A serendip lesson

[Lotus Eater]

Sometimes things that are unplanned work really well.

Today with my Oral English class we were working on argumentative presentations. I had the students choose a topic that they held near and dear to their hearts. Actually I asked them to choose a topic they felt fiercely about - would fight for. Both of the classes chose freedom first, which made me fall about laughing a little. I gently took them away from there and Class 1 finally chose 'friendship', Class 2 'love'.

I had them think of as many reasons as possible that these things are 'good'. But I had been writing on the board a fair bit and my arm was tired - so I gave the chalk to one of the students, asked her to write her reason on the board and then pass the chalk on.

If I had written their suggestions as they called them out to me I would have used 1-2 word notes. They wrote full sentences - which gave me the 'serendip' part of the lesson.

After they wrote all their positive arguments on the board, I then asked them to come up with negative arguments about these topics. Stunned silence for a few minutes. What could possibly be bad about friendship or love? But they eventually picked up the chalk and started writing again.

We discussed the arguments they used - and then went on to the serendip part. The language was totally different - for the arguments they believed in i.e. 'good' the language was strong, clear and direct. For the negative arguments the sentences contained hedges, qualifications, weakening structures. We went through the sentences and compared them - and the students were themselves amazed - sat there nodding and going - hey that's really interesting. They had discovered something about themselves.

What started out as one type of lesson floated off into another type at the end. it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't had a tired arm. But as soon as I saw the differences in language between the sentences, I knew I had another lesson, another way of talking about communication with them.

Serendipity is good.

[Newbs]

Good on you, Lotus. It's great when it happens, isn't it? Has happened to me too, but only once or twice.

[woza17]

Lotus
I know what you mean, it is a special moment,
Tonight I had a similiar experience. My son and I have been putting together these great lesson plans he has been busy photocopying the plans then laminating the material and labelling them putting them in files and I just grab one on the way out to class.
Tonight was brilliant, family budget, groups of 4 role cards 500 to spend, cards for what they would spend it on. I thought these guys were mute they had to argue why they could or could not buy the item. These guys were brilliant. I spoke for about 15 minutes for the whole 2 hour class only correcting at the end .
I learnt a lot about Chinese family interaction, one student whose role was a 3 year old daughter and couldn't have a rocking horse for 100 sulked for the last half hour. All of us were very surprised at how much they got into their roles.
For the last 10 minutes we talked about how successful the class was and why.

[Non-Dave]

I had one of these yesterday too. A Grade 2 High School class - usually mute or sleeping - they had prepared a "movie dialogue" based on a previous lesson's viewing of some of the BMW films. I had made a comment about doing this but got no response and didn't mention it to any other classes and promptly forgot about it. When I arrived at the class yesterday they were so excited and about 12 of them presented the "play" called "A life without thieves - a story about Cops and Robbers".

They wrote the dialogue (All in English - which was pretty good), organised the props and presented it without written scripts and only a few neige, neige, neige's. No academy awards in the offing but it was a surprising and entertaining presentation and showed me what some of these kids can do when they get motivated.

Only one class out of 30, but then making a difference to only one student is worth the effort!

[woza17]

Dave that is absolutely amazing. Did you cry? Come on you can tell us. I have a body reaction when my high school kids speak good English I get goosebumps. It doesn't happen often but I show them my bumpy arm and the tears forming in the corners my eyes. The are dutifully impressed.

[Non-Dave]

Sorry woza, no tears. But I did have a big smile. I was so proud of the little buggers!

[acjade]

Good for you Dave. And thanks for sharing because it helps me feel better after this mornings class on comparatives.

We recapped yesterday afternoon's lesson and then the students were asked to write a paragraph on the topic we had used to teach the vocabulary... Bears ( thanks for the inspiration from the photos over in the photo album).

Sample 1 : we have a lot of work in front of us.

Panda is small animals. It's very lovely. It's colour is back and whit. It's eat bamooo.
Bear is than big is panda because is a fat animals.. It's colour is black. It's eat meat.

Sample 2: Somebody's been watching too much TV.


Panda bear is grown in the Melbourne zoo. They like eating bam-boo. They are grown very quickly. It's colour is white and black. They are very small when they was born. They are depend on mother's to raises. Panda bear's head is very big. It is lovely. I love it.

America bear is big big animals and it eats meat. It colour is brown and black. It is very fat. It is lovely too. I love it.

Sample 3: future Chinglish fashion magazine writer.

Panda is a big animals and it is eat bamboo. So panda is thin. Usually it looks like a children. It's player. I see it and it feel very comfortable to me.
Bear is big than panda. It like to eat meat. It is not player. Bear is brown. I don't like this colour. It temper is not well so that bear is hate in mind.
Both panda and bear wear very warm skins.

[woza17]

Wow Jade you certainly have your work cut out for you.
Back to basics drill the bastards.

NB. bastards in Aussie can be used at different levels of hostility dependant on one's frustration

[acjade]

After a good night's sleep I feel ready to step into round two, Woza. By the time this unit is finished the little bastards (here used in it's most affectionate sense) will have improved or be sent to the local zoo to contemplate the meaning of the phrase, 'live a miserable existence'.

[woza17]

Good on you Jade. Comparing things is really important my bug bear (I never say that bloody New Interchange has crept into my language) is tenses, I can't leave it alone. To me it is fundamental for communication

[acjade]

Ah, tenses. Unfortunately the Chinese English teachers got there before me.

[Lotus Eater]

Had another good class today - Writing students this time. I had asked them to write alternative lyrics to the music of El Condor Passa over their break, so today they read the lyrics in class. A couple of them were beautifully done - and a couple of students had analyses of why they used the particular words they did. One in particular made me speechless for a moment - the feeling in his words was something else. The class was silent when he finished and I could only thank him - he looked confused, so I explained that to write is to make others feel and he had.

I then used Desiderata as their next 'text' for analysis. Had it up on their screens and read it out. (I hunted and hunted for the musical version but couldn't find it). Again they really liked and related to it, and then we went through the meanings and structure. Worked.

But the fun part was in the final section of the class. I was doing Mind Mapping with them as a creativity starter for any type of writing. They chose to work around a book report of "Gone with the Wind". They tossed ideas at me, I did the board work. Then we analysed what I had done - colours, graphics, curves, connections etc.

Then they worked in small groups to do their own. Again they surprised themselves at where their ideas could take them. It was a class full of buzz and energy.

Oh the happiness of the days when it comes together!

[acjade]

Into lesson four on comparatives.

This one's for Gretch.

Animals in Captivity.

Now we can see many kinds of different animals in the zoo. For example, elephants, monkeys, tigers, panda beers and so on. Yes. These animals make ourselves happy when we goes to the zoo. But those animals unhappy. We are never understand these animals agony. In fact, they don't love living in the zoo. It looks like living in captivity.

Elephants come from African. Monkey come from Xi'an QinLing. Tigers come from North America. ::)And Panda beers come from Europe. The zoo isn't themselves home. Because human beings selfish. We take them into the zoo and look them shows everyday. They feeling very terrible. They living in the zoo as living in captivity. That's very cruellest. So, we must give these happy and give them free.

[woza17]

Security guards put them on the list. Especially the military ones poor bastards I once put down a bowl of water for one. Put me in a good zoo any day.
I read in the paper the other day Guaunzhou zoo is building a 10 million compound for 6 koalas in their zoo WTF.

[acjade]

I hope so. Koalas are worth every jiao.

[gretch]

Good one AJ: educating one mind at a time re: the atrocities we humans do to animals. Reminds me of a quote:

Man is the only creature who has the ability to blush, or the need.-Mark Twain

[acjade]

Well I attempt to be as mind expanding as possible with every lesson. I must say a big thanks for all the Saloonies who have posted animal pictures in the Saloon photo album. You've cost me a pooload of jiaos printing them out but the response from the students has been worth every one of them. So, THANKS.