Thurs Mar 11

Once again, as two TTs had not turned up on time, my first activity planned for OPP (creating objectives in pairs) was necessarily done in one pair. I'm getting frustrated but I'm not sure what to do - one TT comes in rushing from his studies at another faculty; and the other comes from work; but both always come late. I also gave the trainees a different activity to prepare for microteaching for next week to just our small group. I hope this will make the trainees come more on time!

I asked the trainees to consider the objectives that I might have written for each activity as it unfolded in class today.

For the level 6 class, rather than starting with free writing, we finished watching the last part of the Louis Theroux video and answering questions in small groups. They enjoyed doing this; and to complete the activity they then did free writing on what their opinion on hypnosis was. Some of them shared and they had created thoughtful ideas.

We worked on modals from page 98; I had a number of ideas to write on the board about the expression of modals: Good idea; possible, probable, ability etc. It was difficult to do in an orderly fashion, but I think it came out okay because I practiced on the board before beginning class. The practice exercise in the book is not so easily understood and it would be good to find a different activity next time.

We also worked on the word "wrong", which was fun because we not only did that but went to the section called "real life" and worked on vocabulary from there as well. This allowed them to see the application of "wrong" in more authentic situations. To finish with, the sts role played certain situations I gave them on a piece of paper. One person was the complainer, and the other had to solve the problem. There was some confusion at first and I must be clearer on my explanations while giving instructions. But once they understood they used many of the phrases and it worked well.

After class I asked the TTs what the objectives were; once again, one TT (C) had written objectives that were either very general, or very grammar-focused. I want to encourage her to use the taxonomy handout as a guide for understanding and choosing more appropriate words and ideas to express the objective behind the procedure.