Job Discussion Forums

[leeroy]

Sorry, this feels almost off-topic

I'll use an example of a lesson to demonstrate the point...

So, the topic was "Cities" ("Inside Out Advanced", Unit 3) - and it was a 2hr40 lesson (the same like every day). There was the usual phonological/grammatical/lexical focus later on, but first (I though) why not have a task. So, this was it.

On a transparency (and with the aid of an OHP) I presented my plan for the perfect city. It was good, it had a central pub district and was then divided into 4 satellite areas of residential, financial, industrial and leisure districts. Anyway, that was the model. After that, the students were (in groups) all given transparencies and felt pens - the task being that they would plan their own perfect city and then whack it up on the OHP and present it to the class. The class would then vote for which city they would most like to live in (excluding their own designed city, naturally). No vocabulary was taught, no lexical structure or grammar was advised pre, during, or post task - it was simply communication. This part of the lesson was fun, and intentionally a little bit fantastic and ridiculous.

The second half of the lesson contained the nitty-gritty of "language teaching" (it was long vowels, some lexical collocation and city-vocab if I remember correctly).

Is their any use in such a task, as described above?

My old DELTA tutor would probably say

[shmooj]

I like your idea. I'm just puzzled as to why you did it that way round. Personally, I would have done the language and then the task so that they have a chance to get some input and then put it to use in the task. The other way round seems on a hiding to nothing because after the 'fun' part of the lesson is over the bit where you really want them to pay attention will probably be forgotten.

No?

PS Great topic BTW

[kev7161]

I generally do activities such as this part-way through the unit. For example, right now we are covering professional jobs. In the beginning, we'll have an open discussion for me to see what they know about the topic. This almost always consists of me asking questions and them giving me answers. Next I'll introduce their vocabulary words for this unit and we'll talk about them, make sure we all know what they mean. Then we dive into the unit doing dialogues and grammar drills. About mid-way through is when I'll start the "outside-the-book" activity. This lets them (hopefully) use some of the vocabulary they've learned. In the case of this unit, I've divided them into teams and each team has been assigned a profession to research. They will give an oral presentation in about a week.

I think what you are doing is fine as an introduction to a topic or theme, but they may have difficulties coming up with ideas if they don't have anything to relate to at first.

[The G-stringed Avenger]

That's what I do in class and it works pretty well, most of the time. There is a sort of explicit focus in that I throw in a lot of key phrases that they must use in their presentations that contain the day's target language. But I also throw in slang expressions and more natural ways of saying the English phrases they commonly use. The grammar and all that is taught by the Chinese teachers. I teach them whatever new vocab comes up in the task, but they really have free run with it otherwise.

Today, for example, I told them that they were at the airport and needed to get home to see their sick mother. Unfortunately all flights are booked so they need to buy their ticket from another passenger. Worked a treat!
Used conditionals, tag questions, polite request language.

I say if you're responsible for all facets of their learning, then don't do this exclusively. I'm only responsible for their oral English so it works for me. I make them use what they've learned.

[struelle]

I do it leeory's way as well, but also with some practice activities at the end where they use the language taught after the task. The order is valuable as first of all the students are concentrated on the task itself, hence a low monitoring of errors. Then the teacher comes around and corrects errors after the task, as well as teaching some lexis or grammar. This activates their monitor, which they can then use for more accuracy activities.

If the language is taught first in an explicit way, i.e. PPP style, the problem is that students tend to over-monitor during the task and 'lose the forest for the trees' to to speak.

A happy medium may be to present the task and say, "Ok, here are some useful expressions which you can use during this activity." Then go in detail later.

Steve

[Roger]

I endorse leeroy's concept too.
Personally, I don't quite understand why we have to spoonfeed the lexical units our learners are supposed to master; why can't they be bothered to look new words up that they want to use? COnversely speaking, when they stumble upon a new phrase or word in a text I don't think it is wrong for them to check a dictionary on their own.
They are, after 5 or more years, supposed to be at a stage where they can help themselves.

What bothers me a little, is the PRONUNCIATION of long versus short vowels - a case that's particularly problematic with Chinese English learners. Clearly, they need some special drill to acquaint them with the correct vowel or syllable lengths. But that has little to do with the new words of the lesson; that's a basic problem.

[Rice Paddy Daddy]

Roger,

Interesting comment.

I agree, that at a certain stage people get to a point where they become 'autonomous learners' in that they have enough ability to go off and learn new language by themselves - without someone spoon-feeding them.

I used to read the newspaper every evening when I was 12 years old. I came across lots of words I didn't know, so I grabbed the dictionary off the shelf and found them.

Students should probably be able to do the same thing.