Job Discussion Forums

[Wolf]

In response to Denise's query wether or not the General Forum needs "weightier" issues pretaining to what we do discussed, I have started this thread.

What, in general, do you do to help low level students practice conversation skills? To what extent is this possible? What have your tried and true (or tried and failed even - that could be useful to know) approaches been in this regard? Or, if perhaps you are a newer teacher, what might you try?

I'm not going to dare comment yet, but let's see if others more daring than I would be interested in sharing their wisdom.

[denise]

I've just recently started using an activity in... what's it called... "New ways in teaching speaking," edited by Kathi Bailey and...

I have used it for two different levels--one advanced, one high intermediate, but it could be modified for even lower levels.

Basically, it entails giving the students identities--they have to "become" certain people, like a 16-year-old high school student who dreams of playing professional basketball, a retired basketball player, a bored housewife, etc., etc. You throw a mock party, tell them all to mingle and meet all the other guests, and find a match--e.g., the 16-year-old and the retired guy would be a match, the bored housewife might be paired up with... (depending on the morals of the class!) a man for a casual affair, etc.

One of the suggestions included with the lesson is that, since you're simulating a party, why not actually throw a party? The two times I have tried it, both classes were pleasantly surprised to see me come in the door with snacks and drinks for them. It makes the activity a wee bit more realistic, too--you actually get groups of people standing around the food table conversing.

I think the only change you'd have to make for lower-level students would be a more careful selection of roles--things that they would understand--plus for emphasis on/pre-teaching of vocabulary and typical party conversations before getting the party rolling.

d

[struelle]

[denise]

Oooops--I think I missed the "in general" in Wolf's post.

In general--I try to remember to write step-by-step instructions on the board, in addition to explaining them orally. So for the simulated party, I would write something like:

1) "become" your role--imagine your hobbies, personality, etc.
2) meet all of the other party guests and learn their hobbies, personalities, etc.
3) at the end of the party, find your "match"--the person you want to be friends with

Another general idea--as you're monitoring pair/group/individual work, students may have the same vocab questions--once you've explained/elicited/whatever the word to one student, have that student explain it to the rest of the class

d

[guest of Japan]

Thank you Denise for posting that. I have to admit that I think it wouldn't be successful in a large class of low level unmotivated students, but I respect your bravery to put an idea on the table.

I suspect that this thread won't get a lot of replies because teachers are apprehensive about exposing their ideas to colleagues that they don't already have a strong supportive friendship with.

Since I've been critical, I must therefore at least expose my own weaknesses or strengths as a teacher.

Firstly, I have to admit that I don't have the slightest idea of how to engage the students I teach now. I'm having a great lesson if I can get 20% of the students to actually be taking part in the lesson at one time.
The only lessons that I've had where I had full participation are the ones where I played Bingo with the students using selected simple vocabulary words. After saying the words, I'd then write them on the board for the 50% if the students that didn't know them. The only reasons I had complete participation were because the game was incredibly easy, it required no speaking by the students, and I gave away sweets as prizes.

Right now I have extremely moderate success by breaking my classes into 1/3 alotments of teaching and learning style. First, I introduce vocabulary and grammar to the class using pictures and simple sentence patterns. I use lots of repetition and increase the speed and add variations to keep it from becoming dull. The second third I have the students use worksheets to reinforce the vocabulary and the grammar. This is especially helpful for students who are too shy to participate in choral work, or who have require a more visual learning technique. The final third, I have the students work in pairs. The students each recieve a worksheet which is missing some information. The partners worksheet contains all the anwers the other student needs. The students have to use the lesson content to learn the missing information. I collect all work done in class and grade everything based on effort. I have to monitor intensely to insure that English is being spoken during this time.

Truthfully, I'm only having success with a small number of students. My high school is the second lowest school in a prefecture (like a state) of about 6,000,000 people. I can truly understand the frustrations of the teacher being critiqued in the other thread. Except that my students are on the complete opposite end of the intelligence bell curve. And they have a whole lot of emotional and psychological problems to boot.

[denise]

Guest of Japan--

My colleagues and I constantly deal with unmotivated students--although I admit that everything is relative, and by comparison to some of the teachers whose postings I see here, all of our lot may well be little work-o-holics.

Motivation is not a static thing. Each individual student can feel more or less motivated based on his or her mood, the weather, etc. I have found that getting them up out of their seats and mingling with each other tends to motivate them. We cannot control external factors (e.g., if one of them broke up with a boy/girlfriend the night before and thus is in a $hitty mood--such things are beyond our control...) but we can definitely control which sorts of activities we bring in. Maybe such mingling activities wouldn't work with large classes (how large is "large"?), but, impracticalities such as unmanageable class size, desks being nailed to the floor (GREAT for groupwork, no?), etc., aside... To a large degree, I agree with your contention that certain activities won't work with certain groups, but I got the impression from your posting that you thought that all of your students were always unmotivated. Why not try mixing things up? Instead of choral drills, why not a group project? Different activities might just perk them up. Yes, sometimes new activities will bomb, but there's only one way to find out...

d

[guest of Japan]

Hi Denise,

Your argument is fair enough, but I have a strong feeling that you have never been exposed to a truly low level unmotivated class. I agree that getting student to stand up and mingle is a wonderful thing, but here's the problem.

-My students will not stand up for longer than 5 seconds.

-My student do not know even the simplest English you can imagine, nor do they want to know.

-If they do stand up it's because they are going to get their cell phone which is ringing or they are about to get into a fight.

-My class size ranges from 25 to 40 students. On any given day 25% of students are absent from class.

-Class duration is 90 minutes 1 time a week.

I do what I do because it is the most effective strategy thus far. I've tried more interactive techniques, but they fail miserably. Most of my student do not like each other. Some students will not speak to other students in the class even using Japanese. Most have communication with no more than 2 or 3 people. I have to provide a quantifiable English course. My students are tested on listening, speaking and written English, despite the fact that I'm called an Oral English Teacher.

I spent the first semester concentrating on breaking them out of their shells using fun interactive activities that let them use their own idea and mix about using the English they already knew or could easily acquire. The problem was they didn't know very much English and they refused to require anything new much less take part in the fun and interesting ideas I had for them. This semester I have switched gears to a very well stuctured syllabus ising very simple vocabulary and sentence structure. Vocabulary is heavily re-enforced in later lessons and the grammar structures are all tangented together is insure smooth absorbtion.

The difference in success between the two style is that at the end of the first semester my students were not improved in anyway from when I started. As this semester winds down and am seeing visible improvement in about 25% of my students. I expect the number to be higher when I do individual testing.

Sometimes being a teacher is just fascillitating and sometimes is introducing carefully controlled information. Fascillitating is extremely successful for motivated or easily motivated student, or students who already have skills which can be fine tuned. Unfortunately, the role of fascillitator is not one which I have the option to be right now.