Job Discussion Forums

[takamatsudaiki]

At the L.A. Regional CA TESOL Conference a few months ago, there was a demonstration where the presenter had created her own hand-made mouth and she demonstrated how she used it to show the places and manners of articulation. I can see if one of my classmates remembers how the mouth was made, but based on what I heard, that method worked EXTREMELY well to get the students to produce the proper sounds.

[gaijinalways]

Abu makes some good points, though personally I wouldn't waste too much time worrying about such jargon distinctions (phonics vs. pronunciation, reading aloud vs. speaking). I would be more concerned with activities. I like to use some activities for 'drama acting', a role-playing with props and specific mannerisms. With your level of students, you can spend more time getting them to 'adlib' amongst choices you and your students introduce. You can also have students work on some of the suggested structures and functions that Abu suggested in his outline for the year. Pair practicing with prompting and discussions with topics and suggested structures seem to work okay. Try drawing and video describing activities as well, students especially like the 'blind partner' type activities

One important point is that I often focus more on meaning than structures myself. If you expose students to enough comprehensible language in various situations, after a while some of it will stick. Just try to vary what you do and make it interesting

As to Abu's suggestion to 'toss the text', be careful as at some schools if the students bought it and you don't use it, there may be some complaints, which will come back to you through your boss and/or the admin and will hurt your chances of getting more work there.

[nawlinsgurl]

thanks!