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.

Wed 10 Mar - LAB

Today in the lab we went through common errors for level 6 and I explained the idea of fossilization. While it did take some time for them to locate the errors in the handout, many attempts were still wrong, even when doing it in pairs. So I hope that noticing and correcting was useful for them. There are still a number of spelling mistakes they continue to make, so we'll be working on that in a further class. I gave them time to identify which types of errors they may be in danger of fossilizing.

As this took a bit longer than planned (although I'd given it 35 minutes), I wasn't sure whether to do the bookwork as planned or not. In the end we did, but it also took more time and I sort of rushed it to finish it quickly in order to make time for the last activity. As it was, I didn't finish the final activity and in hindsight it would have been better to skip the bookwork and go straight to that final activity. I had to finish the video task the next day, but it should have been done all together.

We watched Louis Theroux's "The Hypnotists" video - three excerpts from it, and I'd prepared a handout with questions on each. Some questions were inferencing; some were listening for specific information; and some were questions asking their opinion. I think they worked well.

Tues 9 Mar

We began OPP by attempting to write objectives for a reading comprehension exercise on page 96 of the textbook. The TTs came up with "Sts will create descriptions for mysterious situations", "Sts will relate mysterious situations with appropriate descriptions" and "Sts will exchange information about mysterious experiences". It seems to me that M and V are able to create fairly appropriate objectives for an activity, whereby C has difficulty not only finding what the objective might be but also knowing how to express it. This has been confirmed to me over time as well. I still also suspect she is severely distracted from concentrating properly.

I also asked the TTs what steps they took to prepare for a class. C begins with the grammar point and function, considers what vocab will be needed and how the sts can interact, and sometimes writes down notes for preparation. V basically follows the book without a lot of prior preparation. I might see if I can get him to prepare something from scratch so that he doesn't just depend on the book for everything. M was always given the material to teach and he hardly had to prepare anything, though he did adapt some activities. C didn't come until after 7pm as she was observing another teacher.

So in class today we began module 9 "Mysteries, problems, oddities" and they matched descriptions to the related stories/cases. The free writing was also related to this. We also watched a Weird Al Yankovic video called "Bob" which is full of palindromes. One student was able to pick up that the sentences were palindromes, which made for interesting viewing the next time round. They wrote down the ones they liked or remembered. I think I could exploit this video a little more if I had some more time - before watching the second time, to see which ones they remembered, or if they know of any other ones in English or Spanish. Then to take notes while watching a second time; and even to watch it a third time (it's not a difficult or irritating video to watch) and the sts can try to repeat as many as they can. After watching, I asked them to describe the video using some of the words we'd come across during the class.

One last st had to give his oral report; but he took much longer than he was supposed to, so we had about 25 minutes to check the first draft of their essays, then swap with a partner for feedback. I think this went quite well on the whole, although of course there were some sts who hadn't brought theirs, or who hadn't begun theirs, so couldn't swap with anyone. Still, for those who had, it was useful. I heard some good feedback being given. The final draft is due tomorrow.

Thurs Mar 4

Starting with OPP, once again only C and V arrived on time. We went through the Competencies vs. Objectives article. I think I should look for a better one for next time I teach OPP. I'm not even sure if it's Competencies or Competences.

We also began considering objectives for activities 1-3 on page 96 of the textbook (Mysteries, problems, oddities reading). By this time M had turned up and it is obvious that he has best grasped the concept of objectives, while the others still struggle. I suspect that C is distracted by personal issues she is having. Either way, we only did activity 1 before the class began.

The level 6 class was, again, mostly organised around the oral presentations. After about 45 minutes we finished the Larson activity, though; which provided sufficient distractions to not make it a totally boring class. Giving oral presentations can be tedious, especially when there are so many students to "get through", and especially when the last ones, as I'd mentioned, are not the best speakers. I wonder if I can get them to do this presenting it in pairs? Perhaps that will not only be more communicative, but also more interesting and less pressure for each st.

I had organised to listen to the Court of King Caractacus, but it'll have to wait till another day, as it wasn't possible to finish the presentations on time.

The OPP trainees after class discussed the importance of sts going through the process of creating a presentation: reading, choosing, summarizing and presenting along with their opinion. They also noted that the sts remained motivated and interested, despite the long time it took to go through each presentation. Still, I might reconsider how to do this for next time.

Wed Mar 3

I had organised a freewriting but in the end decided against it, and we began almost immediately with the oral presentations. This time I told the sts that their grade for this would only be worth 5 points, but that it would be graded out of 10 to make things a bit easier; and I negotiated with them what emphasis should go where. They decided on grading it in a way I wouldn't have done myself - putting more emphasis on Using language fluently and accurately & Expressing opinions with precision; and less on Communicating with good grammatical control & Summarizing an article. Having worked this out, some didn't give their opinion at all until prompted by me; hence there was some confusion for me as to why they had put more emphasis on this for their grade.

Still, this being the first day, the first students were visibly nervous and happy to get theirs out the way, but still did quite well. It seems to me that as time goes on and there are less and less sts to give their presentation, it is the final few that actually have more problems with oral production who wait till last, whether they're nervous or not. At least at this time, those who had major problems with pronunciation, mumbling, or ungrammatical sentences were the ones who hung back till the end.

Some of the presentations produced a lot of comments or questions, particularly from one st, who seemed to have an opinion on almost every topic. I think she was enjoying being able to say something on every topic, but after a while I could see that other sts were a little bit annoyed that she had a comment about everything. Still, others also participated as well.

We took a short break after about half an hour and read the hippopotamus poem, which was enjoyed by all.

At the end of another 40 minutes of presentations I then introduced the Larson activity, whereby the sts broke into 7 groups and had to create captions for the comics. I must be careful when doing activities like this, that there is not a group totally comprised of serious, quiet people who don't like to share, because they do have serious trouble being creative and suggesting ideas. It would be better to put them (subtly) in different groups. I'm not sure how to do this exactly without it looking too obvious.

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!!