Starting again ... New Year ... no OPP

OK, so writing after each class definitely doesn't work. But here goes a fairly comprehensive overview of last year's OPP and writing class, mostly (second semester), mostly in order to keep things in order in my mind and to remind me of things that worked, didn't work, could work in the future, and things definitely to keep working on.

Beginning semester 2 of Formación, I had five trainees: M, C, E, V and now A, who had come from the "split up" of a previous OPP group. I wasn't too concerned as, although he was a little "problematic", his personality was more dynamic and I thought it would make a good mix for the rest of the group, which was, in general, pretty sort of quiet and laidback. As far as this goes, I think it worked to have someone with totally new ideas and methods for the class. However, C dropped out of Formación after just the first week or so, and E was dropped from the course due to attendance and punctuality problems. This left just three trainees: 2 from last semester, and the "new guy". Having chosen and agreed to give an advanced Writing course with my trainees because I was sure they would be up to it, suddenly having this unbalanced smaller group changed things considerably. Still, for the most part, they were able to give the writing classes necessary and actually do it well ... I say for the most part and am sticking to it, without going into more details. At the end of the course I decided to give them all a 10 for OPP. This seems a bit strange, seeing how I was so strict on my former trainees of 2008 (one 10, four 9s and a 7); but every time I think of it, I remember how much of a struggle it was for all three in this course. One had a full-time job and still had to cancel a private class in order to attend; another had a full-time job as well as a new baby who was having health issues; and one had bitten off more than he could chew with his classes at FFyL, the CELE and his work. The classes went from 5-9pm, which wasn't easy for anybody; yet their attendance and participation was adequate throughout. Not all the classes were the best, but they were good enough to keep the students happy, and a number made positive comments at the end of the course, particularly about M and A. And it was Advanced Writing, which was a big enough challenge in itself, let alone having all the other pressures on top of that. For these reasons I think the three did an admirable job and deserved a good grade.

I think I learned three important things this semester from my trainees.

1. How to give feedback. I always try to give both positive and (if necessary) negative feedback, after first hearing what the trainee observed, felt and thought about the class he gave, and when possible getting other feedback from the other trainees as well before launching into my own. Still, it seemed to A that the feedback I gave in his initial classes was overly unbalanced towards the negative side. In fact he considered I hadn't given any positive feedback at all, which wasn't true, as I can vouch for in my notes. But to him it seemed that way. Was he just a particularly sensitive soul? Or did he only hear selectively (which did happen on other occasions)? Either way, it helped me realize that I need to be more careful in the way I give my feedback. In this I learned something from M, who on the Google Group page we'd opened was able to give feedback which, while being inherently negative, sounded positive just from the way he wrote it.

2. When in situations of receiving lesson plans for reviewing (particularly for final observation, but not exclusively for this) I need to be more organized in order to spend time, when necessary, on weekends. Cos Monday night is too late to give feedback for a Tuesday class. And it wasn't the trainee's fault - he'd sent it on Saturday morning. This happened on more than one occasion. Don't assume the lesson plan will all be OK. Organization is a bigger key to helping trainees than what perhaps I might think.

3. M's work on helping students work on language transfer errors is something I definitely want to work on more this semester with my "new" writing class. I'm interested in the variation on Vigil and Oller's model that M made, whereby we give positive cognitive feedback ("I understand") and negative affective feedback ("but I don't like it") - not because I don't like you, but because what you said was not said correctly. At the level of the so-called Advanced students, who continue to manifest simple errors in their written work such as "He say" and "Is very difficult", it may well make a difference to the students to receive some more pointed comments to help break them out of this, without going too far and causing them to cease trying; on the contrary, the objective is to help them continue trying, and improve in accuracy, while giving them opportunity to provide feedback themselves on what I'm doing. We'll see. After helping M give a presentation on his Action-Research project on fossilization and syntactic language transfer errors, I'd like to make a conscious effort from the beginning of term to work with my students on this and see if there might be a difference at the end of term. I'll need to work on how to evaluate this at the end of term as well.

One last comment about the teacher trainees, I guess, is that I think I became too emotionally involved with the three: one (in the end) negatively, two positively. Perhaps it was also the fact that the advanced class was a greater challenge for them, I felt I needed to give them more help than I otherwise would have done with a lower-level class; but by the end of the year I was a helpless wreck of constantly flowing tears while writing their final evaluations and comments. I'm sure most teachers don't go through this to quite the same extent. I don't want to get that emotionally involved again. I think in the future when I teach OPP, apart from having a thicker skin, I will need to ask for a couple of things:

a. That I don't have my own class to teach during that time (if possible). It takes a lot of time away from teaching OPP and then gives the trainees less time to practice themselves. It also allows me not to have such an emotional attachment to the class they practice with, as it's not "my" class, which allows me to sit back a bit more and allow the trainees to learn from their own mistakes, rather than trying desperately to prevent accidents before they happen in the class.

b. That the practice classes always be lower-level classes.

And for myself I'm kinda happy I have become friends with two of the three remaining trainees, but I do need to be careful not to allow the prospect of future friendship to cloud any judgements on their performance. Not that I think it did this last year, but I want to make sure it doesn't in the future either, as I suspect it is something that may well lurk in the background of many teachers. For this I need God's help to keep me wise and discerning with regard to timing.

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.