Giving a lesson using "Signs of the Zodiac"

Today I had a new task in the classroom-another challenging one. I was given a topic to generate an activity; the topic was on the zodiac signs in which I had to also introduce the adjective and noun forms. After finished the class yesterday, I spent time on preparing for materials to run an activities. The goal is to have them learn those two forms with the talking and moving in groups. I first had them work individually on finding their own sign. Prior to going right straight to the activity, I talked to them about the birthday party that we had before the lunch break. We celebrated "Turkey's" (one of the students in the classroom) and my birthday in the classroom. The teacher kindly brought in a cake and some ships to share with the students. Thus, I started talking about my sign in a chinese year and in the Zodiac one. The students were curious and enthusiastic to chip in their talks. Then, I gave out sheet of paper with the describtions of people's personalities in accordance to their birth signs. I took out the names of the signs and left only with the describtions of the zodiac signs, had them skim through and choose the one that suited with their personalities. Later on,I brought in another activity. This one was about the collocations they learned from yesterday. In order to divide them into pairs and play another grammar activity, I had prepared strips of papers with a missing half of each collocated phrase, so students had to find their other missing half by saying the word out loud. The objective behind the activity was that (1) they had a chance to review grammar points, and 2) they moved more and stayed alert. Then, I explained the next grammar activity. This time I gave out a sheet with adjectives and nouns and their meanings. What students had to do was to find the missing adjective or noun forms and make a sentence with their partner.

In conclusion, I thought I did all right. I had them talk, walk to find partners, come up to the board (use the room as much as possible).

What I would have done differently was that I should, with the adjective and noun forms, try to ask them questions that were related to situations; for example, What does a nurse have to be?" or What do you think the three things on the list are you?" or "what do the nurse need to have or be?" Then, put the adj and nouns in the sentenece. I could even ask them to write down a sentence using the adj adn the noun. Considering an hour class after lunch and after their listening test, I thought that I did ok.!

After the class ended, I discussed with my co-teacher about the teaching. She really liked the activities that I used with the collocation review in order to pair them up.

Oh dear (s)....!

I think this the right title for today's blog. First thing first, Oh dear...(or should I rephrase, "Oh Koala or Oh Kangaroo!") I turned 28th today. Well, I am obviously one year older and, of course, one year "wiser"! They really made me feel special today. One good thing about it here is that people here make you feel like home and included. They try to support each other--as part of their culture of being very expressive. As soon as I walked in the office, I saw my my name was written on the board saying "Tuesday 15--Tuk's Birthday." They do it with everyone in any occasions. I appreciated everything they did for me. A very nice card signed by teachers was given to me on our lunch for "the birthday girl." We had a great time just talking and expressing about our students, classes and other things. Having the sense of support and inclusion, I gained more strength, energy and the love of my career even more. The first present was given to me from Judy and her family. That was very nice. My impression was that the gifts were nice (actually I really loved it, especially the card!), but the thought that meant a great deal to me!

Back to the class, today we started off with homework checking. Then, I took over the class and ran an activity writing a business letter. Since the students were given a homework in writing the letter of application yesterday, I volunteered to check the answers with them in the classroom. However, after all of the observations and teaching assistance I have done in the last 6 weeks, I have adopted the routine of ESA (engage-study-activate). I prepared some activities to help explained the subject matter rather than jumping right to giving out the answers.

I first divided them into a group of 2 and 3 to put the parts of a letter of application that I had cut into little pieces in order. I explained what they had to do very clearly and slowly, so that they would understand and the activity would run smoothly (since I was not satisfied with my last lesson given out to the EAP class). It did not take long for them to finish the task. Then, I asked each group to tell me the order and I wrote them down on the board. Next, I explained each part a bit more, but focused more in the body part with different paragraphs in it. I explained to them of what information each paragraph normally consists. I wrote them down on the board and asked the students to copy down. Later on, with the same group, I asked them to work on the next task which was to identify the given sentences in the correct paragraph in a letter. Finally, I asked them each group to contribute the answers and finished off with the conclusion of the key elements of writing the business letter. I thought I did a.o.k. with the tasks.

Then, the teacher gave the results of their reading test and went over the answers with them. It seemed to me that the test was perhaps too challenging for them, considering the time constraints they had. Oh dear! There, I could see the disappointment on some of the students' faces. They mentioned about not having enough time, so they could not complete the test and was not happy about the results.

After lunch, the teacher ran the classroom differently (having them move around more and working in groups). I could see more interaction among students with the activities they ran--less teacher teaching time, but more on students talking time and students' involvement in the classroom activities. Here, there were two games that I thought was good.
(1) This game was to help fulfil the exercise in the textbook. This activity was the combination of teaching the steps in a career path and the words combination--"you finish studies", "you apply for a job", "you go for an interview", "you get the job", "you go for a training course", and "you get promoted." Here, the students learned all these phrases practically by playing the game.
This is how they did: The teacher gave out each a card in two colors and those cards included different phrases mentioned early on. The students had to find their own group by color and then discussed the phrases on their cards and put them in a correct order in terms of a career path. Finally, we had two groups standing in lines facing each other and each group read their phrases out loud.

(2)The second activity is a writing activity. The teacher had the students worked in pairs and described the photos given to them. How she did it was preparing some blank papers with a photo on each one of them. Then she asked them to write a sentence using Present Perfect with "just." After that, she rotated the photos and had the students created the second sentence using Present Perfect without "just" in the new photo The same was done with the third sentence, except that the sentence had to be in the form of "has not___yet" and the last sentence was using Past Simple. I thought the activity was good and in fact we can even use the same photos with different tenses. The important point with this activity is to make sure that teachers explain the process clearly and effectively or else students would get confused.

In class with GE2

Monday 14 July 2008

Another classroom assistance with GE2 on my last week here. Time always flies when you are having fun, doesn't? Anyway, this week I am back to rather "passive" classroom dynamics. The reason I refer the class as a "passive" one is that students are not quite fluent in speaking English; therefore, there is less interaction between the teacher and the students. In contrary, the GE 4 students and above (including EAP and DEP)are more fluent in English, and they pretty know what they would like to get out of the classroom. Of course those classes involve more in the academic side.

The teacher started the class with the same routine of asking questions about their weekend activities and relaxation and explaining the itinerary for the day. The week theme for this week is Jobs and Work and so I was there at the right timing--as the teacher put it "an expert in English Business." I'm not quite sure on that note, but I would not mind taking it as a compliment anyway! Since students are not self sufficient in speaking English; therefore, there is more teacher centered. However, many creative activities are utilized. The teacher wrote down the letters of alphabet on the board and divided students into three groups. Then , she asked all students to come in front of the class, and each group wrote down names for jobs, work or careers starting with the alphabet they were assigned.

Then, students were assigned to ask each other, "What's my job?" and then worked on an exercise about collocated expressions such as in charge of, be responsible for. Then, they asked each other questions about their career dream. Here, I helped in asking questions to students and taught them how to speak English correctly. Before lunch time, students had a listening test and they were not very satisfied with the time limitation. Thus, I could see their disappointment and the tension of the class environment.

In the afternoon, the teacher had them write down some sentences using Past Simple and Present Perfect.

What I learned from this class by observing and helping was that teachers, in general, should speak slowly and less words in a sentence, so that students could grab the information given to them better. Furthermore, as part of learning, providing enough instructions and time limitation to work on any given tasks, as well as getting them to involve in contributing answers to an exercise, are vital. Otherwise, the teacher will be the only one who does all the jobs, but students don't learn anything.