The activity started by the instructor explaining how the activity should go. The material given to the students was a piece of paper, with the instructions written in words and the poster printed in white and black. It might have been better if she could have brought the colored poster, as the instructor implied that the movie was already released. Our group thought that this could be a dangerous movie choice, as the movie was released recently and could have been already watched by some people. There was already a person who have watched the preview of the movie, but the aspect did not interrupt the activity directly because he was the professor and was careful not to leak the contents of the movie.
The activity was based on guessing the contents of the movie while looking at the poster. The students were given 20 minutes. Our group had enough time, but the other group seemed as if they didn't have quite enough time despite the fact that they were the group with the instructor. I thought that this was because our group was kind of led by the professor like an instructor, as he kept asking us what we think and kept suggesting possible plots to the movie. I thought that this was because the instructor was not as active enough, not fully accomplishing the roles of an instructor. I remember that she was talking to our group during the session, and did not hear her voice often as I expected. That means that for the most part, the instructor did not instruct the groups properly. The reason why our group's activity went fluently was only because the professor was there to instruct us: if there was another student instead of him, I guess that our group would also have lacked of time. The instructor must have paid attention to bot of the groups, thinking as the professor as one of her students.
I also thought that the instructions have to be more specific, as she only implied to the poster: if I were her, I would have also gave examples to help the students start by saying, "To start with, please carefully observe the sentences and the words in the poster." That would have given a smoother start for both of the groups. Perhaps suggesting word chunks or banks such as "I think that~" or "In the poster of the movie~" or "film noir" would have helped the students, as one of my group members had to look in the Korean dictionary for the words that she did not know. If the instructor's intention of the activity was more focused on pedagogical goals, she should have restrained the student from using her phone. However, I guess that the activity was based on real-life goals, one of them possibly being developing daily discussion English skills.
The activity was learning through meaning-focused output, since the activity was focused on discussing with no input for the most part. It was meaningful, as it was interesting to the students were able to comprehend most of the instructions and what their peers have said. Moreover, I felt this need that the instructor has to interact more with the students.
2.Professor's Activities(3)
Stars for the activity:
We started with 'Find the Difference' (since I do not know the name of the activity, I will name it this way.) and the activity was altered to meet the number of members in our group. Me and my partner started by the left, because we were only noticed by the instructor that the numbers are the sole difference, but eventually changed our method because we realized that the structure of the pictures are also different. After we were done with the activity, the professor instructed us with additional instructions that we should also compare the number of spiders. The activity included a comparing activity at the end, but I think our group finished after looking at each other's pictures. We were pretty exhausted, and wanted to participate in another activity or rest. The professor seemed to notice this, so we then participated in 'Signboards and Hurricane' in a group manner. Our progression went smoothly, but when we faced a problem, we asked professor for help. The professor gave us the first letter of the signboard that we were having problem with, so then we didn't have any problems within the progression of the activity. After that, we still had time, so the professor hastily added a decoding activity, but we didn't have enough time to finish the activity, so only some parts of the activity were done. The only materials used in this process were pieces of paper.
The activities were focused on meaning-focused output, speaking, and were meaningful, as the students knew 95 percent of the language used in the activities. Students were not aware of some words due to cultural difference, as the textbook was focused on teaching Britain students. I thought that this part should be considered when looking for activities that will be used in Korean ESL courses. The need for prior education seemed clear in this context, as the student who got the answer right just by chance. I thought that this could be a learning chance, but the risk was too high for the educators to risk. However, I thought that the last activity was done too hastily and would have preferred if the activity was rather not practiced.
The activities overall were not as good as something that I expected, but it was an emergency situation where one of the group members didn't prepare her work, so I thought that the activities were good enough. I thought the instructors would also have to consider the incidents where the students could get bored by repeating the same pattern of activities, as I experienced this week. Therefore, during the 30 minutes given, I realized that the ideal solution would be to prepare one activity that will take 20 minutes, and the other short with 10 minutes of participation time.
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Anonymous
Date:
RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 3 Reflections for Wonderful
When I had to prepare material hosting, I thought a lot. I had to prepare activities to speak and listen effectively in English. Prior to the preparation, I was able to refer to the preparation process through the activities that professor prepared in class. The learning I learned from the activities I did in class is that students are not used to speaking in English, usually when English is a second language. It was the learning from this activity that allowed students to listen and speak English naturally as they participated in the activity. So I prepared an activity to make a story, so that I could express as many thoughts as possible in words. In fact, one of the activities the professor prepared in the previous class was similar to the one called "story retelling," where few examples were given. However, my planned activity is to only look at the movie posters and titles and think about what they might contain and make a story through dialogue. They talk together about making a story. The process took about 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, students presented about 5 minutes of each other's thinking. And as a final step, the other five minutes end up reading the actual story on the back of the paper and comparing it to what they're different from. It was my first time preparing for the material hosting, so I was very nervous. I wondered if my planned activities could represent effective speaking and listening. However, I was happy that students exchanged their opinions better than I thought, and I was satisfied with the various stories. It was a bit disappointing that the time difference between teams was slightly different than what I had planned because it was about 10 minutes different from what I had known. If I had known the added time, I might have prepared some hints and other kinds of suggestions. I will look at the students' reflections and prepare it more perfectly next time.
-Professors activity
The next activity was that prepared by the professor. The kitchen drawing consisted of two different versions, A and B, and the professor distributed different paper to the students. So the student with A and B became a team and exchanged conversations. The rules of this activity were not to show each other's picture, but to compare how many kitchen utensils each had through conversation, and to see which side's kitchen was in better condition. I began to share the quantity of utensils in the kitchen with my partner. In general, I had a lot of supplies in my kitchen drawing. We shared all the supplies, such as the location of the windows, the number of spiders, the number of chairs, and everything in the picture. I shared it in detail because I had more time, and in the end it became me who had a kitchen in a better condition. This activity was more about finding answers through a simple conversation than rolling my head. It was simple but fun and naturally speaking and listening activities. What I was a bit disappointing was that the picture was a little small, so there was plenty of time left. If the picture was bigger and the type of painting varied, I think there would be more to talk about.
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Anonymous
Date:
RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 3 Reflections for Wonderful
In the first activity, we were divided into two groups and everyone was given one paper. The front page was a poster of a movie and the back of the paper was a storyline of the movie. Our task was to guessthe story of the movie from the poster picture without looking at the storyline. In the movie poster, there were a man who seems like to be a main character of the movie, a car running on the road, and the title of the movie and some words. It seemed like these information was not enough to guess the story of the movie. The material host was in my group and the presenter asked us some questions and possible assumptions, so my group started to guess the possible scenarios of the movie. I think it would have been more effective if she had given all the members some guideline questions such as what kind of a job do you think the main character has, what does the movie title mean in that movie, what is the genre of this movie, what could be the possible relation between the title and the man etc. at the beginning of the activity. It was a little difficult to guess the story simply by looking at the poster so if there have been some questions, it would have been easier to make a story. Because there were not enough guideline questions, the activity seemed too brief to use 20 minutes. I think if there have been more instructions like I mentioned above or if there have been more developing tasks besides guessing the story, the activity would have been more meaningful. However, the activity was somewhat helpful to develop speaking skill. While I was doing the activity, I could speak more freely with my group members since there was no specific grammar form that we had to use. Besides it was an open ended questions, so I had to use my imagination to guess the story.
Whose kitchen is better?
In the activity, we were paired up and were given pictures of a kitchen which is different from one another. Out task was to find out each ones stuffs and the numbers of the stuffs by asking questions such as, Do you have...?, How many do you have?. Since it was a simple task, most of the group members finished it quickly. When it looked like there were no more conversations, the material host suggested further activities such as describing your kitchen to your partners.
The material was good for practicing prepositions, numbers, and some vocabularies because we had to describe which items are where based on the picture. It was also good for describing location and place. For further activity, you can have your partner draw your kitchen after listening to the descriptions, and then compare your drawing with the original picture.
To sum up, the activity was simple but a good way to practice speaking and listening. The directions were clear and my partner and I had no problem following the instructions
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Anonymous
Date:
RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 3 Reflections for Wonderful
As the class begins, the instructor of our group handed a paper out to us firstly and something was printed on both sides of the paper. First of all, the instructor told us to see the first page before turning the paper over. There was the poster of a movie which was already released recently and it was printed in black and white. What we have to do was to see a movie poster and then try to guess what kind of story the movie would be by using only our imagination. Frankly, it was kind of difficult for me to imagine the overall content because it was not the colored poster. Anyway, our group made a guess that this could be a criminal movie. We had to finish talking about the poster in 20 minutes, but at this point, I felt that the instructor did not lead our group appropriately. Actually, we were at a loss what to do at first, so it was quiet for a few minutes. It might have been better if she talked more or tried to lead the conversation actively.
Overall, it felt more like she is just a group member than an instructor. Moreover, we just read through the original contents of the movie after 20 minutes by ourselves and the instructor said nothing about it. If she made some comments on each students opinion, it would be much better. Anyway, this activity left much to be desired and I felt that she did not demonstrate enough leadership as an instructor. Thus, I thought that the instructor should put more power into achieving pedagogical goals and be so active than the students that she can instruct the group well.
2. Professor's Activity ('Spot The Difference')
At first, we were divided into two groups and a piece of paper which had a picture of a kitchen was given to each person. Before starting the activity, the instructor told us not to show our papers to our partners and try to describe the picture on the paper as much as we can. While doing this activity, we realized that we have all different structure of the pictures on the paper. To add, the instructor told us to compare who have more stuffs in the kitchen and talk about where they are, so we explained it to each other by using specific prepositions.
I think the main purpose of this activity is to enhance ones ability of speaking any basic sentences with fluency. Furthermore, I felt that it requires both vocabulary and comprehension from the students while interacting with each other. Overall, this activity seemed to be more suitable for the intermediate students than the advanced students of English. As for me, Im planning to teach little children in the future, so it was time well spent.
let me add my own humble refections to our stream. The more feedback, thoughts and impressions, we get the better we will be able to understand what we have been doing in these hosting sessions and also how well we did both as hosts and as participants.
Move Poster
I think the basic idea for this task is fine. The participants need to create a story. The creation of the story is scaffolded by the use of a movie poster. In doing something like this the teacher needs to be careful of a few things:
The poster is clear enough that a story might be made.
The poster is interesting.
The movie selected is not already known to the participants.
The basic idea is that the movie can't be known and that it is interesting and good enough to get started. So, the basic idea is sound and people like movies, but finding the right poster is important.
The host/teachers also needs to start this well. In doing tasks like this it is also better if there is a background story. Why are they making a story and who are they telling it to? This time there was kind of a vague start. As a result students weren't;t sure how to start the task and it took some time to get into it. A little more scaffolding like guiding questions or a short beginning or ending might have made this better. Then the students have more to build their stories from than just a picture. Diring the task the host/teacher can also get more involved in the groups discussions. The host this time acted mostly like a participant in one of the two groups made. While it as a good idea to make smaller groups, the host could have tried to facilitate more in both groups.
Storytelling is a good Advanced level task. So the task and the content was quite well selected, but a. bit more control in the onset might have led to a better start. And during the task more host facilitation regarding helping the students find language and expand the language produced would have increased the learning. A follow-up summary in the end could have helped as well. In general, the set up of the task was too free.
The other stuff
I hosted the second part trying to use materials I had brought for a different purpose. The materials were designed for lower intermediates and certainly should not take 30 minutes to do, so there was a problem right from the beginning. I tried to get this striating well and although the task os simple. - identifying objects in two different kitchens, it is made a little more interesting by giving a clear purpose - whose kitchen is better? This helps people talk and also provides a clear end to the task. But since I needed to try to find a way to complicate this for my higher level students so it would take longer, I kept on laying on new goals for the students. This led, I could feel, to task fatigue. So I took out something else which happened to be some materials also for even lower level students that asked them to simply reconstruct some signs that had blown off buildings in a small English town. The interesting thing about this is that it introduces cultural aspects in a more covert way. as predicted they went through it like a hot knife through soft butter, and only had difficulty with one building - the news agent. I know there was no way they would no this so I tried to milk the opportunities for learning by having them look more carefully at the elements surrounding the building. But you can only do that for so long...so in the end I told them and we started a very similar task that I find tedious and boring but which they seemed to like more than I thought they would. It is a visually contextualized, bottom-up decoding task again with signs but now they are written in a fictitious writing system. This just shows that they really love solving problems, even tedious ones. and we ran out of the time just as we started making progress with the decoding.
I hadn't known that I would be hosting, but things worked out, well not terribly. I think we managed to generate some useful practice even with materials far below their level.
