Job Discussion Forums

[kensensei]

Hello EFL Veterans,

For a while now I have been toying with an idea for university students but lack the courage to try it out. I want students to lead English discussions using topics they choose themselves.

Previously I have asked my students to give short presentations (called Morning Reports) where they can share a personal story, introduce some cultural events, play an English game, etc. They are required to use a visual (a sort of college version of "Show and Tell") and only two students present each week. But no matter what topic the speaker presents, the audience tends to tune out. Moreover, the visuals tend to be stuff they normally bring to class anyway (i.e. pencil case, watch, hello-kitty stickers...). So this first experiment with student-centered learning has NOT been a huge success.

So I am asking for experienced suggestions on to how to refine this idea. Ideally students could lead a discussion on topics of their own choosing. If you don't mind sharing, what other student-centered activities have you found to be successful in your college and university classes?

[ChinaMovieMagic]

Key Elements to Consider:

(1)Group Dynamics

Consider the conversational vitality of the typical Chinese restaurant, in comparison to:
*the polite/quiet environment of a northern European restaurant
*the polite/quiet environment of a Chinese:
(a)classroom
(b)government meeting (as seen-frequently on the TV news)

SUGGESTION:

Have the class de-centralize...into clusters of 6--8 members...facing each other in 2 rows of 3/4 pairs...6 clusters around the classroom forming a circle, discussing the issue in pairs/small groups. Let it happen naturally, according to natural dynamics of the student-centered process. Try to minimize giving orders/interrupting. Focus upon "Lowering the Affective Filter" (Krashen).

After a certain period of time, BEFORE the Energy Peaks, make a signal (clap of hands/ring of a bell) and the INNER CIRCLE revolves one seat clock-wise or counter-clockwise. Make the directions VERY CLEAR/VERY VISUAL the 1st few times.

Recommended books:

*Dare to Open Your Mouth, by Michael J. Hughes, printed in China...
A GREAT BOOK of well-designed China-related Role Plays on topics such as:
*Smoking
*Peer Pressure
*Small Talk
*Frustration
*The Takeover Bid

Alexander series, esp. FOR and AGAINST.
The last few weeks my adult class has discussed F&G topics such as:
*Money/Greed
*Corruption
*Censorship
It's a 2-hour class of highly-motivated adults, and each week a group gave a presentation on the topic, followed by discussion. The discussions are always lively, but glazed-eyes were the typical audience response to the presentations. So...now that the 5 groups have all given their presentations, now I do Discussion Prep, by showing movie clips while giving commentary, discretely focusing not upon Chinese society, but upon my own nation---USA.

As I sized up the audience prior to last week's Prep Talk on Censorship, I was not unaware that folks were somewhat curious/apprehensive about what I'd say, as there as some govt./Party officials in the class. (See www.pjmooney.com for article regarding Hu and Intellectuals, discussing censorship.)

I showed them the movie segment of Emile Zola, relating to his "Profile in Courage' decision to take on the French government for the lies against an innocent man, using him as a ScapeGoat for corruption in high places. Zola's charges against the government, published in a French newspaper, led to the need for a Libel Trial against him, which was his strategy.

Throughout this, I didn't mention anything about China, but emphasized the universal factors---that the health of the society/culture/nation requires "Profiles in Courage" (as well as good strategists)

Next I showed segments from "In the Name of the Father," showing the torture used by the British police to force a confession by innocent Irish--to being anti-BritishOccupation "terrorists." I related this to current US practices in Iraq/Afghanistan/Guantanamo/etc., and the interesting fact that the same Lawyer who won the eventual release of the innocent Irish---after 15 years in prison, the "Guilford Four")..that she is now defending British imprisoned illegally by the US at the Guantanamo/Cuba prison.

I don't mention China.

[Roger]

I am absolutely not a fan of buzzwords such as "student-centredness". You are going to find out the hard way that moving your goalposts isn't going to arrange things!
These students don't learn English the way people learn foreign tongues in other countries; hence you cannot doctor on their system by using palliatives and placebos.
Your students have been taught for years the antiquated Chinese way - their thinking has never been initiated. My students, for example, are likely to memorise a whole stupid text including the most nonsensical phrases and opinions and regurigate it as their own "presentation". I have to tell them right upfront they mustn't talk about "the terrible wastes" (the title in their book on a text about environmental pollution). I demand that they reflect on themselves and center themselves in the world at large rather than feeling as though they were the centre of the world. Can they choose a topic by themsevles? No! Give a Chinese person 2 options and she will be wavering between the first and the second, only to say she cannot make up her mind and you must give her a third option.
You must define the topic more rigorously rather than giving your students a wide choice. You must insist on students talking, for instance, about the negative sides of things rather than about pros and cons. You must, above all, teach them to think by themselves.

I feel these students had best recite some poem or the lyrics of a song rather than opining on things they usually fail to understand.

[ChinaMovieMagic]

As Roger correctly states;
*the Chinese "teaching" methods are not effective for learning English--especially listening/speak skills.
*MANY cHINESE students think that word-for-word memorization is an effective method for learning to speak English.

RE: "learner-centeredness"...Roger's goal-post metaphor seems to relate more to "goals"/directions, that to choice of input/methods
I'd use a restaurant/metaphor metaphor...let the people discuss/decide what input interests them. Then there'll be more effective mouth-/mind-opening Intrinsic Motivation.

Relevant to Roger's points about learning styles is BELOW, from pg. 10 of "Promoting Change" Thread:

Way 1
When you learn in this way you receive the new information auditorily or visually and you store it together with other similar information in your mind.
If I go to a teacher training workshop as a participant, I will often find myself working in this way: I listen to what is being said and insert it into my ready-made, internal schemata.
If I were learning a new language and came across a linguistic feature I already knew in another language I would have that warm feeling of recognition that is typical of Way 1 thinking.


Way 2
This is the way of learning deemed normal by many of the great, traditional, educational systems of the world.

When working in this mode you take in the new information though your ear or your eye and you try to memorise it just as it is.
If you are studying ground-plans you attempt to mentally photograph what you have on the page in front of you.
In Way 2 you try to retain the form of what you receive and store it in your mind as a complete text. Most readers will have learnt the Latin alphabet in Way 2 and, possibly, as an oral chant when at primary school.
Way 2 is clearly central in the life of any actor and is a must in the life Chinese schoolchildren as they learn the 10,000 characters that bring literacy to one quarter of the world's population.


Way 3
In this way you receive the new information and you immediately start questioning it. Your mind swarms with queries like:

"Does what the teacher said at the outset fit with this ending?"
"Do I agree with that middle bit?"
"I wonder where the teacher got all this from. What are her sources?"

In Way 3, typically, you are in an intellectually aggressive and questioning state of mind.You enter into mental dialogue with the new information and its implications.

Classical Western scientific method draws majorly on this way of working: The central concept of striving to falsify a hypothesis is typical of Way 3.

In my own training at a UK secondary school and then at university I was praised by my teachers for staying as much as possible in this mode. I was praised for intellectual challenging, insubordination, refusing to take 'That's the way it is' for an answer.

Was I taught to value gentle learning, absorbing new ideas, was I made aware that my conscious mind can only think so far, and that the unconscious cognitive processes are vaster, deeper and more potent than that which can fit onto the narrow workbench of conscious mind? I think I was not introduced to such realisations.

Way 4
This is the most difficult of the thinking modes to accurately describe. In this frame of mind the person makes no conscious effort to "learn" anything and yet, maybe the next day, they realise that they have new knowledge in their heads.

Let me give you an example: I arrive in a new city and go to my hotel. I take a 40 minute walk around the neighbourhood, with the conscious intention of thinking through the steps of my next three hour teacher training workshop. Next morning, as I emerge from sleep, I sense that I "know" the layout of the streets surrounding the hotel. I have taken information on board without realising that I was doing it and I have done it completely, excellently, accurately and cognitively, and all this below the level of consciousness.

My guess is that nearly everything that I learnt between conception and the out-of-the-womb age of five was acquired in Way 4. My extraordinary mastery of my mother tongue was achieved 100% through a huge, effortless computational process in the unconscious part of my mind.

Way 4 is too "dreamy" to sit well with most educational systems, though, in language teaching, we have the work of Lozanov, father of Suggestopaedia and of Urbain and Dufeu, who have created Language Psychodramaturgy . Both these methods consciously try to reach the cognitve and affective power of what lies below the surface of the consciousness in the language learner.

It is fascinating how well learners in these two methods, even hoary, inflexible adults, produce the sound system of the target language, which suggests that privileging Way 4 may be an extremely efficient way of giving people back their L1 learning ability later in life when working with an L2 , 4 or 6.

[Brian Caulfield]

I don't think what is being done in the Chinese classroom is all that bad. Students do much chorusing which is non threatening and good for learning pronunciation . I think the problem is that students never feel the language belongs to them . They never see it work with the system they learn under . So that is our job to give them positive feedback . The most difficult students to teach are ones with about 4 to 5 thousand word vocabularies . These students feel stagnated in their learning . I compare it to flying in an airplane . When you start learning a language you are like on the tarmac taking off . Everything is going by you very quickly you feel speed . This is the same as a beginner learning words and grammar rules everything is going by quickly . But when the airplane is in the air at 10,000 meters nothing is going by and the sensation of speed is not felt . Students who have had four or five years of learning a language feel the same . They feel their learning has stopped . I try to get them to keep things like listening diaries and new vocabulary lists . This way they can look back and see that they have learned something .
China is not bad for teaching . Try Korea . You earn your money there and the students take great pride in being an active non participant in your classroom .

[Roger]

[hesterprynne]

I recently had a class in which the students asked for more free speaking time. I was skeptical, based on past experience, but decided to try an experiment. My sister had sent me a board game based on the series Chicken Soup for the Soul. The accompanying cards have very specific questions or prompts, such as "Tell us about an object you loved and lost." I gave the students three minutes to prepare and 30 seconds to speak. At the end of the three minutes I took the papers they were using to prepare with and instructed them to maintain eye contact with the current speaker- to REALLY listen and to be able to answer questions about each person's speech after all had finished. This was with a group of 7 working adults using the New Interchange blue book. To my shock, this worked like a charm. I was quite strict about the fact that each had to pay attention to the current speaker. I repeated this in several classes and later we moved up to one-minute speeches. Each student had to speak for exactly that length of time. I kept corrections to a bare minimum for after the speaking time.

[Brian Caulfield]

Histerpryne I like your style . We have to be like good language learners and take chances in our teaching methods . Sometimes it flops but a good teacher is able to read this quickly and move into something else from their bag of tricks . Thanks for the idea

[Roger]

Bravo, besterprynne! I liked the part in your post that said they had to LISTEN to each other. That always is the HARDEST thing to make them accept.

[englishgibson]

Roger, I agree with you 100%. We are facing a steep uphill battle in China.

Role-plays are a highly efficient technique used in the classrooms, and I prefer it much more than that "presentation" (one speaks, others listen).
However, Chinese students feel highly uncomfortable speaking another language to each other. Choosing popular topics does help, even though it does not eliminate that students' feelings.

If you "open the door" for inquiries in the classroom; "What topics should we use?", you might put a "I don't know what to do" on yur forhead.

First lessons are usually highly important and they do set the tone in the classroom for the future. Lay out a plan what you will do and what your plan will to "to them"! Sometimes it helps and sometimes it does not, but it certainly decreases that failure in the classroom.

There are varieties of topics you could use to discuss, though it often depends on who you have in your classroom (female or male students, country-side or city students, higher levels or lower levels etc).

Cheers and beers

[dajiang]

About the OP's original post:
I did something similar with some of my classes. I got the idea from the cookbook actually, and worked like a charm. Each lesson a different student had 5 minutes of free speech on any topic he or she chose. The class would listen (yeah), and could ask questions afterwards. I think no matter what the topic is, you can always turn it into something interesting by clever use of follow-up questions.
Anyway, the activity was short, and pretty communicative. I agree that having 1 student speak and the rest listen is not very efficient, but this was only one activity at the end of the lesson which had this aspect. And all the students had their turn sooner or later (at the beginning of the year we made the schedule for everyone). In other speaking activities I often used pairs or groups of 4/5.

Like the other posters said the thing is listening. I think that a really good listener can make the speaker want to talk. So, you could see it as a challenge to keep someone talking, by being a good listener.
To train their listening skills I found a list of listening techniques:

Tips for better listening:
1) Make eye contact.
How do you feel when people aren�t looking at you when you�re speaking?Of course, you will think they are not interested. So, it�s most important to look at other people when they speak.

2) Show body language.
It�s very good to nod your head, and use your face to show feelings. Smile when it�s funny or interesting, look serious when it�s sad or serious, frown* if you don�t understand, and so on.

3) Don�t do any other things when you�re listening.
Don�t look at your watch, play with your pen, move your papers, and so on. This means you�re not listening and not interested.

4) Ask questions.
It�s very important to ask questions from time to time. This will make you understand better, and also show that you are listening and interested.

5) Repeat things sometimes in your own words.
For example: �So, you mean�� and �Are you saying that�?� This will make sure you understand, and that you have heard everything.

6) Don�t interrupt.
Always let somebody finish speaking. If they are not finished yet, it is rude to say something yourself. You can show you want to say something by using your body language. Then, it is good to use nr.4 and nr.5.

7) Don�t talk too much yourself.
When you are talking, you can�t listen at the same time. So, sometimes you want to talk about what YOU think, but try not to do this too often.
Try to feel comfortable when you listen and stay calm.

8 ) Try to make the conversation go smoothly and easily as possible.
This means sometimes you are speaking, and sometimes the other person is speaking. Then it�s good to try to make an easy change.
Timing and body language are important.

After going through these points I used some conversation cards (with topics on them) and had pairs pick one randomly. Then one student was 'the listener', and he or she had to use these techniques to keep the other person talking as long as possible, or until I said time was up. For most students this was a real eye-opener cuz they'd never thought of listening as a skill. Learning English for them is always speaking, and sometimes even yelling (crazy english).

Anyway, in later lessons I'd do 'cup of conversation' (see cookbook), and of course with every other presentation the students would have to ask proper follow-up questions.

Oh and btw, about students picking their own topics: I usually gave them a range of choices out of which they could choose (for cool news topics see yahoo oddly enough section). Only in the example at the top of this post they had completey freedom. You can find an incredible amount of conversation topics on the internet. Just google 'conversation topics'.

Take care,
Dajiang

[arioch36]

What's the class size? One thing I have done is to get about ten topics from the students, write them on the board, add a couple of my own refinements to their topics, or give my guidance (ie. this itopic is too one-sided, but if you change it this way, you are able to have different opinions). This gets them on the right path.

Then in their groups ( they will already be divided in groups for the semester, time management/group dynamics keeps me from allowing them to change groups) I have them debate these or other topics for about ten minues, and then have them rank the possible topics. Those that rank the highest will be used.

[ChinaMovieMagic]

Free Teacher's Guides for Download


http://www.thenation.com/classroom/

e.g.
Elite Protectionists
by WILLIAM GREIDER
SUBJECTS COVERED: U.S. Economy, China, Globalization

===================================
On the "Promoting Change..." thread there are lots more Websites posted...

It needs an Index

[kensensei]

Class sizes range from 15 to 30 students in the class, mixed male and female. Although it is a univerisity by name, it has a vocational school feel.

The suggestions so far are quite useful. I have stressed listening, eye contact and follow-up questions before, but never made a "task" or game out of it. Perhaps these skills need to be taught one by one before we can introduce presentation skills.

I also like the idea of refining a topic before letting the students prepare. So many students have gone wrong just because they couldn't find a topic with any life to it. The class needs to agree in advance what topice would be worth listening to!