Lesson Report, Wednesday 12th October 2011

Date/time: Wednesday 12th October, 9am – 9.45am, 9.55 – 10.40am, 10.50am – 11.35am, 11.45am – 12.30 pm (these classes are normally spread throughout the day. Today however they were all rescheduled to the morning because another teacher is absent in the afternoon)

Location of Lesson: I don’t have my own classroom so every class is in a different room. They are generally the same. They are standard middle school classrooms. They seat around 40 students. There is a computer (often not working or very slow and faulty), a blackboard, and a TV screen. The desks are arranged differently from classroom to classroom – sometimes in rows, sometimes in groups and sometime in pairs. Most of the classrooms are a little rough around the edges.

Student Profile: I teach at a public middle school. The students in these particular classes are grade 1 orange students. Orange is the name the school gives to the high-level students. Their English ability is generally quite good. I would say that their ACTFL proficiency is around ‘Intermediate Mid’ in terms of the ‘speaking’ classification. The grade 1 Orange classes are nearly always a joy to teach. The Orange classes are filled with an abundance of friendly, happy, seemingly well adjusted kids who enjoy the English classes and like engaging with the lessons. They are forthcoming and communicative, energetic and playful. They seem to really like the Native English Teacher lessons and the class atmosphere is nearly always warm and friendly. If anything one of the problems I face with these classes is that they can get too excited or carried away with activities. It can be difficult calming them down and getting them to focus.

There are between 28 and 30 ss in these classes.

There are no ‘special’ factors that I can think of.

Co-Teacher: My co-teacher for Grade 1 Orange is PakAnna. I have written about my relationship with PakAnna for ICC. I would characterize our relationship currently as ‘strained’. She is 30 years old and she was the teacher ‘assigned’ to help me with anything related to settling in. She helped me open my bank account, get a mobile ‘phone and find a doctor. Anything admin related to the Native English Teacher is her responsibility. PakAnna was my ‘go to person’ if I had any questions about school practice, Korean etiquette or anything really. She has lived in England, studied abroad and is generally highly educated and intelligent. She was really helpful and we were pretty good friends. Or so I thought. In the past couple of months Pakanná’s attitude towards me has visibly soured to such an extent that if possible I will simply avoid speaking to her and she often outright ignores me. This is not a nice situation and I’m genuinely at a loss to explain it. This affects my classes in that I will refrain from modeling anything with her or asking for help during my classes. Instead she lingers disinterestedly at the back of the room. It also affects my classes by making me feel incredibly self conscious about the lessons I’m giving. My relationship with this woman is the only real negative aspect of my job at this school.

TLC: New Target Language Content

Grammar: Regular past tense structure - I cleaned my room; I played computer games … on Saturday morning / afternoon / night.

Questions - Did you …..yesterday? What did you do on Saturday morning? What did you do on Sunday afternoon?

Vocab: clean/ed, cook/ed, play/ed and a variety of other regular past tense verbs.

Pronunciation: No particular focus on pronunciation. This may be a glaring oversight but I have never included ‘pronunciation’ in a lesson plan. I will model correct pronunciation as a matter of course and correct erroneous pronunciations but honestly, it has never occurred to me to plan to incorporate it into a lesson. That is, I always know I will model vocabulary and new words so I know I am giving examples of pronunciation but I never write it into my lesson plans. Now that I think of it though the textbook does have little sections called ‘focus on sounds’. I should really specifically incorporate these into my lessons.

(So why didn’t I??!! After writing the above I then went right ahead and completely forgot / neglected to incorporate it into my lesson. In particular I should have focused on the different pronunciations of the ‘ed’ ending – [d] in cleaned, [t] in cooked and [id] in wanted. This was a really big oversight. I actually noticed in the class some students pronouncing the ‘ed’ ending quite emphatically. Why didn’t I think to correct and discuss this? When I give these ss their next lesson on the irregular past tense I am going to include something about this pronunciation element. The next time I give this lesson to the mid-level ss next week I will incorporate this pronunciation issue into the lesson.)

Function: (I don’t know what to include in the ‘Function’ section.)

Task: Ask their team mates a question about the past weekend. Answer, their team mates a question about the past weekend - using regular past tense. Ask their partner specific questions about the past weekend. Answer their partner’s questions about the past weekend - using regular past tense.

TLC: Recycled Target Language Content

In the previous lesson these ss had with me they learned several expression like ‘on cloud nine’, ‘over the moon’ and ‘big cheese’. Many of these expressions will be incorporated into the introduction and warm up section of this lesson.

Terminal Objective: Students will successfully ask and answer questions about the past weekend using past tense structures.

Enabling Objectives:

1. Students will comprehend the regular past tense verbs – cleaned, cooked, helped, listened, played, worked, danced, loved, liked, smiled, practiced, and surprised.
2. Students will listen to and understand sentences using the regular past tense
3. Students will ask questions using the regular past tense
4. Students will answer questions using the past tense

Personal Objectives:

1. Use less Korean. (I want to stop using Korean altogether in the classroom)
2. Pay more attention to the IRF structure.
3. Convey a consistently positive attitude.
4. Pay more attention to the types of questions I use.
5. Use a successful warm-up as per this weeks methodology assignment

Assessment of T.Os: Theoretically, I will be assessing the students’ ability to use the new structures throughout the lesson. There are several opportunities where I can observe the students using the structures and monitor how effectively they are being used. However, this is not something I have ever explicitly recognized as being required in a lesson plan. I think I have assumed that if the ss are using the target language throughout the lesson then they are learning it. I have never specifically set out to observe or measure the achievement of any particular lesson. Surely, if the activities are working and the ss are using the target language this is how you ascertain it is working? I need to think of ways of incorporating this into my lessons.

Anticipated Difficulties/Solutions:

Conceptual: I do not anticipate any serious conceptual problems for the students in using the regular past tense. In earlier lessons delivered by the Korean English teachers the basic premise has already been introduced. As such I expect they will understand the concept. This may beg the question, then why am I teaching it? The answer is that the entire chapter revolves around the past tense so they always have a lesson from me on the chapter’s subject. They will cover the same concept but not in the same way.

Structural: I believe the way past tense sentences are structured in Korean and English are different. In English the order is subject verb object i.e. I walked home. In Korean I believe it is object verb (no subject) i.e. – home walked. However, I do no expect this pose a significant problem for the students.

Phonological: As I mentioned above I have probably neglected to think about pronunciation issues in my previous lessons. So I’m not sure how to start. However, the textbook highlights a couple of issues with the vocab and grammar I will be using for this chapter. 1. ‘What did you do on Sunday morning?’ (Did-you) 2. Pronunciation difference of ed in cleaned (d), cooked (t), wanted (id). I will try to pay attention to these areas.

(I totally forgot to do this – see note above)

Cultural: Besides the general reticence of many students I foresee no problems stemming from their cultural backgrounds.

Timetable fit/Assumptions: This week is essentially a new start. They have just finished mid-terms so the material from before is largely considered dealt with. They need to start studying all new material for the next exam. I will however specifically reference and review the expressions they learned in the last class with me partly as a form of continuity and partly as revision. The next time I see this class will be in 2 weeks. This week it is regular past tense and next class is irregular past tense. The Korean English teachers in their classes with these students will also be covering regular and irregular past tense.

Materials: I will use a PowerPoint presentation, the blackboard and several little handouts

1. Introduction and Warm Up

(Lowering the affective filter: In the first instance I would like to think that my manner and approach goes some way in terms of lowering of the affective filter. I think I am a friendly, happy, approachable teacher – I’m definitely not an authoritarian. I always treat the students kindly. They know by now that I don’t get angry or shout or scold. I think they can tell that I am happy and want to be there and want to speak to them. I think this is important in reducing feelings of stress or anxiety which may contribute to an affective filter. But in this lesson’s warm up activity there are specific things I’ve tried to relax students and lower the affective filter – noted below.)

(Activating schema/ Authentic & Real-World schema: Throughout the lesson I will continually refer to things in the students’ lives and constantly direct them to reflect and draw answers from their actual lives. I think this can be considered activating authentic, real-world schema. I use pictures on the ppt to support this – pictures of games they play, TV shows they watch, food they eat, places they have been – all things I’m aware of from having spoken to them lots. There are also specific points in the warm up where I try to activate schema using authentic, real world visuals – noted below)

a. T greets Ss – T Stands at the front of the class and says ‘Good morning’. T writes ‘Good morning’ on the BB. T repeats and gestures for students to repeat. T chooses a single s to say ‘Good morning’ to. T gestures for students to say ‘Good morning’ to each other.

(This went according to plan for each class. Although the 3^rd of the 4 classes was the least responsive. This class (class 3) was a bit of a problem. Especially in comparison to the other 3 who were excellent. They were restless and not as engaged as they could have been. Was there a specific reason? How can I tell? I delivered the lesson the same way and it worked very well, mostly, for the classes before and after. I don’t know how to explain it. Throughout these comments you will notice class 3 was a recurring disappointment)

b. T writes ‘how are you today?’ on the BB. Gestures and asks students to repeat. T answers the question, ‘I am great today’, and writes the answer on the board. T asks and gestures for ss to repeat this answer. T asks and gestures for ss to ask their partner, ‘How are you today?’ After ss ask each other T chooses a couple of students at random and asks them. Then T asks the class as a whole. T asks follow up and elaboration questions where appropriate and when possible. T asks if anyone is happy. T asks if students can remember the expressions from the last lesson. T asks if they can remember an expression for ‘happy’. T puts ppt on with visual representations of ‘over the moon’ and ‘on cloud nine’. T solicits the meaning of each and how to use in a full sentence. T gestures for choral repetition.

(Schema – the expressions ppt slides were used in the previous lesson and are the connecting strand with this lesson. As they have already been learned previously I believe they constitute (or should do) part of the students’ linguistic / content schema. The fact that they are talking about their lives should also be activating schema – building the language learning context around their lives is authentic schema)

(Happy to note how successful this basically was. The ss eagerly asked one another when directed. They are at a level where they can respond and process follow up questions. For example - ‘How are you today?’, ‘I am tired today’, ‘Why are you tired?’, ‘I was studying’, ‘what were you studying?’, ‘Did anyone else study English yesterday?’ Often ss will get a laugh from their classmates by saying a silly answer or my response will make them laugh. They responded well to the expression slides. This is a little gratifying – it is good to know they have remembered something I have taught them. These comments would be completely different if I had given this lesson to my mid level classes. I will give this lesson to them next Monday and the disparity will be huge. It is almost too easy giving lessons to the Orange classes because they are so good and so happy to participate. Again class 3 was a little disruptive. Overall I’m really happy with how this segued from the basic greeting, ‘good morning’, into general small talk, ‘how are you today?’, then linked to a previous lesson – the expression slides for ‘Over the Moon’, ‘On Cloud Nine’ and onto ‘Big Cheese’ which takes me to the next part…)

c. T puts visual representation of the expression ‘big cheese’ on the ppt. T solicits meaning from ss. T asks ‘who is a big cheese?’ T Asks follow up questions depending on ss answers. T shows slides of BanKiMoon and EMyungBack. T asks ‘is he a big cheese?’ T asks ‘how do you say hello to a big cheese?’ T tells / acts – what if eMyungBack came here now how would we say hello? T writes ‘how do you do?’ On the BB. T asks if they know what it means. T writes ‘polite’ on the board and asks if they know what it means. Explains ‘how do you do?’ is polite. T asks and gestures for ss to say it to each other. T brings one s to the front and tells the class it is EMyungBack. T explains when we say ‘how do you do?’ we normally shake hands. T says ‘How do you do?’ and shakes hands with EMyungBack. T asks ss to stand up and say it to their partner and shake their hands.

(Schema – The images of famous Korean figures. The expressions from the previous lesson. The general frivolity and fun factor of the student pretending o be the president lowers the affective filter. The standing up and shaking of hands is a bodily kinesthetic little activity. They are learning a new introduction but it is wrapped up in the formal / genre context of the ‘introduction’ and linked to the expressions learned in the previous lesson)

(This went well to. Whereas some other classes would have to be cajoled into standing up and shaking hands these classes were on board straight away. And they all thought getting a student to be the president was hilarious. I think I can safely say the ss all seemed happy and relaxed as the lesson progressed. I think I’m getting a little better at using gestures too. Just a little. I’m not really a physically expressive person by nature but I used gesturing consistently throughout the lesson – I even did a little dance later. It does help and the ss find it musing. Using different mic techniques helps too. Chinking is effective and slowing done choral repetition is to. Slowing down is best used sparingly if possible I think. But chunking I can see will be a staple of my Teacher talk. Again at this point I’m happy with the transition – from ‘Big Cheese’ and the ‘How do you do’ introduction into the desk move. They are standing up to shake hands and then whilst standing I can slyly spring the desk move on them)

d. As the ss are now standing T puts ss into teams of 5 or 6 and tells them to put their desks together.

(This was no problem. I’m always a little anxious the shifting of desks will take too much time and cause the students to become disruptive. The noise levels always escalate a little when I do this. Today it was okay. They were noisier than they had been. But I quickly managed to focus their energy into the game…)

e. T puts PowerPoint slide ‘Pass the Paper’ game on. T explains the rules ‘Okay. I’m going to give every team a piece of paper (holds up paper crumpled into a ball). Then I’m going to play some music. When the music is playing you must pass the paper.’ (T goes around demonstrating the passing of paper) T asks ‘what does ‘pass the paper’ mean. T checks comprehension. “When the music stops the person with the paper must stand up. The person with the paper must answer a question about expressions”. T runs the ppt slide expressions game. When the music stops T makes sure the relevant ss stand up and tests them on the expression on the screen. The slides all show visual representations of expressions. T asks ‘what is this expression?’ of some ss and ‘what does this expression mean?’ of other ss. T lets game play for 4 turns. The last expression (on the 4^th turn) is ‘busy bee’. T stops the game. T asks ss ‘Are you a busy bee?’

(Lowering the affective filter: This is the primary element of the warm up aimed to lower the affective filter and relax the students. This is a fun game and I know other students have enjoyed it. It is new and different for these students though because I have not tried it on them yet. It also serves as a revision of the previous lesson and segues quite nicely (I think) into the first real activity of this lesson. It is also a bodily kinesthetic activity.)

(The game was a hit. There were no ss scared to stand up or unable to answer. Again the joy of teaching the high level classes. And it is just gratifying to see them engaged and having fun in a lesson using something I taught them. I finish the game at the right point. Using ‘Busy Bee’ is a great conversational segue way into the first activity. Like a good book or film you don’t want the audience (the students) to notice the structure – I think I almost achieved that today. Especially in the warm–up section. I think this is because the warm-up was the assignment so I really spent some time thinking and planning how it should all work together. In this sense the assignment was really helpful)

f. T asks ss ‘Are you a busy bee?’ and follows up on answers. ‘Why are you a busy bee?’ ss – ‘studying, homework!’. T asks ‘did you study yesterday?’ ‘What did you do yesterday?’ T checks they know what ‘yesterday’ means and explains by drawing a timeline on the board and checking they know what ‘today’ means working out ‘today’ is ‘Wednesday’ and ‘yesterday’ was ‘Tuesday’. T asks follow up questions where appropriate. T asks ‘what did you do last weekend?’ This leads into the first activity.

(This too was essentially fine although I think my exposition was a little clumsy in places. Luckily they already understood the concept of past tense. But even so it is difficult to talk about and explain as a concept. I was not satisfied with this portion. Teacher Talk was the problem. I should have had a clearer plan of what I wanted to say and how to explain the concept. I think I started losing a student here or there at this point. I will make sure and give this some more thought before I teach this lesson again next week. Nevertheless, the introduction and warm-up was a resounding success. Except perhaps for class 3 who were restless and unmotivated in comparison to the others.

2. Model dialogue and grammar structures, part 1

a. T uses pre-prepared ppt presentation to explain the first grammatical structure of the day. This is how to conjugate verbs into the regular past tense. First I start with a general question posed to the entire class, ‘What did you do last weekend?’ (I’ll ask the class if they understand each section of the question, i.e. ‘what does ‘weekend' mean?‘ ‘What does ‘last’ mean?’) I will ask follow up questions about responses if there are any. If not I move onto …

b. First slide shows picture and first question I want the ss to learn – ‘Did you …. At the weekend?’ (In this example it is ‘Did you play computer games at the weekend?). Choral repetition of the sentence. Choral repetition in chunks. Slow choral repetition. (I will not necessarily use every type of choral repetition for every example – I mix them up)

c. Next slide gives the answer ‘I played computer games at the weekend.’ Choral repetition.

d. Next slide shows how the verb is conjugated and how it goes from ‘play’ in the question to ‘played’ in the answer. It explicitly explains the process of adding ‘ed’.

e. There are 5 more examples which use a series of pictures in the ppt along with the questions. Each of the 5 examples has a series of slides going through the question, prompting to complete the answer and then an explanation of the adding ‘ed’ process. Amongst the slides are slides containing images of things I know the students are interested in. So before I show the slide about ‘Did you play computer games at the weekend?’ I show some pictures of computer games I know they like. This way I can ask, ‘What is this?’, ‘Star Craft?’ ‘Really?’ ‘What is Star Craft?’ ‘Who plays Star Craft?’ Before moving onto ‘Did you play computer games last weekend?’ And ‘I played computer games last weekend. Before the question about watching TV I have pictures of ‘Running Man’ and ‘High Kick’ – two popular, Korean TV shows that I know many ss like. I ask them similar questions about these shows – ‘what is this?’ ‘What is Running Man about?’ ‘Who watches Running Man?’ ‘Is it better than High Kick?’ Etc. I always try and use images of things they encounter their lives. This is, I believe, a schema activating practice. The ss are keen and eager to talk about things they are interested in (which are often not in their textbook) than things remote from their lives.

(This was almost too easy. The ss all seemed to understand the concept straight away. Although they have not been taught it before in my school they clearly understand the concept. They were also interested in the examples. The pictures of Ramyon and Star Craft and Korean TV shows noticeably generated interest. I mentioned in a blog post this week that when I used this section for the low level classes it took much longer than I wanted. Well it still took much longer than I wanted here too. And because the students grasped the idea so quickly 6 examples was too many and they were beginning to get bored. I realized this during the first lesson and stopped after the third example. I moved on to the handout activity and then came back and used the remaining 3 examples as a kind of revision to check comprehension. I need to be more careful when I consider how long an activity will take. However, it worked out for the best. One problem I have realized is that I don’t plan conclusions to activities or lessons! By accident this activity had an element of objective checking because I shifted some of the examples to after the activity.)

f. After going through the 6 examples I give each s a handout with a single question and space to write 3 answers. Each s in a team has a different question. On the bb I write how to change the answer ‘I played….’ To ’Barry played….’ First I write one of the examples we have just covered on the BB, ‘Did you watch TV at the weekend?’ I use choral repetition of each phrase. I select a student and ask them the question. I write their answer on the board. Then I show how to change the sentence from 1^st to 3^rd person. I do a second example to show the construct ‘Barry didn’t play…’ Then I give each of the students a handout and explain: ‘Okay. Each handout has 1 question. You need to ask your teammates this question and record their answers like this (pointing at the board).” At this point I run through the 2 examples again and act writing on a handout. Whilst they are doing this activity I go around each team making sure they know what to do and helping, prompting, listening, checking etc.

Sample Script: Setting up Group Work Activity

T: Okay (Holding up handouts) I’m going to give every one a handout. One of these (waving handouts) . (T gives handouts to ss to distribute) Each handout has 1 question. 1 question. You need to ask everyone in your team your question. (T gestures at the ss in a team for ‘everyone’). And you have to write their answer. (T writes example question, ‘Did you watch TV at the weekend?’, and handout layout on BB.)

T: (Asks a selected s) ‘Did you watch TV at the weekend?’

S1: No, I didn’t watch TV at the weekend.

T: (Writes the S1 answer on the board) Everyone, (signals for whole class to repeat – and chunks in two parts) ‘No, I didn’t watch TV at the weekend.’ (T writes ‘[S1 name] didn’t watch TV at the weekend’ on the BB). Everyone, (signals for whole class to repeat – and, again, chunks in two parts) ‘[S1 name] didn’t watch TV at the weekend.’

T: Asks a selected s) ‘Did you watch TV at the weekend?’

S2: No, I didn’t watch TV at the weekend.

T: (Cupping hand s around mouth and making exaggerated whisper) Say ‘yes’

S2: Yes, I watched TV at the weekend

T: (Writes the S2 answer on the board) Everyone, (signals for whole class to repeat – and chunks in two parts) ‘Yes, I watched TV at the weekend.’ (T writes ‘[S2 name] watched TV at the weekend’ on the BB). Everyone, (signals for whole class to repeat – and, again, chunks in two parts) ‘[S2 name] watched TV at the weekend.’

T: Okay. Each handout has 1 question. You need to ask your teammates this question and record their answers like this (pointing at the board).

T: [S1 name] did you watch TV at the weekend?

S1: No, I didn’t watch TV at the weekend.

T: [S1 name] didn’t watch TV at the weekend (mimes writing this on a handout)

T: [S2 name] did you watch TV at the weekend?

S2: Yes, I watched TV at the weekend.

T: [S2 name] watched TV at the weekend. (mimes writing this on a handout)

T: Okay. Do you understand?

SS: Yes

T: Really?

SS: Yes

T: Are you sure? 100%? Okay. I want to hear everyone talking. No Korean. Quickly. Quickly.

(Nearly all the students understood what to do and went about the task with no qualms. There were a couple in each class who gently needed to be prodded but there was no significant resistance. I only found one example all day of a student writing the answers and not using ‘ed’ to make the past tense. Just one. Again, if anything the exercise was too easy. Some of the students rattled through it really quickly. Sometimes their answers were outside what we had studied and they were giving each other answers that required using irregular past tense constructions or different linguistic constructs. Often these answers were muddled. I did advise how to correct these errors to individual students but didn’t use them as examples or draw attention to them. Perhaps I should have explained to ss only to use language from today’s lesson. But this runs counter to lots of the theories we have been reading about. If they are creating language and constructing meaning then so be it. The main problem by this point in the lesson was that my timing was out and I was faced with the choice of leaving something for the next lesson or speeding through the remainder. I chose to plow ahead)

3. Model dialogue and grammar structures, part 2

a. I focus attention back on the ppt. New slide lists several verbs ending in ‘e’. I ask the class a question relating to each verb. E.g. for ‘dance’ I ask – ‘who likes dancing?’ If a students answers I ask them ‘did you dance last weekend/month/year etc?’ On the bb I write their answer – ‘I danced….’ I then write the word ‘dance’ separately and explain about adding d because it ends with an ‘e’. I follow this process for several more verbs ending ‘e’.

(This was straightforward. They grasped it immediately. The examples were engaging for the most part although by this point there were 2 or 3 students in each class struggling to remain focused. Biggest problem was time – I was rushing at this point to get to the next activity)

4. Model dialogue and grammar structures, part 3

a. I use the ppt to introduce the next structure. ‘What did you do on Saturday morning?’ This time I tell the students they have to ask me the question. Choral repetition. Followed by my answer. I write my answer on the board. Choral repetition. 5 examples like this.

b. I put the students into pairs. Basically split the groups of four in half but they don’t have to move their tables or chairs. I give each student a handout with 6 questions like ‘what did you don Saturday morning/ Sunday afternoon?’ I explain they have to ask their partner the questions and answer their partner’s questions. They are to record the answers using the format ‘Barry watched…’

(Timing again was the only real issue. I rushed through the explanations because I knew they understood it quickly and I wanted to get them performing the activity. I think in two classes the bell rang during this activity. The activity itself worked fine and again the ss came up with interesting answers. I did have to make some corrections but on the whole I think this lesson was too easy for them. I wish there was some way I could tailor it so that it allowed them greater scope to produce language.)

c. Once completed I make the ss swap partners. They explain to their new partner their previous partner’s answers.

(I didn’t get to do this part of the class because of timing)

d. During both sections I go around checking comprehension (and that the ss are actually doing the work)

5. Time permitting activities:

Vocab word search puzzle

6. Homework:

I don’t actually give homework. But I can give the ss a word search puzzle to take away with them. They have to find the vocab from the lesson in the word search.

7. Conclusion:

Say goodbye to the ss.

‘A Day in the Life’

Monday 10^th, October, 2011

Initial Thoughts: Using the Methodology Readings to Find My Classroom

I had all 4 of the low level grade 1 (referred to as ‘Apple’ from here on) classes today. In a break from recent practice I decided to give them a variation on the lesson I will use for the mid and high level classes. Usually, I would create an entirely separate lesson for the Apple classes. However, I now feel this is not a positive practice. In discussing the IRF structure in his literature review Xie notes that it is used excessively in low ability classes. He goes on to note that:

Across time the researchers found that this tightly-framed instructional discourse was largely accountable for creating inequalities in student opportunities to develop cognitively complex language skills, leading to the widening gap in achievement between low-track and high-track classes. (Xie, Page 24)

This is what I fear is happening when I make completely different lessons for my own low-track, low ability classes. Narrative inquiry teaches us that using terms such as ‘disadvantaged’ to describe learners is not neutral but is actually ‘embedded within sociocultural and sociohistorical notions of what it means to be disadvantaged … in a particular education system.’ (Johnson & Golombek, Page 5) Therefore my own diminished sense of expectations for my low level students is a major problem that alters my pedagogic intention when teaching them. I need to change this attitude. Obviously, I need to be conscious of their ability level but I think creating an ‘easy’ lesson for them is not helping them to develop. Xie argues convincingly that ‘discourse environments such as the IRF could have powerful impact on learners’ epistemologies, i.e. their ways of knowing, longitudinally changing the course of their development.’ (Xie, Page 23) I am coming to recognize that the basic, simplified lessons I create for the apple classes will, like the IRF structure Xie mentions, obviously affect my Apple students’ epistemologies and ways of knowing. The lessons I make them are contributing to and further entrenching the gulf between their ability and the mid level classes for example. I think I am lowering their expectations of language learning development when my pedagogic purpose should be to raise them.

The lesson the Apple students received today is about the regular past tense. My co-teacher tells me it is the first time they have encountered the concept. The regular past tense lesson I have prepared was prepared using the template from last week’s methodology assignment. It is intended for the mid and high level classes but as my classes were all cancelled and rescheduled last week I won’t get a chance to give it to them until the middle of this week. Before the first class today I was not 100% sure how I would adapt it for the Apple classes. I had a rough idea but expected and thought I would have to play it by ear and see how things developed.

The English Village, the Co-Teacher and Korean in (out) the Classroom

The classes today are all in the English village. This is the nicest class room I teach in. It has two large sliding whiteboards and a large flat screen TV. (See the attached photos) I arrived early for the first lesson to find that my co-teacher Kyuyun was already there. Kyuyun had thought she was teaching solo today so was surprised when I showed up. Sometime this happens, especially when the timetable and schedule has been chopped and changed so much. But generally I think sometimes the other teachers are not sure where I am meant to fit in their schedule

I asked Kyuyun if we could try giving the lesson without any Korean. She agreed saying she thought it was better that way too. I was nervous about asking and was relieved when she responded like this. During the lesson I noticed we both kept catching ourselves about to use Korean. I take this to be a good sign because in each case we would have to think of a way to explain in English. This was not without problems. In the first class I had real difficulty explaining the concept of ‘what did you do yesterday?’ But in conjunction with the grammar and pictures on my PowerPoint I think the concept eventually went over. I very deliberately tried to include a wide range of MIC and CI techniques today. Before class I looked over the handout from methodology class. I didn’t specifically aim to use a specific technique in a specific place. Instead, I just wanted to have them fresh in my mind throughout the classes. There were a couple of things which were helpful and which I had not really used explicitly before. The first, repeating at a slower rate, seems obvious but I had never consciously thought to myself ‘I need to slow this down’ before. It was very helpful, as was chunking. Again it seems obvious but I had never intentionally practiced breaking a long sentence up during choral repetition, for example. ‘Chunking’ sentences like ‘did you play computer games at the weekend?’ into 3 or 4 manageable chunks worked well today and got a good response from students.

Another result of taking Korean explanations out of the classroom was the increased use of modeling. In most classes I use modeling to a greater or lesser extent but today I really noticed how useful it could be as a tool to explain language conceptually. For instance, in explaining ‘What did you do yesterday?’, I first modeled with Kyuyun and then with a couple of individual students. This really helped convey the concept. Also, when we had to explain a game activity Kyuyun and I demonstrated together, modeling how to play and what language to use. Previously, my co-teachers would explain game rules a lot of the time. I am reservedly happy with this development. I hope in the coming weeks I can build on it. Without Korean as a crutch I hope other areas of my teaching practice will develop to compensate.

Another heartening development from today’s lessons was the sign of growth in my professional relationship with Kyuyun. We discussed a lot of things today in-between classes – Kyuyun was my co-teacher for all 4 classes. Amongst the things we talked about was the difficulty of applying theory in the classroom; the use of Korean in the classroom; activating schema; lowering the affective filter; and ways to teach low level classes. She gave some advice on teaching past tense and about using games. Furthermore, she even suggested we should plan a lesson together to incorporate a particular theory! This is great news. We are going to plan a lesson together for our low level grade 2 classes next week. I can’t overestimate how much of a breakthrough this is in terms of working with my co-teachers. This is the first time one of my co-teachers has ever suggested something like this. Kyuyun is young and eager and so I hope we can work together. I will blog about the results next week.

The Regular Past Tense – An Irregular Lesson

From the actual lessons today I got mixed results. I was eager to try and implement some new techniques from methodology class and arrived in school full of energy. My eagerness and enthusiasm gradually waned over the course of the day. It can be difficult to maintain energy levels sometimes especially when it is so hard to motivate the students. However, I’m very conscious that a teacher’s mood or attitude is a key factor in determining the classroom environment and the success or otherwise of classroom interactions. To this end I always try and bring positive energy into the classes. But now, not long after finishing my last class, I’m drained. Working in investments was never this exhausting.

I attempted to start all the classes the same way. As the students file in I greet them all happily with ‘good morning’ (or ‘good afternoon’). When they are all there I say it again and gesture for them to repeat. I write it on the board and we repeat it again. I next address Kyuyun and we say it to each other. Then I gesture for the students to say it to one another. Sometimes, I address an individual student or two. The same process is then followed for ‘how are you today?’ except I also model some possible answers. After this I write ‘what did you do yesterday?’ on the board. This was intended to be a schemata building ‘discussion’ (perhaps ‘exchange’ is a better word). I’m introducing the central concept of ‘doing things in the past’ and want to tie it to what they actually did recently to link it to their actual lived experience. They can and do already talk about what they did yesterday in Korean with their friends and this is the schema context I want to activate. I hope this little exchange provokes the students to tap into heir pre-existing knowledge of the concept (talking about what you did in the past) and therefore predict what they are going to learn in my English class. This is the theory at least. I check they know what ‘yesterday’ means by asking ‘what day is today?’ and working out ‘today’ is ‘Monday’ and so ‘Sunday’ was ‘yesterday’. I model the question with Kyuyun and write her answer on the board. I ask and gesture for the students to repeat first the question and then the answer. Then I ask and gesture for them to ask one another. Once they have done this I ask them again as a class ‘what did you do yesterday?’ When a student answers I ask if anyone else did the same thing or try and ask a follow up (really? What did you watch on TV? Running Man? What is Running Man? Did anyone else watch Running Man? Kyuyun did you watch Running man?) I think (someone please correct me if I am wrong) that I am using a lot of different MIC and CI techniques at this point (and dual coding?); I’m writing on the board, modeling with Kyuyun and students, using repetition, chunking, asking different questions. I feel like I’m throwing everything at these students to try and convey the idea. With other classes of a higher level it can be a lot smoother. I felt good about these exchanges though. However, despite all the things I’m doing to get responses from the students it is still essentially teacher dominated. Should I be happy about this or should I be concerned about excessive TTT? These kids just aren’t at a stage where they can sustain prolonged English exchanges so I don’t know what to do about the teacher talk here.

My description may give the impression this sequence of events all transpired smoothly and without fault. Not so. Sometimes I have to really focus on a pair of students to get them to even say ‘good morning’ to each other. I will have been asking the class to say ‘good morning’ to each other, notice two students just sitting there, go over to them smiling encouragement, repeating it, nodding all the while and eventually they will whisper it to each other quieter than a mouse sighing.

Having written some of their answers to ‘what did you do yesterday?’ on the board I next put the PowerPoint on. The section of the PowerPoint I want to use has a series of pictures and sentences that together explain how to make regular past tense verbs. In slide 1 for example there is the question - ‘did you cook dinner?’ I point and ask them what ‘cook’ means. I ask them what dinner means and I ask them what is in the picture. I model the question and have them repeat it. Then in slide 2 I prompt them for the answer whilst slide 3 shows the construction. At slide 4 I check the pronunciation. In slide 5 I go over everything using choral repetition, modeling with Kyuyun, asking the students to explain it to me, asking what the words mean again and getting the students to ask each other. There are 6 examples like this. This element of the class took significantly longer than I expected (or hoped). It took about 30 minutes of a 45 minute class. It also involved a lot of teacher talk. After reading Brown I’m also worried about using choral repetition. I used choral repetition throughout the lesson but now I’m worried this is basically just a ‘mechanical drill’ – ‘only one correct response from a student, and have no implied connection with reality’. (Brown, page 183) Have I ameliorated the mechanical aspect enough by situating the choral / mechanical repetition in their schema (and therefore also the students’ reality) and by mixing it with other techniques? I don’t know. Furthermore, this entire section of the lesson falls entirely on the ‘controlled technique’ side of the taxonomy Brown highlights – It is teacher-centered, manipulative and structured. Can I justify this by arguing it was necessary for them to learn the structure of regular past tense verb construction? I hope so. In the mid and high level classes this section should be covered relatively quickly and the following activities have a (relatively) diverse range of interactions incorporated into them. Unfortunately, because of the time spent explaining the examples and the central concept there wasn’t as much time for different activities today. In each class I had about 10 minutes to play with after finishing the examples. Instead of using the activities I have planned for the mid / high level classes I tried an activity from Saturday’s ICC class. (I didn’t use the mid / high level activities because they involve incorporating more sophisticated language). The ICC activity involved splitting the class into two teams – easily done when you only have 10 students (a luxury I don’t have with most of my other classes). One person from each team steps up to a whiteboard (conveniently there are two in this classroom.). I then show the rest of their teammates a word, a verb in the past tense form selected from the 6 we have studied, ‘cooked’ etc. Their teammates have to explain the word without saying the word itself, using Korean or spelling it. The first team to write it on the board gets a point. Overall it worked quite well. The students seemed to really enjoy it and several became quite animated. One of the main problems I did not anticipate was spelling. The student at the whiteboard might grasp what word their teammates were explaining but spell it incorrectly. To counteract this in subsequent classes before starting the game I would turn the PowerPoint off and elicit the spelling of each word from the students – writing them on the whiteboard then wiping them off to start the game. I regret not having given them Alphabet Organizers this lesson to record the new words. I am beginning to think I should use the Alphabet organizers in every class I have with my Apple students.

In another class I did try a simplified version of one of the mid / high level activities. Each student gets a small handout with 1 of 6 questions we have practiced in the class and several blank lines to write the names of other students. Using the whiteboard (on which I draw a copy of the handout) and modeling with Kyuyun and a couple of students I display how the activity should be completed. They are meant to ask their teammates their question and if someone says ‘yes’ write their name on a blank line. My idea is for the activity to be like a very small, very basic survey. It was tough. The students really needed to be led (pushed?) through it every step of the way. If I did this activity with them again I would take a handout myself, give one to Kyuyun and we would each sit with a different team and complete the activity with them instead of encouraging them to complete it themselves.

In the last couple of minutes of each class I asked the students each of the 6 questions. I addressed the class as a whole at first but then would ask an individual student to confirm an answer a different student gave. This was intended to ascertain if they had learned the T1 language.

Reflections and New Directions

As I sit here reflecting on these lessons and wondering where I can go from here I’m beginning to feel these were important classes. Or maybe what exploratory practice teaches us is that every lesson is important. Although Brown and Walsh rail against the Obstructive / Controlled model of Classroom Interaction I think ultimately I can justify it here. For one thing I don’t believe the lesson was entirely obstructive or controlled. The students got the opportunity to give their own answers and speak to one another. Importantly, these classes were an experiment to see if I could alter the way I teach low level students. Instead of stand alone lessons with no cumulative purpose or direction I see the lessons given today as the first in a unit to be developed in subsequent weeks. The next time I see these students we will connect to this lesson, revise today’s class and then do some activities that will hopefully move them a little ways along the obstructive / controlled continuum closer to the constructive / free end. I’m pretty sure this lesson conformed to the ‘preview, present, practice and produce’ model of activating schema and processing new information. The ‘preview’ stage where I activated schema was in asking ‘what did you do yesterday?’ at the top of the lesson. Whilst all 6 of the examples of regular past tense verb construction had a ‘present, practice and produce’ element. Should these elements be more distinctly separated? I’m not so sure if it matters necessarily. In terms of top / down processing I also feel I started with the forest, the big picture, the central concept (‘What did you do yesterday?) before moving onto meaning, then explaining the linguistic construction and although controlled the examples were interactive. Furthermore, the next lesson will afford these students greater opportunities for constructing knowledge and meaning, which Walsh says is one of the main pedagogic aims of a teacher, as they will bring this newly acquired schema with them.

I definitely still have a lot of work to do, still have a mountain to climb. When I think of all the different areas I need to work on it is difficult not to feel overwhelmed. I guess all that can be done is to try and make positive steps in the right direction. Today a couple of those steps were taken.

Slide Links:

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AbIoypnmSeEiZGQ4NG43dmNfMjFnN3Q0MnNnZw&hl=en_US

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AbIoypnmSeEiZGQ4NG43dmNfMTZmZjJ2NjVzMw&hl=en_US

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AbIoypnmSeEiZGQ4NG43dmNfMTFoYzRiZ21kZA&hl=en_US

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AbIoypnmSeEiZGQ4NG43dmNfNjQ0bjJzNGNk&hl=en_US
https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AbIoypnmSeEiZGQ4NG43dmNfMWNtZmRwYjd3&hl=en_US