Job Discussion Forums

[NickH]

Those of you who were following the difficulties of my saga, I'm still here, and here are my circumstances: I teach EFL in a small, po' town in China and I have 23 classes of grade 1 students, in size usually about 80 people, most of a fairly low level, and whom I see only once for 40 minutes over a course of two weeks. Yes, it's crazy. The point is that lesson planning is really difficult and I've only been here 5 weeks but I am already finding myself at a loss because everything has to be a one-shot deal, not too complicated, and grab their attention, preferably activities that encourage group work, which I think is usually the best thing. Please don't refer to me a website. Most of them have ideas and scenarios I have to discard immediately because of my many constraints. I need concrete ideas.

[erinyes]

Junior grade one or senior grade one?

I teach 28 senior grade one classes of 85 students each and see them once a week.

My BF teaches junior grade one and 2 on alternate weeks.

I often begin the lesson with a brain storm, and then give them an example of a dialogue or a discussion.

Then give them some time to practice. If they are very low level give them an outline of the dialogue with some ______ to get them to use their imagination a little.

Then in the last ten minutes select some students to show the class. Choose one group. Don't take no for an answer. If they say no grab their chair and shake it a little then slowly pull it out from under them. Make sure they don't fall over of course.

When they are standing up point at the front of the classroom until they walk up the front.

Now... the most important part... when they have finished tell them what a wonderful and amazing and great job they did (even if it was totally crap!)

There are a few good topics that seem to work really well.

2 ideas:
Brainstorm "What is Important?" You'll get things like:
Health
Family
Money
Study
Life etc...

Then get them into teams and ask them to come up with 3 reasons why that thing is important. Then get them up the front to do a mini debate. Each student says one thing and then they have to rebut the other team. Each member comes up as many times as they like or until it�s boring. Then get the class to vote (by clapping) which team won the debate.


Once:
I got a scene from "the Million pound bank note" broke the scene up into very small sections so each student had no more than 3 lines each. I got them into groups, 1/2 speakers and 1/2 actors. If the section had 3 characters there were 3 actors who didn't speak and 3 speakers who didn't act.

It makes the actors really listen while the readers practice reading clearly without having to act.

[millie]

Hello NickH,

I note that on previous threads people have given you quite an amount of advice, some of it very useful�

You need to keep what you do very simple and structured.
You cannot teach very much in this time but you can do some useful things.

For example:

I suggest forget group work and stick with the pair work.

For this you only need chalk and a b/b.

= Choral drill and practice dialogues , in pairs based on a simple theme or form.
Use only what you can write easily on the b/b.
Change the pairs row by row; and again � and again � and again � and again....
Allow some substitution within certain boundaries.
(Have a look at �Side by Side� for some examples of this approach although it is rather too centred on USA culture for my liking.)

= Do a short dictation of some of the above subject matter.
(do they bring pen & paper? If not: n/a)

= Get them to learn a really simple song over a few months.

= Repeat these same (say) three activities week-by-week, cycle-by-cycle so the kids know what to expect.

Finally, relax.
If the school was really serious about education, they would not have these arrangements.
If most of the kids have spoken English some of the time; and improved their pron. and listening a bit; you have done a fair enough job under the circumstances.

Happy teaching.
M

[Voldermort]

Here is my suggestion for the younger students and large class sizes. Forget group/pair work (it may work for some but I find it to be uncontrolable). You will need a Cassette/CD player (your school will have one, even if they say they don't ).

Create some short dialogues and record them. You may even be able to find some on the internet. Even short stories. Find or create material that will have some interest for your students.

Play the audio to the class sentence by sentence, asking the whole class to repeat. You may also ask them to write down what they hear. You as the teacher should explain the difficult words to them, and depending on the age, give them alternatives, idioms and slang.

Don't do this for the whole 40 minutes, the students will become really bored. At the end of the lesson you can ask them questions about what they heard. e.g. "When A said 'how's things?' what did B reply", "Where are they?" etc... etc... Also at the end of the lesson you may call on some of the students to come to the front and act out what they heard, award them with points, no homework, Candy, stickers...

My students, Senior grade 1, have come to love these excersises and they have noticed a great improvment in their language abilities.

Hope it works for you.

[oprah]

Got to love the input about,. do not take no for an answer, and start to pull the chair from under them, when asking the students to do dialogues...

[Roger]

I second all the advice given so far; what I am going to add is not meant in any way to cancel out any idea submitted.

But if you find the going tougher than you can handle then I would resort to making them memorise the lyrics of songs or poems.
This can be done once in a while to consolidate your input.
It is a waste of resources to hand out photocopies; I have not handed out a single copy to my students in years; if they really care they will listen more carefully and rote-learn orally/aurally; if that's too daunting, you can dictate the verses. That is difficult enough but it's a great way of making them aware of how much they are responsible themselves for the results produced.
You can then rehearse with them, ideally by dividing the class into groups that alternate in reciting, say, girls versus boys or several rows of desks together saying one verse at a time.
TO improve their pronuncation and the flow of their speech you could make them stand up (which they should do anyway in reciting); reward those who do outstandingly well.