Post by burlives on Oct 30, 2004 21:22:46 GMT 7
I teach like this: each week I bring in a sheet of paper and make everyone dictate to everyone else and then move on to activities based around the information in that way delivered. It's boring but predictable, arguably with whatever excitement there is to find being generated by the content of the text. Since there is a routine to these lessons, activity can be anticipated, prepared for, and thus focused. It's a failure.
The dictation requires that the paper move around the room with each student saying their line and being coached by me in specifics of pronunciation. This part works. Their pronunciation has cleared up and slowed down. Possibly they are even acquiring the ability to think about what they are saying as they say it. They know that later the content of the text will be needed if they are to not look like idiots when their turn comes.
At about this time of semester for two semesters now it becomes apparent how quickly the students pick up on how to subvert the process. Students may stand to read but hold the paper down low so that their neighbours can furiously copy instead of listen. It happens a lot when the dictation slows because some point of pronunciation has arisen -- how to make the "th", or how to make "v" properly, or a "z" sound, and so on. They also realise that when it is time for the activity, they may simply copy the text from someone who did listen.
So I was thinking today about such ESL axioms as the need for variety, 20 minutes per activity, warm-ups, lead-ins, wind-ups, and, crucially, the creation of interest in the subject. I don't have a camp counsellor personality and I'm not particularly passionate about spreading the English word so I find I just can't get enthusiastic about the more recognisable TEFL lesson plans, with games and songs and activities. In fact I believe I know what Chinese can't do, they can't manipulate ideas, and I can and that's what I should teach. The activities in my lessons are aimed at generating abstract and comparative thought processes -- ideas together with tested reasons for ideas. It's something worth using a language for.
Teaching the theory of thinking directly is without merit. Arguably it is too complex. More importantly, they don't listen to lectures. Even more importantly, my spoken English is quite good and it's not me who needs the practice. So the activites are intended to create learning by doing: they are given a question and some instructions meant to create a situation where they have no choice but to produce the required reasoning behaviour. Brainstorming, for example, is introduced by requiring that each member of a team have a different answer to the question. Reasoning follows by instructing the students to then select their best answer from the ones they have produced. Other activities will have been done weeks earlier that will give them techniques for selecting their best. The Frozen Elephant, for example. The scenario has them as local government officials who must deal with a circus elephant that has died of pneumonia and frozen solid. They provide suggestions about what they could do and these are either countered or celebrated according to the given facts of the story. And so on. I walk around the room and join groups to have them say what they have come up with so far. Each group gets appropriate further instruction without ever getting the answer from me.
The semester then has a theme and the classes have a purpose carried from week to week. Seemingly it should be possible to provide a substantial education. But it doesn't work. From week to week I seem to observe that very little is retained. It becomes increasinly difficult to set up the next step each week because I will be referring to things they have already discarded. Either they don't know how to cooperate or I haven't found the key to delivering this material. I don't have any particular discipline problems in class nor any overt dissatisfaction. Some classes even enjoy correcting each other when someone has said "sousand" one time too many more than a thousand.
So I'm at a loss. For two weeks now I've been telling the students that the mid-term exam will be "next week" and then I have to do something else because I realise from the lesson that they haven't come far enough to even know what I'd be asking them to do in that exam.
The only time I ever created mutually satisfactory lessons was way back in my first year where in desperation I split the class into four groups and told one group to come for one period every two weeks. We would sit and chat. It was a truly formless and irresponsible lesson style guided only by my refusal to answer any question directly and my insistence on using "Why do you ask that?" as my basic response. The administration hated it. About half of any class would be pissed off because they perceived themselves to be learning nothing. All the deadbeats washed out fast and I never had to see them until the exam day where they mostly were unable to handle my questioning style. But I was deeply involved with the students and people loved me.
I'm getting some CELTA text books delivered next week. I really hope they don't tell me to play the Balloon Game.
The dictation requires that the paper move around the room with each student saying their line and being coached by me in specifics of pronunciation. This part works. Their pronunciation has cleared up and slowed down. Possibly they are even acquiring the ability to think about what they are saying as they say it. They know that later the content of the text will be needed if they are to not look like idiots when their turn comes.
At about this time of semester for two semesters now it becomes apparent how quickly the students pick up on how to subvert the process. Students may stand to read but hold the paper down low so that their neighbours can furiously copy instead of listen. It happens a lot when the dictation slows because some point of pronunciation has arisen -- how to make the "th", or how to make "v" properly, or a "z" sound, and so on. They also realise that when it is time for the activity, they may simply copy the text from someone who did listen.
So I was thinking today about such ESL axioms as the need for variety, 20 minutes per activity, warm-ups, lead-ins, wind-ups, and, crucially, the creation of interest in the subject. I don't have a camp counsellor personality and I'm not particularly passionate about spreading the English word so I find I just can't get enthusiastic about the more recognisable TEFL lesson plans, with games and songs and activities. In fact I believe I know what Chinese can't do, they can't manipulate ideas, and I can and that's what I should teach. The activities in my lessons are aimed at generating abstract and comparative thought processes -- ideas together with tested reasons for ideas. It's something worth using a language for.
Teaching the theory of thinking directly is without merit. Arguably it is too complex. More importantly, they don't listen to lectures. Even more importantly, my spoken English is quite good and it's not me who needs the practice. So the activites are intended to create learning by doing: they are given a question and some instructions meant to create a situation where they have no choice but to produce the required reasoning behaviour. Brainstorming, for example, is introduced by requiring that each member of a team have a different answer to the question. Reasoning follows by instructing the students to then select their best answer from the ones they have produced. Other activities will have been done weeks earlier that will give them techniques for selecting their best. The Frozen Elephant, for example. The scenario has them as local government officials who must deal with a circus elephant that has died of pneumonia and frozen solid. They provide suggestions about what they could do and these are either countered or celebrated according to the given facts of the story. And so on. I walk around the room and join groups to have them say what they have come up with so far. Each group gets appropriate further instruction without ever getting the answer from me.
The semester then has a theme and the classes have a purpose carried from week to week. Seemingly it should be possible to provide a substantial education. But it doesn't work. From week to week I seem to observe that very little is retained. It becomes increasinly difficult to set up the next step each week because I will be referring to things they have already discarded. Either they don't know how to cooperate or I haven't found the key to delivering this material. I don't have any particular discipline problems in class nor any overt dissatisfaction. Some classes even enjoy correcting each other when someone has said "sousand" one time too many more than a thousand.
So I'm at a loss. For two weeks now I've been telling the students that the mid-term exam will be "next week" and then I have to do something else because I realise from the lesson that they haven't come far enough to even know what I'd be asking them to do in that exam.
The only time I ever created mutually satisfactory lessons was way back in my first year where in desperation I split the class into four groups and told one group to come for one period every two weeks. We would sit and chat. It was a truly formless and irresponsible lesson style guided only by my refusal to answer any question directly and my insistence on using "Why do you ask that?" as my basic response. The administration hated it. About half of any class would be pissed off because they perceived themselves to be learning nothing. All the deadbeats washed out fast and I never had to see them until the exam day where they mostly were unable to handle my questioning style. But I was deeply involved with the students and people loved me.
I'm getting some CELTA text books delivered next week. I really hope they don't tell me to play the Balloon Game.
