Lesson Report, Monday 17th, October 2011

This is the follow up to - Lesson Report, Wednesday 12th October 2011.

I taught this lesson for the first time on Wednesday 12th October to my high level classes. I handed this report in on Saturday for methodology class. On Monday 17^th I taught the lesson for a second time, this time to my mid level classes. The results were entirely different. I have only noted the differences in this blog post. The objectives and activating schema ideas are all listed in the original blog post.

Date/Time: Monday 17^th October, 9am – 9.45am, 10.50am – 11.35am, 11.45am – 12.30pm, 1.30pm – 2.15pm

Student Profile: The classes I taught this lesson to today are the mid level classes. They are considerably less forthcoming than the higher level classes that I taught the lesson to previously. Many students are often withdrawn and reticent to speak out loud. They can be very passive, even morose at times. There are however some lively kids amongst them. I always think it is strange to note how communicative many of these students are outside the class. When I see them about school they are often chatty and friendly, often eager to try and speak English. It is like someone hits their ‘off’ switch as soon as they step into the classroom. Their ACTFl proficiency is considerably lower than the high level classes. I would estimate the majority would be classed as ‘Novice High’. I don’t know why there is such a significant difference between the mid and high level classes. I have speculated in the past. The high level classes all seem happy and the mid level classes just don’t exhibit this. An odd example – there was a girl in the high level class who was moved to the mid level class after her midterm result. In the high level class she was one of the most out spoken and communicative students. Now she is in the mid level class she is sullen and defensive. Is it because she has been separated from her friends, she feels embarrassed or angry? I don’t know. Anyway, I have to work much harder to convey the lesson ideas than I do for other classes.

Co-Teacher: My co-teacher for these classes had been Sonsujong, the most senior teacher and the head of the whole English department, but from this lesson onwards my co-teacher is Kyuyun, the most junior teacher in the department. When the students found this out and Kyuyun walked in they were ecstatic. Every class cheered when Kyuyun arrived! I have mentioned in the past that the students really seem to like her and respond well to her. I guess youth and enthusiasm count for a lot.

Pronunciation: In the previous lesson I questioned how I managed to overlook specifically

practicing pronunciation and said “I should have focused on the different pronunciations of

the ‘ed’ ending – [d] in cleaned, [t] in cooked and [id] in wanted” I remembered this time

and it turns out explaining this type of pronunciation is not as straightforward as you might

think. Once we had gone through various examples of grammar construction I thought I

could insert a little two minute section on pronunciation and that would be that. So I write

the three words on the board. I wrote [d], [t] or [id] after each word and asked the students

how to pronounce them. Of course they responded with the alphabet pronunciation. So I

tried using other words with the correct sounds like ‘tin’ for [t]. This just seemed to confuse

the issue. With some help from the co-teacher, who has clearly taught pronunciation like this

before, it was eventually explained. I will have to work on this in future.

Timetable fit/Assumptions: This was the first time I had class with these students since their midterm. This means some of the students have been moved round. Not a huge amount but a few have moved up to a high level class or down to a low level class and some students have newly joined the mid level classes too. Furthermore, the next two lessons I have with these students will be devoted to their speaking test. The next lesson will consist of practicing for the test and the subsequent lesson will be the test itself. So I won’t be able to pick this lesson up until three lessons time. This is a shame because, as detailed below this lesson is only half finished

1. Introduction and Warm Up

Generally speaking this went fine. As I have already mentioned there is a marked difference between the mid and high level classes. But the students were reasonably responsive when encouraged. Completing this lesson report activity has really brought into clarity how much more similar the mid level classes are to the low level classes than they are to the higher level classes. This does not make sense. I found in delivering these classes today that I’m really pushing all the different MIC and CI techniques just like in the low level classes. Is there a psychological effect on the students where by if they are put into the mid level class they just stop trying? Activating their schema should not be as difficult as it is. I noted previously that I agree with Walsh when he argues that terms like ‘disadvantaged’ are socio-cultural constructs of a particular environment. Maybe these labels, ‘mid level, high level’, can be self fulfilling. Theoretically then if you put a student in the mid level class they will not perform as well as they would in the high level class. Is this possible? Or maybe they just won’t try as hard in the mid level class. Is there something about simply ‘being’ in the mid level class that raises their affective filter?

On a positive note the MIC and CI techniques do actually work, which I gratifying even if it is on a lesser scale than with some other classes. However, the ‘pass the paper’ game, the kinesthetic activity I planned was difficult in some classes. The students just weren’t interested in some classes. This is odd – the students in the high and low level classes both really liked it. It is like the mid level kids are excessively self conscious. I was also disappointed to note just how little they had retained from the previous lesson. The last class was all about expressions like ‘big cheese’ and ‘over the moon’. Either they couldn’t remember or they just don’t like speaking out. Either answer is feasible.

My final observation about this section is to do with the issue of timing. This part of the lesson took much longer than I wanted it to. I think when I plan lessons I’m often planning the time as if it is for the best class. In future I need to remember to take into consideration the additional time it takes for the mid level classes to complete an activity.

2. Model Dialogue and Grammar Structures, Part 1

The issues here were essentially the same as those above - it took far too long to complete and the students were not especially responsive. I’m being too negative. The students did fine. They just didn’t excel the way the high level classes did and I feel bad that so many don’t seem to be engaged. Again I really had to push the MIC and CI techniques. This section, which basically consumed the rest of the lesson, was heavily teacher dominated. I taught this section for the second time to the low level classes recently and, second time around, you could see it came to them all the quicker. I wish I could revise this class next week to see how much had stuck with these students. There is not much to add. I didn’t even get on to the rest of the lesson because of the time it took doing this part. I’m left thinking that there must be some way I can reproduce the atmosphere from the high level classes here in the mid level classes. I know that is what activating schema and the MIC techniques are meant to do and to a certain extent it does help. However, I need to get much better at activating their schema and using MIC techniques if I’m going to make a significant difference.