For this activity, the material host said that we are going to go on a trip to Europe and gave us a piece of paper. There was a list of things to pack for trips. We were told that the luggage was too heavy and we had to unload some of it. Each of us took a little time and picked out 10 things we wanted to discard.. Then we had time to talk about which one and why. At first, the instructor asked one student what they chose to eliminate. Then students said all 10 stuffs. But it was hard to remember what the student picked and to discuss why in that way. So a one student had suggested the other method that pointing out items one by one. For example, If asked "Who is going to take a blanket when traveling?" or "Anyone wants to take a blanket off?" we answered "I'll take it," or "I'll take it off," and then each of us briefly explained the reason.
We also shared the conflicting opinions. In the case of shampoo, for example, people who said they would not take it claim that there is hotel amenity. Other people who said they should take it claim that some hotels provide all-in-one shampoo and shower gel product. All 44 items were done in this way, and the one with the highest number of votes was the iron. Lap top computer, shower gel, dryer, detergent and nail clipper get four votes each. Then we had to choose four items between blanket, scarf, soap, hangers, kimchi, and a belt, which received three votes. And we had some time management problem here. The soap, hangers and kimchi were excluded easily, however, there was a tight confrontation between the blanket and the belt. While the students did not choose what to come off, the given 30 minutes were over. We were not able to pick the last item that we had to remove.
In this activity, I think it is more important to say why the item is not necessary to take it than just saying "I will bring it." or "I will not take it." In that sense, asking people for all 44 items is a little bit of waste of time. If I were the host, I would spare some time to express the opinions by asking them to raise their hands. Also, since the process of sharing conflicting opinions was quite interesting, I would like to have a long time to talk about why we should take the items next time. Furthermore when packing for journey, students were just told it was a trip. If host told us about the specific country, when we are going, duration and how the weather will be, I think we could have said more detailed comments.
2. Two Truths and A Lie
During this task, one person writes total three sentences, two of which are true and one is false. The rest of the students have to find the false statement. Students can ask questions to reveal the lie. Since there were no students who did not play this game before, at first it seemed clear what to do. However, students were not sure about whether they would choose the false statement each, or they would talk and then unify their opinions. It seems that the material host originally intended the latter, but the activity was done with former because of we were being pressed for time. There was also an instruction on the paper that students have to ask questions to reveal false statements. But we did not read the explanations together. So when requested to ask question, some students seemed confused.
I hope we can distribute time better next time. At the first turn, we almost used 10 minutes out of the 30 given minutes to reveal the false statement. The sentence was too long and obscure so it took a lot of time. That student shortened one sentence to make it easier. On the other hand, to guess the last student's lie, we had spent less than two minutes. Not only that student was not good at lying but also the sentences were so simple, for example, "I have a pet dog." that it is too easy to figure out. Therefore, I think unifying the sentence difficulty is required to some extent. Especially, it would be better if material host set a topic such as 'what did you see/do/eat yesterday.' Also, when the game is over, "you will announce new things as you learn about other students as a recap." is written in the instruction. But we cannot do that due to time.
The overall activity was fun, except that the 30 minutes was not enough time for all six to write three sentences and find alie. It would be nice if we could have fewer people or a team of three. The two will gather opinions to find the false sentences and we can expect that the time for individuals to practice speaking increase in the process.
__________________
Anonymous
Date:
RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 5 Reflections for Super
This activity was based on the context of the students going together on a trip in Europe and packing in the same suitcase what they needed. But the case being too heavy they have to choose what to give up. From that, the activity is definitely not authentical material but is based on a real life situation which will push the students to be able to use the competences they learn in the activity in same kind of situation in their lives.
The first step of the activity is each student has to pick for themselves what they want to give up from a list given to them. This part of the activity includes reading a list of vocabulary for the students which might be good because it is a theme vocabulary list so it might be easier for the students to remember it than just random words of vocabulary plus the vocabulary list is enforced by some illustrations for some words (maybe the one which are not expected to be known from the students, if it is the case then I think some other words should be covered because there was only seven illustrations and I dont think that words like comb have been encountered by the students before). From the long list, we can know that the activity is not designed for beginners (but could be with some modifications like focusing only on clothes)
The second part of the activity is for the students to debate what they want to take out of the luggage. They must explain themselves on what to take off the suitcase. This is the most important part of the activity for me because it implies that students have to use their argumentation. Argumentation is a huge part of the grammar and form of a language because it allows people/students to explain their idea and not be passive on conversation; it allows to express what people/students think and feel. In that regard they have to master or to learn beforehand some key expression like I think, I agree/I disagree, but, however The situation given by the activity is very interesting as well because it pushes students to be invested in the debate because they can picture themselves traveling (and in our case, we all have travelled before so we all had our preferences concerning what to use and not to use while traveling). So, I think, that activity is more designed for intermediate students.
To make that activity a little different, I think I would put a time limit on the first part of the activity for the students to not think too much and also to have more time for the debate. I think another part of the activity could be for the students to decide where they want to go so picking items in the suitcase would be more contextual: so instead of clearing the initial context for the students the host could add a new part to the activity.
Two truths and a lie:
First of all, I really enjoy this activity: it is a fun game that is used here as an activity but is actually a real game that the students can play with their family or friends (which means it is not entirely but somehow an authentic material). The game/activity is a really good ice-breaker and in classes of intermediate to advanced students it is probably a very good way to push students to talk to each other and to get to know each other.
Unfortunately while practising the game/activity, we realized that it was complicated to do the entire activity because in between finding what to write as statements and asking questions to find out what is the truth, the time was short; plus, this kind of game pushes the students to share their stories and to have long conversations because they get curious about each other. To reduce that problem and make the activity a little longer in the idea of having a second round, it would be shortened as one truth and one lie, maybe the students asking questions should have a limited amount of questions or a limited time to ask them.
The activity is mainly based on talking and listening to other students to make a decision on what is true and what is a lie. The students have to speak to ask questions and listen to gather information about the three statements. If we had the time to do the last part of the activity the students would also have to practise their ability to summarize since they would have had to recap what they learned about the other students.
What I really like in that activity is the fact that it gives a nice atmosphere to the classroom. Thank you !
__________________
Anonymous
Date:
RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 5 Reflections for Super
Packing for Journey is an activity that requires students have real-world conversations. Mainly, it focuses on the use of what if~? for participants to persuade each other. There isnt a strict rule to this activity other than that everyone has to pick ten items off the list to leave behind when packing the luggage. What creates the point of argument is the fact that there are so many items on the list that are relatively useless or unneeded on a trip, which makes it hard to choose just ten items to exclude, eventually ending up as everyone having some differences in their choices and having to argue or persuade others to pick the final ten items for the group trip. In the case our group, we had a hard time choosing between a scarf and a blanket. A student said that a blanket could be used as a scarf and another student said that was nonsense and that it would make more sense to take the scarf and use that as a blanket. In the end, we decided to take the blanket out.
Out of speaking, listening, reading, and writing, this activity mainly helps students speaking and listening skills improve. It requires students to talk about their opinions and appeal it to others in the group in order to get a desired result or something close to it as possible. Listening is also important because you have to listen to what others are saying and understand it to make decisions or even to rebuttal their ideas. Overall, the situation given to students, packing your luggage for a trip, is realistic, which makes the activity meaningful and actually helpful in a way. Still, if there can be some change made, I think it would be better if the list was smaller and if the number of items to choose to take out is also smaller. This is because having a long list and as many as ten items to choose to take out make students take a long time making up decisions on their own, which takes away time for the actual speaking and listening practice. If the list becomes smaller and so does the number of items to choose to take out, students will have more time and chance to present their ideas to others, as well as to listening to others.
TwoTruthsandaLie
Two Truths and a Lie is a well-known game. Before playing it in class this time, I didnt think of it as a language practice game, but just a fun guessing game. I think the reason behind that was because I didnt know that asking questions was a part of the game. Previously, Ive only played it with a rule which one person writes two truths and a lie on paper and others just guess which one of the three statements is a lie. However, in this version, the others were able to ask questions to the student who has written the two truths and a lie, which made it possible to make a more reasonable guess and also to speak more. Im not sure if this rule was added by the instructor or if it was an already existing rule, but it definitely made the game much more helpful for practicing speaking and listening.
A way to maybe make the activity better is to maybe add more statements than just two truths and one lie. For example, there can be three truths and two lies. I thought of this because there were sometimes when it was too easy to make a guess and that round would end early. If more statements are added, there will be more questions that can be asked by students who are guessing and more chances for the student who is it to answer them.
__________________
Anonymous
Date:
RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 5 Reflections for Super
The good point of this game is that it is related to real world situations. Students are interested and familiar with the Europe traveling issues and many people have their experience with packing for the journey. So, there was no sense of burden of speaking English with this game. We didnt think deeply and much with playing this game, so it was good for me to freely communicate my opinion in English.
The bad point of this game is that the luggage checklist was so much that it takes a long time to share their checklist. I think that reducing the checklist helps us to decrease time and increase the time to discuss with the checklist and the context of students decisions in more detail.
My role in this activity was telling about what I checked and when I choose the unselected by students thing I explained about the reason what I checked that list. Also, I listened about the reason why other students check the luggage list elements. It was fun and the reasons were understandable and sympathetic. When there were conflicting opinions about what they chose, it was fun to listen their persuasions why they think the checklist should be on luggage.
Two truths and a lie
The good point of this game is that it can lead us contextual conversations which is related to our life and just about me. I think it is good ice-breaking activity and good group work. In this activity, it is available to read, listen, write and speak. I write down on the paper two truths and a lie and speak&listen about my group members questions. When I answer to that questions, I had to say it carefully so that I wouldnt be caught lying with details. Also, when I listen to other students statements, I had to try catch what is a truth and a lie. In that sense, we tried to listen and speak carefully and also read&write carefully. When I write down a truth, I wrote that I dont have a dog. It was true, but other students doubt about this statements and said that If this is not a lie, then there is no reason to use a negative sentence. We could experience intentional writing and reading.
The bad point of this game is that there was not enough time to guess about one personss truths and a lie. We tried to elicit as much circumstantial hints as possible on the question of the student who gained the say in the beginning, so we couldnt ask as many questions as possible about the student who got the say in the second half. I think that we can limiting the number of questions and put a time limit on asking questions which has contextual details have them ask questions until they think they know the lie.
At the stage of intermediate fluency, English language learners able to use more complex sentences in speaking and writing to express opinions and share their thoughts. They are able to ask questions to clarify what they are learning in class. At this stage, students are able to use different strategies to learn content in English. Students in this stage can understand more complex concepts with teachers help such as providing scripts to lead students speaking more complex sentences. According to this, I think that if we have script of questions, we can speak English with more contextual and complex sentences.
Reference
Bashir, Marriam, Muhammad Azeem, and Ashiq Hussain Dogar. "Factor effecting students English speaking skills." British journal of arts and social sciences 2.1 (2011): 34-50.
__________________
Anonymous
Date:
RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 5 Reflections for Super
Overall, this activity was enjoyable in that students can connect the activity to the real-life context. The activity was about excluding 10 items which would be not helpful when we go to Europe. We should keep on thinking about whether the item would be really helpful when we went to traveling. That is, we should think about whether our supporting reasons for excluding items made sense in real life or not. Since other activities tend to make students feel that the activity is useful only in the classroom, this activity would make students feel like they are given the opportunity to bring what happens in the real life to the classroom. Besides, I personally enjoyed the activity in that I could actively share my opinions with other students. Also, In our book 'Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking', it is stated that the immediate interaction between peer students is recommendable. I think your activity is good in that it involves active interaction between students regarding a certain, real-world related topic.
The fact that students can be in the context of real life is the strongest point of this activity, 'Packing the Journey'.To make this strong point of your activity stronger, I think there are some elements that can be added or changed in this activity. First, I think it would be better if you reduce the number of contents included in your list. I felt there were some stuffs which were overlapping or hard to choose. Therefore, I felt too many contents made this activity a little bit loose. Second, it would be good if you prepare more materials that can make students feel like they are doing this in real life. For example, it would be nice if you make some visual cards where words are written and let students put the cards of the needed stuff in the bag. Or you can select some countries and let your group members choose some stuff that would be needed in the climate and temperature of those countries. If you prepare that kind of materials which can make students actually do more things than just excluding unnecessary stuff by drawing lines with a pen.
__________________
Anonymous
Date:
RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 5 Reflections for Super
Overall, this activity was enjoyable in that students can connect the activity to the real-life context. The activity was about excluding 10 items which would be not helpful when we go to Europe. We should keep on thinking about whether the item would be really helpful when we went to traveling.
Since other activities tend to make students feel that the activity is useful only in the classroom, this activity would make students feel like they are given the opportunity to bring what happens in the real life to the classroom. Besides, I personally enjoyed the activity in that I could actively share my opinions with other students. Also, In our book 'Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking', it is stated that the immediate interaction between peer students is recommendable. I think your activity is good in that it involves active interaction between students regarding a certain, real-world related topic.
The fact that students can be in the context of real life is the strongest point of this activity, 'Packing the Journey'.To make this strong point of your activity stronger, I think there are some elements that can be added or changed in this activity. First, I think it would be better if you reduce the number of contents included in your list. I felt there were some stuffs which were overlapping or hard to choose. Therefore, I felt too many contents made this activity a little bit loose.
Second, it would be good if you prepare more things that can make students take action feel like they are doing this in real-life. For example, it would be nice if you make some visual cards where words are written and let students put the cards of the needed stuff in the bag. Or you can select some countries and let your group members choose some stuff that would be needed in the climate and temperature of those countries. If you prepare that kind of materials which can make students actually do more things than just excluding unnecessary stuff by drawing lines with a pen.
