Reflection 7 – T’was [a little] blind, but now I see [a little more]…

April 10, 2014

My first speaking class of the week was on Tuesday.  After horrible planning last week, I spent some time thinking of how to teach this week’s lesson.  This week’s lesson was on sports and the students would learn how to ask “do you play…”, “do you…”, and “do you do…” questions, depending on the sport, and they would learn to respond by saying “yes, I do” or “no, I don’t”.  I’m still trying to find a good method or curriculum for teaching this class, so I changed the format of the lesson plan again. 

My task was to go over warm-up, then a preview to activate schema, followed by the lesson and some games in between.  I have not done warm-ups with this class, so I was interested to see their reactions.  I taught my Friday’s class “how are you doing” but I didn’t teach them how they can respond, so they were a little confused.  So this time I decided to write some of the responses (also remembered some of the other MT ideas).  I wanted to record the whole class, but I realized afterwards that I didn’t have enough space.  But oddly enough, it recorded all of my warm-up, and stopped right when I was going to start my preview.  My warm-up is around 4 minutes and 37 seconds.

I knew they were going to have difficulty understanding and following instructions, but I felt it was harder today because they were in a bad mood from the previous class.  But I tried to boost the atmosphere.  I tried to ask “Did you have fun from your previous class?” but they didn’t seem to understand.  I was expecting them to scream out yes or no, or just basically say anything, but they were really quiet.  I felt this was a way to personalize with them.  I wanted to ask them more, based on what they said. 

Afterwards, I had the class read together what was on the board: “how are you doing.”   If I felt they were not paying attention or they were too quiet or they had difficulty pronouncing it, I repeated it again until they were all speaking loudly.  Afterwards, I tried to get students to ask each other.  Because they were not used to it, and after rushing my MT on Saturday, I decided to give them some wait-time, but at the same time be cautious so that they don’t feel they are on the spot.  I felt they were a little shy and confused at first, but they seemed to get used to it and the speed improved. 

They know from previous classes what side Team A is and what side Team B is.  So I told them they had to ask the student on the other side but the surprising thing was that some of the female students didn’t want to ask the male students.  The male students didn’t mind.  But I didn’t realize how young they were until today.  They were trying to choose who to ask so I tried to be understanding and be patient with them. 

After watching the video, I saw my habit of saying too many ‘ok’s’, and too much evaluative teacher talk (ok, yes, very good), instead of communicative t-talk.  But I’m not sure how I could do communicative t-talk with this class.  Or should I be more evaluative, such as being more enthusiastic?  Or would it be much different if I just significantly reduced saying the word: ok?   I wanted to personalize with them more like I do with the other class, but I’m not sure what it is about this class.  This class, however, is new and they are still getting to know each other, it still is an interesting experience.   

For my preview, I asked them what sports they liked.  At first, they didn’t seem to understand or maybe they were too shy, so I had to say some sports.  After asking the students individually, I told them we were going to play a memory game for points.  I would ask one member of a team and ask them what sport one member from the other team liked.  I rotated teams and made sure each player answered once.  Generally, they seemed slightly interested, some remembered what the others said, and some didn’t remember.  I awarded them points but they still didn't seem too energetic.  At least it wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. 

 

Next, I gave them a handout.  We read some words and repeated them several times.  There were different sports that were organized by ball sports, individual sports, and Asian sports.  After repeating them and asking if they liked those sports, which they responded quite well (closed questions), I wrote on the board of how they would ask the question of if they did that sport. 

For example, ball sports, I told them you would say: Do you play ___________?  For individual sports: Do you ____________?  For Asian sports: Do you do ___________?  I asked the students individually (referential question), while pointing to the sentence on the board.  Then the students would respond by saying: yes, I do or no, I don’t, which they have at the top of the page.  Then I had students ask each other.  They would use the board for assistance, they would take time, but generally, I felt they were slowly learning, or at least learning the pattern of how to ask and respond. 

Afterwards, I had them play a speed game.  I decided that the individuals would get the point.  The point of the game was to see if they can ask six questions in one minute, one after another, that was not intended to anyone.  They were a little confused at first, but after repeating the instructions several times, they understood and they were all given a chance.  They referred to the board to answer; some students were faster than others, and although they asked the questions in incorrect form (ex. Do you play taekwondo?), I just let it slide, because I felt it was important they practice their speaking, and improve their confidence doing it. 

Overall, I felt the energy and mood would improve as the class progressed, but I feel it didn’t really improve.  I don’t know if they were bored, but they all put in effort in doing the task that they were supposed to do.  For feedback, there was a lot evaluative feedback, and there was a lot of repetition (and reading), but I feel that this may be the first step in teaching the students, because they are not at the level to answer for themselves.  I have to continually think of ways to get this energy level way up there so they have fun learning.

This class is one of the most difficult classes I have, but it’s also one of the most exciting and challenging classes I have.  I feel this challenge is helping my eyes open even wider as a teacher.