Job Discussion Forums

[MozartFloyd]

That's great.

I also do things like this in class; exactly like this actually. But, what often happens is the spokesperson for the group does all the talking. And, it's usually the same people who are speaking. The shy ones are still shy and they still don't speak as they demure to the leader. So, it isn't full class participation. What also happens is students end up reading what they've written, so they aren't actually speaking from their conscious mind. They're reading. With that said, I still employ these kinds of methods and to great advantage.

Still, highly evolved, interactive games, in my experience, still yield the highest class participation. I also teach in a Normal, or teacher's college. 90% of my students will go on to be teachers. At some point, they need to be able to stand up in front of a classroom and speak. At some point they need to get over their shyness, get used to the fact that they are not children anymore who've spent most of their lives being coddled by parents and grandparents.

I shared some ideas, you shared some ideas, but I'm not sure I want to share any further if I'm going to have to play this one-upmanship game here, proving what I'm doing has worth. That's the part you don't see, my friend.

[spiral78]

[ghost]

I appreciate the comments - I have 6 sections of around 35 students and one 'Business English' section of approximately 50 students (starting on Friday).

How do you folks actually assess and give marks to students in Oral English? In Saudi Arabia, where I worked for the past 6 years, it was relatively easy to assess the students because we had the same class group for 4 hours a day for 8 weeks in the 'Foundation Program' but the challenge here, is to get to know the levels (and assess them correctly) of 7 different groups of students that you only see each time (once a week) for just 1.5 hours.

Grading Oral English is a challenge at the best of times, because different people have different ideas on what the criteria should be for judging competence and excellence in speaking English?

One teacher here, at my university, uses an Excel Sheet, and uses marks to factor in class participation and other contributions to the class.

Another thing I have found in this country is that it is difficult for students to focus on other students when they are speaking in class - some of the students 'switch off' - perhaps because they are already preparing for the time when they will be called upon. One thing I have always done is to always call on as many students as possible, every class, using the class list with English names. I also tell the students that they should get used to speaking in class because it will help them in their future occupations, whether they become teachers or professionals in other fields. Clear and confident communication cannot hurt in any field, and this takes some work taking into account the inherent shyness factor present in so many students here.

Ghost in China

[buravirgil]

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=109016

[ghost]

With seven groups of approx 35 students in most groups (one group has 50) the question is how and when do you assess the students. Some teachers assess them continuously, but others prefer a more performance based grade towards the end of the semester.

My mentor here, at my uni, uses a continuous assessment method, with Excel Sheets and continuous marks put on those sheets. At this point, this might be a challenge as most of the students barely speak more than a few minutes individually in each class period of 1.5 hours, once a week.

The crux of my question is how you organize your marks and finally decide on the final mark? I appreciate the link sent by one buravirgil.

Ghost in China

[Sashadroogie]

Where's the ideology?!

[MozartFloyd]

You win, Spiral. You're the best. I can see you're a last-word kind of person and I'll expect you to prove yet again how I'm wrong, but I won't answer, allowing you to revel in your last-word satisfaction.

[MozartFloyd]

[Non Sequitur]

I think what is called the 'Communicative Approach' best fits what FTs are called upon to do.
This leaves grammar and learned vocab to others and concentrates on - well.. Communication!
Put another way Communicative English is both WHAT we teach and HOW we teach it.
At base level in the Communicative Approach as I teach it, a student singing 'As long as you love me babee' is as good as using a sentence to demonstrate future tense as in 'I will leave your pen on your desk'.
The problem, as has been mentioned by others, is assessing the result and awarding a fair mark.
Schools that provide no resources and no syllabus apart from 'Go in there and talk to them' still require an end-of-semester percentage mark - part class and part final, that is fair and defendable.
The Greeks had a word for it. 'Thaumaturgist' = 'miracle worker'

[Big_H]

Well the easiest way I see around this for a class of 30-35 is that you divide them into 5 -6 groups during activities/solving working sheets/filling a survey. They work together, and the grade is for the whole group, but you as a teacher get to choose which student will speak or answer for each group when it is its turn.

It's not as hard as it sounds, all you have to do is to not pick the same student to speak twice.

Also, when it comes to students not listening to their peers when they're speaking English, just warn everyone in advance (or don't and use it to surprise everyone with this new habit if you're a really evil teacher) that you'll be asking them on what their classmate just said, with grades at stake.

[buravirgil]

[MozartFloyd]

[MozartFloyd]

[3701 W.119th]

Find what works for your students, in the environment you find yourself in, and keep doing it.

[Sashadroogie]

Ideology is what structures and orders society! Have to have more if it, not less. Especially when dialectical materialism reveals the best possible synthesis achievable. And when it reveals that some posters are not informed by basic knowledge of research or methodology, e.g. Stating the communicative approach relieves teachers of presenting grammar structures is erroneous.