It's getting better all the time
I used to get mad at my school
(No, I can't complain)
The teachers who taught me weren't cool
( No, I can't complain)
You're holding me down
Turning me round
Filling me up with your rules
(The Beatles)
Thursday 17th & Friday 18th, November, 2011
Thankfully my grade 3 classes today and yesterday were significantly better than the debacle that occurred in Tuesday’s class. During my first grade 3 class yesterday relief swept over me when the students responded and engaged with the material. I had been genuinely worried that the lesson was going to crash and burn in every class. I needn’t have been so concerned. All four classes today and yesterday responded well. The Tuesday class remains an anomaly. Why did that one class completely ignore everything to do with the lesson when all the other classes, for the most part, willingly embraced it? I don’t think that I will ever have a satisfactory answer.
Although the other classes responded well I discovered that the lesson I had prepared was by no means perfect. The most glaring issue is my timing. In each respective class we only made it approximately one third of the way through the material I had prepared. This is not entirely negative. The earlier activities took longer than I had planned because there was often a lot of interaction. The students had a lot of questions in relation to my slide show presentation of what I did last weekend. As if there was ever any doubt they were fascinated by what I spent the weekend doing away from school and had numerous questions. This was a fun activity. The students in all four classes really seemed to enjoy it and mostly paid attention.
This was not the only activity that took longer than expected. In fact every activity took longer than I had planned. This indicates I have a significant problem with timing and planning! Recently I have found myself wishing that I had longer classes – fewer but longer classes; 45 minutes can be restrictive. I think I actually plan far too much. I am normally worried I will run out of things to do in a lesson. I live in fear of having to fill 45 minutes with no material at my fingertips and so I always make more than I will ever use.
However, this means the students are only part of the way through the lesson – we didn’t get to the later stages where they focus on practicing and production. I plan to finish the lesson next week. On reflection what I have prepared will easily fill a second lesson. This is not a bad thing as it means I don’t have to prepare a new lesson next week and can spend time preparing the winter camp lessons and working on TESOL assignments.
Despite the timing issue I have to say the parts of the lesson I did have time to teach today and yesterday were successful. All of the elements of the warm-up and introduction appeared to work well. I think using a variety of MIC and CI techniques really helps. After the initial greeting for example I drew a huge unsmiling face with tears running down its cheeks on the blackboard. Before I even finished drawing and asked ‘who is this?’ the students had started speculating, commenting, asking questions and making jokes. What was meant to be a brief transition became a 5 minute Q & A session.
The PowerPoint about my weekend worked really well. It is strange to note that they were more expressive and vocal during this activity than during activities where I expressly want them to speak. Maybe this is an example of the power of authentic schema. All I am doing is showing pictures that represent what I did the previous weekend. But the response is great. They ask questions and comment and make jokes. I was really satisfied with the result. Upon its conclusion though when I try to transition to an activity where they ask their partner questions there is a bit of a drop off in interest. However, I think using different CI techniques helps smooth over transitions like this.
The most substantial activity that was completed during the lessons was the ‘find someone who…’ activity. However, I am sure that some students just used it as an opportunity to go and speak to their friends. It is impossible to monitor that all the students are doing an activity like this as they are meant to.
One thing I have been trying in these classes which I remain unsure of is a suggestion from both methodology and SLA class. Here the teacher asks a student a question and then asks that student to ask another student the same question. I don’t think this works well in my classes. I think my classes are too large and the students not specifically involved just drift away and don’t pay attention.
Overall I was happy with these classes and I am looking forward o giving the second part of the lesson next week.
