ICC Mini Lesson Reflection

My team chose the German cultural practice of Polterabend to explain to the class. The lesson was divided into 3 parts based on Moran’s stages of learning.  Each team member took one aspect of the Cultural Knowings.  Evalyn taught Knowing About, I taught Knowing How, and William taught Knowing Why and Knowing Oneself.  Evalyn showed the Ss pictures of smashed plates and then activated the schema of the Ss by blending these pictures with pictures about marriage and couples.  I believe that our lesson provided unusual cultural information to the class, and as a result was interesting to the Ss.  I presented the Ss with role cards so that gave a brief character summary that guided the Ss towards understanding the different feelings people could have at a Polterabend.  Due to the time constraints the Ss were able to have a short example of plate smashing to experience a cultural behavior. Finally, William asked the Ss to think about the benefits of people having a Polterabend, and then asked the Ss to compare this pre-wedding cultural practice with pre-wedding cultural practices in their country.  This covered all of Moran’s Cultural Knowings and provided the Ss with opportunities to interact and learn about this cultural practice.   

Was the cultural content objective and free of over-generalizations and stereotypes?

I believe the cultural content objective of this lesson was to learn about an interesting cultural practice, but even though the behaviors were strange (smashing plates and having the bride and groom clean it up).  The small c cultural feelings associated to this event were not uncommon to the Ss, and are evident in many cultures around the world. People feel angry over lost love and smash plates to let out aggression.  Marriages have problems and the couple needs to work through them. The mess from the smashed plates is a visual example of problems the couple must work through together.  By cleaning up the mess the couple can feel they are a team and have a feeling of accomplishment.  During the lesson, one student (Michelle) stated that the Greeks have a similar kind of cultural tradition.  I don’t think that the point of the lesson was “Man, these Germans are crazy!”  I think the point of the lesson was here is a strange custom, but it includes small c cultural feelings that all people have.

Was the lesson well-sequenced, paced and balanced?

The lesson was in sequence, starting with Knowing About, then Knowing How, then Knowing Why and finally Knowing Oneself.  I know that the lesson was not properly paced as there were activities that were shortened.  Honestly, it was just a matter of preparation. We each had valuable parts to play in the presentation and we each had interesting information to present, but we just needed to fine tune the timing and flow of it all.  We accomplished our stated goals for the lesson plan, but the TLC could have been a little more focused in the lesson throughout the change of teachers.

·         Know what “Polterabend” is and where it comes from.

·         Understand when and how a “Polterabend” is held.

·         Understand the small c cultural reasons for holding a “Polterabend”

·         Use and produce the TLC (‘Wh-‘ questions with ‘can’ and ‘do’ simple present).

·         Further reflect on the “Polterabend” practice and relate it to their experience.

Was the content and language appropriate for the student profile and proficiency level?

When I was making the character cards for the role play I wrote down things like “He has social and emotional issues” then after creating the six characters I went back and realized that that information was above our selected Ss level of High School Grade 1, Novice High/ Intermediate-Low, so I rewrote that to read “He doesn’t play well with others. He gets very excited and says silly things when there are a lot of people around.”

I also changed “She has a sharp tongue”, which is an idiom to “She likes to talk about people and make them feel bad.”  Maybe also as a teaching team, we could have focused our language to be more consistent with each other.  I think the content was appropriate for that level in the fact that there was the aspect of smashing things. Thinking about weddings is not something high school Ss are focused on; however they are aware of what goes on in them. In the Korean culture there are “wedding factories” everywhere, where a couple can walk in wearing shorts and t-shirts, get fitted out in a wedding dress and tuxedo, have a ceremony and reception, so the Polterabend would at least have some crossover cultural value.  

Was it student-centered? Did it provide ample opportunities for students to produce language (especially TLC) in meaningful and contextualized ways?

The lesson plan, in its entirety is very student centered. There is a great deal of interaction and activities involved.  The lesson that we actually taught was not as effective due to time constraints. We missed some interaction opportunities (William’s Pyramid Activity and my role play) and by skimming through the lesson we lost some of the focus on the TLC.

What aspects of the lesson plan and implementation were you pleased with? Why?

Learning about culture is fun, but actually getting to practice the culture is even better. I know it was only a short instance but getting to smash the plates and cups was fun for me and I hope it was fun for the Ss.  The part of my presentation that I thought flowed the best was using the powerpoint to elicit answers and “Wh- questions” from the Ss.  (e.g. Answer: You can bring things to smash.  Question: What ___________? What can I bring to the Polterabend?). This is something that I do a lot in my classes and it is a comfortable part of my teaching style. 

What aspects could be improved? Why and how?

Firstly, if the TLC is simple present then my role play activity may not have been the best choice. My initial thought was do the role play and have the Ss discuss what happened in the Why section with William.  We could have changed the TLC to simple past “did” and that could have worked.  The characters could then explain how they felt when the groom’s best friend said that he loved the bride. Why did you feel that way? Secondly my instructions introducing the role play were bad. I could have been more clear in the way I presented them, but I was really rushed for time and I wanted people to smash plates.  For example I could have done a teach back – I could hold up the cards and say “We are going to do a drama, I will give you a card. This is your character card. Don’t show it to anyone.  Read your card, tell your name and who you are

T: What am I going to give you?

S: a character card.

T: Who do you show it to?

Ss: nobody.  Etc etc

Thirdly, TLC focus between the team would have been a little better if we had met to smooth out the details of our finished presentation. We had a very productive meeting to discuss our plans, but we needed a little more time to meet for the finished product and fine tuning.