Tues 2 Mar

Today we began by looking at some readings: My text on Objectives, then Bloom's Taxonomy. As usual, E was late and only made it to the Taxonomies reading. I was planning to also read "Competencies and Objectives" beforehand but we ran out of time. But I did give them my lesson plan (it took a long time to write! And, as usual, the objectives were the hardest to write. Remember that.) and we went through that before I gave my class today.

During the class today, the sts wrote their "coherent story" about their sister buying a lottery ticket and if only she still had her coat ... This time I got them to share their stories in pairs. I think this was a good way of making it a little more communicative and they seemed to enjoy it.

We then went on to the differences between "big" and "great". I wrote them on the board with their respective aspects, according to the book; we thought of some examples of each (eg. a great birthday, a big star etc.); and then in pairs they tried to find one more example of each. There were some mistakes but I think this was helpful for distinguishing certain phrases that are from L1 interference.

We then did exercises 2, 3, and 4 from p. 93. These went fairly well; the students got into pairs for the last activity and discussed the questions well.

After briefly reviewing the purpose of linking words, I then gave them the writing task: they had to choose one of two topics (either music or cinema), comparing the music/cinema of today with what is considered the classic period of the 60s-80s of music or the "golden age" of the 30s-60s of film. They began by choosing one, writing their opinion on it, and listing their reasons for their preferences. Unfortunately, some were unable to choose during the time; and others were unsure of their opinions. However, others were able to write down both their opinion and the reasons for it in this time. Although my lesson plan said to get into pairs, I decided they'd done enough pair work and changed it to small groups, where they had a good chance to discuss their opinions on the two topics. Still, since collecting up their essays, I also noted that a good number of sts were unable to write an opinion but simply said "both are good, who am I to say which is better? You decide." How decidedly postmodern!! I wonder if the giving of opinions is something that is no longer valid?

In the final 30 minutes, the sts got out their news article (almost everyone brought it) and began to prepare exactly what they were going to say. Most were able to practice with a partner. Some were not ready or hadn't brought an article, but I asked them to give feedback to someone who had brought it. There is a st in the group who seems remarkable slow in handing in homework and beginning a task that requires thinking and planning. He has asked me on a few occasions if he can hand in the homework late as he has a lot of exams and homework from other courses too. He does, in the end, hand it in, and it's generally quite good. But it's almost always late.

After the class, I don't remember a lot of what we talked about - I think just comparing times and changes I made to the lesson plan; we discussed the use of incentives in certain tasks (in this case, the winning essays will be published on the blog and they'll get a chocolate!). It's the first time I've done this so we'll see how it works.

Thurs Feb 25

For OPP, I had planned to ask them the question to discuss in pairs, who the 'best' teacher was they'd ever had, and why, then to list their ideas on the board.

Unfortunately only two people turned up until almost 4:30; and as I also wanted to do other activities with them, it was cancelled.

We looked at El Plan de Clase by Ann Hildreth (it has errors still! Must change them!!) and we also went through the lesson plan format. V and C are used to doing lesson plans of some form, while M was given his lesson plans to give at Interlingua, and I'm not sure about E as she still arrives late; but I think she has less experience with them.

I asked the TTs to do free observation on the class today rather than focus on one particular aspect, but to focus on either the teacher or the students.

The 613 class freewrote first on mobile phones - good and bad aspects of them. We checked some of the questions on the Stardust homework, and also played the video again for certain answers for the vocabulary. Even then, some of their answers were vague or not quite right!

Most of the class today was on connectors. I wrote some sentences on the board, and they suggested possible ways of linking them; then we looked at the worksheet, sts filling in the blanks as we went along and suggesting other connectors. While it was a lot of work I think it helped sts conceptualize the words more, that they probably are familiar with but using incorrectly while writing or speaking. Finally they went through the "mobile phones" activity in the book. There was still some uncertainty about some answers, but in general they were able to apply the rules they'd just studied. It was, however, a long time going through each of the types of connectors; and if I give this class in the future it would be useful to find other ways of giving them the information in a more dynamic way - perhaps discovering a rule, then doing an activity, then another rule, another activity etc. just to break it up a little more. One st commented on this in the blog, and I agree that it was not the usual student-centred, dynamic activity they prefer.

There was no time for summarizing an article with a partner as I had planned; so I just gave them the homework task of bringing to class next week an interesting news article to work on for creating an oral report of it.

The TTs' comments following the class were as follows:

C said that the students had a very high level of concentration and self-confidence (ie. they're not afraid or embarrassed to make mistakes).

V noted that the planning of this class was evident. [A lot of what I do and teach, I hope that it helps the TTs too in their English!!]

M observed how the sts discovered the information together with the T, filling in the blanks and then working in pairs and speaking.

E noted that the attention was not centred on the T!! [I had considered it a T-centred class!] but I had asked for many volunteers and that all questions were redirected to the students.

We also noted that two students who are sisters, B and Z, are down the lower end of abilities in the level 6 class.

I suspect that once the trainees begin teaching themselves, they will also pick up other things. Or perhaps I'm not taking advantage of all the learning opportunities in the class?

I'm currently trying to design the midterm exam for level 6, and finding it beyond my capacities; plus all the homework I have to mark is starting to pile up!!

Wed Feb 24 - LAB

I do get so stressed when I have to use some sort of technology in the language lab, especially this new one which is unfamiliar to me (well, it's an old lab, but new to me). Thankfully putting on the DVD was okay, although I couldn't hear the sound through my own headphones, and couldn't get it on the room speakers, so everyone had to watch it "individually" on their own headphones, with me sitting in one of the rows as well. Doing it this way gives me the impression that each person is watching it "all by themselves" and there's not that sense of community watching which comes when everyone is watching the movie together. Thankfully they all laughed at the right parts!

In the end I decided to show certain parts of the movie with subtitles, and others without them. This seemed to work well. It appears to me, though, in hindsight, that the section in the worksheet on Captain Shakespeare is too difficult; very few people were able to pick up why he called himself that and what his crew understood - even with subtitles. I think I'll need to change those questions if I show this movie again.