Korean Job Discussion Forums

[icnelly]

Will anyone say there are generally right/wrong (effective/uneffective) approaches for an EFL activity? I was talking with my co-teacher; pissed her off a bit, and without thinking about what I was going to say enough, I used the word "right" over effective. I edited this post to take out my selfish remarks that Gadfly immediately noted, so I just want to ask questions.

Are there times when pre-teaching is not necessary?

Are there times when pre-teaching is absolutely necessary?

How would someone else define scaffolding in a EFL manner?

What criteria do you use for peer observation?

What crieteria do you use to judge activities, or the right/wrong, effective/unefffective status of activities?

I use these:

1. Interest (are the students active/participatory.)
2. Feeding answers because of improper approach rather than using challenging language a bit above the students (On a large scale, does the teacher have to feed answers)
3. Compared and contrasted to my personal method

Does anyone have peer review sheets, or ideas?

[thegadfly]

Ouch -- that was difficult to get through. I am afraid that when I hear someone being critical of a co-worker, I have the knee-jerk reaction of immediately being critical of the person being critical...and that has me asking if you checked your post to correct your own errors....

To answer the question, I would say that there are very few right or wrong approaches to an EFL activity -- that is, pretty much ANY approach COULD be effective, just as pretty much ANY approach could be bolloxed up by some ham-handed hack.

To judge the effectiveness of any lesson, I would need to know the goals of the lesson. What are you trying to do? Are the things you are trying to do in keeping with the curriculum? Are the goals you have set level-appropriate? Are your students capable of meeting those goals?

Assuming you HAVE a clear goal or goals, and that they are appropriate and possible for the class, and that you ought to be working toward those goals in the class, then I would ask about time constraints -- how much class time do you have to spend on achieving the goals? As much time as it takes? Five minutes? Until the students grow bored? I would assume a 10 minute mini-lesson.

I also assumed that your suggestion was the 5-step plan (since you prefaced it with the "correct/effective" moniker). I don't see this taking 10 minutes or less -- more like 15-20 minutes, but maybe you can do it much more quickly -- perhaps you do less repetition or modeling than I imagine.

I assumed the 3-step plan was what the other teacher was doing, since you titled THAT one "wrong/ineffective." The 5-step plan takes at least twice as long, and probably 3 times as long to do as the 3-step plan.

I do not perceive a clear goal for either lesson -- exposing the students to the words? Recognizing the word? Pronouncing the word? Being able to use the word in context? Learning the definition of the word? Being able to spell the word? Identifying rhyming pairs? Identifying the parts of speech of the words? Just what are you supposed to be doing?

So even after all THAT, I would have to ask -- if I saw a class being taught using the 5-step plan, and one using the 3-step plan, in which class would I have the highest percentage of students being on-task, attentive, engaged, participating, and giving the desired responses?

I agree that if you have an activity that the kids can't figure out, and you have to just tell them the answers, something is amiss. However, if you are feeding answers for the entire lesson, to establish the pattern, and a later lesson draws upon that pattern without the teacher's prompting, then it might be effective.

Bottom line -- I think I side with your co-teacher on this one, because when you tell YOUR side of it, I think you are in the wrong. If I were to get the OTHER side of the story, I imagine there would be more to it that paints your side in an even less flattering light, and so...work on your interpersonal skills, and try to communicate with your co-worker in a much less confrontational way.

Cheers!

[icnelly]

Yeah, thanks for that. I think was I in the wrong too. That part of the lesson was to be a review before starting activties associated with the newer material, so the kids were well submersed in the language points, just not the vocabulary.

The kids were meant to answer, "What's this?" with the new vocabulary words. But, the answers were being given to them instead of produced.

I'm asking about judging criteria because I want to set up guidelines, or make an observation sheet that my co-teacher and I can use without running the risk of being an ass like me. Obviously, I'm the one who will benefit the most from it.

So anyone else with more criteria, observation sheets?