<Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 5 Reflections>
Group Amazing
<Speaking Board Game>
I participated in this activity as a member.
As the host introduced her game, she spreaded big sheet of paper with several activities written on it. And she made groups of 2 as a team and each members were given coin each and dice respectively. As each group rolled the dice, coin representing each team were able to get forward in that paper only after we were able to do activities written in the paper.
I thought the activities were quite interesting. Activities were usually related to speaking in real life situations. For example, I remember the activity of having a conversation as if we were ordering a coffee in cafe.
While being able to get familiar with the partner, we were able to practice speaking skills which were closely related to real life situations. In addition to the activities interacting with the partner, there were activities that made us practice spontaneous speaking about specific theme like talking about neighborhood. Not only it helped practice speaking skills of various forms but also, it was really fun.
Honestly, I felt that there seems to no needs an improvement about doing this activity. However, I wonder how host will reorganize her activity when its 5 members since the original member of this group was 5 except host.
<Who am I >
I was the host of this activity. Simply put, rule of this activity is just total opposite to ordinary twenty question. Usually, most of the rule of the game is that one member knows the answer while others do not know. Also, it progresses as rest of the member of the group work each other and ask questions until they get the right answer. On the other hand, this activities were organized each member having a card in their forehead without knowing the words theyre attaching.
As a host, the goal of this activity was to make group members speak as much as possible. They had to make up 5 questions in order to know their own cards. Also, by allowing open questions, rest of the group member could make sentences to give answer as a response to the question. In fact, Ive always thought many students are not used to making questions since they are used to passive learning activities like reading, listening and writing. So I could tell that the main goal of this activity was to practice making questions.
Everyone seems to have fun. However, while doing the activity, I felt that it was quite different to what Ive imagined. When starting the game, I confined the number of question into 5; however, since the players were had sometimes asking more than 2 information in one questions, it was difficult for me to move on to the next person. I somewhat feel regretful that I didnt act as a great host. Also, since there were some participants who were really good at guessing their own cards, if they guess their cards really quickly, some participants had to just move on to the next game not having a chance to ask question. Ill think how Im gonna solve this problem along with the problem that players suggested.
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Anonymous
Date:
RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 5 Reflections for Amazing
In week 5, the first material was a board game with speaking by Yu Jeong Kim. This time, there was a unique physical material which is a game board. There were lots of missions written on the spaces on the board. The process is here: When one throws the dice and move the piece forward, the group should clear the mission written on the space with each other.
This generated very meaningful practices in the procedure. On each space we were moving on, there were various missions and the missions were composed with ones of making a dialogue or an utterance useful in the common life. For impressive instance, there were to introduce yourself to your partner in the first meeting, to order drinks at café, the conversation between a librarian and a customer, and a trivial quarrel between two friends. The task instruction was very clear, and the instruction paper was also comprehensible for me not to have any confused points. It was because of the short example conversation which the host included in process number 4. Actually, she said we should speak at least four sentences and I didnt catch the concise point. However, after reading her example about ordering ice cream situation, I could get the right point. This time, I was quite satisfied with my performance in practice. For example, when I had to tell about my neighborhood, honestly, I had a problem that I dont have any familiar relationship with the neighborhood and any experiences with them. Thus, I introduced an interesting happening about my neighbors, which was about a daughters crying everyday night in a neighbors home. I think I did treat properly with this sudden lack of talking sources. If I would be in this situation in the real world, then it could be some help to me later. The practice helped me develop creative thinking skills by making imaginary dialogues and short descriptions. There were chances to think the speaking situations in English which we didnt consider outside of the classroom. On the other hand, we have to know how to speak in situations abroad or someday. Because of this, it was formed with real-world goals rather than pedagogical ones.
After all, I think, it is fine with no improvements. Merely, I am just curious with the next dice composition because, this time, the dice consisted of two negative numbers. Meanwhile, the speed of the game was too slow, so she changed the composition, removing the number -2. Im quite expecting to take part in her next host.
2. Who Am I?
The next part of todays hosts was Who am I? I thought that this is fairly similar to the last material we did, but this was different from that one in the instruction and also the process. There were 4~5 bunches of cards and we should put each card in each bunch on our forehead or on our chest without knowing what my card is. Meanwhile, I can ask 4~5 questions to other members, listen carefully to their answers, and finally get the answer of who I am.
The task instruction was very definite and simple. I think this was because we did a similar task last time and because this method of the activity was familiar one like 20 questions. Thus, I could get clear instruction right away. Also, I was very pleased with my works in practice. In the section of my question, I could just ask simple questions but in my answering time, I could answer concretely to each members question and could give some implying hints. The practice included not only speaking strategy but also listening one to the questioner and answerers as well. It was because we should listen to the questioner who didnt know who she is and should listen to the other answerers carefully to give much more various hints to the questioner. For the goal of this material, I cannot decide if this is pedagogical one or real-world one, but I think this is a lot closer to the pedagogical one because we do not usually do this activity or quiz like Is this on our desk now?, Is this sharp?, or Do we use this commonly in school? in the real world.
For the problems encountered during the practice, I felt something lacking with the longer utterances. It was because the conversation between us consisted of an only short or simple form of questions and answers. Actually, in my task, there were similar problems with this, so I felt like more reflecting thoughts. In addition, though this was a very minor point, I think attaching word cards should be improved for the convenient process of the task.
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Anonymous
Date:
RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 5 Reflections for Amazing
Continuing our practice, another two members of our group hosted materials for today's class. As for our group, we did two main activities: Speaking Board Game and Who am I. The former one was the first activity hosted by one of my group members. A dice was used to move either forwards or backwards, and there was a game board with missions written on each of the squares on it. Our group of five members (since one student was absent), except for the host, were divided into two groups of two people each. Based on the number the dice showed, we were to either have a conversation with the person in the same group or answer the question written on the specific square.
I personally believe this kind of task as one of the useful tools that can be applied in first week of class in possibly any classroom settings; it would be a great start as an ice breaking activity. The reason is due to the fact this game did not require any form of prior knowledge; some of the questions were "What are your plans for this weekend" or "Can you tell me about your neighborhood?". As we talked about it during some of the classes, people have a tendency of feeling comfortable when having conversations about "themselves". This is another reason why this game would be very suitable especially for new class environments.
It was obvious that our host had thought a lot of which questions to include and which ones to be changed or left out. However, if I had to make any change(s), I would add slightly more real-life "situational" questions such as "pretend that a stranger comes up to you, asks how to reach his/her destination, and help him/her find a way using only your verbal expressions".
Who am I?
Our second activity was "Who am I". Unlike the first activity, each one of us were playing as an individual, not divided into groups. After our host told us the topic(s) for each round, pieces of paper with a word written on it were taped on our necks or foreheads so that others could all see the word. Each person was assigned with one word, and the game went around for four rounds.
I believe this activity falls more into the category of reaching pedagogical goals as it would be a great source to use in classrooms where students, whether their age are younger or older, practice changing declarative sentences into interrogative ones. As with previous experience with my own students, some of them first found it difficult about the need to flexibly change the sentence order. However with this kind of fun game, students would naturally be able to practice changing sentence orders, especially declarative and interrogative sentences.
I could see that every one of us were concentrating to each other, which showed that the host had prepared well. Meanwhile, it was quite hard to figure out the words for each round since what we could merely say was either "yes" or "no". I think it would have been a bit better if the host had allowed us to give more description about each word; this would have given us more opportunities to practice describing the actual words rather than waiting for the person with the word to ask until the last point she got the answer.
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Anonymous
Date:
RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 5 Reflections for Amazing
This week, I introduced a board game that can improve students speaking skills. I thought about what I would do between the two activities I came up with, but the professor recommended that the board game be more interesting, so I decided to play the board game. In fact, I was satisfied because students participated in board game well and enjoyed watching the paper which I prepared to play board game.
I prepared many spaces and missions to answer a question or make a dialogue. For example, I gave the situation of ordering at the café, and the mission to introduce each others family. Through this, our group could know each other and had fun. Also, I used daily life conversation missions, so I focused on real-world goal rather than pedagogical goal.
In the course of the activity, I was able to find some points to improve. At first, I added negative numbers (-1, -2) on the dice for a variety of mission experiences, but it made the game slow down. Next time, I should either remove negative scores and increase the number of squares or start with only one negative score. Next, the subject of the dialogue seemed to be a little unclear, making it difficult for the participants to create a conversation. I need to make the instructions more clear and develop them.
Overall, I think the goal was clear and meaningful, and the players played the game more interesting than I expected.
Who am I?
Seo Young introduced an interesting speaking activity with detailed instruction paper. She noticed the theme of each round, and gave small pieces of paper. Students selected randomly the paper with the topic of food, movie, stationery, and so on. After I choice the one, I could not see the paper because she taped the paper on my neck. When I asked the question, others answered it, so I had to guess the answer based on it.
I remember having only on answer in total round. It was a little difficult for me, but it was really fun to guess the answer and to answer other peoples questions. I participated in the game quite well, asking various questions. At first, there was a rule to answer only Yes or No question, but it was difficult to guess, so she changed the rule in the middle. I think the revised rules were better.
Through this game, I could try to make questions to guess the answer using various and different words. In fact, it was not easy to ask questions without any clues. However, the game improved reasoning skills and was able to enjoy the process of guessing answers. In this respect, the goal of this activity was real-world goal rather than pedagogical goal because the word attached to my body were used in real life. I liked the various topics she prepared.
Overall, the game was fun and easy to understand. However, if the rules are clearer, I think we can enjoy the game more without any confusion. Also, if she give us an example of a question, I think we can answer them more easily.
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Anonymous
Date:
RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 5 Reflections for Amazing
The name of the first activity was a Speaking Board Game. Four of us were divided into two teams and had a competition while the game progressed. Each team rolled a dice and moved their pieces in each block. As we move on, we needed to answer the questions or make a dialogue according to the mission written on the blocks. For instance, when I got into a dialogue Explain the details about your family to each other, this is the way the participants may be able to answer: There are four members in my family. My father, mother, brother, and me. All of us are having a similar appearance with each other, but our characteristics are extremely different. I always like being with my lovely family members, and I hope I can travel overseas on the upcoming vacation with my family.
I had a team with Minju, and we tried to make a descriptive as well as fun dialogue to vitalize the activity. There were dialogues such as ordering coffee in Café or buying movie tickets in theater. In the former one, Minju became a clerk and I took a role of customer. Since I thought that the expression may I~ something? or Can I~ something? would be a little bit confusing for L2 (especially Korean) for internalize, I tried to use the expression as much as I can as if I became a toddler of English learning. According to the theory of Park(2008), a speaking activity using short dialogue would be really helpful for L2 learners to not only get used to the expressions but also apply what they learned in the real conversation.
However, I think it would be better if there were more variety in the form of dialogues and questions. They were having different topics, but still drove participants to use similar expressions. I think this was because the core concept of the dialogues was all in line with ordering something. It will become a perfect activity if you include a situation such as dealing with an embarrassing situation, consoling your frustrated friend, or formal dinner talk with your boss. Learners will be able to apply the expressions depending on the varying situations.
The next activity was an explanation game. There were five rounds which were having different topics. (classroom supplies, movie, food, animal, job) All of the participants are able to watch others word cards except the one they have. The cards are attached on the forehead or neck in order not to see the word of mine. By taking turns, I should ask the yes or no questions about the word I have, and others answer the question. For instance, when my word was an eraser, these were the questions I asked: 1. Is it smaller than scissor? 2. Can we draw a line with it? 3. Then can we erase something with it? 4. Oh, eraser! As descriptive the question is, the participants were able to get the answer more quickly. Therefore, I think the main point of the game is to catch how to make my question as detailed as possible to get the track into the answer.
This activity was in line with the 20 question game hosted by Minju last week. Both of the activities were using yes or no questions and let the participants to guess what the letter is by asking questions. However, I think the merit of the activity this week was that participants could listen to all members questions one by one instead of dividing the team into two. I think the method this time was much better since speaking can be also improved through carefully listening to others expressions. However, I think it would be better if the host strictly limited the questions for each participant under 5, since it took so long to take turns one by one. Moreover, for advanced learners, it will boost their speaking competence if the host gives them a mission using certain phrases.
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Anonymous
Date:
RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 5 Reflections for Amazing
As I could not participate the activities, I could not write down what I did during the activities. So, my reflection will mostly be going to be the analysis of the instruction of the activities.
1.Speaking board game.
The instruction was very clear for the person who did not take part in the game to understand. I liked the hosts intention to improve both speaking and listening skills since there were plenty of dialogues. For the situation such as making a reservation or returning the book, they should cooperate and make the complete conversation. Both students should pay attention to what the person in front of her is talking about, since it is an interactional listening. I think since the conversation were consisted of phrases used in daily life, the conditions (Meaningful, interesting, understanding, etc.) were sufficiently met for language development. Additionally, most of the missions in the paper were very familiar and easy to answer, such as explaining most recently visited country, or the hobbies, so I thought that it was a great strategy for the speakers to talk about more things and it would help them speak more fluently.
However, I think that not only setting the game with using real world language, it would have been better to put some advanced missions in addition to the situations we are familiar with. For example, making story using designated words or asking about short opinion of current issues in the world. I think that just adding one or to academic and advanced, yet meaningful missions could help them improve the speaking skills. Moreover, maybe next time, it would be better to include more various activities to improve both listening and speaking skills such as dictation or story retelling.
2.Who am I
It is a great method to improve speaking by creating different and answer inducing questions associating with each theme. As I have already done the similar activity (Guess what I am) in the first week, I have always thought that making a question to figure out what the answer is was the most challenging part. However, since there was a specific theme, it would be better to guess what it is, since the category is sufficiently narrowed down. The problem is, for the theme like celebrities, if the student who guess do not know who she/he is at all, the game wont go on. Though I do believe that the host had set the words that everyone knows. (I had a previous experience having a difficulty when people should guess what mole is, but nobody knew how to say mole in English.) Plus, I thought that it would have been better to write down that everyone should answer the question in full sentence. If the answers are only said in yes or no, it wouldnt be that helpful for the improvement of speaking.
