Hello everyone! I thought I'd do my solo tasks early before I get busy with the school week. Here is my submission for task one. I'll be happy to read your comments, questions, and additions.
cs&h1: It seems clear that the students who are writing these instructions have problems both listening and spelling. I had trouble figuring out what the sentences might have been, but here are my thoughts.
Sentence 1 might be “two keywords are very easy to understand”. It seems like the students did understand the keywords: key, words, easy, understand. But the way they put it back together again made it difficult to understand what they’re hearing.
Sentence 2 is probably “We are going to brainstorm. Brainstorm means…” It is possible the students think they are going to a place, given the capital letters.
Lessons learned:
1. Don’t assume students know what you are saying.
2. Asking students to write down instructions/classroom language in words (or symbols) can give insight into how they hear those things.
cs&h2: This is what I see in my imagination. The teacher is speaking slowly and clearly to a group of students who are all focused intently on her. They are smiling and nodding. At the end, she asks, “Do you understand?” / “Any questions?” and the students all respond with more smiles and nods. As soon as she has left the room / turned her back, students who share the same home language confer about what she might have said. The following Wednesday, all the students turn up at 9 o’clock. They have all dressed appropriately. They are holding papers nervously in sweaty hands. One timidly raises his hand and asks when he has to give his presentation. And finally, the penny drops.
Additional Lessons:
1. It’s not always safe to rely on nonverbal cues to gauge student understanding, even writing is not foolproof. Maybe next time, try splitting them into groups and have each group draw a picture for two of the instructions.
2. The kinds of mistakes students make when writing down directions can help a teacher to see what they need to work on. For instance, these students might need more work on idiomatic language, or collocations that they don’t hear very often.
cs&h1: It seems clear that the students who are writing these instructions have problems both listening and spelling. I had trouble figuring out what the sentences might have been, but here are my thoughts.
Sentence 1 might be “two keywords are very easy to understand”. It seems like the students did understand the keywords: key, words, easy, understand. But the way they put it back together again made it difficult to understand what they’re hearing.
Sentence 2 is probably “We are going to brainstorm. Brainstorm means…” It is possible the students think they are going to a place, given the capital letters.
Lessons learned:
1. Don’t assume students know what you are saying.
2. Asking students to write down instructions/classroom language in words (or symbols) can give insight into how they hear those things.
cs&h2: This is what I see in my imagination. The teacher is speaking slowly and clearly to a group of students who are all focused intently on her. They are smiling and nodding. At the end, she asks, “Do you understand?” / “Any questions?” and the students all respond with more smiles and nods. As soon as she has left the room / turned her back, students who share the same home language confer about what she might have said. The following Wednesday, all the students turn up at 9 o’clock. They have all dressed appropriately. They are holding papers nervously in sweaty hands. One timidly raises his hand and asks when he has to give his presentation. And finally, the penny drops.
Additional Lessons:
1. It’s not always safe to rely on nonverbal cues to gauge student understanding, even writing is not foolproof. Maybe next time, try splitting them into groups and have each group draw a picture for two of the instructions.
2. The kinds of mistakes students make when writing down directions can help a teacher to see what they need to work on. For instance, these students might need more work on idiomatic language, or collocations that they don’t hear very often.
PS Students play understanding all the time and so as you say gauging understanding on gestures or facial expressions is really useless.
ReplyDeleteJohn Fanselow Yes, I have noticed similar things with my own students. And come to think of it, I do it in Japanese, too.
ReplyDeleteAnne Hendler I really enjoyed the lessons you learned by reading the transcripts. In #1 I also see a reminder of how hard it is to 'get' something from the first attempt, and how important it is to help students be patient and experiment with the language (even and especially when we teachers assume they 'know' something, or when we think something we say is 'easy') As for #2, agree about our teacher learning from their mistakes. Also, about common names, and being ready for certain input in listening (how familiar are they with the area they are traveling to, for example?)
ReplyDeleteZhenya Polosatova That's a really good point about students needing multiple attempts to hear something - even something the teacher knows they know. There are features of spoken language that a teacher might not remember in the moment of giving instructions, like reduced sounds and word blending. Could you say more about what you mean by "experiment with the language"?
ReplyDeleteAnne Hendler I meant trying to work out the meaning by writing, re-writing, self-editing, adding ideas, spelling words in a different way, etc. Have just looked back at #1 and see that the sentence about '2 key words' is written by different students, not one? Might be referring to Video 16 then, where we can see a close up of what the ladies were writing. Thank you for helping me be more specific in what I am trying to say!
ReplyDeleteZhenya Polosatova Thanks for explaining more. I watched that video, and that was one of my takeaways, too. The ladies could listen as many times as they wanted. And in the video John said he was transcribing as well to prevent himself from taking over the controls. I like that he let the students decide when they were ready to move on once they got used to the activity. I think it would be tempting to monitor and tell students to move on when the TEACHER sees that they don't have any mistakes, but it is more important for the STUDENTS to feel that they are ready.
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