What is the best speaking lesson you have done?

mesomorph · Post by **mesomorph** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:40 pm

What did you do?

Sally Olsen · Post by **Sally Olsen** » Thu Feb 26, 2009 6:27 pm

Had fun. But you know, when I took a survey of the lessons at the end of the course, students had a different opinion of which was the best lesson. And different students had different opinions depending on the their learning styles, emotionally, intellectually, socially and so on.

My absolutely favourite lesson was when the janitor took out the desks from the room to do some work at night. This was a grade 2 class. I asked him to leave them out in the hall and we spent the day painting on huge piece of paper on the floor and talking about colours and shapes, dancing to music, lying on mats on the floor with the lights out and curtains drawn while they listened to me read, "Kon Tiki", using their bodies to make letters and words to answer comprehension questions, playing running math games, counting everything in the room including the holes in the ceiling tiles ands so on.

Here is an old discussion on getting adults to talk:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... n&start=30

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 2:59 am

I haven't beaten this drum for a while.

The best lessons, without doubt, were with (the minority of) students in a "method school" who grasped the concept of taking the target words and using them in all manner of weird and wonderful questions and answers and had very structured, useful fun over 50 minutes. All without a computer, worksheet, flashcard or bingo board in sight.

mesomorph · Post by **mesomorph** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 8:26 pm

Sally Olsen wrote:Had fun. But you know, when I took a survey of the lessons at the end of the course, students had a different opinion of which was the best lesson. And different students had different opinions depending on the their learning styles, emotionally, intellectually, socially and so on.

My absolutely favourite lesson was when the janitor took out the desks from the room to do some work at night. This was a grade 2 class. I asked him to leave them out in the hall and we spent the day painting on huge piece of paper on the floor and talking about colours and shapes, dancing to music, lying on mats on the floor with the lights out and curtains drawn while they listened to me read, "Kon Tiki", using their bodies to make letters and words to answer comprehension questions, playing running math games, counting everything in the room including the holes in the ceiling tiles ands so on.

Here is an old discussion on getting adults to talk:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... n&start=30

wacky

mesomorph · Post by **mesomorph** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 8:27 pm

woodcutter wrote:I haven't beat this drum for a while.

The best lessons, without doubt, were with (the minority of) students in a "method school" who grasped the concept of taking the target words and using them in all manner of weird and wonderful questions and answers and had very structured, useful fun over 50 minutes. All without a computer, worksheet, flashcard or bingo board in sight.

what level were they?

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 12:16 am

There were a few classes like that - from intermediate onwards.

No planning too, shouldn't forget that!

Karenne · Post by **Karenne** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 8:20 pm

It's called Dogme! Seriously, cult movement in teaching started (sorry, named) by Scott Thornbury

Google it

Karenne

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 11:44 pm

Or you could search Thornbury or Dogme on the search function of this site, if you prefer, and see what we said last time.

(I hope you do, and that you feel free to add to/argue with whatever was said on that sort of thread.)

I did Google it though, and I learned that Dogme doesn't do desks. Who would have thought it? Vive la revolution!

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 12:01 pm

The now sadly defunct englishdroid.com had a piece parodying Dogme, in which a supposed abhorrence of anything that might act as a barrier or appear to elevate one above one's students resulted in advice to the teacher to ditch the desk and even the chair and lie on the floor in order to teach "properly". It's certainly easy to read more than was intended into the movements precepts (as quoted by a believer in the BC link that Woody has provided on another recent and also somewhat Dogme-connected thread entitled 'Fossilized Errors': http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... 0624#40624 ).

surrealia · Post by **surrealia** » Sat May 02, 2009 2:26 am

In April 2009, Delta Publishing released Teaching Unplugged by Scott Thornbury and Luke Meddings, which is an overview of Dogme. You can read more about it here:

http://www.deltapublishing.co.uk/html/b ... l#TEACHUNP

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Sat May 02, 2009 12:05 pm

Thanks for the info, Surrealia! Apart from being interesting in itself, it's helped me remember the title of that Englishdroid article: 'Teaching Unhinged'!