Wed Mar 18 - LAB

Objectives:

- Recognize and correct common Level 6 errors and identify which are the most problematic, in order to keep working on them and to avoid fossilization.

- Rely on either visual or auditive clues to make meaning of a text

- Relay this information to another

We didn't have journal writing today in order to have enough time to do all the activities.

First we went through the answers to the Stardust homework briefly. If I had had more time I would have asked them what they did in order to work out the answers to the vocabulary questions.

Then I gave them the handout of common errors and explained the concept of fossilization. I think the notion of this shocked them into doing their best on the error sheet! First they tried to answer the questions individually, then checked with a partner. There were some disagreements about spelling and the use of gerunds and infinitives, which allowed them to pay closer attention to the correct answer and discover that, perhaps, they didn't know that particular structure. I think it was very useful for them. Finally they put an asterisk next to the ones they got wrong, in order to work on them more.

The final activity of the night was Listeners and Watchers. Half the group were Listeners. They were sent out of the room with a list of vocabulary which was in the movie trailers. While they waited, they had to work out between them the meaning of these words. Meanwhile, the Watchers watched the four movie trailers without any sound. As they watched, they commented on what they saw and tried to deduce what the story was about. Then they went out and worked out between them the four storylines, while the Listeners came in and heard the trailers without seeing any images. Then when the Watchers came back in, they paired up, a listener and a watcher together, and they told each other what they had understood from the movie. Finally they watched and listened to the trailers and worked out the parts they had not understood. They agreed that it was more difficult to listen than to watch.

I liked this activity because it caused them to rely on visual or auditive clues to understand meaning, and the element of information-gap while discussing in pairs was very useful. Of course the trailers were in themselves attractive. The only thing I find disheartening is that I don't think I can use the same trailers each time, because if a st has seen the movie they won't be relying on what they see, rather on what they remember of the movie. So this activity will require researching new trailers each time I give this activity. Or, at the very most, finding little-heard-of movies and hoping that no movie buff in the class has already seen them.

Fri Mar 6

Objectives:

- Review gerund and infinitives.

- Complete viewing of movie.

After last Wednesday's fiasco I feel a bit traumatised about having to show videos. Thankfully today the Play Station worked and the subtitles worked and the rest of the movie was shown without mishap.

The journal writing topic today was taken from Roberto's contribution to the blog: the quote "Remember that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing."

I asked the sts to write their thoughts and opinions about this quote. I asked a few to share what they had written afterwards, and a number didn't precisely agree with the quote, which made for interesting discussion.

We then checked the homework from the workbook and listened to the answers. I am happy to see that the majority do their homework and are eager to check their answers. Those who don't end up sitting uncomfortably during that period of time without much clue of what is going on, but I think it also makes them try harder to do their homework next time.

After completing the movie watching I gave the sts the details about the following task (a speaking one, based on p. 91). They had to choose either one of the articles from the textbook or else look for one on the internet (or The News), read the article carefully and take notes on it, create an oral summary of it and give their opinion about the information. This homework is due for next Wednesday's class. The sts seemed happy to do this. I let them go early (being Friday) but they'll have time in next Monday's class to prepare some more for this. Their homework was to bring in an article to Monday's class if they were going to use an external one.

Wed Mar 4 - LAB

Objectives:

- Identify which listening strategies would be useful for watching the movie

- Take notes / answer questions while watching the movie

Well it was all a bit of a farce this day - the lab computer wasn't equipped with the movie-watching programme, as i'd been informed it would be. So in between putting it on the two smaller TV screens and then deciding to watch it via a different computer, it took a lot more time than we had - the movie is LONG!!

I felt flustered and out of control, and more so when we discovered that the speakers were only playing one half of the sound - the music and sound effects, but hardly any dialogue! MORE fixing and struggling. So in the end we had about an hour of movie to watch when there was about 1 1/2 hours left of it. I was very disappointed, and it meant the students had to do more reading comprehension than listening comp, which had been the aim of the exercise. It was not very enjoyable and also as a result the sts missed a number of the questions on the handout. Still, we decided to finish watching the movie on Friday's class "con calma".

Fri Feb 27

Objectives for today:

- Identify gerunds and infinitives in a written text

- Create a dialogue in a written text, including gerunds and infinitives

- Identify basic movie conventions, and begin watching Stardust (without subtitles)

Although the journal writing for today was to listen to African music and write their thoughts as they listened, it took a while to set up the Play Station equipment in order to watch the DVD, so I skipped the writing task today.

We went straight to looking at the homework (final exercise on infinitives), and then in groups of three I gave out one page each of the comic strip to each group. They had to read the strips and identify the gerunds and infinitives in them. It seemed like simple and hopefully fun exercise, and in the end they identified a good number of the grammar points; but they got more stuck on the unknown vocabulary of the strips, which I hadn't counted on -  words like preposterous, web-slinging wacko, whining, in cahoots, criminal underbelly, luring - and which distracted them. So by the time they finished the exercise (which took longer than expected) I wasn't prepared to get them to do the "invent the dialogue" exercise as well.

Unfortunately knowing that you're going to watch a DVD at some point in the class (please, please, no more exercises, we want to watch the movie!!!) is a distraction. I had planned to show at least 40 minutes of the movie in order to ensure that we would finish watching it in one more session. So as we went through some common movie conventions, I could see the sts' minds ticking away and my own watch-hands moving forward, the need becoming greater and greater.

So we watched the movie. I stopped it a few times. Mental note: putting the DVD through the VCR and into the TV brings down the volume quite notably. Also, not putting on subtitles for the first part ensures that your sts don't understand what is going on quite as much because they're not used to the accents and are still trying to establish characters and plot.