Job Discussion Forums

[struelle]

The recent discussion on Chinese students' poor use of grammar despite their in-depth knowledge is very interesting. So, we FTs are supposedly relegated to the speaking and listening components of class, given that the Chinese teachers handle the grammar. Up to now I've always assumed that the teachers have essentially mastered grammar, and can know more than a group of FTs put together.

But some examples like "I means ...", "I very like", "and so on", etc. show that this may not be true.

So the question is, when you make a lesson plan, what do YOU see as the important points to get across in a lesson, given your role, status, age and number of students, type of school, management role, and many other variables.

For me, I'd have to say it's lexis and native expressions, and learning how to use them in an active environment. That is to say, I assume that students have a strong competence in English, i.e. a passive working knowledge about how English works. But when it comes to performance and actively using the language, that's the difficulty. It's like spending years studying how to drive a car without actually driving it.

Steve

[kev7161]

It was hard to answer with only one choice as I do a variety of activities in my classes. When it comes to grammar, the text I use has two grammar lessons per unit and we go over them as they are directly linked to the dialogues we read and, really, every other activity in that unit (even the CD-Rom we play with at the end of the unit). I just tell them I'm "reminding" them of what they should have already learned in their other English class.

In a perfect world, we'd spend the 45 minutes of each class just chatting away and time would simply fly by, but that doesn't happen. So, we do a lot of reading outloud: passages, dialogues, etc. I try to help them with their pronunciation of difficult words (and even easy ones!) and then I ask questions (or their book asks questions) to see if they comprehend what they've just read and, amazingly, most do!

I think many of my kids are smarter than I think they are when it comes to the English language. They can whiz through written assignments once I get them to actually pick up their pen and do it, it's just that spoken thing that trips them up.

[mandu]

keep the kindy kids happy and get through the class

[Roger]

In most conversation and especially in LISTENING & SPEAKING classes, I tell my students that the LISTENING part of the name of the course is as important as the speaking part. My students seem honestly to believe that is an OPTION, and what's even more annoying is that they assume I am their one and only audience...

So, I drill it into their heads: one person speaks, the whole rest of the class LISTENS. Those that do not listen will be shamed by being made to stand until they and the speaker have sorted out the conversation topic. I DEMand very little in the way of attention spans, but for anyone in my class it is a must to listen for two minutes to someone speaking in front.

And they do get this, so much so that they are now volunteering to speak in front.

The class then has to take note of the more glaring mispronunciations and faulty grammar, and they actually do find a lot at fault with each other, without "LOSING Face".

There is no free talking without people actually making efforts at speaking on the exact topic they choose, and there is no option for listeners other than to ... listen and to repeat what has been said.

[sock]

Schedule for my grade 1 & 2 lessons (50 minutes):

Pull the student (usually a girl) who is beating up all of the other students off, and get her to sit down.

Answer "What's your name?" at least 20 times

Tell the kids who are "cleaning" the blackboard (i.e. flooding the floor of the front half of the room) to sit down.

Answer "How old are you?" ten times (they learned this second, so many still don't know it).

Tell the girls who are doing cartwheels and the boys who are jump-roping to sit down.

Tell the bully and the blackboard cleaners to sit down again , because it has been at least 30 seconds since I last told them to sit down.

"What color is this?" (The love to test ME on my colors... Hmmm... If only they could remember them).

Have the one or two "lovely" kids read out the passage (if they can read ).

The bell rings.
The kids leave.
I am relieved, because no one broke a bone.

[latefordinner]

Any combination of the above, sometimes all of them. It depends on the class, the curriculum and what I believe the Chinese teacher and myself are capable of between us. (Errrr, that is if there is a CT and I get to confer with her/him/it.) Generally I put listening and comprehension first, grammar a close second. I'd rather that I didn't, that I could spend more time on whole language, colloquialisms, pronunciation etc, but until China gets some CTs who are able to teach the basics, I'm stuck.

[ChinaMovieMagic]

My FOCUS:

(1)Lower the Affective Filter (Krashen) Many-many of these students have been traumatized (mind-r*ped) by the very process of "education."

(2)Involve the whole-brain process (www.ialearn.org)--w/music/song/rhythmic movement/pictures/Movie-based TPR&Role Play/Image Streaming (www.winwenger.com)

(3)Create small-scale (6-8 learners in lines/pairs, rotating every few minutes or so)CLUSTERS...doing (2) ABOVE

If interested in more-of-the-above, check out "Promoting Change in China's Classrooms" also in this China FILE

[dajiang]

I focused on fluency, which subsequently had priority over grammatical correctness (provided it didn't affect the meaning of what they were trying to say). Confidence, thinking-on-your-feet, and fun. Those were some other things.

As an 'oral English teacher' i think at that particular school it was most important to speak more than anything during the class.
So another lesson priority was that teacher speaking time was kept down to a minimum, and student speaking time strechted out to the maximum. 20%-80% was the goal.

Oh, and of course, as pointed out before, when one speaks, another listens at the same time. I had ss work in pair work, or group work. There are plenty of information-gap activities where listening comprehension is just as important as the speaking bit.

I did a BEC class for a while which was very different. There I focused on vocab, listening, grammar, writing and speaking, everything really as equally as possible. Most important thing there was to prep the ss for their exams.
It just depends on the job your hired to do.

Regards,
Da Jiang