Here comes the sequel for my blog from late last night…
I had so much to reflect on this time that I jotted my
ideas down pretty much anywhere as it came to me (my mobile phone, class
notebook, posted notes at work {yes, I am often reflecting on how I taught that
week, about assignments due, etc. at the office}).
After the preview activity, I passed out a handout, which
was a basic country profile of France pre-divided into six sections (as there
are six of them). I nominated the first student to read the first section. Afterwards,
they took turns alternatively to nominate others to go next… We went over any
unfamiliar words section by section and I tried to make sure that all had understood
the overall meaning. I wrote any discussed words or others which I had introduced
building on these words on the whiteboard (for example: when we were
talking about the cuisine of France, I brought up the phrase “staple food”,
etc.)
If students did not verbally express any difficulty with
regards to the section read, I tried to anticipate which words could have been
unfamiliar, posed them questions about these words and about the meaning of a
sentence/section for comprehension check. I tried to point out to them how they
could use clues from the context to assign meaning to words at times (we tried
this with the word “vast” which had appeared in this sentence: “France is one
of the world’s great wine-producing countries, and a country with a vast range
of wines”).
I realized through this activity that most of them had
problems reading numbers in English. Therefore, I decided to address this
problem in an upcoming class. When I was trying to explain the difference
between how numbers are read in Korean versus English, I used L1 to make my
point clear. I only uttered the word “manwon” (meaning 10,000 in Korean) a few
times and “sip” (10 in Korean), “baeg” (100 in Korean) and “cheon” (1000 in
Korean) each once during this process. They were all nodding to mean “I got it!”
but I will see it for myself when I revisit this topic down the line.
I was not at all surprised that they had problems reading
numbers. I was in fact kind of expecting it. Honestly, I have not yet met any
Korean who did not have problems with this. I know from myself that I had and
still have many problems when I trying to read numbers or when I am dealing
with money in Korean...
Next we proceeded with going over their homework (they
were supposed to choose a country they wished to travel to and answer 4
questions {name of the country, which continent the country is in, population
of the country and main language spoken in this country} by looking up
information using Google). I nominated students one by one to tell me what they
had written down. To finish off this activity we listed the names of all seven
continents…
Moreover, in an attempt to use Responsive-Collaborative
Discourse once again, I emailed students and suggested three potential topics
for an upcoming class to choose one from. By allowing them to have a voice in
the topic selection, I hope that they will be more interested, participate more
and ready to learn more than ever something new… Unlike the first time (I had
asked them to get together and suggest one topic to me), I gave them a bit more
structure this time by suggesting three topics with examples to make them
understand what each entailed to make it easier for them to pick one. They are all
supposed to email me back to indicate their preference by tomorrow (this Wednesday).
Let’s cross our fingers…
I had sent this email out on Friday with a text message
which followed asking them to check their emails. By the time we had a class on
Sunday (two days ago), one of the students had already replied to me. He had also
made an effort to ensure there were no grammatical errors. There was a
salutation and an ending to his email as well. I was very happy and yet
surprised as he is one of the lower-level students in my class. As a positive
reinforcement, I gave him a cookie at the end of the class that Sunday. He and
the rest of the students were quite surprised by my action. I hope and believe
that this could be a drive for them to try harder to participate. I am planning
to use such positive stimulus regularly to reward different behaviors (whoever
replies first to me in class/over email, whoever answers correctly to a
question, whoever participates the most in class, etc.). I will not be using it
every class or extremely often though as I would not want it to result in a “praise
overload” or reduce the power of the reinforcement. Even if their utterances
are not 100% grammatically correct, with more opportunities to create with L2,
they will be increasing their chances of improving their English proficiency.
As one of my classmates put it when I asked her opinion last Saturday: “quantity
quantity then you will get quality.”
At the end of the class I asked them each to write down three
things they liked on a piece of paper. This was a suggestion yet from another classmate
last Saturday. I plan to use these as discussion topics down the line. By
picking topics they are interested in, I hope that I will be able to get them
to participate more and be able to produce longer utterances.
When I watched my video recording over for the first time,
I was pleasantly surprised to discover a few things. Overall I had less self-answers
and I had asked more referential questions. Moreover, I seemed to be nominating
students equally (when I compare myself especially to my first two classes with
them), and finally when two students were talking to each other in L1 during
pair work, I had approached and interrupted them gently in English (thank you
Tom for this valuable tip), which had made them switch to using English. All in
all, quite a few ups and surely downs to tackle as well…
I am looking forward to Sunday already…
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