ICC Video Clip, Wk 10 - Building Socio-Cultural Awarness

The Lesson:
My objective for this lesson was for students to contemplate the emotions and reactions of a person upon first entering a culture greatly different from their own.  First, they compared a group of Japanese students to a group of American students.   As my students commented on clothes, hair style, hair color, skin tone and eye color, I recorded their observations on the whiteboard.  After a brief discussion about homogeneous and heterogeneous (I did not use these terms.) cultures, I posed two question to the class.  First, I asked, "How would a Japanese student feel if they were placed in this American class?"  I then asked the opposite question.  While most of my students agreed that the Japanese student would be scared and nervous, they thought that the American student would feel excited and nervous.  They believe that being from a racially and culturally diverse environment dissolves all fear of different cultures.  I wanted to discuss this idea more, but time was not on my side.  I am planning a follow-up activity that will hopefully widen their cultural lenses a little more.

The Students:
Before seeing this lesson clip, the viewer must be informed on my history with this class.  I have taught most of the students in this class for eighteen months.  When I first met these students, I was immediately impressed with their proficiency in listening, reading and speaking.  Although, they struggle with grammar usage, most of the students in this class are able to speak fluently and express their thoughts with ease.  This group of second and third graders are extremely talkative and highly competitive for my attention.  Random comments develop into group conversations that greatly detract from the lesson goals.  I have recorded this class on at least three other occasions and decided against posting any of the lessons.  Their constant playfulness and foolish comments were even more disturbing on video.

The  Reward:
I am constantly trying new strategies to manage this class more efficiently.  My daily goal is to focus their conversation on the lesson's topic.  

During this week's ICC lesson, students did just that.  Although student enthusiasm and competitiveness overwhelmed me at times and ridiculous comments annoyed me, I was greatly pleased with the contributions made during class discussions.  Unfortunately, the lesson was incomplete, as was my recording space.  

My camera did not record when students described the two groups as being either scared nervous or excited nervous (as mentioned above).  Nor was their any recording of the student who described the Japanese students as clean.  I really wanted more student output.  Inability to incite elaboration, of both perspectives, was not due to technical (camera) issues, but my lack of  class time and the unanticipated eagerness of student response.  Students were uncharacteristically focused on the task and I didn't want to stifle their voices.  In the future, I will facilitate a class activities that allows for more expansion of the topic.

Micro-Teaching, Major Improvements - A Reflection, Wk. 10: REVISED

My lesson objective was for students to understand  modals 'need to' and 'have to' in expressions of necessity.  Specifically, students were to understand the degree of necessity to which each modal is applied.  I taught this lesson to a class in my academy prior to the MT presentation.  My real students responded well to the lesson and the teaching goal was accomplished.  However, there were some unexpected answers to one question that I posed and as a result this question was changed for my MT.  

"I need to drink water."

Normally in this class, instruction begins with some form of lesson preview.  I may ask students to look at the picture or title and predict what the lesson will be about.  This usual follows a short discussion that relates the topic to their personal experiences.  What follows is a reading of a passage and assessment via textbook questions and/or task.  Although, I was allowed to teach the modal lesson I still had to give a test on this day.  So, following the test, students were told that they were going to participate in a special lesson.  Then I went straight into the presentation, just as I would during the MT.  I always use my STG lesson plans in my real classes.  In doing so I am able to involve my students in new and interesting activities while gaining insight to the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of my planning.

"It's urgent! I have to drink water!"

In my opinion, my second Micro-Teaching was a great improvement from my first MT effort.  During my first teaching I was nervous and it showed.  I looked uncomfortable and often stood with my hands folded in front of my chest.  My body language reflected uncertainty and the class responded with a lack of interests in my lesson.  Also, I did not use enough gestures, I spoke too often and I over-explained every instruction.  "Let's think about Chuseok...Let's answer these questions...I will be listening as you and your partner speak...I will ask you what your partner saw."  Too many of my words were unnecessary.  

In my second MT I was confident in my teaching and exact in my instruction.  Though I used my body by pointing, gesturing and acting, I feel that I could have been more animated during parts of the lesson.   When I showed a picture of a man whose mouth was on fire, students responded with interest.  If I were to teach this lesson again, I would act out the man's feelings with much exaggeration for better understanding of the target language. 

                                 


A significant improvement in my second MT was that I did not over-explain.  I, Tracie "Talks-too-much" West, did not over-explain!  When I wanted the students to do something, I used short, clear, comprehensive statements.  I was also allowing students to respond more often, limiting my T-talk by asking questions that were more open-ended like, "What do you see?" as opposed to "Does anyone know what this picture is?"  Through short open-ended questions, the class was able to provide a variety of responses and student interaction increased.  Simple instructions also made for better transitioning between activities.

Finally, utilizing the computer made a great difference in my second MT.   The large colorful drawings of my slide presentation immediately captured student interests and they were eager to comment.  I did not have to waste time taping pictures or walking around class with pictures that were not visible from the board.  During my first MT my back was sometimes facing students as they responded to questions.  My preoccupation with taping caused me to appear uninterested in student responses.   The convenience of the slides gave me more freedom to use my body in emphasizing meaning and more time to show interest in student contributions.  Although a few technical difficulties caused some moments of silence, I feel that overall my second MT went quite well and I am pleased with the what I was able to accomplish.

Student Written Role-Play, from wk. 9 MT LP

                                         

Like Beating a Dead Horse: Reflections on a Lesson in Intercultural Competence

                                                                

With the ICC lesson plan completed, I was eager to find out if my procedures were practical for my students. Through my lesson, I sought to heighten intercultural competence by leading students through a discourse analysis based on the common Korean perception that America is a country of 'White people'.  Even as I write this blog, I am unsure as to whether 'White' is the term I should use for this lesson.  This nagging uncertainty existed as I wrote the lesson plan and was further perpetuated when a student laughed at my use of the term 'white people'.  She pointed to a sheet of paper and said, "That is white."  From my experience, the terms 'white people' and 'black people' are socially and politically acceptable by most Americans. Yet, my student's reaction to the term 'white people', caused me to question the appropriateness of these terms when teaching Korean students, who tend to be overly literal.  On many occasions, a student has corrected me after hearing me call myself 'black'.  They tell me that I am brown.  I always agree and move on.  What I realize, at this very moment, is that I should be teaching my students honestly.  If they have a literal interpretation of 'white people' or 'black people', then I need to explain what the terms mean to the majority of Americans.  Korean students should be taught that 'white' and 'black' are words used to refer to groups of people who share common ancestries based on a shared ancestral continent.  They should be taught that the terms are NOT literal and that people in both groups are diverse in skin coloring.  The point is that I should be the one to teach them these facts.  I doubt that white teachers in Korea are faced with this racial dilemma in the classroom.  In Korea, a white American is called an American and a white Canadian is called a Canadian.  Black people are called African and nationality is always questioned.  The constant doubt of my nationality is rooted, not in antagonism, but in ignorance.  

                                       
                                        This is what my students probably wanted to say to me.

As I considered the different forms of discourse that could be used in my ICC lesson, I could not stop thinking about the posters, fliers and brochures that are used as advertisements for my academy.   I asked my students to compare the group of American students shown on our academy's brochure with pictures of real groups of American students.  I introduced the lesson by showing a food advertisement depicting Psy and students were immediately engaged.  As I went through the first half of my lesson, I was confident in my teaching plan.  The students were interested and responsive and learning the new vocabulary needed for the discourse analysis activity.  As I began the comparison activity, my confidence slowly began to diminish.  My greatest mistake was in the initial discourse task, "Look at the pictures.  Find the similarities and differences."   It was entirely too broad and the answers were based on moods.  Instead of asking a more specific question, I began to monopolize the discourse with further instruction for the same task.   It was beating a poor dead horse again and again.   At one point, I say, "Hmm, I have to change this."  The next question I asked was, "What do they look like?"  They then responded by describing hair color and clothes.  I was struggling as I failed to provoke the intended response.  I thought it was obvious.  The brochure shows a group of all white children.  The authentic pictures show groups of students of many different colors.  With my eyes on the clock, I said, "I'm going to have to change this again."   One student used the brochure to hide her expression disapproval.  The lesson was crumbling before my eyes and I said, "What color are these people?"  While I viewed the question as crass, I was genuinely interested to hear the answer to my final question. I realize the biggest fault in my planning was the impractical expectation that the students would be sensitive to the racial difference.  Secondly, my task instruction was too broad and greatly failed to incite the intended feedback.  Lastly, in my frustration I failed to be calm and monopolized the discourse.  In the future I must carefully plan my wording for task instruction.  I should spend more time thinking of every possible flaw in my planning and not be overly confident.  This is especially true when teaching new lessons or using new techniques.  

Once the students were able to recognize the racial contradictions of the two groups, I asked, "Why did [our academy] choose these students for the brochure?  Why not a group of many different colors? Why does the brochure show only light people?"  Although I asked too many questions and cut off a student as she attempted to answer the first question, once I closed my mouth my students had some very interesting responses.  The most interesting was that 'people of the world' like white people the most.  The student agreement on this point was extremely revealing, as it suggest that some Koreans view themselves in some way inferior to white people.  The short closing discussion ended with the consensus that no one group is better than another.  Even if the students are not convinced that this is true, I hope that our discussion has resulted in positive introspection.  I'll call this lesson, "baby steps."

...and the Academy Award Goes To......

After my last attempt to record a lesson I realize that when teaching youngsters, the 'greeting' phase of a lesson rarely follows a script.  I continue to ask students, "How are you today?"  The responses are rarely, "I'm fine."  It is more likely that a student will tell me that they are hungry and then proceed to beg me for snacks.  Often my students say that they are hot and then ask to leave class to get a drink of water.  Once a student told me he was doing great because his family was moving into a bigger apartment.  I was especially eager to hear about this student's experience.  During the week preceding the move, he was more talkative than he'd ever been.  The point is that it takes a while to get through the 'greeting' part of my lessons.

Normally, this free discourse is a welcomed aspect of my lesson.  I am building relationships with my students and I am truly interested in their daily experiences and consequent moods.  However, when the camera is rolling, I become very aware of the time restrictions of each phase of my planned lesson.  During this week's greeting phase of my recorded lesson, a student told me about her paper cut.  As she smiled, she expressed how bad she was feeling.  I knew that this student's comments were going to interfere with my allotted 'greeting time'.  I immediately felt anxious.  Then, almost as quickly, I got over it; I mustn't be overly concerned about the camera.  My student needed a little attention.  I wanted to show her that I cared.  I wanted to point out the smile that contradicted her stated misery.  So, I stopped acting and allowed myself to be the kind of teacher I needed to be at that moment.

Despite the thirty dollar battery and the fifteen dollar memory card I foolishly bought two weeks ago at Yongsan market, my damaged camera only recorded about twelve minutes of my lesson.  The class greeting included a paper cut, a Saturday bible test and a Saturday math test.  The rest of the lesson was one of the best I've had in that class.  Had I spent less time on the greeting, I would have recorded more of the PPP phases of the lesson.  Yet, I am happy with the result.

When I present this preview lesson to my STG classmates there will be many elements of acting.  They will be acting like novice adult students and I will be acting like I am teaching novice adult students.  However, when I am in my true classroom, it is best to do what is most beneficial for my students.  Ignore the camera.  Engage the students.

i + 1 + 100% = I 'heart' Krashen!

This week has been a great success for my beginners.  They astound me with the rate at which they acquire new language.  They motivate me with their eagerness to be heard and understood.  They stimulate me to learn more, to do more and to grow more as a teacher.  It is an honor to be a contributor to their English language accomplishments. 

When I first read about Stephen Krashen's comprehensible i + 1, I immediately thought of my first and second grade beginners.  Four weeks ago, in an attempt to create more order at the beginning of class, I introduced by students to the word "prepared".  I taught them what was expected in being prepared and sweetened the deal with a point incentive.  By the second week, most of the students had learned the target language, "I have my book. I have my pencil case. I have my homework. I am sitting."  I probably would have continued reinforcing this same language for months if it had not been for the simple yet brilliant comprehensible i + 1.

Last week, I added '1'  when I changed my questions from first person to second person inquiry.  Initially, when I asked one student if another was ready, the subject of the question would answer, "Yes, I am."  After a few days of modeling the language and letting students practice the language, they acquired the language and now they use it correctly.  So, this week I added another '1' and this was a big '1'!  It was time for them to tell me just how prepared they were.  Everyday, I drew a simple pie graph on the board and divided it into four sections for each of the four preparation expectations.  I taught them percentages: 25%, 50%, 75%,100%.  I then wrote on the board, "How prepared are you?"  They were taught to respond using the percentages.  For example, if a student had fulfilled all of the requirements the response would be, "I'm 100% prepared."  I was apprehensive before I taught them this new language.  Was I pushing them to much?  Would they become discouraged if they were unable to construct meaning from the new lesson?  To my great relief, I was able to present the language in a way that resulted in understanding.  Today was a great day.  Everyone was 100% prepared for class and 100% prepared to use their newly acquired language!

Reflections, A Week of New Strategies in the Classroom

So this week presented some challenges and successes as I began to incorporate in my classes what I have learned from STG.  I decided that I would concentrate on planning and leading lessons that were more dialogic than in the past.  This came with the obvious challenges a teacher expects to face in a content based class where the syllabus requires that student be passive receivers of information.  If I were to rely on the curriculum created by my school, I would have classes of purely monologic discourse as described by Xie.  I changed things up a bit in order to create a new classroom environment in which students are expected and encouraged to speak. I worked on my own patience and allowed for longer response time.  I asked more open-ended questions that required student elaboration.  I tried not to be obstructive, but constructive in my teacher talk, as suggested by Walsh.  Overall, I tried to allow the students to use their English with the hopes that they will better understand the language.

In one content based class, the students had to read a passage on the winter season.  Having taught the pre-requisite of this book, I was not impressed by the reading passage.  The language was far below their level and offered no challenge for the students.  This worked to my advantage, however.  The students and I quickly went through the compulsory routine of the book lesson before I introduced my own activity.  After drawing a Venn diagram on the board, I asked students to tell me what they knew about American Christmas and how it differed from Korean Christmas.  Student participation was great; students were interested in sharing their culture and inquisitive about my own.  The lesson ended with a white board full of information that was almost entirely produced by student statements or as a result of student questions.

In another class, I concentrated on turn taking and voice.  I have a really shy female student in a lower level class.  I'll call her R.  Often her best friend in the class attempts to speak for R.  I always discourage this and seek information from R when she has been addressed.  I noticed that R's best friend was not in the class on Friday.  So, when I asked R how she was feeling, she replied that she was sad.  Although, I immediately jumped to the conclusion that she was sad because her friend wasn't there, I resisted the desire to express this assumption.  I asked R to explain why she was sad and her response was not at all what I expected.  Friday was the birthday holiday for the school that both R and her best friend attend.  R was upset because while her best friend was at Lotte World, R's mother had forced her to attend all of her academy classes.  I was happy for myself and for R.  By giving R more response time and scaffolding when necessary R was able to express her full thought and I got to hear a much better story than what I'd hastily assumed.

What Cat?!, Week 4 SLA Video HW

This was such an enjoyable activity for me as well as my subject, Lucy.  She and I have worked together for 18 months and everyday we find something (or ten things) to laugh about.  Lucy's interpretation of the story was fun and insightful.  She noticed things in the pictures that I had overlooked.  I paid little attention to the cat.  Lucy impressed me when she concluded that the girl (Maria) thought that she could do as the cat did, and walk the ledge to her neighbor's home.  I look forward to seeing the other videos.  Was Lucy very observant or was I just oblivious?

                                         

Q1:
I do not notice a pattern, but a tendency to be inconsistent in verb usage.

Q2:
 My subject uses third person singular -s on present tense verbs ten times.  Her usage is correct on the two copulas as well as the two auxiliaries.  Of the remaining six verbs, Luci has three errors.  She tends to use -s correctly on copulas and auxiliaries, but is inconsistent on verbs.

Q3:
In the beginning of her story, she uses the word 'feels' correctly.  However, at the end of her story she fails to add -s on the same verb (feel) on two occasions.  I think that in the beginning of her story, Lucy is very aware that she is being recorded and therefore careful in her language usage.  As she gets to the end of the story, she seems more comfortable with the task and less conscious of her language usage.  There is no clear pattern in the telling of the story.

Q4:
Students at Luci's level may be more likely to correctly use -s when they are in formal or academic settings, but become lax when under less formal conditions.  I would share this inference with the student and implement activities that would provide him or her a greater awareness of the inconsistency.  A good way to do this would be to record a lesson and let the student see how and when errors occur.  I could also have a lesson that involved a pair of students having a conversation while other students observed how -s was used in the conversation.  The follow-up discussion could be a good reflective exercise.  This would have to be done with students that are accustomed to peer analysis/criticism.  Hopefully by becoming more self-aware, the student will begin to use third person singular -s correctly in both formal and informal settings.  In this way, the student's awareness could be a tool towards better language usage.