Practicum Journal #2
Lesson Planning
On page 90 of Richards and Lockhart they suggest that I write about my decision making regarding lesson plans – preplanning and later on, interactive decisions made in class.
Looking at it right now, the first thing that comes to mind is that something I did today contradicts my beliefs about lesson planning (and I knew this when I made the plan). While I believe that every lesson needs to be cohesive and have a clear beginning and end, I violate my own rules for this at times by putting something that doesn’t fit into the beginning of the activity. Today I had them sit in groups and talk about their weekends together. I believe it is important for them to have some time to build some rapport with their classmates. I believe this will increase the quality of their participation in their groups by having a positive affect. Usually this rapport-building warm up discussion is at least partially relevant to the lesson, leading in somehow, but today it was simply time for them to chat. In some ways it was relevant though. Most students talked about their trip to Toronto and the lesson is about going away, but this may not have been clear to them. I often worry that my lead ins don’t seem purposeful to my students. This attitude can show up later in attendance and absences. I had a real problem with that over the summer.
Once the lesson got going I made an interactive decision not to wrap up a group discussion with a full class discussion. I had originally chosen to have the students pick their answers (based on a survey of recreational activity preferences) solo, compare their answers in a group discussion, interject with a brief model on how such comparisons should be made, allow the lesson to continue, then talk about the results together as a full class. Instead, while I tried to get them to discuss a comparison, some groups still insisted on keeping it solo. I tried to stimulate them to make comparison statements and discuss it but they didn’t bite. Soon I realized that I was spending too much time on this because it wasn’t really very interesting and the discussion was mere listing. At that point I chose to forego the microlesson on comparing altogether and just move on, not even wrapping it up with the full class. In retrospect I think I should have at least tried to get them to wrap it up in a full class. Furthermore, discussions could have been interesting if they had to explain why they had those preferences. Does he dislike the beach because he has bad scars on his legs? Where did he get those scars? This alone has potential to play the role of a rapport-building discussion if they would only bite. How might I get them to bite?
The rest of the lesson was done as planned. For the most part it was following the book with a few changes. One change that is pretty routine for me is that I have the students read the comprehension questions first and look at the pictures to predict the dialogue. I believe that predicting is a very important skill for listening. Much of our perception is based on what we expect to hear. I also like doing this because it lets the students know what their communicative shortcomings are so they can see the relevance of what they are going to learn in the lesson. I hope that when they actually see the dialogue they’ll notice a difference between what they predicted and what is actually done by native speakers in that situation. This may play into noticing the gap and motivation as well.
Finally, when they were done with listening to the dialogue, I skipped ahead a bit. I skipped almost ten pages all total that are designed to teach the target expressions. Why should I do this when the students can study it at home? It is like a dictionary of sorts and much of these expressions they might already know. Today I allowed for the students to ask me questions about some of these that confused them the most in the dialogue. Tomorrow after they study I will make myself available to answer more of these questions. Why should I waste all of our time lecturing the meaning of these expressions when I can let the students choose which ones they need explained?
The part I moved ahead to focused on pronunciation. I figured that this part of the lesson was a part that I could help them with in class. I focused, as the book recommended, on one aspect of the dialogue’s pronunciation – word stress. Instead of telling them why some words are louder than others I asked them to sort out the quiet words and the loud words to see what conclusions they could come to about this. They saw it right away. This was part of my plan. I was very tempted to also help them to notice some of the blending but I chose not to. I didn’t want to overload them and I was concerned that my lesson would have enough time for its closure activity.
At this point a student asked me a question about the use of plurals. I had to make an interactive decision. I felt that this question was very relevant to everyone and I generally believe that when students notice something on their own, it is a wonderful opportunity for learning. He wanted to know why we say "three days" plural but "a three-day weekend" no plural. He was very interested in my answer but unfortunately I think I was wrong about the other students. I think they viewed it as a confusing and trivial interruption.
Finally came the closure I had been planning on. I wanted some activity in which the students might interact with the dialogue in some meaningful way. I wanted them to experience it somehow instead of my teaching it to them, so I had them design the next days quiz. I provided them with some examples of how questions are made on the B section of the TOEFL listening test and told them to use it as a model. They would design a TOEFL style quiz for the next day. I felt this would kill two birds with one stone; they could familiarize themselves with the TOEFL format and its question types while giving them an experiential way to be accountable for their learning. I’m still not sure how they feel about this. I’m waiting for tomorrow.
This example of my own thinking before, during, and after class goes to show that not all interactive decisions are good. They are not all ways to adapt the lesson to the moment, but some are poor judgement. A fine example of this can be seen in the way that I often make plans to make an activity very experiential but will back down at the sign of trouble. For example, a teacher may have some activity planned for the students to learn the vocabulary but might see that there is not enough time left and instead choose to just teach it explicitly in a teacher-fronted lecture. I fine example in my own day today was how I botched that survey comparison activity and then covered by botching it some more. The end result was that the activity had no closure and didn’t connect to the rest of the lesson at all. Perhaps I need to reflect on these decisions more often and the cohesiveness of my lessons. Are the purposes of the activities clearly connected to the lesson as a whole entity?
On page 109 Richards and Lockhart suggest that I might write a journal on how I give feedback to my students.
This is something that has been troubling me for some time. I am currently working on it but it is hard to do in a low level speaking and listening class. I am very concerned about affect in my class. Mostly I find that the students ability to use the target language is very dependant on their level of anxiety. Whenever I try some sort of assessment in the traditional sense students get hurt. Bad test results can be very demotivating and disillusioning. I have to be very careful about this. I don’t see any need to give them some sort of rank or norm based grade, or even any grade at all. My concern here is not about that, but merely how I can give them the feedback they demand when doing very active and communicative tasks in which meaning is the main point. I wouldn’t want to interrupt them while they are talking unless we listeners are lost or confused by some miscommunication. Still they feel, and I agree, that they must be given some specific feedback on these oral performances – something they can use to improve themselves and set goals. My students are very demanding. I have taken to using the form of an audio-portfolio. Similar to a written portfolio, it can be used to give assessment and feedback through commentary on individualized performances. Likewise they can also see their own development and progress, which is certainly very noticeable in this medium.
I’m still working on this. How can I improve this technique? Consequently, in Richards and Lockharts description of the teacher’s role in CLT there is no mention of feedback. Perhaps it is something CLT is lacking.