then we practiced together. I also had them use hand gestures to help them understand the ‘extra’ stress that the contrasting word gets.
I have a question ‘aboot’ the listening
Since the pronunciation did not take so long, we had time to do the listening in the book before the class ended. However, I was surprised by what a heard – Canadian English, but it felt forced, especially on the word ‘about’, which sounded like ‘aboot’. Now, I am Canadian, but I really have to ask you all, and especially the Canadians out there, do we really say, ‘aboot’? Is it common because personally I have only heard it in comedy and never when talking with other Canadians. Of course, I have never been to British Columbia, and I haven’t spent much time in Quebec or Ontario or the other provinces for that matter, mainly stayed on the East Coast of Canada, something I hope to remedy in the future, but are there Canadians who say ‘Let’s talk aboot your life’?
One final note
I decided to add this here because I only thought of it now. It’s interesting that students don’t ask questions although I ask them to especially when they don’t know something. I’m referring to the comprehension questions. I made up nine questions and I dictated them quite quickly to illustrate the disappearing sounds and linking sounds that I have been teaching. I also did this in the hope that students would ask for clarification, which some do, but for some reason, for the following question, no one asked,
Who is Pedro?
The answer was George’s best friend, but when I asked the student whom I had asked for the answer to spell it, she couldn’t. I then asked the whole class, but no one seemed to know, so I had them as a class to work it out, which in itself was a great activity, but why didn’t they ask me to spell Pedro, when they asked me to spell George? It really makes me wonder, but I can’t for the life of me think as to why they didn’t.
Today's lesson followed the same format I've been using recently, namely review of last week, followed by comprehension questions on a dialogue, a pair work conversation task and finally pronunciation practice.
The unit's theme was Life Stories, ie learning how to talk about one's life, however, I think if I were a teacher trainer, I would have failed myself because I did not get the students to talk about themselves and despite the other chapters being somewhat distant from the students, eg restaurant talk and shopping, talking about one's life up to now could have been interesting, and at the same time easy for them to do because they would have known most of the vocabulary necessary considering it's about their hometowns, schools etc. Obviously, they would not have been able to practice all the vocabulary considering the book looks at one's life from birth to death, with things such as marriage and children, but they could have talked about where they were born, what their hometown was like, what they think of the place they live now etc. I am not sure why I only thought of it now, perhaps I was too focused on the usual lesson plan to think of including something like that. Although I haven’t decided on whether or not to change books next year, if I do continue using this one, I will definitely include that activity, although I will probably have them ask each other questions and perhaps present their partner at the end because if not, the students may revert to Japanese thus rendering such an opportunity less effective for speaking practice.
Contrastive Stress
The pronunciation today was contrastive stress. I think everyone knows what this is, but just in case, and hey, it gives me a chance to try to explain it in my own words, simply put, it’s the stress we use to signal the contrast between elements in an utterance or a dialogue, so for example,
A: Is this my pen?
B: No, it’s MY pen.
The extra stress, or prominence as it is called falls on MY in order to highlight the fact that it is not your pen but mine, the two items in opposition.
The task was quite straightforward – students had to underline the word that received the most stress in the responses to various statements and questions. After having them write the answers on the board, I had different pairs practice aloud the short dialogue, and then we practiced together. I also had them use hand gestures to help them understand the ‘extra’ stress that the contrasting word gets.
I have a question ‘aboot’ the listening
Since the pronunciation did not take so long, we had time to do the listening in the book before the class ended. However, I was surprised by what a heard – Canadian English, but it felt forced, especially on the word ‘about’, which sounded like ‘aboot’. Now, I am Canadian, but I really have to ask you all, and especially the Canadians out there, do we really say, ‘aboot’? Is it common because personally I have only heard it in comedy and never when talking with other Canadians. Of course, I have never been to British Columbia, and I haven’t spent much time in Quebec or Ontario or the other provinces for that matter, mainly stayed on the East Coast of Canada, something I hope to remedy in the future, but are there Canadians who say ‘Let’s talk aboot your life’?
One final note
I decided to add this here because I only thought of it now. It’s interesting that students don’t ask questions although I ask them to especially when they don’t know something. I’m referring to the comprehension questions. I made up nine questions and I dictated them quite quickly to illustrate the disappearing sounds and linking sounds that I have been teaching. I also did this in the hope that students would ask for clarification, which some do, but for some reason, for the following question, no one asked,
Who is Pedro?
The answer was George’s best friend, but when I asked the student whom I had asked for the answer to spell it, she couldn’t. I then asked the whole class, but no one seemed to know, so I had them as a class to work it out, which in itself was a great activity, but why didn’t they ask me to spell Pedro, when they asked me to spell George? It really makes me wonder, but I can’t for the life of me think as to why they didn’t.
What would you do if you won 10 billion yen?
Thursday Reading and Writing Class
Today’s lesson consisted of a reading activity, two worksheets on the conditional, a writing task using the conditional, and another sentence correction. Following last week’s model, I prepared packages and placed them on desks, asking students to sit where they saw a package. If I continue this style of lesson in the future, I will definitely have packages because it is a great time-saving device, and I really can’t say why I didn’t think of it sooner. I also tried something different which I think worked well, too – I asked students explicitly to submit work as they finished instead of waiting until the end to submit everyone at once. I chose to do this for two reasons, the first being that it freed up space on their desks, which may or may not interfere with their work, but hey, a clean desk is better, isn’t? The second reason was that towards the end I am usually looking at students’ paragraphs, so I can’t always see what’s going on, so this was a way to ensure that students did not copy from someone, although I am fairly sure no one has done it yet; let’s just consider it a preventative measure if you will, because you can never know.
The Conditional
Today’s conditional writing task asked the question, ‘What would you do if you won a billion yen?’ I got a lot of great answers such as, ‘I would save it’, or ‘I would give it to charity’, but there were some answers that I really liked such as ‘I would buy an island’, or ‘I would buy a castle’, and there was even one answer that said, ‘I would waste it’, if I remember correctly. The reason why I like these answers is not that they’re different, unique, but that those students used their imagination and broke away from such answers such as buying clothes, a house etc. Actually, I just got an idea - it may be interesting, if I have time of course, to look through the paragraphs counting the things that they said they would do and post them as a sort of top ten list of things my students would do if they won 10 billion yen. Actually, what would YOU do if you won 10 billion yen (about $109 million US, 78 million euros, $115 million CAN)? I think I would probably donate some of it, but a recording studio with lots of instruments in a nice, old castle with a well-stocked wine cellar on an island does have a nice ring to it. Anyway, getting back to the subject, the paragraphs were fairly well written, although many students thought that using would in the first sentence meant that they could just use the simple present in the remainder of the paragraph. Now that I think about it though, this could be interference from their L1, Japanese, because they don’t express the conditional with modals as we do, and often in Japanese, it would be, directly translated, ‘If…, I want to…’, which is what some of my students wrote. However, since I have the students show me their rough draft before they go on to write the final draft, I was able to point this out to them through explicit feedback. I may not have mentioned this, but for the other activities, although some will have explanations written, I only discuss the writing task with them. Of course, if students have questions about a certain task, they can ask me, but unfortunately most do not, which kind of makes me think that perhaps they hesitate asking me for some reason, despite me telling them that they could at any time ask me questions. Hmmm, maybe I should be more explicit next time.
Textbook Dilemma
As for the textbook decision, I have found a textbook that I like, but I am wondering if I really should go with it next year considering that I spent my first year building up a repertoire of materials. Actually, that reminds me, I was talking about this with my wife the other day that I tend to change books or lessons between semesters quite often. I am not sure why though. I guess the main reason is that I didn’t like the textbook for various reasons, but even the textbook is not that bad, and I’ve all these activities and materials, I still think of changing it for the next time, and often go back to the start. Interestingly enough, I also tend not to use the materials I’ve made from one semester to another, although there have been times when I have, for example with my reading and writing class, but even now, as I wrote above, I am thinking of using a book that will probably make it difficult to use those materials, or maybe it won’t? I suppose I could just modify them and that shouldn’t be difficult, now should it? Maybe I have made up my mind after all.
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