Reflection 13 – More Questions…

June 5, 2014

I really wanted to record one of my classes this week and reflect on it, but I didn’t really have a chance to.  This week was a reduced with the holiday, and I had many test this week.  However, I kept thinking of the topic we learned last Saturday in terms of teaching writing. 

Dictation is something I do with most of my reading classes.  For every class, we do it for almost every lesson.  At first, my co-worker strongly felt that it was a good idea, and because he is superior to me, I had to go along with it.  Because it’s something that we do so often and consistently with the students, I feel it has helped them in small ways.  They are slowly getting used to it, their writing neatness is improving, and generally I feel there are a lot less “huh?” and “what?”s. Individually, I could see improvements and their confidence level seemed to be improving as well. 

However, I do agree that it takes a lot of time, they’re writing down sentences that are spoken at speeds that are not realistic in a real conversation, and there could be many other things that could be concentrated on.  This week, I kept thinking about this.  While I was giving the dictation, I kept thinking if this was a good idea or not.  I kept thinking about the writing examples that we learned in class, which were the fill-in-the-blank example and the re-ordering example.  They would both help the students think about the sentence structure a little more.  I then, thought about how connected reading, writing, and grammar actually were and how they should go together to produce better results.  I didn’t realize it because there are 3 different teachers who teach those areas.  I felt that we were basically going our own way and not really connecting them all together. If I use those two examples, rather than writing what I say, they would practice writing something that they may have learned in grammar class, which would help them with their writing; and it would also be connected to the reading class.  There would be more practicing from all classes together.

Another aspect I thought about was pair work.  After we read a passage, I would ask them comprehension questions and they would answer back.  I would try to mix in personalized questions, and some of them would answer well.  But after learning that pair work could be more productive, I tried to do that with my higher level students. 

At first, it seemed like a good idea and it seemed to work.  There was more student-student interaction.  It was also good to see the higher level students helping the lower level students.  Everyone was working together and I felt it was a more productive way for them to learn the story, as well as the language.  However, this week because I couldn't record my class, I got to sit back while they were doing it, and think and see what they were actually doing. 

I realized that the higher level students were helping the lower level students, and it was always the same case.  My question was whether the lower level students were actually learning.  Are they just practicing writing?  Or are they actually learning more about the story, than if I was to talk to them and ask them questions?  So that led to me to ask: what if I gave more speaking tasks, where I give them discussion questions.  However, will that lead to the higher students dominating the lower level students all the time?  What if I put the lower level students together?  That would mean that the higher level students would keep going up, while the lower level students go up slower…wouldn't it? 

The more I thought about it, the more questions I was getting.  The main question I had was: what’s the best, most productive, and efficient method for my students to learn, understand, and comprehend the story, while improving on all areas of their skills?  The only answer I had at the moment was that I should just slowly try different methods, and just see how it goes.  It’s not up to me so I have to discuss with my co-workers before anything is changed.

Non-stop planning and…experimenting…?  I guess that’s the duty of a teacher.  But I wish I found the answers soon...