We were each given a piece of paper for this activity. We were given 10 statements regarding the sexes and we had to choose from strongly agree to strongly disagree, while explaining why. The opinions differed from people to people, and it was much interesting that way. I tried to explain the reasons as best as I could, but was extra careful choosing my words as the professor was male. I sometimes got carried away and understood the questions wrong. For example, it was said that [Women are the ones responsible for their family] but I recognized it as [Women are the ones responsible for their family because they are responsible for the laundry, taking care of the children, cooking food, and etc.] I was reminded the true meaning of the sentence after the professor reminded me of some facts.
In the paper, it is written that this activity was planned for 5 minutes, but I believe that the activity actually took more than 15 minutes, so I felt that the instructor has to plan the activity more thoroughly by considering the tendency of the students (introverted and extroverted) as it explains how much they speak. It seemed like the instructor was struggling to encourage the students to speak, and that took most of the time away. However, I thought that it was good that he asked the students to read the sentences out loud instead of just reading them silently, as it helped the students to be more focused on the current question and kept the pace for all the readers (because the reading speed of each student differs quite tremendously).
Therefore, this activity was meaningful in that the students able to create meaningful outputs that expressed their thoughts. It was also comprehensible, with more advanced grammar than what the students encountered compared to the first activity. I thought that this was a good strategy, as most of the words were not too advanced, but the level of English use has increased depending on the structure of the words. I remember learning in another class that most of the second language learners learn advanced words eventually outside of classrooms instead of the artificial settings that the instructors had created within the classrooms.
1. -2 Situations
There were various situations regarding married couples, and our group members had to provide solutions to these problems. I liked how the instructions included the word [sticky] to show the students that the word could be used in different ways, rather than the sticky as in gum or stickers. I guess that the professor had wanted to hear various solutions; but my best solutions to those problems were divorcing. I have been observing human relations most recently and had recognized that it is not appropriate for people who do not fit to continue their marriage. Yes, the solutions are not always divorcing and it is necessary to change some aspects to solve the problems. However, from my point of view (and some of others) the problems written in the sheet were those that were hard to change; so it would be better for those people instead of developing more problems and stress. This activity required some deep thought, and I thought that it provided the students with opportunities to think seriously about real-life problems in English.
So the activity was meaningful in that the students were interested in deeply considering the problems. Moreover, the activity served its pedagogical goal to make students speak actively and explain their ideas to others. It also served real-life goals, as all of the contents were related to real life. The instructor acted like a bridge to collect the students' opinions. Additionally, the students were able to connect this to real life, increasing the authenticity involved within the activity. The top-down seemed to be practiced, as the students made use of their background knowledge to provide solutions.
1. Travel Planning
Stars for the activity:
A piece of paper was provided to the students. This time, the use of the Internet was mandatory. So the students each needed their mobile devices- I panicked at first because I did not bring my phone to school that day, but luckily I had my laptop with me. I thought this was a good strategy though. Most of the students have their mobile phones with the Internet these days, and this way, the students seemed as if they were more involved in the process. The students had to choose their parts and create an itinerary for the prizewinner. Each of the students were given a position in food, accommodation, and sightseeing. While the other was presenting her results, I saw that she had looked for information on the web in Korean: then I realized why the professor had not restricted the use of language for the web. First, the students are doing this activity mostly individually, so the professor cannot observe if the students are using the language or not. Second, I realized that conversing Korean into English to attain information is another skill that would be useful for the students. I'm not sure if the instructor had intended this part, but it seemed helpful. The students had to constantly interact with each other because they had to figure out what the prizewinner wanted. Thus, the prize winner focused on interactional conversations, while the other students were more focused on searching for the information and organizing it so they can create an output for the others to listen to.
Except for the financial part, this activity served real-life goals, so the students communicated just the way how they would communicate when they are planning a trip with other English-speaking friends. Thus, I thought that this activity could be helpful in terms of communication in this aspect. On the other hand, it would have been better if the instructor had more detailed instructions: for instance, an activity, an accommodation, and a dish each day, instead of just asking the students to look for information. I also felt that this activity could be integrated with math classes for young intermediate English speakers.
Overall, the activity was meaningful, and the students were actively involved in achieving real-life and pedagogical goals. Regardless, the activity seems to be refurnished, in terms of organization.
__________________
Anonymous
Date:
RE: teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 10 Reflections for Wonderful
This time, we did two activities which were prepared by professor. Every student was given a paper per activity. The title of the first activity was Battle of the Sexes. There were two contents of the activity and the first one was a warm up. Some sentences related to the sexes were written in the paper. We talked about the statements related to sex and then checked on the scale of the list from strongly disagree (4) to strongly agree (1). In the second one, we were supposed to suggest some proper solutions to some sticky situations which are potentially problematic for human relationship.
I think both activities have real-world goal and pedagogical goal. The theme of the materials was related to our real life scene which we could encounter in everyday life. And through the activity students could practice expressing their opinion logically using some proper evidence or some examples in English.
Since the contents were related to a real life, everyone could easily understand them. And to me, reading and checking the statement about the sexes was interesting and sharing opinions with other students was meaningful, because we rarely have a chance to express our opinion on those matters especially in English.
In general, I was content with the first activity and participated more actively than the previous activities. I think the input was meaningful and both pedagogical goal and real- world goal were successfully achieved.
In the second activity, we did some travel planning. Before we start the activity, we decided who is going to be the host, the traveler, and each student played a role of an expert on accommodation, food, sight-seeing and theres one coordinator. One student was absent so we skipped the coordinator part. After we decided each ones role, every expert tried to find some information which the host might like. In order to find out the hosts preference, experts had to keep asking the hosts opinion and the host had to keep on giving them a feedback.
The input was meaningful since the theme was about traveling, which everyone might get interested in. And it seemed to have a real-world goal. When we planed the hosts trip, we had to find some information by searching on the internet and suggest some ideas to host then we change our plans depending on hosts feedback. So, the activity was like a problem solving situation in a real life.
Overall, the activity was fun and exciting. However I was a little disappointed with the final process. I felt like the task didnt work smoothly and the final goal of the activity didnt seem to be clear. What I mean is that we just talked about the traveling plan. I think it would have been better if we could make an itinerary altogether at the end of the activity. Or we could have made some travel package after we discussed the hosts preferences.
__________________
Anonymous
Date:
RE: teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 10 Reflections for Wonderful
The instructor gave us a piece of paper and there were 10 statements about the sexes on the paper. Our role was to say whether we agree to that statements or not, and then explain why. We all took turns to share our own opinions and I felt it was fair enough and interesting. However, some of the statements were not perfectly comprehensible and they were the statements that could make different people understand them differently. Also, I want to say that the instructor should manage the time more strictly because I remember that it was a 5 minutes activity, but it actually took way more than 15 minutes. It seems that it took a lot of time for the leader to try to help students who don't talk much in the group and let them talk a lot. Overall, the activity required students to speak and write words and grammar that were slightly more advanced than the first activity, allowing students to express their ideas freely.First of all, it was very satisfying because it was an activity with a suitable level of difficulty for the verbal level of the students. And the leader seemed to have adjusted the difficulty of the sentence structure rather than increasing the difficulty of the vocabulary this time. I believe it will be a very effective strategy for students.
l Situations
Various situations were presented on the paper, and all we had to do was express our opinions thinking about what we thought about them and how we might solve them. After that, we had to come up with a solution. The leader encouraged every group member to read the passages one by one and I thought it was a very good strategy since everyone was able to participate, so that no one could speak a word in the group. The leader's intention to strengthen everyone's participation was good, but I was deeply sorry that some students had read it so quietly that I had hardly heard it when they read the situations. If the leader had told them to read aloud, then he could have completed this activity perfectly and successfully. The leader must have expected us to use various sentences to talk about various solutions, but the solutions to the circumstances presented were mostly "divorce." So, if a leader gets another chance to guide our group next time, it would be better to persent situations where we can think and talk from various perspectives or point of views. To add, it seems to have been an activity based on 'top-down,' one of the methods of learning. This is because students used their knowledge of the situations to make words. Overall, during this activity, I think it was a very meaningful activity in that I was able to talk freely in English about possible situations in real life and to think deeply about the solutions.
l Travel Planning
This was another professor's activity because the second host did not come. Again this time,the leader gave us a piece of paper with an instruction and was an activity that required us to find travel-related data. So, it was essential that each of us use the Internet with our own mobile phones. The way the classes were conducted using Electronic devices seemed to have helped students come up with more and more ideas, and there was no limitation of searching information. We each picked a field we wanted to investigate, such as food, accommodation, and sightseeing, but only one person was the one who would travel to another country. In fact, during this activity, I found some problems that needed improvement, and the most important problem was that there were more students who were just listing words than those who were speaking in sentences.Since this activity is about finding and sharing data on the internet, of course it may be almost impossible to say one's thoughs in completed sentences, so I thought it would be much better for the leader to make an improvements on this.Also, the role of the student who chose the destination seemed to have not been talking not enough. Although the leader asked her several questions such as where she wants to visit or what kind of food she wants to eat, she said nothing else except for the answers to those questions. Overall, this activity seems to have been too individual, rather than group-based. However, I strongly believe that this activity served real-life goals very well because the instructor led all of us to communicate each other when we supposed that we are planning a trip to another country. This activity seems to have been formed around dialogue, and it would be a better one if the leader leads all students to participate in the activity fairly.Anyway, it was very meaningful and served the pedagogical goals very well.
