ICC Lesson 2 + Meth Reflection

The goal of this lesson was to make the student aware of the differences in eating customs in different countries. By the end of the lesson, I wanted him to discover that there is no abnormal custom. It’s just different. Different doesn’t mean wrong.

I opened up the lesson by showing him a picture of the universe so that I can introduce the word ‘universal’. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to think of the word ‘universe’. I think I took too much trying to wait for him to get ‘universe’. He said “stars… moon… planets… Earth… etc.” After 3 tries, I should’ve just told him it’s the universe. So, I introduced ‘universe’ and connected it to ‘universal’. I asked him “What is universal?”, “What does everyone do?” He couldn’t think of anything specific, so I gave assistance by asking if everyone plays computer games. Then, he was able to give answers. I wanted him to speak in full sentences, which is why I said, “Everyone sleeps, everyone …”, but he didn’t catch that. So, I stopped, which is why I’m just jotting down his one-word responses.

Introducing: ____________ is universal. The student filled in the blank using his responses from the brainstorming activity.

MIC techniques: I used the paper & pen à WB & marker. I used gestures, facial expressions and pointing to pictures.

When student has trouble thinking of something, I need to give him an example first. That way, it may be easier for the student to think of more. There’s a very long period of silence at around 4 min. So after a while, I ask him what people only in Korea do. After he gave his response, I used it to introduce ________________ is specific to _____________.

Show a photo of a family eating, and have student tell me what’s going on in the photo, using present continuous. In the first picture, I started out by asking him “What can you see in the picture?” and he replied “I can see …”. I wanted him to use present continuous so I asked him the following question “What are they doing?” and so he gave a response using present continuous. At around 7:10, I ask “How are they eating” and rephrased it to “What are they using?” The latter is more simple and easier for the student to respond to. I realized I need to be more selective and thoughtful when asking questions.

I provide assistance when he tries to utter a full sentence by either starting the sentence for him or saying the sentence with him.  Towards the end of the clip, at around 17 minutes, you can see that I try to get him to say “They use their hands in India” (I think). I chunk it for him, but he just says it in chunks.

I ask him to describe the photos to me. He had trouble coming up with descriptions so I provided assistance/scaffolding (?) by asking him specific questions.

How do they eat in India? à They’re eating with hands. I wanted him to say: In India, they eat with their hands. I should’ve modeled.

Error Correction:

·      S: They doesn’t has

o   I repeated his utterance and rose my intonation to suggest a question. He was able to correct the doesn’t to don’t pretty quickly. However, he didn’t catch the error of has. So, I did the same, I said has with a rising intonation. It took him a while to self correct this error. After a couple of failed attempts, I gave him assistance by mouthing ‘have’.

Improvements from previous lessons:

·      I don’t give as much evaluative feedback as before. In the past, I gave lots of praise (overdid it). I don’t think I did I overdid it in this lesson. Instead, I made it more conversational.

If I were to teach this lesson again, I think I would put more emphasis on the difference between present simple and present continuous. It seems like he had trouble differentiating those two. He used the incorrect tense on some occasions. I try not to talk about grammatical rules because I think he learns about the rules in school, so I want to make the session we have a little different from school.

The purpose of this lesson was to give him a little insight on the differences of eating customs amongst different cultures. Eating is a universal behavior but the way we eat is specific. I think that goal was achieved. The student was able to tell me the differences and the similarities. At the end, I asked him which one is normal. It was a trick question. He pointed to India and said that it wasn’t normal and that America and Japan were normal. There, I pointed out that India is normal, and that every country is different. So, eating one way may seem abnormal but it is normal within that culture. Interestingly, he got a bit defensive and said “I know…!”

Overall, I think this was successful. He got to learn/practice language and also learn about cultural differences. Also, I think it was appropriate for the student because he’s familiar with eating customs and is a pretty simple topic. The activity was also appropriate for him. Children and pictures go well together. If I were to do the same activity I used with my adult student, it may have been less interesting and boring for him. Actually, there was a video in the activity for the adult student, so he (5^th grader) may have enjoyed it.