Job Discussion Forums

[Songbird]

Howdy all,

Just finished all exams and given results (yesterday), but, being a sadistic workaholic, I am already planning lessons for next year (and I mean the WHOLE year, not just 1st semester. Is flexible to change of course).

BUT...I have an idea for my oral classes that I'm not sure would be acceptable. I'm thinking of doing a 'classroom in a box' as such- full of suitable games, activities, maybe roleplays and whatever else, all, divded into skill levels of course. I teach college students in a rural area, so they're nothing like Beijing or Shanghai students. They are also a mix of 4 year undergrad and 3 year diploma students, and they only do oral for their first 2 years. This year the college gave me 4 classes of no more than 30 students in each.

I have a 2 hour block with these students every week, once a week. My idea is for the 1st hour to introduce new words, grammar, concepts etc and perhaps a typical topic we'd normally do (ie. going to the doctor, going shopping, introductions, you get the idea), then after the break, let the class run free, grab the things they want from my box and go for it in groups, pairs, etc.

This may seem like the lazy teachers way of doing class. Far from it. I plan to have an ENORMOUS box with enough material to keep them happy and chatting in English for the year, and to add to it whenever. So it's going to take a HUGE amount of work to actually put this together over the holiday. That's fine, I actually love doing this sort of planning, right up my alley, bring it on! Also, doing this would give me more time to freely speak and listen to each student and to provide more one on one guidance . If they're having problems then I can help them and perhaps provide an easier task.

Basically the students will have MUCH more control and responsibility over their learning and also gives each student the opportunity to develop at their OWN level rather than expecting and pushing each one to be able to meet all the objectives of the class.

Has anyone ever tried anything like this? How did it go? Would this be an enormous flop? Be honest! If anyone else has any ideas as to how this could work, I'm all ears- I'm just in the planning stages of it now!

[phis]

Sounds great. You are willing to experiment - and all really good teachers are willing to experiment! I bet there are going to be things in your box that you will reject after a couple of tries, and others you and your students will want to keep doing year after year.

Do include the Word Up game. A bit expensive, but it will last for years. You can buy a classroom set which has two of everything: boards, questions, counters, etc. There are five levels of questions so it is suitable for most levels of students. I've never had a group that didn't like playing this. Of course, you will have to help them understand the rules of play for the first couple of times.

Good luck with the preparation of your box. Please let us know how it goes next semester.

[Songbird]

Phis,

Thanks for your postive feedback, and yes, I think Up Words is the game you're thinking of....it would be a great addition- I think I'm going to try to borrow a copy somewhere and make my own board, tiles etc- much easier to carry and I can have several games going at once if need be.

Anyone else with ideas?

[phis]

No, it's WORD UP. No tiles involved, only counters, dice, question cards etc.

Check out website: www.teflgames.com for more details. Based in Thailand, so it doesn't take long for it to be delivered.

[Mister Al]

OP
I know your in the sticks but if you the school has or you can beg them, get a laminator and laminate everything and make sure you manage the box well or you'll have a headache. Good luck....sounds a good idea.

[therock]

You've started planning for next year already????? Are you nuts???? I admire the dedication..........but this is China.......planning that far ahead is unheard of.

[Rooster]

Your "Box" reminds me of my "Bucket of Fun!"

Be careful of sharp objects. But, the students are on a different level.

[Songbird]

The Rock- whatever I plan to do, I HAVE to plan now- I'm also doing a Master's degree part time and the next semester starts mid July....I need to be mega organised!

Rooster- So what was your 'Bucket of Fun' about? Was it successful? I figure with the amount of students I have I need a little more than a bucket, hehe

[kev7161]

I think you are already on the right track to being well-prepared. After reading your post, I'd only recommend that you have certain goals in place. Where should the students be after month one, month two, mid-term, end of the school year? I would make sure they are all working toward some similar goal. Maybe have monthly competitions or spoken presentations. Assign group leaders each time you start a new topic and, if their English is good enough, have group leader meetings (makes them feel important!) near the end of every other class to get their feedback and the feedback of their group. This way if something is too "hard" or too "easy" or whatever, you can make adjustments with the next project.

You know, even though teaching my second grade students is MUCH different (or is it?) than your young college students, I think you have to watch out for what I struggled with all this year. We'd have a lesson in English, we'd talk about the lesson in English, we'd have English worksheets, and then I'd assign them their group project (say, making a food pyramid). Sure enough, once I finished instructions and let them start, they all would immediately devolve back to Chinese - - for EVERYTHING - - even words and simple sentences I knew THEY knew how to say in English. "Can I borrow your pencil?" "Can you help me?" "Let's put this apple in the fruit part." (Really, you need to see and hear my kids to understand how far they've come along in English.) I'd walk around reminding them "speak in English, speak in English!" and they would for awhile, but it's just too easy for them to fall back to their native tongue. So, watch for that as I'm sure you do.

Finally, if you're struggling with ideas, I would advise you to think of an overall theme for each month of your school year, then come up with 4 or 5 smaller ideas based on that theme. For example: restaurants and dining out. Off the top of my head, here are some things I would do:

1. If you can find them, introduce menus from different kinds of restaurants. You might look online (google it) to find some menus or if you're traveling to a big city this summer, there are some places that have take out menus, esp. pizza places If you have a friend back home, see if they'll send you a handful from your hometown.

Then, you'll talk about them, have the visual aids, let the students create their own keeping in mind the next idea - -

2. Each student will create their own kind of restaurant. Yes, one may be lucky enough to pick "Chinese restaurant" out of the hat, but others should include Italian, Spanish, Greek, American(ish), etc. They have to do research on their own to find out what kinds of foods should be served (make sure you have some pre-researched websites they could scour), what decor would be in there (and you know amongst Chinese students there are many quite good artists that can sketch a concept on a large piece of paper), uniforms for their waitstaff. . . After they've researched, they need to put together an oral report to present their menu and restaurant.

3. Do a small play being in the restaurant. Again, they have to pick a theme from a hat: comedy, horror, dramatic, musical(!), romantic, etc. This can be done if your 2nd month was about . . . different types of movies. Not that you have to sit around watchng movies for a month, but you can pick out some DVDs that match each theme and show them a small portion of the movie and . . . I'll let you take that on your own. Anyway, they write, practice, and perform their short play and the rest of the class critiques them, as well as the teacher naturally. You can build up this event by inviting other teachers and important people to come as well to watch them. May make them a bit more diligent if they knew a head teacher or a vice-principal was sitting in the audience.

Okay . . . did you make it this far? The ideas you have and my ideas of what I listed before makes the class more student-centered and gives a lot of the responsibility to each student. The more they put into it, the more they'll get out of it and the better their grades will be. Speaking of grades, create a rubric ahead of time spotlighting what you are looking for and how they will be graded and give one to the group before they start. They can use it as a checklist of sorts to make sure they've covered everything you are wanting out of them. Makes your job of grading MUCH easier as well!

As for me . . . I am always thinking about the next year, so I don't think you're crazy at all. But, I will be nowhere near as organized as you! Good luck!

[Songbird]

Hi Kev,

Good ideas there, though slightly different to what I was thinking of . I still will do an hour of structured class on a particular theme, roleplays, introduce new vocab etc, then the next hour after the break have activities and games etc that actually aren't in any particular theme. All I want to do is challenge them more and GET them talking, which is the whole objective of oral English. I was a little frustrated this year that my classes seemed to become culture lessons too much.

I really don't need to do this, my students were fantastic this year, awesome efforts by all, the end results showed that not ONE student got below 70% (marked vocab/ grammar/ pronunciation/ intonation/ keeping on the topic) so I am extremely proud of them. I had very few problems with them resorting back to Chinese (just a few here and there), they love love LOVE talking in English to the point that I did have a few problems in the final exam shutting them up and ushering them out when they were done !

What I wasn't happy about was the teacher: student speaking ratio, I feel I spoke too much and I feel this will help alleviate that, and give more responsibility to the students (and they really need someone to treat them like adults around here, not little kids).

On top of the final exam each semester I also plan in the first year to assess each one in class in group work, assign each one as a leader, different student each week. I did this this year and it was successful and they weren't too nervous about this. In the 2nd semester & grade 2, I do individual speeches on different topics each week, they have a week to plan but makes them sweat and challenge them a little more. I am also a Nazi when it comes to them copying from books, internet etc!

[Songbird]

Anyone else got any ideas or opinions?

Maybe this will help someone else as well

[SheZook]

I think it's a great idea and had planned on doing something similar myself. I asked my friends and family back home to collect a few menus, junk mail and shopping catalogues (they LOVE these) for me and post them over. My co-teacher and I also had the local print shop make up a couple of sets of LARGE Scrabble games.

[Songbird]

Hello, Shezook, my new best friend

I am EXTREMELY interested in your Scrabble idea....I would like to make one up myself, simple one with cardboard letters etc, but don't know how many of each to make, how big the board should be etc!

I also want to make an 'Up Words' set as well for the more advanced students....

How did you go about doing this?

[Rooster]

When my "Bucket of Fun" existed I was "teaching" kids between 6 and 12 years old. It was mainly used during the break, but I did use some of the games in class.

I had a basketball hoop, darts, checkers, Chutes & Ladders and an "across 5" (?). If they were being used in class I would have 2 teams - Boys v. Girls. The kids had to spell a word or answer correctly before they could attempt to score a point for their team.

The darts often got me in trouble with the parents. Little Billy was a major problem. Younger Josh would climb all over me. I wonder what they're up to now. Hopefully all is well!

Good Luck.

[SheZook]

Songbird - I can't remember the website we used but we just surfed the net until we found a good picture of the Scrabble board and the tiles (with all their values and quantities). We copied the picture, scaled it up to the size we wanted (remember to scale the tiles to fit), saved it to a portable USB drive and took it down to the local copy shop. We had everything printed up on lightweight, durable plastic and the whole lot cost about 50RMB (2 complete sets). We made the boards and tiles about double the size of regular boards so that it was easier to see and read the words, and also so that the kids (especially younger ones) could play in pairs/teams.
You could probably do something similar with UpWords but I'm not sure how you'd go getting the tiles to stack neatly.
Another good game for young kids is Guess Who? I used this during a summer camp to teach descriptions - it was a hit!