'What a Difference a Day Makes'

Friday, September 16th, 2011

Yesterday I was lamenting the decline in my ability to connect with my grade 3 students. Today provided evidence to the contrary. I used the exact same lesson today as I did yesterday and yet today’s classes embraced it wholeheartedly and completed the activities in good spirits.

There are essentially 4 parts to the lesson; small talk/introduction, the ‘Tune In’ part from the textbook, a ‘post card’ exercise and then a 5 minute song activity to close the lesson.

1. Introduction and small talk. Again I employed roughly the same series of open questions framed as class wide invitations to reply as yesterday. Again the same middling results. I altered the technique a little this time. I chose a couple of specific students who answered an initial question and asked them a follow up. This represented a fuller application of the IRF cycle and I tried to encourage some elaboration using the ‘F’ turn. I need to experiment some more with this but it is good to have started trying. Next week I think I will turn small talk on it head for grade 3. Instead of asking them questions I will just say ‘Hello everyone. Do you have anything you would like to ask me today?’ If there are no questions I will proceed with the lesson. I wonder what will happen.

2. ‘Tune In’. After yesterday’s debacle with the computer I made sure to arrive to each class a good 10 minutes early to get everything set up. There were no significant issues today. I believe the ‘Tune In’ activities actually represent something of a contradiction. Throughout the past year it has been made clear time after time that my main purpose is to get the students speaking. However, the ‘Tune In’ activities do exactly the opposite. They are listening activities. In the terms of this week’s reading they are entirely monologic; the textbook and I speak with one voice. There is one answer to each question which the students must ascertain by listening to dialogue on the CD-ROM. Still, this is what I am asked to do. I have not thought to question their logic in asking me to this. I worry if I do they will think I am crossing a line, challenging their authority and experience without having any real right.

3. The third activity is one entirely of my choosing. It is completely different from the preceding activity. I call it the ‘Postcard’ activity. I tell students they are going to write a postcard (I have a photocopied template I give them). First we do an example on the board. I explain there must be 4 pieces of information – Who are they on holiday with? Where are they on holiday? What are they doing on holiday? and one additional piece of information of their choosing. I made a deliberate attempt to fully exploit the IRF structure at this point in the lessons. It went pretty well. The classes all generated all the information for the example on the board with minimal prodding from me. Then they made their own postcard, delivered it to the student they wrote it to and read it to them.

4. Last 5 minutes were given over to a song game/exercise. It went well. In one class half the kids were boogeying to Daft Punk. A heart lifting moment.

Today was a win. I’ll take it.

‘Of Mice and Men’

Thursday, September 15th, 2011

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Today was my first day back after the Chuseok holiday. Thursday is my most straightforward day. I only have 3 classes and normally I get some lesson planning and organizing done on Thursdays. My first class was a grade 3 class at 9:55am. The students’ near total exhaustion and the classroom’s painfully slow computer conspired to make this lesson a chore from start to end. I expected the students to be rejuvenated by the holiday but instead they were listless and exhausted. What happened?

When I was chatting to students at the beginning of the class I explicitly used a series of open questions: ‘Tell me about Chuseok’, ‘What did you do for Chuseok?’, ‘What is it like in the countryside?’ I framed most as class wide initiations to reply but some I addressed directly to individual students. They were nonplussed. Sometimes the theory just doesn’t matter. Two students whose English is highly proficient and who are also very lively, amiable kids could barely keep their eyes open. I don’t understand it.

The students’ lethargy wasn’t helped by the technical problems with the computer. I have to teach a ‘Tune In’ part of the textbook for grade 3 this week so I need to use a CD-ROM. The computer makes this a nightmare – it freezes, it crashes and is generally just so excruciatingly slow that is destroys the flow and rhythm of the class.

The rest of the morning was spent lesson planning and doing a little TESOL work. I never feel like I make the best use of my time when I have free periods no matter how much I try. This annoys me. I wish I was more effective or better at organizing myself.

An example of bad organization was provided by my first class of the afternoon; an orange (top level) grade 2 class. This class has so many wonderful, lovely, intelligent, sweet kids. I love the grade 2 orange classes. They are bright, shining examples of well balanced, happy kids who work hard. If I ever have kids of my own I want them to grow up like my grade 2 orange classes. They are so nice to each other, so happy and outgoing that teaching them is more fun than teaching has any right to be. If only they had a NET worthy of them. I arrived at their class only to discover the lesson I intended to give was a lesson I had already given them 3 weeks ago! How did this happen? One, their class 3 weeks ago was cancelled and then un-cancelled at the last minute. A fact I forgot. And two, I am an idiot. So instead we played some games. This was doubly embarrassing because it was a class with my new-ish co-teacher. She will think, rightly, that I am an idiot.

My final class was a grade 3 class who are notoriously loud and difficult. In a different blog or in answer to a reading question I wrote that most of my classes happily follow my lessons or instructions. However, I increasingly feel my grade 3 classes are slipping away from me; they don’t listen, they chat to their friends, they go to sleep, they don’t commit to activities. How can I arrest this slide? When I first started teaching here I used more didactic lesson plans because I was scared of losing control of the room. In recent months I felt my relationship with the students had reached a point where the lessons could be looser and more informal. Under current conditions though neither the students nor I are benefiting from the classroom atmosphere. Something needs to change. Next week I will revert to a more didactic, formal lesson plan for my grade 3 classes.

With that decision made and this blog post nearly finished it is almost time to walk home with my head hung low, defeated by another day.

Disaster

Thursday, September 8th, 2011

Today was a bit of a disaster.

I tried a new lesson on two grade 3 classes only to have it fall apart each time. I had one class in the morning with the other in the afternoon, so I had some time to tweak it in between. Unfortunately, it didn’t work in its original state or in its tweaked state.

The idea for the lesson was taken from the textbook. On alternating weeks my grade 3 co-teachers ask me to teach sections from the textbook called ‘Tune In’ and ‘Let’s Communicate’. This was a ‘Let’s Communicate’ week. However, the exercise in the ‘Let’s Communicate’ section this week was too difficult to deliver as described. I know from experience that the exercises are often too ambitious for my grade 3 classes. This means I have to adapt the lesson, which is no bad thing as it allows me to make the lesson I want. In this case I used the key vocabulary from the textbook and turned the exercise into a quiz to start the lesson. The rest of the lesson was built on this foundation. I found an interview exercise which complemented the vocabulary, key expressions and theme from the textbook and used that. To my eternal, crushing disappointment both parts of the lesson were unsuccessful. Is there anything as soul destroying as a lesson you have spent time carefully planning and creating falling apart? When it happens it feels awful.

Where did it all go wrong today?

There are a number of contributing factors. Sometimes the grade 3 students are just too wild, too disinterested, and too talkative. I feel like I will never understand why one activity grabs their attention and another does not. Classroom management is only an issue when the activity doesn’t interest them. This problem is compounded by one of my two grade 3 co-teachers not being particularly strong with classroom management. The other grade 3 co-teacher is a new teacher to the school and so far is proving just as ineffective at classroom management. For my part I am not an authoritative person – I don’t shout or yell or give rows. Most of the time though the students are generally happy to follow the lesson I have planned for them. Not today.

In the first class I put the students into teams of six for the quiz activity that started the lesson. I usually find that team activities galvanize the students’ attention. This did not happen today. They were restless and talkative. For the second class I tried making them work in pairs but the result was the same.

Honestly, I don’t know what the problem was today. The activities were of a kind that have worked in the past. The subject matter is of interest to them. The target language was not too complex. My dilemma now is whether or not to completely overhaul the lesson for the grade 3 classes tomorrow. Friday consists of four grade 3 classes back to back so there is no time to change a lesson in between classes if it is not working. To make matters worse I found out today that I have an open class tomorrow. I definitely don’t want a repeat of today’s lesson for my open class. Furthermore, I have also arranged to record one of the classes tomorrow for TESOL this Saturday. The temptation is to fall back on a tried and tested team game for the open class but it feels like cheating. I should not have to do this. As I finish writing this blog post I am undecided.

I think, on reflection, I need to develop stronger classroom management skills. This decision might actually represent a conflict of values. We have been reading about values in terms of personal identity and how it is fluid, negotiated and socially constructed. I don’t want to be an authoritative person but if it means increasing the effectiveness of delivering lessons then it is an area I will need to work on and a personal compromise I will need to accept.

No Sour Grapes

Wednesday, 7^th September, 2011.

I just finished my last class of the day.

Today I had the four lowest level grade 1 classes. The classes are very small, just 9 to 11 students, and they consist of the students with the lowest English ability.

From week to week, lesson to lesson, the success or otherwise of these classes can vary dramatically depending on the students’ mood. This phenomenon is true of every class but it is exacerbated with my ‘Grape’ classes. ‘Grape’ being the name given to the low level section in my school. Amongst the students that comprise the Grape classes are several with behavioural problems and / or educational (learning development) issues. They generally know the alphabet, some vocabulary and a little grammar. Their lack of English requires my co-teacher to translate an extensive amount of what I say.

My co-teacher for these classes this semester is a young Korean woman, fresh out of university. This is her first job. The students really like her, responding well to her youth and enthusiasm. She is a lovely person to work with and, now that I think about it, my favourite co-teacher to have a class with.

Designing lessons for the low level, Grape, classes has been considerably problematic. At first I found I had to severely lower my expectations of what they were capable. Over the past year I have tried many different things to engage them but they are very difficult to motivate. There have, however, been some successes. A card game lesson was particularly memorable. Today’s lesson happily ranks in the upper echelons of Grape lessons.

The lesson consisted of two parts. The first revolved around a ‘Last One Standing’ game using the song ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’ by Daft Punk. First I teach the vocabulary using PPT slides with my co-teacher providing a Korean commentary. This commentary is unsolicited but entirely welcome and necessary. Next we play the game itself. We make a semi circle around the TV to play. Mostly the students seem to enjoy it because it is active and often funny. (I can send a fuller explanation of the game to anyone who is interested)

The second part of the lesson was for a different game called ‘Zip-Zap’. I gave all the students alphabet organisers and together, as a class, I get them to generate two words for each letter. The alphabet organiser is a good tool I have found. It helps to focus the students’ attention and works to keep them engaged in the lesson. Today was a good example and this exercise, generating words for each letter, worked better than I expected. I didn’t have to bribe them with candy or even put them in teams. I have been experimenting with the alphabet organiser in my Grape classes for a while but this was a particularly good result which I will seek to develop with similar exercises.

Once the alphabet organiser part of the exercise is completed it is on to the actual game. Zip-Zap is a game I have used before in camp and with different classes. I like it because it is very active, competitive and can easily be adapted to suit different levels of English proficiency. Most importantly the students really enjoy and often take control of it from me, running the game themselves. Although it is a very simple game in essence it is too involved to explain here. It basically involves making words or sentences quickly, a lot of standing up, sitting down and spinning around. If you want a full description let me know and I’ll send you a link.

Ultimately, today was a surprising success. The students were engaged in the activities, responded enthusiastically and completed all the exercises. However, I have some reservations. The two parts of the lesson are not linked in any way. This stems from the fact that I usually just want any exercise that I think will motivate the ‘Grape’ classes. Thematic coherence be damned. A more troubling concern is that I’m not exactly sure what they learned. What did I teach? They practiced some vocabulary and a little grammar but that is the sum total. Is this good enough? I’m not sure. But I don’t know how to deliver better lessons for the low level students that builds on their knowledge. I’m not sure these students are getting the education they deserve.

In closing I will say these are the only classes for which I am not directed to make lessons from the textbook. Is this a tacit admission of lowered expectations?