‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.’

Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...

(Monty Python)

Wednesday 16^th, November, 2011

I had 4 mid level grade 1 classes today. These were the first regular classes I’ve had with these students since the 17^th October. The reason for the gap in standard classes is due to the speaking tests I gave. I was actually looking forward to getting back into the classroom and delivering some lessons after the protracted and frustrating speaking test weeks. My optimism and enthusiasm for these classes was not rewarded and was definitely not reciprocated by the majority of students. Looked at alongside my awful grade 3 class yesterday I am definitely not having a successful week. It was as if a deep malaise had settled upon the students in my classes today; they were uniformly lethargic and non-responsive. Despite my best efforts and my carefully planned lesson I could not rouse them from their torpor. By the end of the 4^th class I was heartbroken.

In recent weeks in methodology class we have been discussing and practicing ways of incorporating and activating students’ schema. So, accordingly I have planned my lesson in awareness of this. The warm-up and introduction section is based around showing pictures and photographs of a multitude of things, places etc that I know these students are interested in. Yet when we were doing the warm-up activity there were only the briefest flickers of interest. They sat there stony faced throughout. I have chatted to lots of these kids about things in the warm-up exercise outside of class many times. As soon as they are in the classroom however it is a completely different matter – they won’t say anything.

If one of my pedagogic goals is to create an environment where interaction can occur then I completely failed today. I don’t know what to do. I think it is particularly galling today because I was looking forward to delivering a lesson that has been prepared with all the ideas and theories from methodology class in mind. I was confident, positive and so happy with the lesson and ultimately it just did not go according to plan.

I bounced into the classes today so happy to be giving a fresh lesson and was met with silence and blank expressions. Throughout the lesson I am throwing everything at them – I am using MIC and CI techniques all the time, I have these incredible resources that I have prepared, the activities are not too challenging or demanding, the language is not too far beyond their ability and the co-teacher, Kyuyun, is supportive. Yet despite all of this it is like they are zombies. I ask them to do something simple like ask their partner a question we have just practiced together and they just stare at me emotionlessly. I actually had to specifically go to each pair and gesture and ask and encourage and demonstrate before they would do the simplest thing. In one class I am circulating the room listening in when I notice one pair, a boy and a girl, who aren’t saying anything. So I go over and try to encourage them to speak. I ask the boy, who I know is more than capable – he is definitely at the top end of the mid level classes, to ask his partner one of the questions we have just been practicing. He stares straight ahead like a robot and doesn’t even acknowledge someone is speaking to him. So, I gently, quietly ask him again, pointing to the board, repeating the sentence, gesturing at his partner. He looked like he was traumatized – the shell shocked survivor of some awful event. I thought he was going to start crying. Given the context and how I tried to speak to him this response is just so wildly disproportionate. It is like some kind of autism. I asked Kyuyun afterwards about this and she had no explanation beyond – ‘they are tired’. I don’t know how to account for this behavior.

Some of my favorite students are in these classes; really nice kids who come to my lunch time English clubs where they are full of life and can’t wait to talk English and joke around. The dichotomy between their ‘in classroom’ and ‘out classroom’ personas is bipolar in character. I have no way to account for it.

Furthermore, because of their general lack of response I only made it approximately half way through the lesson material I had planned. I will have to conclude the lesson the next time I see these students. This is the only silver lining as it means I don’t have to prepare a brand new lesson for them next time. I already have materials, handouts and a presentation prepared and ready to go.

I will give this lesson to the high level students next week. I know that without a doubt the experience will be completely different. This leaves me to ponder what on earth I can do to engage my mid level classes. I am applying all these different techniques from methodology and it just doesn’t seem to matter. I speak to so many other NSETs on the EPIK program who don’t care that the students act like this. Why should it matter to them if the students don’t respond? You go in, you give your lesson, and you leave. Whether the students take part or not it doesn’t matter. I just can’t agree with this line of thinking. Classes like the ones I had today make me feel like I am failing the students. There has to be something I can do to make these classes better. Right now though I am at a loss to figure out what it is.

‘Don’t Let it Bring You Down’

You do not come dramatically, with dragons

That rear up with my life between their paws

And dash me butchered down beside the wagons,

The horses panicking; nor as a clause

Clearly set out to warn what can be lost,

What out-of-pocket charges must be borne,

Expenses met; nor as a draughty ghost

That’s seen, some mornings, running down a lawn.

It is these sunless afternoons, I find,

Instal you at my elbow like a bore.

The chestnut trees are caked with silence. I’m

Aware the days pass quicker than before,

Smell staler too. And once they fall behind

They look like ruin. You have been here some time.

(‘To Failure’, Philip Larkin)

Tuesday 15^th, November, 2011

Sometimes you just have to accept defeat and admit that you failed and today, my grade 3 lesson was most definitely a failure.

I had a proper grade 3 class today for the first time in several weeks. Classes were missed for a variety reasons; first, they were revising and then taking their speaking tests; second, they had to sit their final exams; and third I was told by my co-teacher last week, at the last minute, to play games with them. The reason for the game class being that they had just finished their exams and deserved a break. So the lesson that I gave today, or tried to give today, was ready to be given last week before my co-teacher pulled the plug. Over the past week I have not stopped tinkering and agonizing over it. This is an important lesson because I am going to use it for my methodology assignment. I wanted everything to be carefully planned and crafted.

In the end, isn’t it always the way, all my planning and strategizing counted for naught. I have one solitary grade 3 class on Tuesday. All my other grade 3 classes are at the end of the week, bunched together on Thursday and Friday. But not class 3:3, they occupy the last period of the school day on Tuesday’s; the last class before they are liberated from school for another day and get to go home. Period 7, 3.25 to 4.10. I should have known there would be a problem. Historically, this class has always been difficult to manage. I assume that it being the last class of the day has a lot to do with this; they are tired and restless and difficult to motivate or engage by the time I see them. In other blog posts I have described previous, difficult lessons with this class. The problem is compounded by my co-teacher Mrs. Lee. Mrs. Lee must be getting close to retirement and whilst a nice person and a lovely lady is not as accomplished in classroom management as some of my more authoritarian co-teachers. The students tend not to listen to her a lot of the time and make only token gestures towards following her instructions.

However, today’s class was particularly bad. I arrived early, I was well prepared and organized but immediately I could tell the atmosphere in the room was not going to be conducive to completing a lesson. Straight away Mrs. Lee said she had to go to a meeting and promptly left never to return. Typically, without a co-teacher the students are more difficult to control. However, I don’t think her presence today would have made much of a difference. Like stubborn mules the students refused to do anything; they ignored all my instructions; they didn’t pay attention to anything I said; they didn’t listen or in fact do anything I asked; overall, they seemed completely indifferent to my presence. At one point I counted seven students slumped over their desks asleep, completely oblivious to the lesson happening around them. At another point I realized two students were just sitting listening to an MP3 player. I noticed a girl who was intently reading a ‘Twilight’ novel until I interrupted her. And nearly everyone else was chatting to the people around them for the whole duration of the lesson. Today was the first time I have come close to losing my temper. I was genuinely angry by the time this lesson ended. I was even angrier at myself for letting them make me feel angry.

I think the problem is that they have essentially finished middle school. They have sat their last exams and in a few short weeks they will leave for good. There is simply no incentive for them to participate in class. Both my grade 3 co-teachers told me I should just give ‘easy, game lessons’ from now until the end of the term. I would be happy to do this but as I am still giving the grade 1 & 2 students their speaking tests I needed to give a lesson to the grade 3 students so that I can write about it for my TESOL methodology assignment.

Unfortunately, there is just nothing to write about in relation to this class because they didn’t participate at all. It didn’t matter how I had planned to activate schema or that I had planned to use a variety of MIC and CI techniques. It didn’t matter that I had spent time tailoring the different activities and finding suitable pictures. None of the planning and preparation mattered at all in the end.

I would love to know how this class could have been turned into a successful lesson.

Now I am left deeply concerned about my upcoming grade 3 lessons. I can’t even assess whether there is a problem with the lesson itself because there was just no engagement with it. If my grade 3 classes on Thursday go the same way as today’s class I will have to drastically rethink the lessons I will give on Friday.

'Everybody's Talkin' Part 3

Speaking Tests Revision Lessons

The revision lessons for the speaking tests are all the same regardless of grade or level. They are basically cramming sessions. I have discovered that time is short and covering all the questions can be challenging. Earlier mistakes in managing time have taught me that I have no time for a warm up or for much pair work or group activities. I give the briefest of introductions and launch straight into the questions.

At the beginning of the lesson I have to explain what is actually happening – they are going to have a speaking test in their next lesson with me and in this lesson we are going to practice. The fact that they have a speaking test is often news to the students. It’s as if they can’t believe it sometimes. They say ‘oh no!’ and ‘oh my god!’ I tell them not to worry, ‘it’s easy!’ I hand out the test questions and explain that when we practice today I want them to write answers. I want them to write answers so they can study them later. Throughout the lesson I will constantly go around making sure they are writing example answers for each of the questions and correcting errors, making suggestions.

These lessons require a lot of energy on my part for a couple of reasons; there are no activities apart from some pair work, so I have to keep the students interested and engaged by expressive behavior and enthusiasm; and there is a lot of teacher talking time. I think these lessons can be quite intense for the students too. The evidence of past classes indicates that the affective filter rises immediately when they are told they are going to be tested – many students seem to get anxious so easily. Furthermore, the simple fact that they are practicing and writing for the whole lesson must be difficult for them too. My main tool in overcoming this anxiety and the monotony of the revision classes (besides my own behavior) is the PowerPoint I make to accompany the lessons. Last year I made the mistake of using a PowerPoint that literally just had slides of different questions and some examples. I found that once I ‘livened up’ the PowerPoint with pictures and photographs of things I can use to elicit answers or discuss examples it makes a world of difference. I’m happy to note that with my new improved PowerPoint and my slightly improved confidence in using 'making input comprehensible' techniques the revision lessons this semester have seen a big improvement on last year.

Some of the niceties of normal lessons have to be dispensed with for the revision classes. The preview, present, practice, produce model is pretty much out the window. I don’t introduce any new L2. Theoretically everything in the lesson should fall into the category of linguistic schema because it has been studied and covered already. There is no top-down bottom-up structuring. There is no ‘topic’ to hook the students to. Overall, the questions, language and grammar we practice are not authentic because the context is cramming for a test. Furthermore, because I’m not introducing new input or language I suppose I’m not really using ‘making input comprehensible’ techniques. However, this can’t be correct (a problem with definition?) because I have been specifically repeating, rephrasing, using visuals and providing examples throughout all the revision lessons. Perhaps in this context I should refer to these as ‘classroom interaction’ techniques.

In fact after Saturday’s methodology crash course revision in 'making input comprehensible' and 'classroom interaction' techniques I was determined to make a concerted effort to use more in my revision classes. I have been modeling, gesturing, repeating slowly, chunking, role-play modeling with co-teachers, rephrasing, asking questions and making corrections. After four classes of this in a day I’m exhausted. Where is my stamina? But it does appear to help and really propels the lessons along.

Here is an example of a test question from the grade 1 paper:

3. Did you eat breakfast this morning? (Page 125)

· What time did you eat breakfast?

· What did you eat?

Before I ask them the question I put on a PowerPoint slide of a full English breakfast – bacon, sausages, eggs etc. I ask, gesturing, ‘what is this?’ Pretty quickly they answer ‘breakfast’ or name ‘sausage’ or ‘tomato’ or something. Once they say ‘breakfast’ I ask ‘is it a Korean breakfast?’, ‘Nooooo!’ ‘Where do they eat this breakfast?’ ‘America.’ ‘England.’ I tell them ‘that’s right, it’s an English breakfast.’ For fun I ask them what all the different parts are. (They always say the beans are spaghetti) It’s surprising to me how engaging for the students this little interaction is – it always generates enthusiasm and elicits lots of responses. Finally, I ask them ‘does it look delicious?’ They almost all say ‘noooo!’ So I ask what is delicious for breakfast but before they answer I say ‘wait! First…’ and I put the next slide on which has the question ‘did you eat breakfast this morning?’ and the answer ‘yes, I ate breakfast this morning’ and go into modeling the question.

I have been trying hard to improve the modeling. First I say ‘everyone’ and gesture for them to repeat as I ‘chunk’ the question into three parts – ‘did you’ (students repeat) ‘eat breakfast’ (students repeat) ‘this morning?’ (Students repeat) Then I break it into two parts – ‘did you eat breakfast’ (students repeat) ‘this morning?’ (students repeat) I point and ask ‘what is morning?’, 'what is breakfast?’ I give them a little time to write the answer and move onto the next slide.

The next slide is a picture of an alarm clock. I ask ‘what is this?’ ‘Watch’, ‘clock’. ‘What kind of clock?’ ‘An alarm clock’. ‘What time is it?’ ‘6 o’clock.’ ‘That’s right’. The next slide is a picture of a digital clock displaying ‘7 am’. I ask the same set of questions for this slide as for the alarm clock but I also ask ‘when is am?’ ‘Morning!’

The next slide has the next question and three example answers:

• What time did you eat breakfast?

• I ate breakfast at 6 o’clock

• I ate breakfast at 7am

• I ate breakfast at 7.30

Again I use chunking, choral repetition, gestures and slowing down my rate of delivery to convey the examples. I ask ‘is this too early for breakfast?’ and they almost always say ‘yes!’ So then I ask ‘when is a good time for breakfast?’ and write some of their answers on the board. I gave them some time to write an answer and go around checking whilst they are scribbling.

The next 3 slides show ‘bread’, ‘cereal’ and 'rice’. I ask what each is and then show the slide that explains the questions and examples. I go through the same process as before but this time also ask ‘so what is delicious in the morning?’ I can’t believe so many people eat kimchi for breakfast.

This is essentially the same system I go through for each question. If there’s time I will get the students to practice each question with their partner. Often there is not time. I try and include some visuals that I can use to introduce each question and elicit some answers instead of jumping into the question straight away. It helps if I can engage their interest before practicing the question, whatever it may be. Without this visual stimulus the revision is a real grind for the students. I try and break it up as much as possible.

I have been trying to think of structural ways to improve the revision lessons but so far haven’t come up with anything. Time is again the enemy – I have to cover all the questions in one 45 minute class. If I had more time I could design activities and exercises for revising the dialogue. What else can I do to improve the revision classes for my students?