In this activity, material host brought six situations related to our real life. Two people made a pair and assigned two situations. Then they chose one situation to create a dialogue depending on it. After making a conversation, the pair did a roll play in front of other pairs. I do not want to say that activity was bad. But I cannot say that I enjoyed it. Personally I do not prefer speaking in front of people because it is a burdensome. Particularly, role playing is hard work for me. On the other hand, it means this activity can help you practice public speaking. And it has the advantage that people like me can participate in this kind of tasks with minimal antipathy. I hated role-playing, but after all, my partner participated so hard that it ended with fun. Through this activity, you can learn a variety of English expressions that you can use in real life such as asking for refund, meeting with parents, selling or buying a product, asking for a date and complaining. However it needs some revisions to make this material better.
At first, It would be nice to make it a little less burdensome for individuals to do activity in such a way as to eliminate role-playing, or increase the number of people involved in writing scripts.Also, before making a conversation, heard that we're going to do the role-playing, we should write the script? When asked, the host said, "You can do whatever you want." However, Joe, who didn't make the script when he was actually playing the role, tended to go to the mountains, or to flutter and forget his lines. You'd better make a script for a brief one. At next, after students were told that they would do a role playing. One student asked the material host, "Then we should write the script?" The host then said that students could do whatever they wanted. However, the pair who did not make a script, seemed to have strange ending, or during the role playing, she was not able to remember her line and tended to stutter. I think the host should make students create scripts.Lastly, there was a case in which conversation was not heard even a small number of people were involved. During the activity, a pair played on words with a similar pronunciation of Charles and Charlie. But most of student could not get it because the conversation was not heard well. In the next activity, it is better to consider distance between students.
Story Cubes
This activity is making a story by throwing nine dice. Two methods were used during this activity. The first way was, as I originally intended, one person throws nine cubes and makes a short story according to the graphics on the cubes. The second method was that all six people throw one dice each, then tells the sentences that the person behind can continue the story. When I explained the rules, students seemed pretty clear what to do. There were no hesitating students. However, they seemed to feel a little pressure to create a story by themselves when I said, "One throws all nine of cubes and makes a short story." As a result, everyone created interesting stories. It's an activity that creates and tells stories to other people, but no one has had the burden of "presenting". Through this activity, students will be able to practice public speaking. But there are a few things that I thought I should fix during this activity.
First, when I explained the rules and I said I would not participate, the students asked why. It was because I did not feel the need to participate in the activity. However, in an actual class, it would be nice if the instructor made the story before the students as an example. Then changing the overlapping picture. During the activity, we said "Oh, the medicine came out again!" There are nine dice and a total of 54 pictures, two of which are related to medicine (pictures with medicine in the human brain, pictures with x in medicine). I'd like to change this picture to something else. Third, I thought abstract paintings would be better than direct ones to make the story. But when a student threw a dice and got an illustration that the plus and minus polarities are connected by wires, students all repeated words such as electronic, electrical, and electromagnetic. It would be good to have time to brainstorming next time.
Above is a common modification to the activity. Below are what I would like to revise especially when using the second method. The material host was given 30 minutes, and it took 15 minutes to six people to make the story once for the each. I tried to move onto second turn with the same method (one person all throwing nine dice and creating one short story). But I was asked, "Can't we all make a story together?" It seemed that the majority of the students feel more interested in this method than the first one. In addition, listening to other people allows them to make sentences that they follow, so they are more focused on what other students say. However, this second method also had some problems. First, students can say whatever they want, but the last person has to make a plausible ending. When doing the activity next time, I should make a plan that everyone throws the last dice least once. Also, there are less time for one person to speak. One person spoke three or four long sentences with one dice, while the other student made only one sentence using the direct word that the dice's picture showed. In order to reduce this gap, I must make some rules about the minimum number of sentences to say.
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Anonymous
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RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 4 Reflections for Super
First, I think this activity was very interesting and have a lot of potential for improvements. The activity consisted on pair work around a pre-written script from which they had to make a dialogue in 10 minutes to present to the other groups. From those instructions only, I could tell the activity was directed to intermediate to high proficiency students. That activity is designed to make the students speak in a real-life context even though the material is not authentic. The second part of the activity is based on listening other students which might be complicated because all the students dont feel so comfortable speaking in front of other or because they dont have the same speaking level, so the students have to use strategies to understand each other. That happened especially with one group for which it was very hard to hear them, so I had to use mostly top-bottom strategy to understand what was happening.
The host was not very clear around the instructions; she talked about the vocabulary given on top of each script but didnt tell us if we had to use it or what it meant (I think this part should be more explained to the students for both what to do with it but also if they have or not to use it: it can be a challenge for the students, for example, to have to include as many expressions as they could), we didnt know if we should write the script of our dialogue (so some students did and some didnt), even though we knew for how long we had to prepare the dialogue we didnt know the length that it should take, same goes for the time of presentation to the other groups we didnt know of we should introduce the context of our dialogue (and when some student asks, the host said no or to read the context on our paper which we didnt have the time to do but then the dialogue was very complicated to understand). Mainly what shows that the instructions were not clear was the fact that all the students followed different ones.
I think the host should improve on the instructions part a lot because it would improve the activity itself since the students will get more quickly to work rather than having questions about what they are supposed to do. I think that writing not the entire script of their dialogue but the main lines of it would be a good solution to make the presentation possible (the group who didnt write a script went wild on the scenario but also had troubles making an end to their conversation), plus it would develop an ability for the students or make them practise it : speaking from notes. Maybe (and it is a huge maybe) it would be interesting to let the group pick up the original script that they like the most so they are more invested in the process of creating a dialogue and telling a story. As for the presentation part I think it would be important that the pair make a very quick summary of their context so they can practise that skill too: to summarize. As for the listening part, since it is transactional the host/teacher should make sure that everyone can hear or interfere when they notice that the other students cant hear the group presenting.
One of the instructions was that after the presentation the other group should give feedbacks on it like on their grammar, story, acting, vocabulary. However, it was very difficult to do so because at the time of the presentation the students mostly had forgotten about that part and didnt take notes on what the other groups were saying. Moreover, all the presentations were made one after the other and so, if this part were to be kept, maybe the feedbacks should come directly after the presentation so the comments that students want to make are still fresh in their mind and they will be able to express them from their notes. I think this part of the activity is very interesting but is more designed for high proficiency learners and in the context of 30 minutes it was too much to include in the activity.
As for the material itself, it was very well presented. The host gave each students all the scripts which is very important to me so if the students were to study it more (in a perfect world) they could practise on their own from the story they want. Plus, I think it is very positive that the material offers patterns to follow with the vocabulary, or it could also be a help for the comprehension of the original script (we shouldnt forget that this activity also involves reading to start from, if the students dont understand at first the original story it might get complicated, but I guess in that case the host/teacher would be there to help the students).
I really liked that the activity offered to the students that are quicker than others a second part to go on if they were done with the first part, tough, as I mentioned before, it is not very clear when the students should move on to the second part of the activity. I had lot of fun brain storming with my partner and even more presenting our dialogue to the other group. I would still note that presenting in front of everyone is not easy for everybody and so, acting is kind of being in the way even more of being able to talk in front of an audience. I enjoyed the fact that the host was part of the process and played with us. I really think this activity is very good because as I mentioned before it makes the students practise a lot of skills and abilities without noticing which is probably one of the best ways to make them become better because they dont focus on it. It really seemed like a game more than a studying activity which is very important to me but also for the students: this kind of activity allows the students to have fun while making stories and also reacting to others stories.
Overall it is a very good activity I had a lot of fun: thank you!
Story cubes
I had heard in class of that kind of activity for second language learning but never had the chance to try it, so I was very happy to put it on test. It is a non authentical activity but a very used one.
The story cubes activity is actually very simple: the students have to throw nine cubes in which are drawn different pictures, once the dices have given images, they have to make them in an order to be able to tell a story out of the pictures. That is the basic instructions of the game; however, the host made it more difficult by adding the rule of not describing too directly what is on the dice face: to not make too obvious sentences. This rule made the game designed for intermediate learners, they have to come up with more than just simple sentences like there is/are, it was a and so on.
The host presented very well the activity and the instructions but I think, it would be more convenient for the students to have a direct example of how to play the game and so maybe next time the host/teacher should make an example by which they would also set some other rules like how much should a student say with one cube, or how far from the cube can they go. Indeed, while doing the activity the students were not all equal in front of making up a story, and what happened a lot was that once a definition or interpretation of one cube was given it was very hard for others in their story to give a different one.
In that game because of the story line that students have to make literally with the cubes, the teacher would emphasize the use of the chronological words, and linked expressions like time expressions then, first Since it is a totally make-up story and very far from real-life I also think that some expression like once upon a time, I was told, to develop the writing-like story skills that the students have.
The first way we played the game was very one sided communication: the student came up with a story form the dice (context based speaking skills) and the others just listened (they probably used top down strategy first because the dice give a picture support to the understanding of the story and then bottom-up to confirm what they inferred at first). In that case to spice it up and maybe to involve more the students maybe adding some pick the best story and why would be interesting because that would push the other students to listen and pay more attention.
I really appreciated that the activity was not supposed to make any student in a difficult situation: at some point one student had difficulty coming up with an idea to keep going her story and the host/teacher immediately asked for the other students help and encouraged them for the next time to do the same if someone was in that kind of situation of being stuck. That pushes the atmosphere of the group to be benevolent which is, as we all know, very important to put the students in a good situation to learn because they feel comfortable.
The second part of the activity was made up and not planned by the host/teacher. It appeared that the students were more inclined into doing this activity in exchange with each other (which is possible for me only because of the good atmosphere of the group that was installed by the first part of the activity) than playing again by the same rule the dice game. First, it shows how that activity can be interesting because of the multiple variation that it can have whatever the level of the students is, so it never gets boring (the host/teacher can make it into a competition: everyone by using the same dice has to come up with a different story and students vote for the best one; into group work: everyone describe only one dice and the story is made by all of the students, or a student start a story with nine dice and the next person has to continue it with other nine dice; and so on ), but also because the activity is adjustable to different level of proficiency. Second, the host/teacher did very great by letting the students own their own version of the game after thinking of it because it lets them get involved in the process and they will be more inclined to participate.
The only down that I would find to that activity is the difference of level that can happened in between students and in that order maybe the host/teacher should restrict the people who would have the tendency to talk a lot and encourage the one who satisfied themselves with one or two sentences per dice. Maybe deciding of a number of sentences allowed would be a good idea.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun, so thank you very much for letting me try this activity!
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Anonymous
Date:
RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 4 Reflections for Super
This role play activity has to be done in pairs. The two people in the pair are each assigned a role which is in an argument with the other person. There are six different situations that you can choose from. In our case, the instructor designated two situations to each pair. The goal is to talk things out with your partner and solve the problem between the two, but its okay if you cant come up with an exact, concrete solution. The bigger goal is to get conversations going with each student being able to stand up for themselves.
As students have to argue about a problem that has no right answer, the best way to end the argument is to persuade your partner. If you can persuade the other person to think that youre right and theyre wrong, youll win the argument, so the skill of persuading others is important here. Also, to be persuasive, you have to be able to think logically. Through this practice, students can learn to think about others situations and how to put words in a way that would make them more advantageous to themselves.
Since the activity requires some reading, somewhat high-level vocabulary, and the ability to freely claim your own ideas, it would be appropriate for English speakers of pretty high level of English proficiency. Furthermore, the instructor would have to be careful that the students in each pair have a similar level of English proficiency in order for conversations to continue without one student dominating the situation.
StoryCubes
Story Cubes is a storytelling activity. It requires creativity and the ability to instantly react. Materials needed for this activity are nine special dice. Instead of numbers, there are pictograms on each die. Students take turns rolling them and the person who rolled has to make up a story using all the pictures on the nine dice she has rolled. Everything has to be mentioned in the order of how the dice are lined up, but the student who has to tell the story can change the order around while trying to come up with an idea.
From doing this activity, students can practice telling stories, which can be the ultimate goal of learning a language. If you think about it, the reason we need to know a language, how to speak or communicate is to convey our thoughts and ideas to others through words. Specific skills that students can acquire in the activity is dealing with the sequence of time, using conjunctions, and a little bit of entertaining others. The last one requires you to make your story attractive and interesting, so that people will pay attention to you while youre talking, which is an important skill and characteristic of a good speaker.
After doing the activity individually as the instructor had intended, our group played it a different way. Instead of one person throwing all nine dice and telling the whole story by themself, we decided to play with six dice (the number of members in the group) with one die to each student. In our new version of the game, each student throws their die and makes up a story according to the picture on their die and the student who is next has to make a story continued from the previous students story. Basically, its a relay storytelling. This would be a good alternative if you want as many students to have a chance to participate when there is limited time for the activity.
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Anonymous
Date:
RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 4 Reflections for Super
This activity contains six role playing situations. Each role plays presents some useful vocabulary that our group members can utilize in their role playing. There are three normal situations and three not so normal situations to practice the real world conversations. This is a role play for pair. One persons is in charge of one situation and play two situations per pair in 15 minutes. If we have time left, we can play further situation below the reading part. And then, we shared the role play with our group member choosing one between two situations in 15 minutes. So, all of our group members presented role play to the group members and other students should give them feedback, not for the grammar and vocabulary misuses. The feedback should be about the composition of the situation or the details of the event.
I shared a Technical service call situation and Meeting with parents" role play with my pair. At first, this situations seems so hard to make a script for role playing to me. However, while reading the text for the situation, there are several hidden script in the text. In the text, there are many questions that I can refer to it. For example, Listen to his problem and try to help him. Ask what is wrong, how it happened, whether the computer got hit, if he has visited websites with viruses.. whatever you think of. Finally, try to give him a solutions. It helped me a lot to play the situation and composing the events. The situation was not familiar with me but these instructions helped me to try conversation in not familiar situation. I tried to facilitate the given text and vocabularies a lot.
story cubes
There were nine dices, each has different picture on it. Firstly, one person rolls all nine cubes and puts them on one line. Secondly, for each round, students create a short story based on the graphic on the dice. When making a story by rolling a dice, we cannot make too obvious sentences. Lastly, when one persons turn is over, another person throws a dice to create a story.
We can make any stories with the nine dices. It didnt give us the limit what we should tell about, so I can freely speak with English with my imaginations. This material helps to speak and communicate freely with our group members. While I make story and tell them, group members listened carefully and they helped to make my story more specific and added some details. So, I can learn more words and sentences that fits to the specific situations.
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Anonymous
Date:
RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 4 Reflections for Super
This activity let the students consider the context because students have to come up with some stories according to the order of the pictures that they had on the dice. All students had to say the sentences that made sense based on what was previously said or said afterwards. Through making some stories, students were able to think about context and practice how to construct a story which was natural. Moreover, also by listening to other students story, students were able to think if other students speech were natural considering about the context. Like this, by both constructing or listening to a story, students were able to draw their attention to context while speaking and listening.
Overall, this activity was good in that this can help student consider about the context, however, there would be things that I think can be added in this activity : Providing vocabulry lists and transition lists. If those two things were added to your activity, it would make your activity help student focus on forms, which would result in your activity having the third strand deliberate focus on forms. I thought providing vocabulary lists would be nice both in order to prevent confusion and to focus on form of vocabulary. For example, a students was not sure if a picture was a magic wand or not. There was small controversy about what each picture meant, so it would be better if what each picture meant was written under the pictures of the dice. Providing transition lists would be good. It can make students aware of the fact that transition is helpful to make the story more logical. Besides, if the useful transition list was provided, students would be able to learn the transition through this activity.
2. Role play
In this activity, we did a role play in the given situations. We had a lot of situations like truck being towed, pursuading my friends. This activity was good in that all four strands were in balance. Firstly, by reading the written paragraph form of instruction and the provided situation, and listening to other students speech, students can get themeaning-based input. Secondly, by thinking about what would make sense and speaking something pursuasive, students were able to produce the meaning-based output. Thirdly, by using the vocabulary provided on the instruction and the situation, this activity drew students attention to the forms and let students acquire the provided expressions. Lastly, students were able to develop fluency by saying what comes to their mind immediately.
However, unfortunately the situation was difficult to understand because there were too long volume of text. For some people, it might be difficult to figure out whats happening situation and what could be done within short time. For me, I felt it was not easy to understand what was happening and what should I do to pursuade the group students. Therefore, it would be better if you modify the description of the task short and clear so that it can be easily understood and other students can move on to the role play more quickly.
