thanks stephen, maybe that medical advice will work.
i had believed it was not so much a case of allergy to CAPITALS--[achoo]; as an affinity for the lower case of this world.
currently i am busy trying to take in the concept of what makes tutors of hottentots hot...
Deleted
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
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coffeedecafe
- Posts: 73
- Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2004 10:17 am
- Location: michigan
Betty Batter
Hello all.
Wish I had more time (and I promise to stop b*tching about it once I'm accustomed to my new schedule) to contribute more, especially in this thread, which I never thought would get so much attention. Makes me feel like I've contributed!
Commenting, then, on coffeedecafe's last comment.
It very well may be that a tongue twister can help in "back-door" teaching, that is, distracting with one item while slipping another through the psycological "back-door". Yet, I wouldn't count on it, wouldn't study it, and would just hope that it helps when the twisters are used.
Actually, the ear is developed through the mouth. Grab your ear and pull it up and down ten times, three times a day, and you won't understand L2 any better than when you began this useless exercise. Learn to articulate, that is, physically reproduce as accurately as possible, the sounds of L2 and you will suddenly find yourself hearing things that you had not heard before.
Take the prepositions, for example. "John went to the bank." Nice easy sentence, usually pronounced by non-natives: "John--went--to--the--bank.", with heavy colorings from whatever their L1 may be. Natives might be more likely to say "John wento th bank." and non-natives get stuck on just where the "to" and even "the" have gotten themselves. They don't understand the entire sentence because they feel they are missing parts of that sentence and while they are looking about for those missing words, they don't pay attention to the words that are really providing information, that is "John" and "bank". Once the English student produces the sentence as closely to the native production as is humanly possible, they understand the sentence because they understand this reduction of sounds natural to natural spoken English and stop worrying about the "tos" and "thes" that they might not hear because they are just not totally there. The non-native may never get a complete grasp on producing English with reductions and liasons, but will have identified a spoken interference in their own insistence in pronoucing every single word and expecting that the native, even when speaking slowly, does the same, which is just not the case. So they can then focus on the emphasized words and begin to gleen the meaning from what has been commented on earlier in this thread, the tone of voice, the variation of emphasis, etc, and not just the words being spoken.
That's all for now. Off to work!
peace,
revel.
Wish I had more time (and I promise to stop b*tching about it once I'm accustomed to my new schedule) to contribute more, especially in this thread, which I never thought would get so much attention. Makes me feel like I've contributed!
Commenting, then, on coffeedecafe's last comment.
It very well may be that a tongue twister can help in "back-door" teaching, that is, distracting with one item while slipping another through the psycological "back-door". Yet, I wouldn't count on it, wouldn't study it, and would just hope that it helps when the twisters are used.
Actually, the ear is developed through the mouth. Grab your ear and pull it up and down ten times, three times a day, and you won't understand L2 any better than when you began this useless exercise. Learn to articulate, that is, physically reproduce as accurately as possible, the sounds of L2 and you will suddenly find yourself hearing things that you had not heard before.
Take the prepositions, for example. "John went to the bank." Nice easy sentence, usually pronounced by non-natives: "John--went--to--the--bank.", with heavy colorings from whatever their L1 may be. Natives might be more likely to say "John wento th bank." and non-natives get stuck on just where the "to" and even "the" have gotten themselves. They don't understand the entire sentence because they feel they are missing parts of that sentence and while they are looking about for those missing words, they don't pay attention to the words that are really providing information, that is "John" and "bank". Once the English student produces the sentence as closely to the native production as is humanly possible, they understand the sentence because they understand this reduction of sounds natural to natural spoken English and stop worrying about the "tos" and "thes" that they might not hear because they are just not totally there. The non-native may never get a complete grasp on producing English with reductions and liasons, but will have identified a spoken interference in their own insistence in pronoucing every single word and expecting that the native, even when speaking slowly, does the same, which is just not the case. So they can then focus on the emphasized words and begin to gleen the meaning from what has been commented on earlier in this thread, the tone of voice, the variation of emphasis, etc, and not just the words being spoken.
That's all for now. Off to work!
peace,
revel.
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coffeedecafe
- Posts: 73
- Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2004 10:17 am
- Location: michigan
=actually, the ear is developed through the mouth=
i think i will not only accept that but attempt to apply it. no reason a student cannot practice the new language, just because no one is present to listen to them. other than corrction of error, speed and familiarity would at least be gained. [and maybe quote it to others.
i think i will not only accept that but attempt to apply it. no reason a student cannot practice the new language, just because no one is present to listen to them. other than corrction of error, speed and familiarity would at least be gained. [and maybe quote it to others.
Abducted!
Abducted!
In a team-teaching situation the work in a “Commercial English” crash-course has been divided thus:
Teacher A: Text: Working in English. Task: Work your way through the textbook.
Teacher B: Same text, same task.
Teacher C: Text: Pre-intermediate Matters. Task: Explain the grammar therein.
Me: Reinforce the work done by A, B and C through oral practice.
“Working in English” offers in the first five chapters some simple role plays. They do not go beyond the basic “My name is….” or “Ask questions of your partner and note the information in the blank spots in this exercise form.” Even though the students have been thrashing through the first five to ten units of this book, in a role play based on a round-table meeting, I am still getting these responses from a given task:
Task: Introduce yourselves to the rest of the members of the table.
Material: A fake identification card with a photo, name, address, profession, date of birth and telephone number.
Sample introduction:
“My name is Sheila Brown. I am 43 years old. I live at 45 Main Street, Boston Mass. My phone number is 545 6589. I am a businesswoman.”
That is wrong. At a round table where I am presenting myself for the first time to a bunch of strangers I would hardly say my age or my exact address or my phone number, unless the subject of the round table is directly concerned with such data. And being a business woman is interesting, but what business am I in? Obviously, the simplified role play offered by the book and practiced by the other teachers is not serving the real need of the student.
Activity: 42nd World Conference on UFO Abductions.
Objectives: Introducing oneself to strangers. Looking for common interests. Making short presentations. Explaining processes. Selling new ideas.
Materials: Fake Ids (to make students pretend to be someone other than who they are). UFO abduction survey (to show students that though the subject matter may be odd, a survey is a survey is a survey); Props (to give students something physical to hold onto when making presentations or explaining processes or selling their product)
Task one: The coffee break.
Objectives: Informal/formal introductions. Information gathering.
Students have received their new identity and must mingle about “getting to know one another”. Teacher walks about as an informant, reminding students that on a first meeting one does not usually state one’s age or offer a telephone number. In the coffee break between meetings we are more likely to be looking for people who are from nearby cities, or even far-away exotic places, or who might be potential clients or partners in our business. In this exercise, students are all victims of a UFO abduction and are given the task to find others who have been abducted in the same fashion, looking for similarities in the details of these abductions. They have not had time to imagine their own abductions and are making up these details “on their feet” during this ten to fifteen minute exercise. Mingle means mingle, they should keep moving about, making sure that they speak to three or four different people and gather those similarities to later report to class. In my collection of ID cards, students are married to others and must identify their spouse and then avoid the spouse during the coffee break.
Task two: Round table discussion.
Objectives: Formal personal introductions. Listening and answering yes/no questions. Short presentation.
A moderator (the teacher) will introduce him/herself and then ask each of the students to give a brief introduction.
Before making presentations, the moderator will conduct an oral UFO abduction survey (look on internet, there are dozens of them you can cut and paste and adapt), noting down the answers of the participants. “Do you often dream of being chased by animals?” Students reply yes or no.
Students will briefly and clearly explain their own abduction experience. This should have been prepared before class.
This round table activity will take a couple of classes and should be cut short leaving time for the teacher to share his/her notes on usage at the end of the class. During the activity students should not be corrected but rather be allowed to wade through the material as best they can. This gives the teacher a nice sample of the capacity of each student and gives the student an opportunity to defend him/herself with whatever level of English he/she possesses.
Task three: What they did to me.
Objectives: Describing a process.
Students are asked to give a brief step-by-step explanation of what the alien creatures did to them during their time on the UFO. This presentation is given as in an AA meeting, the group sitting in chairs in rows and the presenter standing at the front and speaking. Listeners must note similarities between the speaker’s experience and their own to share in a later round table discussion.
Task four: What I got from them.
Objectives: Giving new meaning to old things.
Students have been given a prop (an iron, a harmonica, a wooden spoon, a wall bracket, etc….) and are required to explain this item as if it were something the aliens had given them for their participation in the abduction. This new thing must be something that will improve the lives of we mere human-beings and students are looking for someone who might be interested in producing and marketing the “invention” for mass distribution on planet Earth.
Task five: Production meeting.
Objectives: Meeting protocols. Robert’s Rules of Order.
After having voted on a particular invention from task four, students will mock a meeting in which there is a chair person and participants. The theme of the meeting will be the production and marketing of the invention. Based on their false identities, each student will give a point of view on the usefulness of the item in question. Motions must be made and voted upon.
I am presently at Task two of this process and the remaining tasks will depend on how far the students can get with Task two. This is not the main thrust of our classes. All classes begin with the warm-up, followed by structural exercise and finally role play activity as described in earlier posts. I expect this activity will take up more than ten hours of class time. Once I have completed the exercise I will give more complete details on how it worked with this group.
I have chosen the UFO thing because it will stimulate the imagination. I don’t want the students to talk about insurance sales or dot-com business or agricultural products. I don’t want them to get carried away with the familiar distractions. I want them to use the language normally found in such normal business situations as conferences, meetings, round-tables, brainstormings etc in a creative way. I want them to use English creatively, I guess.
peace,
revel.
In a team-teaching situation the work in a “Commercial English” crash-course has been divided thus:
Teacher A: Text: Working in English. Task: Work your way through the textbook.
Teacher B: Same text, same task.
Teacher C: Text: Pre-intermediate Matters. Task: Explain the grammar therein.
Me: Reinforce the work done by A, B and C through oral practice.
“Working in English” offers in the first five chapters some simple role plays. They do not go beyond the basic “My name is….” or “Ask questions of your partner and note the information in the blank spots in this exercise form.” Even though the students have been thrashing through the first five to ten units of this book, in a role play based on a round-table meeting, I am still getting these responses from a given task:
Task: Introduce yourselves to the rest of the members of the table.
Material: A fake identification card with a photo, name, address, profession, date of birth and telephone number.
Sample introduction:
“My name is Sheila Brown. I am 43 years old. I live at 45 Main Street, Boston Mass. My phone number is 545 6589. I am a businesswoman.”
That is wrong. At a round table where I am presenting myself for the first time to a bunch of strangers I would hardly say my age or my exact address or my phone number, unless the subject of the round table is directly concerned with such data. And being a business woman is interesting, but what business am I in? Obviously, the simplified role play offered by the book and practiced by the other teachers is not serving the real need of the student.
Activity: 42nd World Conference on UFO Abductions.
Objectives: Introducing oneself to strangers. Looking for common interests. Making short presentations. Explaining processes. Selling new ideas.
Materials: Fake Ids (to make students pretend to be someone other than who they are). UFO abduction survey (to show students that though the subject matter may be odd, a survey is a survey is a survey); Props (to give students something physical to hold onto when making presentations or explaining processes or selling their product)
Task one: The coffee break.
Objectives: Informal/formal introductions. Information gathering.
Students have received their new identity and must mingle about “getting to know one another”. Teacher walks about as an informant, reminding students that on a first meeting one does not usually state one’s age or offer a telephone number. In the coffee break between meetings we are more likely to be looking for people who are from nearby cities, or even far-away exotic places, or who might be potential clients or partners in our business. In this exercise, students are all victims of a UFO abduction and are given the task to find others who have been abducted in the same fashion, looking for similarities in the details of these abductions. They have not had time to imagine their own abductions and are making up these details “on their feet” during this ten to fifteen minute exercise. Mingle means mingle, they should keep moving about, making sure that they speak to three or four different people and gather those similarities to later report to class. In my collection of ID cards, students are married to others and must identify their spouse and then avoid the spouse during the coffee break.
Task two: Round table discussion.
Objectives: Formal personal introductions. Listening and answering yes/no questions. Short presentation.
A moderator (the teacher) will introduce him/herself and then ask each of the students to give a brief introduction.
Before making presentations, the moderator will conduct an oral UFO abduction survey (look on internet, there are dozens of them you can cut and paste and adapt), noting down the answers of the participants. “Do you often dream of being chased by animals?” Students reply yes or no.
Students will briefly and clearly explain their own abduction experience. This should have been prepared before class.
This round table activity will take a couple of classes and should be cut short leaving time for the teacher to share his/her notes on usage at the end of the class. During the activity students should not be corrected but rather be allowed to wade through the material as best they can. This gives the teacher a nice sample of the capacity of each student and gives the student an opportunity to defend him/herself with whatever level of English he/she possesses.
Task three: What they did to me.
Objectives: Describing a process.
Students are asked to give a brief step-by-step explanation of what the alien creatures did to them during their time on the UFO. This presentation is given as in an AA meeting, the group sitting in chairs in rows and the presenter standing at the front and speaking. Listeners must note similarities between the speaker’s experience and their own to share in a later round table discussion.
Task four: What I got from them.
Objectives: Giving new meaning to old things.
Students have been given a prop (an iron, a harmonica, a wooden spoon, a wall bracket, etc….) and are required to explain this item as if it were something the aliens had given them for their participation in the abduction. This new thing must be something that will improve the lives of we mere human-beings and students are looking for someone who might be interested in producing and marketing the “invention” for mass distribution on planet Earth.
Task five: Production meeting.
Objectives: Meeting protocols. Robert’s Rules of Order.
After having voted on a particular invention from task four, students will mock a meeting in which there is a chair person and participants. The theme of the meeting will be the production and marketing of the invention. Based on their false identities, each student will give a point of view on the usefulness of the item in question. Motions must be made and voted upon.
I am presently at Task two of this process and the remaining tasks will depend on how far the students can get with Task two. This is not the main thrust of our classes. All classes begin with the warm-up, followed by structural exercise and finally role play activity as described in earlier posts. I expect this activity will take up more than ten hours of class time. Once I have completed the exercise I will give more complete details on how it worked with this group.
I have chosen the UFO thing because it will stimulate the imagination. I don’t want the students to talk about insurance sales or dot-com business or agricultural products. I don’t want them to get carried away with the familiar distractions. I want them to use the language normally found in such normal business situations as conferences, meetings, round-tables, brainstormings etc in a creative way. I want them to use English creatively, I guess.
peace,
revel.
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coffeedecafe
- Posts: 73
- Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2004 10:17 am
- Location: michigan
45 years old....
Hey all!
Nice to see this thread brought to the top again.
What I had meant by my Shiela Brown/43 years old/45 Main Street example was:
The ESL class is an artificial situation in which everything that goes on is only "real" in the context of an ESL class, even the "role-plays" that we encourage our students to do as part of their training as ESL speakers. So, if from the outset such activities are artificial, usually with objectives of practicing certain aspects of the language, trying to get as many 2nd conditionals into the exercise as humanly possible while ignoring the reality that in a non-artificial setting we might have only used one, or none, then such activities should not be weighed down by additional artificiality. It is so like a text-book exercise to introduce oneself giving all the provided information, when in the introduction outlined above, used in a "real life" situation, would not include all that information.
What does the teacher want from the exercise? Does the teacher want the student to practice all of the structures involved in giving names, addresses, ages? Or does the teacher want the student to consciously choose the correct information and produce it using those same structures? Unless it is essential information for the ends of the conversation at hand, I would consider it somewhat impolite to ask a new acquaintance their age. I might be more likely to ask this person how many years they had been in the business they are in. I would not need, at this moment, to know what their exact door number and postal code are, though if such information were necessary I would indeed ask for it in the appropriate moment. I would indeed be surprised if all this information were offered up in the universe of discourse that rules the "coctail party" exercise. Such information belongs to the "filling out an application" or "The Perfect Job Employment Agency" exercise.
Have to get those artificial role plays to represent non-artificial situations as closely as possible, I believe.
peace,
revel.
Nice to see this thread brought to the top again.
What I had meant by my Shiela Brown/43 years old/45 Main Street example was:
The ESL class is an artificial situation in which everything that goes on is only "real" in the context of an ESL class, even the "role-plays" that we encourage our students to do as part of their training as ESL speakers. So, if from the outset such activities are artificial, usually with objectives of practicing certain aspects of the language, trying to get as many 2nd conditionals into the exercise as humanly possible while ignoring the reality that in a non-artificial setting we might have only used one, or none, then such activities should not be weighed down by additional artificiality. It is so like a text-book exercise to introduce oneself giving all the provided information, when in the introduction outlined above, used in a "real life" situation, would not include all that information.
What does the teacher want from the exercise? Does the teacher want the student to practice all of the structures involved in giving names, addresses, ages? Or does the teacher want the student to consciously choose the correct information and produce it using those same structures? Unless it is essential information for the ends of the conversation at hand, I would consider it somewhat impolite to ask a new acquaintance their age. I might be more likely to ask this person how many years they had been in the business they are in. I would not need, at this moment, to know what their exact door number and postal code are, though if such information were necessary I would indeed ask for it in the appropriate moment. I would indeed be surprised if all this information were offered up in the universe of discourse that rules the "coctail party" exercise. Such information belongs to the "filling out an application" or "The Perfect Job Employment Agency" exercise.
Have to get those artificial role plays to represent non-artificial situations as closely as possible, I believe.
peace,
revel.
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coffeedecafe
- Posts: 73
- Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2004 10:17 am
- Location: michigan
yes. i once read of a teacher in china who was prefered by the native students for giving the daily lesson explanations for the very reason that his chinese vocabulary was still severely limited. this teacher (with the unlikely last name of goforth) overheard the students telling another person, "he has no choice. he has to make it simple, so he is easier to understand. " anyone besides me{i} ever had a professor so educated you could not keep up?
Last chance to read it....
Hey all!
Have brought this thread to the top again, seemed a pity to me that being one heavily read despite the relatively few posts made (only 82) that it be lost on the board on page five. Naturally, I'm serving my own ego here by showing this work again, especially to newer members on Dave's who might not have know about it.
I came upon it as I was searching for comments I had made about the three plus zero conditionals months ago. I also came across silly nit-picking over when to use the past simple and when to use the present perfect. And more nit-picking over what Americans say and what Brits say. We've filled Dave's with page after page of our nit-picking, then a subject dies down for a couple of months, then an unaware newbie asks the same question again and the debate rises from its ashes and we all repeat the same things again.
DEATH TO THE CONDITIONALS! LONG LIVE CONTROLLED CONVERSATIONAL PRACTICE!!
peace,
revel.
Have brought this thread to the top again, seemed a pity to me that being one heavily read despite the relatively few posts made (only 82) that it be lost on the board on page five. Naturally, I'm serving my own ego here by showing this work again, especially to newer members on Dave's who might not have know about it.
I came upon it as I was searching for comments I had made about the three plus zero conditionals months ago. I also came across silly nit-picking over when to use the past simple and when to use the present perfect. And more nit-picking over what Americans say and what Brits say. We've filled Dave's with page after page of our nit-picking, then a subject dies down for a couple of months, then an unaware newbie asks the same question again and the debate rises from its ashes and we all repeat the same things again.
DEATH TO THE CONDITIONALS! LONG LIVE CONTROLLED CONVERSATIONAL PRACTICE!!
peace,
revel.
Feeling put in my place....
Good evening all.
Feeling put in my place on another thread where I was obviously debating something that I am not up to these days, and answering a query on another thread and needing a place to direct people for a particular exercise, I discovered myself spending Saturday afternoon reading the 80 some messages that make up this thread. I enjoyed it. I figured it was time, now at the end of the school year (this thread was started just as I was beginning this year) to evaluate some of my comments.
For example, though I had proposed using video much more as a teaching tool in class, I think I've struggled with the DVD player no more than four or five times the entire year. I did do a three-day workshop on using video in an adult class I had, but that didn't get very far as it was not useful to the group in question.
I was also a bit snobbish about the "boss" thing, as anyone can read about in the soap-opera called "Quitting my job" here at Dave's Cafe. I caught a wretched case of resentment towards the "boss" because of feeling pawn-like. Some of the symptoms were refusal to do anything "for free", spending less of my own time at the academy, not developing new materials but rather using (fortunately I have a lot) already developed materials, and a general fall in my motivational level. I think it's important to mention here, as even revel is sometimes not able to pull off a revel in the classroom. The administration has often gotten in the way and my attitude has been an ever increasing feeling of "who cares? I do my job correctly and that's all that in the end matters" which has led me to five weeks of playing a scavenger-hunt type game with all of my students called "The Long and Mysterious Game" where I make and break all the rules every class. That I will try to describe in a following post.
I also hope to be clear on a recent debate over core meanings in modal auxiliaries, where words I can't even remember (epileptic?¿ dogonic? diagframic?) don't seem to impress me as perhaps they should. As is so often pointed out here at Interpretative ESL, each of us has a strong point and that's perhaps what we should be sharing. So, now that my free time is expanding, I'll try to get this thread up and going again.
peace,
revel
Feeling put in my place on another thread where I was obviously debating something that I am not up to these days, and answering a query on another thread and needing a place to direct people for a particular exercise, I discovered myself spending Saturday afternoon reading the 80 some messages that make up this thread. I enjoyed it. I figured it was time, now at the end of the school year (this thread was started just as I was beginning this year) to evaluate some of my comments.
For example, though I had proposed using video much more as a teaching tool in class, I think I've struggled with the DVD player no more than four or five times the entire year. I did do a three-day workshop on using video in an adult class I had, but that didn't get very far as it was not useful to the group in question.
I was also a bit snobbish about the "boss" thing, as anyone can read about in the soap-opera called "Quitting my job" here at Dave's Cafe. I caught a wretched case of resentment towards the "boss" because of feeling pawn-like. Some of the symptoms were refusal to do anything "for free", spending less of my own time at the academy, not developing new materials but rather using (fortunately I have a lot) already developed materials, and a general fall in my motivational level. I think it's important to mention here, as even revel is sometimes not able to pull off a revel in the classroom. The administration has often gotten in the way and my attitude has been an ever increasing feeling of "who cares? I do my job correctly and that's all that in the end matters" which has led me to five weeks of playing a scavenger-hunt type game with all of my students called "The Long and Mysterious Game" where I make and break all the rules every class. That I will try to describe in a following post.
I also hope to be clear on a recent debate over core meanings in modal auxiliaries, where words I can't even remember (epileptic?¿ dogonic? diagframic?) don't seem to impress me as perhaps they should. As is so often pointed out here at Interpretative ESL, each of us has a strong point and that's perhaps what we should be sharing. So, now that my free time is expanding, I'll try to get this thread up and going again.
peace,
revel
The long and mysterious game....
Good evening.
The Long and Mysterious Game.
Students have been studying all year long, finishing up between half and all of the material expected to be covered in three trimesters. Everyone is sick and tired of the book and the grammar exercises and Cambridge preparation and just wants to get through the next five or six weeks.
One day, early in May, just when attendance sheets and class-plans are noted on a fresh new photocopy, students entered the class and found that I had not put the tables in their places. The chairs were laid out in a semi-circle. When I entered the class the students had turned towards the wall, where the tables were, sitting at the tables and looking at the wall. I had them put the chairs back into a semi-circle. I got out the guitar and told them that I would be paying them for their performances. They were delighted. I had them sing four or five class songs, insisting that they do a good job, not jump around, really sing out loud. Then I paid each who did a good job a dollar and asked them to sit down. They had worked off some energy and I kept handing out dollars to those who had calmed down until everyone was quiet and I could continue.
I explained to them that from that day until the middle of June, we would be playing a game called "The Long Mysterious Game." With older students the class was a reality show called "English Class with Revel!" with secret cameras in the classroom broadcasting the class live over the internet. The material to be used in this game would be that which we had covered throughout the year. Certain activities in the game had already be done on a small scale. All activities were reviewed in practice before actually getting to the real game. The following explanation is based on a group of eight-year-olds, where the game began, with the title "The Long and Mysterious Game of Mr arroway's Supermarket." I have used the same game in all of my classes, with variations based on the language that I wanted to review before the end of the school term. All of these classes were review classes.
1. Children brought empty food packages to the class. We spent a month accumulating products for the supermarket.
2. We made a list of foods based on the products we had. We placed prices on the different products comparing two products and deciding which was more expensive or less expensive.
3. One day right before Christmas break there were only four of the the ten students. Not wanting to continue without everyone, the four had to make publicity flyers, cutting and pasting, based on the product list and with the prices that we had decided on. Those have been stored for later use.
4. In a class of older kids, we discussed the best way to play the game with the littler ones. We had played a monopoly-like board game the week before called "Shopping Spree!" and they had some very useful ideas about the logistics of the game. It was decided that there would be three different tables with different lists of challenges, six challenges per list. They also helped me with the challenges, such as mixed-up sentences, having a small chat with a partner, etc. We decided that when a student had met a challenge, he or she would receive a key of the same color as the table, blue, red or orange. Once that person had three keys, he/she would receive a shopping list and go to Mr arroway's Supermarket and buy the three products on the list.
5. For several weeks now the kids and I have been practicing the challenges. There is one dice (or is it die?, no, think that one's plural) which each student throws and then has to meet the challenge represented by that number on the blackboard. As this was a review exercise, at least two of the challenges were directly related to the material studied up to then. An sample list might include:
1--Make a word that begins with (random letter drawn from a bag)
2--Sing a song
3--Numbers (say two numbers and then add or subtract them and say the results....)
4--Ask someone a question and get an answer.
5--Roll again.
6--Lose $1
This is a good place to comment on the pay-outs. I considered and tried many different ways of rewarding the kids for their immediate performance, something that they thrive upon in class. Garbanzo beans roll about a lot and one is always stepping on them for days. I had used $100 bills with an adult class when playing a version of Jeopordy, extended it to other activities and have even paid for good drill work. I have a little bit of a problem with the greedy ones of all ages, Shylock like hands extended when they think I ought to pay them...For the supermarket game I was going to need small change and decided on $1 bills, small and manageable, soooo
6....the seven-year-olds colored them and cut them out for me weeks ago one of those days that they needed to do something with their hands perhaps because of mental saturation at 5.45 in the evening. In the end, I don't care, when the game is over, we'll go back to quiz grades and colored stickers on the behavior poster.
7. We've just had a practice run with the first part of the game, moving from table to table, throwing the dice, meeting the challenge, earning money, earning the three keys so that we can go shopping. This may be where the game ends on the first day. The second part, the actual shopping experience at Mr arroway's Supermarket might be a last day separate incident. That way I can see if the two activities can be joined, how long it takes ten kids to play the entire game (when everyone has had a chance to go shopping). I can also guage how much cooperative and how much ego-centered activity is going on, which is included in the Join In curriculum and which I also feel important in the classroom.
8. I decided, to help in cooperation, to pair the kids up to run the route. I did this, as always, by chance, using paired playing cards to make the couples. That meant Maria was paired up with Jose and they can't see one another, but well, have to help your partner or you'll never have a turn either, as you have to alternate turns and work as a team, learn to depend on and help another person. I thought that would also make the game more agile and more controlable. I was going to sit and have them wait in line, something they learned to do with me last year and the year before, but I'm going to try doing the game on my feet, moving from table to table.
9. As I said in the presentation, I used this game in all of my classes. There was a wooden box with the dollar bills in it. There was a bamboo chop-stick to mark rhythms, stir up the bingo balls in their cup, call the class to order by tapping it on the table. These materials were not new to the students. All activity was based on the number they threw on the dice. In some classes I left the dice aside and did already written grammar exercises in round-robin style, again, paying out for effort and performance. The dollars quickly became a very useful discipline tool, again with students of all ages.
Finally,
10. In this way I am trying to illustrate how a simple little dice game can make a lengthy review of a year's material easier to swallow than a pile of photocopies and diagrams on the board, and certainly more agreeable than another end of the school year exam....uugg. I truly believe that any subject matter can be practiced in this way and this recent experience has justified my belief. With just a few props and year-long dedication to teaching the basic parts and preparing the tailored package with the students themselves (is this child-slave-sweatshop-labor I'm employing?) it is possible to break the monotony of all those previous weeks of "Do this or else!" I'm ever so glad not to be teaching in the parochial school now, what a nightmare!
peace,
revel.
The Long and Mysterious Game.
Students have been studying all year long, finishing up between half and all of the material expected to be covered in three trimesters. Everyone is sick and tired of the book and the grammar exercises and Cambridge preparation and just wants to get through the next five or six weeks.
One day, early in May, just when attendance sheets and class-plans are noted on a fresh new photocopy, students entered the class and found that I had not put the tables in their places. The chairs were laid out in a semi-circle. When I entered the class the students had turned towards the wall, where the tables were, sitting at the tables and looking at the wall. I had them put the chairs back into a semi-circle. I got out the guitar and told them that I would be paying them for their performances. They were delighted. I had them sing four or five class songs, insisting that they do a good job, not jump around, really sing out loud. Then I paid each who did a good job a dollar and asked them to sit down. They had worked off some energy and I kept handing out dollars to those who had calmed down until everyone was quiet and I could continue.
I explained to them that from that day until the middle of June, we would be playing a game called "The Long Mysterious Game." With older students the class was a reality show called "English Class with Revel!" with secret cameras in the classroom broadcasting the class live over the internet. The material to be used in this game would be that which we had covered throughout the year. Certain activities in the game had already be done on a small scale. All activities were reviewed in practice before actually getting to the real game. The following explanation is based on a group of eight-year-olds, where the game began, with the title "The Long and Mysterious Game of Mr arroway's Supermarket." I have used the same game in all of my classes, with variations based on the language that I wanted to review before the end of the school term. All of these classes were review classes.
1. Children brought empty food packages to the class. We spent a month accumulating products for the supermarket.
2. We made a list of foods based on the products we had. We placed prices on the different products comparing two products and deciding which was more expensive or less expensive.
3. One day right before Christmas break there were only four of the the ten students. Not wanting to continue without everyone, the four had to make publicity flyers, cutting and pasting, based on the product list and with the prices that we had decided on. Those have been stored for later use.
4. In a class of older kids, we discussed the best way to play the game with the littler ones. We had played a monopoly-like board game the week before called "Shopping Spree!" and they had some very useful ideas about the logistics of the game. It was decided that there would be three different tables with different lists of challenges, six challenges per list. They also helped me with the challenges, such as mixed-up sentences, having a small chat with a partner, etc. We decided that when a student had met a challenge, he or she would receive a key of the same color as the table, blue, red or orange. Once that person had three keys, he/she would receive a shopping list and go to Mr arroway's Supermarket and buy the three products on the list.
5. For several weeks now the kids and I have been practicing the challenges. There is one dice (or is it die?, no, think that one's plural) which each student throws and then has to meet the challenge represented by that number on the blackboard. As this was a review exercise, at least two of the challenges were directly related to the material studied up to then. An sample list might include:
1--Make a word that begins with (random letter drawn from a bag)
2--Sing a song
3--Numbers (say two numbers and then add or subtract them and say the results....)
4--Ask someone a question and get an answer.
5--Roll again.
6--Lose $1
This is a good place to comment on the pay-outs. I considered and tried many different ways of rewarding the kids for their immediate performance, something that they thrive upon in class. Garbanzo beans roll about a lot and one is always stepping on them for days. I had used $100 bills with an adult class when playing a version of Jeopordy, extended it to other activities and have even paid for good drill work. I have a little bit of a problem with the greedy ones of all ages, Shylock like hands extended when they think I ought to pay them...For the supermarket game I was going to need small change and decided on $1 bills, small and manageable, soooo
6....the seven-year-olds colored them and cut them out for me weeks ago one of those days that they needed to do something with their hands perhaps because of mental saturation at 5.45 in the evening. In the end, I don't care, when the game is over, we'll go back to quiz grades and colored stickers on the behavior poster.
7. We've just had a practice run with the first part of the game, moving from table to table, throwing the dice, meeting the challenge, earning money, earning the three keys so that we can go shopping. This may be where the game ends on the first day. The second part, the actual shopping experience at Mr arroway's Supermarket might be a last day separate incident. That way I can see if the two activities can be joined, how long it takes ten kids to play the entire game (when everyone has had a chance to go shopping). I can also guage how much cooperative and how much ego-centered activity is going on, which is included in the Join In curriculum and which I also feel important in the classroom.
8. I decided, to help in cooperation, to pair the kids up to run the route. I did this, as always, by chance, using paired playing cards to make the couples. That meant Maria was paired up with Jose and they can't see one another, but well, have to help your partner or you'll never have a turn either, as you have to alternate turns and work as a team, learn to depend on and help another person. I thought that would also make the game more agile and more controlable. I was going to sit and have them wait in line, something they learned to do with me last year and the year before, but I'm going to try doing the game on my feet, moving from table to table.
9. As I said in the presentation, I used this game in all of my classes. There was a wooden box with the dollar bills in it. There was a bamboo chop-stick to mark rhythms, stir up the bingo balls in their cup, call the class to order by tapping it on the table. These materials were not new to the students. All activity was based on the number they threw on the dice. In some classes I left the dice aside and did already written grammar exercises in round-robin style, again, paying out for effort and performance. The dollars quickly became a very useful discipline tool, again with students of all ages.
Finally,
10. In this way I am trying to illustrate how a simple little dice game can make a lengthy review of a year's material easier to swallow than a pile of photocopies and diagrams on the board, and certainly more agreeable than another end of the school year exam....uugg. I truly believe that any subject matter can be practiced in this way and this recent experience has justified my belief. With just a few props and year-long dedication to teaching the basic parts and preparing the tailored package with the students themselves (is this child-slave-sweatshop-labor I'm employing?) it is possible to break the monotony of all those previous weeks of "Do this or else!" I'm ever so glad not to be teaching in the parochial school now, what a nightmare!
peace,
revel.
Meaning in Modality
Good morning.
This is a contribution to the "core meanings of modal auxiliaries" thread as applied to the classroom.
The other day I was at the Real Estate Agent's, waiting my turn to speak to Nieves about a house in San Jorge. Before she could speak to me, she had to collect the rent from two men who were not Spanish. One of them spoke Spanish, the other did not. The man who spoke Spanish seemed quite angry about something. Nieves (a lovely name, means "snow") tried to be polite, but the renter in question continued to speak to her with a loud voice in very sharp terms. I could understand in part his anger, they had raised his rent last month and Nieves was trying to raise his rent again this month, unaware that the raise had already taken effect. He had to make it clear to her that the raise was already included in the money he was giving her and he succeeded in his proposition. When he and his friend left the office, everything was peachy keen, but during the five minutes of his visit, there seemed to be an awful tension in the air.
Speaking with me, Nieves seemed to be using a tailored Spanish. At one point in our conversation she told me that in this house there were bats in the bodega (bodega = wine cellar) and then asked me if I knew what bats were. I was not offended, not everyone speaks about bats every day, I have an obvious accent when speaking Spanish, it might have been a new word for me for all she knew. I politely told her that I have been living here for a number of years and that I did, indeed, know what bats were, though for me they would more likely be in the belfry(sp). I actually said "anda, ya!" which is something like "Oh, come on!" and she suddenly stopped speaking to me as if we were in kindergarten and the conversation began to flow on a natural level. There was at no time any tension between us.
I asked her about her communication with the earlier clients. She said that they had had difficulty in renting a flat (they were africans) and that her mistake about the rent would have peeved anyone, but that they were not at all angry, they simply used Spanish in that way when speaking. They did not use polite forms and their use of their L1 voices made the Spanish sound lound, harsh, angry, just as my own accent made my Spanish sound foreign, even perhaps lower level until I spit out "anda, ya!", something that sounds less like a text-book and more like a person speaking. I wondered if, had the african gentleman had used more polite forms in his speech, the conversation would have sounded less strained.
So, my students are practicing these days a restaurant dialgoue. The main practice material is "some" and "any", but also includes "I'd like", "Would you like" and a lot of "please". Naturally, the students have asked me "What does 'd or would mean?" I stripped the dialogue of these polite forms and indicated that, in the restaurant situation one can certainly say "I want the steak." or "I want wine." and the waiter can certainly say "what wine do you want?" but that adding the "I'd like" and "Would you like" we are placing a veneer of politeness on a social situation. "Would" doesn't mean anything, there isn't a word that I can spit out to translate it, in Spanish it would be a suffix pegged onto any verb. "Would" is an auxiliary, that is, it modifies somehow the action represented by the main verb. In this particular case, it makes giving and receiving orders less dry, even unpleasant, than simply using the imperative, "Bring me the steak" "Put a bottle of red wine in front of me."
Any of the modal auxiliaries will be found in any of thousands of everyday or even not so everyday contexts. The explanation of "would" above does not come close to a core meaning, there is no core meaning, there is an auxiliary aspect. I then might say "I wouldn't have done that" which has nothing to do with being polite, but rather indicates that, being in the situation already described by the context, I myself don't see myself doing whatever someone else has already done. The verb is still the core, the action is the core, the auxiliary still modifies what I am trying to say about the action. The meaning is a combination of all those sounds. Would, all by itself, seems to me to mean absolutely nothing.
peace,
revel.
This is a contribution to the "core meanings of modal auxiliaries" thread as applied to the classroom.
The other day I was at the Real Estate Agent's, waiting my turn to speak to Nieves about a house in San Jorge. Before she could speak to me, she had to collect the rent from two men who were not Spanish. One of them spoke Spanish, the other did not. The man who spoke Spanish seemed quite angry about something. Nieves (a lovely name, means "snow") tried to be polite, but the renter in question continued to speak to her with a loud voice in very sharp terms. I could understand in part his anger, they had raised his rent last month and Nieves was trying to raise his rent again this month, unaware that the raise had already taken effect. He had to make it clear to her that the raise was already included in the money he was giving her and he succeeded in his proposition. When he and his friend left the office, everything was peachy keen, but during the five minutes of his visit, there seemed to be an awful tension in the air.
Speaking with me, Nieves seemed to be using a tailored Spanish. At one point in our conversation she told me that in this house there were bats in the bodega (bodega = wine cellar) and then asked me if I knew what bats were. I was not offended, not everyone speaks about bats every day, I have an obvious accent when speaking Spanish, it might have been a new word for me for all she knew. I politely told her that I have been living here for a number of years and that I did, indeed, know what bats were, though for me they would more likely be in the belfry(sp). I actually said "anda, ya!" which is something like "Oh, come on!" and she suddenly stopped speaking to me as if we were in kindergarten and the conversation began to flow on a natural level. There was at no time any tension between us.
I asked her about her communication with the earlier clients. She said that they had had difficulty in renting a flat (they were africans) and that her mistake about the rent would have peeved anyone, but that they were not at all angry, they simply used Spanish in that way when speaking. They did not use polite forms and their use of their L1 voices made the Spanish sound lound, harsh, angry, just as my own accent made my Spanish sound foreign, even perhaps lower level until I spit out "anda, ya!", something that sounds less like a text-book and more like a person speaking. I wondered if, had the african gentleman had used more polite forms in his speech, the conversation would have sounded less strained.
So, my students are practicing these days a restaurant dialgoue. The main practice material is "some" and "any", but also includes "I'd like", "Would you like" and a lot of "please". Naturally, the students have asked me "What does 'd or would mean?" I stripped the dialogue of these polite forms and indicated that, in the restaurant situation one can certainly say "I want the steak." or "I want wine." and the waiter can certainly say "what wine do you want?" but that adding the "I'd like" and "Would you like" we are placing a veneer of politeness on a social situation. "Would" doesn't mean anything, there isn't a word that I can spit out to translate it, in Spanish it would be a suffix pegged onto any verb. "Would" is an auxiliary, that is, it modifies somehow the action represented by the main verb. In this particular case, it makes giving and receiving orders less dry, even unpleasant, than simply using the imperative, "Bring me the steak" "Put a bottle of red wine in front of me."
Any of the modal auxiliaries will be found in any of thousands of everyday or even not so everyday contexts. The explanation of "would" above does not come close to a core meaning, there is no core meaning, there is an auxiliary aspect. I then might say "I wouldn't have done that" which has nothing to do with being polite, but rather indicates that, being in the situation already described by the context, I myself don't see myself doing whatever someone else has already done. The verb is still the core, the action is the core, the auxiliary still modifies what I am trying to say about the action. The meaning is a combination of all those sounds. Would, all by itself, seems to me to mean absolutely nothing.
peace,
revel.
-
LarryLatham
- Posts: 1195
- Joined: Thu Jan 16, 2003 6:33 pm
- Location: Aguanga, California (near San Diego)
It's not so much that it means nothing, Revel, as that any explanation you might offer to students would mean nothing to them. You did it right, in my view, to treat the whole expression ("I'd like the steak") as a lexical item in your classes. Your students can learn something useful then. Trying to explain it would most likely confuse them, since they do not have the necessary background or meta-language to engage in that kind of conversation about grammatical nuance in the use of modals.
Much, much later, perhaps, should they get that far in their English studies, they may rekindle an interest in modal nuance. Maybe they'll be ready for it then.
Larry Latham
Much, much later, perhaps, should they get that far in their English studies, they may rekindle an interest in modal nuance. Maybe they'll be ready for it then.
Larry Latham
To the front again
Hey all,
I'm preparing some teacher training workshops and am including several classes dealing with Interpretative ESL and have brought this thread to the forefront again in order to find it quickly to print up some of my essays. And maybe seeing it remembered will animate either myself or others to make new contributions. Oh, how much has changed since I began this thread!
peace,
revel.
I'm preparing some teacher training workshops and am including several classes dealing with Interpretative ESL and have brought this thread to the forefront again in order to find it quickly to print up some of my essays. And maybe seeing it remembered will animate either myself or others to make new contributions. Oh, how much has changed since I began this thread!
peace,
revel.
to the top!
Hey all.
Here is the "Interpretative ESL" thread that might be useful to those looking for ways to include communicative work in their classes. Enjoy the debate!
peace,
revel.
Here is the "Interpretative ESL" thread that might be useful to those looking for ways to include communicative work in their classes. Enjoy the debate!
peace,
revel.