Sick, sick, sick...

I think a lot of people have been getting sick these days, myself included. Thankfully, I was able to cancel my classes on Thursday after being sick for a couple of days (I think they were afraid I might spread the germs) and spent the entire day in bed. They say there's no real cure for a cold except plenty of rest and food. It worked for me. I felt a lot better the next day. So, for all of you battling a cold/fever/etc... stay in bed, get plenty of rest, drink lots of water, don't skip any meals, take vitamins! And, hope you'll feel better!

Okay, in today's post, I will be reflecting on the lesson I taught my adult group class on Friday.

Teaching:

The goal of the lesson was for the learners to be able to talk about outdoor activities they’ve done in the past and elaborating on the experience by saying when they last did it and with whom and so on. I think the goal was accomplished. By the end of class, they were able to have a conversation, asking each other questions and providing responses appropriate and accurate enough. There were four people in the class, so I had them talk in pairs. The lesson was teacher-led, but I don’t think I dominated the lesson. I tried my best to elicit responses from the learners. In the first part, I used the WB to brainstorm outdoor activities by eliciting from the learners. When the room went silent, I called on a student and asked him directly. I tried to make the interaction more dialogic by asking follow-up questions. However, I felt that at some times, asking follow-up questions led the class astray. And I admit, although I don’t want to, it sort of felt like time was being wasted because of a student’s long-run, obtuse response. (Please, don’t judge!) I felt like I was losing control (?) and that my lesson wasn’t going as I have planned, in the order I had sequenced it previous to the lesson. However, I did use a student’s tangent response to add an amendment to my lesson. When a student started to talk about where he had hiked, I used his response to ask the other students where we can do the other activities like surf and ski. Another thing I realized was the importance of providing and example and using the WB to write key phrases and questions. Getting the students to use two modes of input seems to be more effective than using one. For this lesson, I wrote the questions I wanted the students to use on the board before having them do the tasks, and I think the speaking tasks went a lot more smoothly than in previous lessons. When they made mistakes/errors, they were able to correct themselves (the error was usually hinted by my facial cues) by looking at the whiteboard again. If I were to teach this lesson again, I would spend less time introducing the vocabulary (outdoor activities) and spend a little more time on the formation of questions and responses using the accurate tense. The students made some errors with the past tense and the past perfect tense. However, because of time, I didn’t do enough closed practice on those tenses with the students.

Students:

Only four out of eight students attended class, but I’m used to teaching only half of the class because, on average, no more than four students come to class. It’s demotivating for me at times, which makes it hard for me to be excited for class. I’m not sure if the students realize that poor attendance makes it hard on me. I actually wanted to blog about this: How to get students to come to class when they don’t really have to. I will blog about it soon. Anyways, to continue talking about my students, thankfully, the students who do come to class participate actively in class and aren’t really that shy. I did notice after teaching them for about two weeks that the ranks of superiority apply to the interaction of the classroom. The youngest student (lowest in rank) is hesitant in speaking when the older students (those of higher rank) haven’t made their utterances yet. They’re all government officials and although they don’t work at the same department, they still consider respecting superiors to be important since it’s part of their culture and it shows in their interactions. The lesson was challenging but not too challenging, but I don’t think it was challenging for one student. He has the highest proficiency out of the group so I think the lesson provided him opportunities to practice what he already knew. They learned new vocabulary and learned to use the proper grammar structures (past, past perfect) and question types about past experiences. For example, “When did you last go hiking?” was one of the questions learned (using ‘last’).

As a language teacher…

I think I’m developing slowly. Slowly is the key word here. For this class, the biggest problem I have, besides attendance, is lesson planning because I don’t have books I can work from. I have to turn to the Internet or look at previous lessons I have taught in the past for ideas. And because I don’t have plenty of experience as others, it’s hard for me to design lessons that are truly effective. Also, I’m always thinking about CI and MIC techniques because of Meth class. Actually, while I was teaching this lesson, I thought to myself, “Wait, I think I’m being monologic. Can I make it more dialogic? I’m presenting new TL… How to be dialogic when presenting new material… Hmm…” and I think I panicked a little. I want the lessons to be less teacher-led, and I have no problem doing so when the class is focused on discussing and making arguments. However, when the lessons are more vocabulary and grammar focused, I don’t know if student-led interaction can be possible.

I am still having trouble getting the students to be comfortable enough to be recorded. Therefore, I was able to record it only in audio format. Unfortunately, I forgot to record it from the beginning of class. So, it’s missing some parts. Also, the students have a habit of coming to class late.  I will upload the audio clip once I figure out how to.