EAP class with Joy!

Thursday 10 July 2008
I still had the same class, but different teacher today. We had Joy who has been teaching for a couple of years; however, prior to that, she had been working in the field has an advisor. With the Psychology background, there was no doubt in my mind why she had such a great spirit, wonderful attitude, and endless energy! She taught to write a descriptive essay writing today, which I have to say it was very interesting. As Dr. Susan from the VDO program we watched on Tuesday about the brain connection and about teachers having to find ways to help activate their brains and make the students become motivated and interested in learning or to the subject being introduced in the classroom, the teacher explained how to write descriptively by using an object to create a descriptive topic sentence. In the classroom, the teacher drew a pencil on the board and identified the elements that they pencil contains. Then, she asked the students to help generate a specific topic sentence. So, we had a sentence on the board identify a topic sentence, "HP pencil is comprised of three main parts: the rubber, the rounded wooden body, and a tip" (a rough example though). Then, she explained that the topic sentence contains specific parts and general idea. Then, she had them choose their own object to write a topic sentence. There, I helped checking their topic sentences and gave them some ideas o how to write. There was a good trick from the teacher about writing a good topic sentence. Her formula is called "KISS" which referred to "Keep It Simple Stupid!"

Then, a couple of students gave presentations on their Newspaper reading. The program here encourages their students to practice their speaking skills by giving a presentation (I thought it's good to make it as part of the curriculum since students will not only practice their speaking skills, but also they practice their reading and writing skills as well). I gave out my opinions on their presentations since I teach the course at SPU. The students were very organized and did very well.Part of it was because the teacher had assigned them the task ahead of time by having them fill in their name on the date they liked. Then, the teacher keep the original paper with her and stuck the copy on the wall, so they were all aware of it.

After that we all moved to SAC (Self Access Centre), the teacher and I offered a free tutorial in there. We talked to several students-mostly the teacher gave help on their writing. I, on the other hand, interviewed some students about their satisfaction with the program. After talking to a couple of Islamic female students, they said that their English had improved a lot with all the activities they did--SAC, English Lab, Computer Lab, and the teaching. The class, they said, is well balanced since there are two teachers with different teaching styles and characters. One is very strick, yet very knowledgeable and insightful. The other one is more lively, energetic and fun. "They never waste their time teaching, there're always activities and assignments to help us to improve our English, " one student said. One Asian student, on the other hand, found that having a serious teacher is good in terms of discipline; however, it sounded like he felt more comfortable with the teacher who is active and fun in order to wake him up (since he works part time at night). He mentioned about preferring younger teachers since they gave him more freedom and so that he feels more confident and could approach him or her easily. Overall, he said he would like a teacher who recognizes students' weaknesses and tries to help them eradicate those weaknesses by giving out support and pay attention to each one of them. Another good thing he said, and I thought was good, "I want teacher to enjoy their career and make students feel comfortable!"

In the afternoon, I took over the whole class and did some activities with them. Since I had discussed with the teacher about reviewing a grammar point, I decided to make it fun and came up an activity that I had learned from other classes. First, I gave out a grammar exercise on Past Perfect and Past Simple. After they finished, I asked them to check the answers with their partner by reading it out loud. Next, I explained the grammar points to them on a HOP (I was going to gave out the answers, then I changed my mind in order to give a second thought on their answers after the explanation) and explained the answers to them. Finally, we played a game called "word building" (my own version). I prepared two sets of words on the list that was given out and taught in the classroom, I separated them into two groups, and had them picked out the words. A person from each group will have different word that was the same as the other member from the opposite side. Then, I called on the word and the players who had the word had to come out and generate a sentence using the given word in Past Perfect. Here, I killed two birds with one stone. My teaching was o.k. I was not totally satisfied with it. However, the students learned it and enjoyed it a bit.