Mon Mar 9

Objectives:

- Writing: use of connectors in written texts

- Speaking: preparing a talk

The journal writing today was answering the questions "What's good about mobile phones? What's bad about mobile phones?" A number of good and bad things arose in a later discussion about them. The sts are quite happy to talk and share in class, even though many of them have had their first class at 7am in the morning and have been at the uni for the whole day.

I wrote some sentences on the board which were related but separate sentences, and asked the sts how they could make them into one sentence. Immediately they suggested by using connectors. So they gave a number of examples of connectors that could be used. We examined a little more closely the ones that were applied wrongly. Then I gave them a handout that has a lot of information about linking words taken from the website . I put gaps in the handout so they sts had to listen and volunteer possible answers and examples of linking words throughout. It was a lot of information, but more complete and easier to understand than the textbook. When they got to the exercise in the textbook (p. 92), they had very little problems with it, much less than previous classes have had. It paid off to do the extra work beforehand.

The rest of the class was devoted to preparing their talk for Wednesday's class. Most sts had brought their article and went through it. I answered vocab questions and checked understanding of the articles. Some who hadn't come on Friday had to use one from the textbook. One st, Jorge, seemed very unsettled and distracted and didn't work very well by himself. Mariela also was not willing to use any article from the textbook and so didn't have a lot to do. But before leaving I got sts to get into pairs and to practice their presentations, and their partner had to give them feedback and recommendations about their talk. This also gave the sts a chance to speak out loud and try to put their ideas into words. It's sometimes one thing to think "yes I'm going to talk about that article, it's about that lady" but actually getting the exact words out coherently is something quite different.

This exercise went well, even though it was close to finishing the class. Those sts who had not been distracted were able to get through both their presentation and their partner's as well, and make notes about how to improve their talk.