Normally students walk through my classroom door and say "Hi Teacher" or "Annyong" in which case I send them back out to walk through the "magic vacuum" one more time to remove the Korean words from their mouths. Today was a little different, however, when Will (my shortest student by a good 20cms) comes running through the door and yells "Teacher, let's fight!!" He is such a funny little kid, but what he lacks in height, he makes up for in verbal production.
I videotaped this class (minus the opening fight scene sadly) only to find out that Will, will definitely be a challenge for me this semester. He talks at 100 miles an hour and has no filter between his brain and his mouth.
Personally I noticed my lesson beginnings are very loose and unstructured and they eventually morph into a lesson, but I should tighten that up. I really need to focus a bit more in the break before class starts. I am employing the students asking students questions technique, and they are really enjoying the lesson, but I still talk too much.
I really want to try the 'students asking students' technique too but I'm having trouble mustering the confidence in myself or in my students. How do you set it up exactly? Do you model the question first or write it on the WB?
ReplyDeleteHey Mike, I asked the students for question words first and wrote them on the board. I also had a powerpoint that I made that is a fill in the blank question, like "All cells come from _______ ________. The question student has to identify the correct question word to use to ask the question and then ask a student from another team. "Fred, where do all cells come from?" Fred then replies using the sentence on the ppt. They are a little more interested in the lesson I feel, but it all could be the honeymoon phase of a new school? Who knows? I hope this helps.
ReplyDeleteDaniel,
ReplyDeleteI am curious about your plan to tighten up the class. Do you think it is less effective when it is open and unstructured? How do the students respond to the loose structure? to the more rigid lessons?
I also wonder about the impact of personalities in your class. Will Will's will will Will to become a more proficient speaker?
Oh, but tomorrow's class is going to be fascinating based on these comments and what I've got planned... (daniel, if you keep raising the cognitive bar as you go along this semester, they should stay with you. if they have to keep reading complete sentences off the board, you'll lose them once they've gotten some control over SVO structures. I would advise a shift to keywords at some point, if you haven't thought of that already...) :-) On another note, since when is "students talking too much" a problem??? Unless you mean in Korean.
ReplyDeleteHey Tom, this was the note that I referred to yesterday. I remember being really excited about what the class would be like and then afterwards feeling like I had just been bombarded with input.
DeleteOk - Mike, after transcribing my first class I pretty much babied them through the whole process, modelling the entire question, asking them to ask it to another student and then repeating the answer. I was for all intensive purposes one big ECHO ECHO ECHO!!!! I was happy to transcribe the class for the following day where I had moved away from that a lot. The students were given a model sentence with missing words. The student who asked the question had the toughest job, restructure the sentence words to form a question, and then the other student would answer. My students are really enjoying getting to speak a lot more in my class, and I'm enjoying the process too. It's kind of like an omlette cookout and everyone brought their own ingredient.
ReplyDeleteTodd - My class could never be described as rigid, (for example I waxed operatic on the final syllable of the new vocabulary word unicellular, and then later on we talked about poo.)nor would I want it to be but, I find myself umming and ahhhing a LOT in the first 5 - 10 mins of class. Instead of hitting my students between the eyes from the outset and set the ball rolling, I'm running back and forth in the classroom like an actor who's forgotten his lines. With the lower levels I need to get their attention quickly or it takes a lot longer to get them back.
Tom - Will just talks about random things that are completely unrelated to the lesson - all in English though. Sometimes I can channel it back into the lesson, but he really keeps me on my toes. I'm really enjoying being able to apply the things I am learning in class into my classroom, and you're right: Once the kids know the SVO structure, they will get bored with the current state of affairs. I teach some pretty smart kids, and I'm learning from them as well as teaching them, and this is something that I also really enjoy. I teach this one girl and her English name is "Cookie", she bugged the living daylights out of me in my first class with her and for a few days after that, but now we have a running banter about her name and just about anything that comes to mind. She is one smart cookie. This afternoon she came in before leaving to go home and I had to go to a meeting. She wrote on my blackboard with her finger in the chalkdust "Daniel Teacher is very funny" I chuckled a bit as I left for my meeting. When I came back I saw she had added a postscript to her message "I mean your teaching methods". I'm blown away by how smart she is, and how smart a lot of my kids are. Even in the low levels their English is pretty good. It's impressive.
Todd - you crack me up :) Will's will has already willed will to be a very capable English speaker. He just has so much energy and a smile that could melt the hardest of battle-scarred teachers, but I just have to figure out a way to channel all the energy into the right place.
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