Wed Mar 25

Objectives:

- Revision of grammar points

- Conceptualization of sound units

- Listening for specific detail

- Identifying meaning of vocabulary through context.

The journal writing topic today was "What experience (if any) have you ever had with the National Army of Mexico?" (Seen them march, entered the army, etc.) About 4-5 sts volunteered information after writing, Antioko remembering some unpleasant experiences in Chiapas!

Sts spent 20-25 minutes on revision of certain grammar points. Here rather than go through every activity, I gave them the choice of the ones that they felt they needed to work on most. The grammatical points were all ones we've worked on during the semester and that would be in the exam, and also some work on the use of articles, which was a level 5 point but one that I know will be needed for the written exam in particular. They seemed to enjoy having the freedom to choose the ones they wanted to do. I had the answer key to each activity so that they could then check their answers. Some finished quickly and were able to complete all the activities anyway. Others went more slowly but were still able to finish at least 3 activities.

We looked at "Some important sound units" next. This was a two-page handout that I'd designed on request by one of the sts in the blog, to assist them in reading out loud by recognizing the sound certain letter combinations make - in particular the long vowel sounds, "ow", "ch", "oo" and "-ed" endings. I also gave them a sentence to read aloud each which used a number of words from the lists using the same sounds, eg. for "ch" "The chess champion was a chimpanzee". I tried to make the sentences memorable and funny. I also used one sentence straight from "Alice's Restaurant". If we had had more time for this activity it would also have been good to have them create some sentences of their own and give them to a partner to practice the pronunciation.

Finally we talked about the TV show "The Biggest Loser" and listened to an interview between a Canadian and a Korean guy talking about losing weight. The sts did work on pronunciation, cloze and comprehension.