More EAP and Pre-DEP classes and a PD session

Friday 11 July 2008

Since it's my last day at Nathan with EAP classes, I decided to observe more classes from different teachers. I went to another EAP class with a male teacher. I found that students, especially male students, were more relaxed and both teachers and students were relaxed and friendly with each other. It's also because of the fact that he has been teaching them for 10 weeks now. Anyway, the teacher always asked them lots of questions and asked for logical reasons for their answers. This I think the teacher wanted to be certain that they understood. Then, a couple of students had to give a presentation (just like the other EAP class). Here, the teacher wrote down words that the speakers had difficulties with pronouncing them; then, after each speaker finished, he asked the whole class to repeat the words. What I would do further is to perhaps also give some feedback on their presentation skills.

In the afternoon, we had a PD session on Islam in the West: Challenges and Opportunities. I thought the topic was very interesting. The speaker, one of the staff member in Help Program, talked about how we, as teachers and Australian citizens, could do to help make Islamic students, and others in general, feel welcome and be part of the society or be as other human beings. What teachers could do is to understand their culture and be mindful of what we do in and out side the classroom. However, no matter what ethical background all of us have, we should all think about other's first and stay conscious to whatever we do. It's also a two-way thing, as one teacher brought up during the discussion. They also should try to open themselves, learn new cultures and try to get the best out of it while they are studying here without interfering or giving up their own identity.

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.

Great Day at Work with Robynne and a PD session!

Tuesday 8 July 2008

It was very interesting to experience another dynamics of this group of students in an upper level. I learned that teachers' characters play such a big role in the class dynamics and atmosphere, which sometimes does not have much impact on students' motivation and learning achievement.

This class had two different teachers: Robynne (a teacher on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday) and Joy (a teacher on Wednesday and Friday). These two teachers have different characters, which was claimed by many students that it was a good balance.

Robynne is a traditional kind of teacher, who is strict and serious, yet she is very in depth with insightful details when it comes to explaining any subject matters being taught in the classroom. Many students who seek for improvement in English really like her. Today, she started off the class with a grammar exercise since she learned that there would be latecomers. Giving out the exercise as a revision certainly benefit both who show up in class on time and late. This way it would be fair for both side including the teacher since she won't have to repeat the new materials. The exercise was on mixed verb form based on compositions written by students who were members of a multicultural class, which is perfect for the students. While they were working on the exercise, the teacher called on some students with their writing assignment. She pointed out their errors in order for them to be aware and try not to make the same errors again. I quite like the method and would adopt it to my class, so I won't waste any second in the classroom. Moreover, I would try to find an answer to their question as much as I could at once, so I won't leave them hanging with the misery of the untold answers to the questions they have. However, if the situation gets too carried away and they would always rely on you to correct their mistakes, I might have to ask them to try to go back to their past mistakes and learn from them independently.

After the students completed the exercise, the teacher answered the questions and explained each answer with insightful details. As I could tell, students learned a lot from her explanations. Then, this is awesome, she had her students read the exercise with the correct answers out loud. She said, "Make as much noise as you can!" How great is that to have a noisy classroom! The teacher said this was the way to improve their English--learning how to speak English or write English grammatically correct by sound. As many native speakers always say when they correct try to understand something, "That sound good/sound right to me"

Then, students practiced their note taking and summary skills by watching a VDO program on Baroness and the Brain. Here what I did was preparing and setting the VDO program for the teacher. The topic per se was very interesting, so it kind of captivated students’ attention. While watching, the teacher stopped once every often to pinpoint and write down some keywords and expressions on the board, so students understood the program better and be able to take notes and write a summary. About the program, it was very intriguing to know that we can actually improve our brain connection by using our imagination or just by thinking. This means that if we want to be able to play piano, we can literally learn the theory of how to work out our fingers and then just practice it by using an imagination. It is about using positive thinking to succeed in doing something. This is a study of Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield. Her research showed that people can think themselves to better brains! The research was initiated by her concern of children being very passive nowadays—consuming too much animated media and living in such animated lifestyle, which deprive them from activating their brain. Watching TV too much or doing something too much with technology seems to destroy their brain connections. Thus, as teachers, they need to learn how to put students’ ideas to practice. In other words, they need to learn how to teach students to improve or stimulate their brain connections.

After students finished taking notes, they had to write a summary and shared it with their partner by reading it out loud to each other and constructive criticized each other’s work. Meanwhile, the teacher and I walked around to help out and guide them on their summaries.

After lunch, we had a learning vocabulary hour. The book we used was Focus on Vocabulary (mastering the academic word list) by Diane Schmitt and Norbert Schmitt. The teacher discussed the words with students.Here, she came up with a game to help practice the grammar points that they were weak at. The game was called Word/Sentence Game. We divided them into two groups. The teacher wrote down a word (learned in the classroom from the VDO program they had watched) on a board on both sides each round and had them one-by-one build a sentence around the given words. The last person had to finish and correct the sentences. Then, they had to switch the players and started with the second student first for a new round with a new word.

At the end of the day, I was so thankful to help the teacher and observe the teaching simultaneously as I learned a whole lot of good activities to be used in a writing course. Not only does the teacher teach grammar to the students, but she also teaches them how to think and organise their thought through integrated skills--by using games to improve their sentence structures, by having them watch VDO programs as a tool to improve their note taking and summarizing, by having them read articles as a tool to better their skimming and scanning skills. They learn more than just writing in this course; actually, they are able to employ and practice all their 4 skills.

Also, I have gathered good traits of teachers in general. 1) have good general knowledge on different areas or else they have to prepare material and find more infor about the subject matters ahead of time. 2) recognise students' problems and find ways to go circumvent them. For example, we could help late comers by starting the class with a warm-up activity.

Extra activity: PD at lunch time on Dictogloss by the department member Jacqie from MEAP (Mixed English for Academic Program). This is a grammar activity which is suitable for any levels. Teachers just have to adjust the means of doing it or they can cover tenses or whatever grammar points that have been taught in class. The aims of dictogloss are (1) to provide an opportunity for students to put their grammar knowledge into practice, (2) it encourages students to find out what they do and do not know about English grammar, and (3) it upgrades and refines the learner's use of the language through a thorough analysis of grammar and language choices. In short, dictogloss is divided in to stages: (1) the teacher prepares the students for what is to come, (2) the teacher reads or plays a tape of a short passage, (3)the passage is read at the speed of a newsreader, (4) The students write down what they can--usually content words, (5) students then reconstruct the text by pooling their notes, and (6) at the end, the text is analysed carefully.

New Week with New Class-EAP

Monday 7 July 2008

This whole week I requested to be with EAP (English for Academic Purposes).The EAPs is located at Nathan Campus, thus I will be based here for the whole week. The office is smaller than the one at Mt.Gravatt and has less staff. As soon as I stepped into the office, I saw this great pigeon holes for teachers to pick up important information such as announcement, personal notice and other things. Every morning, the teachers need to check if they have received anything. I thought it was a very good idea in terms of communication among teachers and administrators. We can perhaps adopt this means to our faculty, so that we would have better communication and to keep the teachers updated to things. They actually have the pigeon whole over at Mt.Gravatt as well. Another thing, they regularly display a subscribed magazine or academic article reviews for teachers to read.

Anyway, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is geared towards those who are interested in developing their English academic skills in order to help them prepare for courses in the university. There are many different areas that they can take such as business or academic skills. This particular class I am having this week focuses on Academic Writing. The teachers are Robynne and Joy. The class contains about 16 students with the Arabic dominance; however, they tend to speak more English in the classroom.

I had to get to the Mt Gravatt campus early this morning to catch an inter-campus bus to the Nathan campus by 8:15 when morning classes usually start. I was introduced to the teacher whom I would be helping in the classroom. Once we started to roll to the classroom which was a bit far from the office, I offered the teacher a hand to help with her stuff to take to the class. Here I could not help but felt amazed with how prepared she was. She had a trolley full with teaching materials in it. Very cute, I thought. Today we had Academic Reading, Project, Writing and Computer. Another productive and beneficial classroom management that I found here is that they utilize the computer lab for writing purposes. Normally what they do is to have students work on their essay writing in the computer lab hour with the supervision of the teacher. This way, students could practice their typing and at the same time it is good the teacher to check over their papers.

I visited and helped out in a Pre-EAP class for about two hours (just to get the feel of it). The teacher is Joy, who just filled in for another teacher for two days. I noticed that she likes to write down the class' activities on the board, reinforces students to employ English-English dictionary, explains instructions repeatedly, and asks for indication for students' understanding (this is something new for me). Right in the beginning of the class, she wrote down the itinerary on the board,so students knew ahead of time about the activities they would be doing. After introducing herself to the class, she introduced vocabulary and a reading exercise before the read or today's topic. She gave out a vocabulary worksheet with a mixed set of word meanings in strips of paper so students could work in pairs to match them up. Another thing, I thought was different, she asked students to give her indications on how well they understood the tasks and her instructions. By showing their fingers to her, she was able to identify if they understood without their friends noticing it. This way students would not feel embarrassed or feel like they were dragging the class if the teacher had to repeat the task or instruction again. This is what happens to my students back at Sripatum University, which stops them from asking questions in the classroom. One more thing, I admired her with the fact that she did not mind giving apologies to the students when she confused them or made mistakes. I found that this eliminates the tension in the classroom.

In this class, I helped students in the group discussion of modern medical science. I pretty much worked as a devil's advocate, throwing questions based on the week theme provided in "Cutting Edge" for upper intermediate. We had quite productive criticism and discussion on different issues: "Will we be able to live forever one day?" "Will we ever eliminate disease?" "Will it be possible to clone human beings?" and "Will we be able to buy the perfect body?" Other than that I helped explain vocabulary.

Before the morning break, I had a class with Robynne, who teaches an EAP class, whom I will be working with for the most part. The core course focuses mostly on academic writing; therefore, the class dynamics are a bit different from the two levels that I had in the past couple of weeks. The students in this class are more independent and having a plan to continue university degrees; hence, they are more anxious to learn and willing to master their English skills.

Today the class focused on essay writing, particularly on general statements (thesis statement)and concluding sentences. "Introduction on Academic Writing" by Alice Oshima and Ann Hogue. The classroom started off with a reading activity. The teacher gave out a set of two different reading articles. After the read, the students worked in pairs and told each other's story. In the next hour, they were assigned to write a two-paragraph essay based on their chosen article. Here, they typed as they think in Computer Lab (this I think is good for a writing course to have them work on the computer, so they can practice their typing skills as well as computer skills. Perhaps we have our students work in Computer Lab for the writing course over at SPU). In the afternoon, the students practiced their note taking skills by watching a VDO about bedbugs. While watching the program, the program wrote key words, especially idioms and expressions, down on the board and discussed them with the students. After watching the program, they had a discussion about the program. What I did in the classroom on my first day with them was observing to get the feel of the environment, the teaching style and the class dynamics. Also, I learned that there are many other ways to make writing courses fun and more creative and productive. We can easily adopt the teaching styles and activities to our teaching and use them with students. We can set up a theme for each week and integrate other skills in the lesson; for instance, we could have them watch a VDO program, talk about it with their partner and write about it accordingly. Here, they are able to practice their listening, speaking and writing skills. Also, the classroom environment is good. There are posters or students written materials stuck on the walls even some worksheets from the previous days always available for those who might have missed classes. The students are encouraged to use English-English dictionary in the classroom, so that they would think in English. How GREAT!