Task: Week 3 Solo Activity - Two different ways to teach the same lesson.
For this task I chose transcript (ga 1) Transcript "Laura uses a reading text to create the conditions for a speaking activity".
I chose this transcript because personally I'm a big fan of speaking activities and I'm always curious to learn new ways to generate genuine conversations in class. I was delighted to find out that even a very short text (like the two words in the example transcript - "Wife Wanted") could be an effective speaking prompt!
Before I go on to suggest two alternative ways to teach the same lesson, I'd like to mention here what two changes I would denitely introduced in the original lesson.
1. "Clarifying the meaning of the text": As the transcript shows, not all students clearly understood the meaning of the introduced text (Wife Wanted). Some of teh students thought it was the wife that wnated something. So some of the students got the message wrong. But this misunderstanding was revealed only after the students started doing the task. So my suggestion here would be to first make sure that all the students understand the meaning correctly and only then give them the task to reflect on the text and come up with their ideas.
2. "Teacher talking time": Even a breif glance at the transcript clearly shows the disproportion between the teacher talking time and the student talking time. I used John's method and calculated the number of words (excluding the articles) the teacher and students said during the transcribed episode. And here is the statistics: the teacher said 408 words while the students collectively said something around 68 words, which makes 86% and 14% of the lesson time respectively. If the teacher speaks the predominant part of the lesson, it turns the goal of the lesson (the speaking activity) into "teacher speaking activity" :) Moreover, the teacher gave students too little time to actually talk and discuss the ideas: two times under 20 seconds. Which is absolutely not enough for a speaking activity.
So I would introduced the above changes even disregarding the rest of the procedure.
Now to my two alternative ways to teach the same lesson.
First of all, the procedure of an activity depends on the goal of this activity (which is rather obvious). So I suggested two different outcomes for the same activity that shaped the procedure of the activity in slightly different ways.
Alternative 1: A more controlled speaking practice
The goal of the activity - To practice grammar and expressions to talk about possibilities (such as, it might have been / it could have been / Perhaps / Probably etc). Here I assume that the students are already familiar with these structures and vocabulary.
The begining would be the same: I introoduce the text, clarify the meaning of the text, ask students to come up with their ideas on where I saw this ad and then ask students to work in small groups (preferably, in groups of three) to generate as many reasons why that person placed such an ad on the window of his shop as they could.
Then I would ask the students to share with the rest of the class the ideas they came up in their small groups. Then we would go through all the questions suggeted in the activity (suggestions about the age, the personality, the appearance and so on of the man and of a wife) in the similar way or, to make it less repetitive and boring, I would ask students to work on each question in new groups - thus, they will have the opportunity to talk with all the students from the class and have much more fun.
Then we would have an opinion poll on what they think are the most likely alternatives. And then I would reveal the true story to the students to see who got close to the truth or who had the mosr vivid imagination:)
Alternative 2: Freer speaking practice
The goal of the activity: to generate a story on the basis of the prompt.
The introduction would be the same. But after eliciting alternatives for reasons of the man to put up the ad, I would ask students in small froups to choose one alternative and to come up with one story about that man by using questions about his age, appearance, job and so on.
When students are ready, they would share their stories with the rest of the group. And then I would reveal the real story behind the ad to the students for them to enjoy how far their imagination has taken them:)
For this task I chose transcript (ga 1) Transcript "Laura uses a reading text to create the conditions for a speaking activity".
I chose this transcript because personally I'm a big fan of speaking activities and I'm always curious to learn new ways to generate genuine conversations in class. I was delighted to find out that even a very short text (like the two words in the example transcript - "Wife Wanted") could be an effective speaking prompt!
Before I go on to suggest two alternative ways to teach the same lesson, I'd like to mention here what two changes I would denitely introduced in the original lesson.
1. "Clarifying the meaning of the text": As the transcript shows, not all students clearly understood the meaning of the introduced text (Wife Wanted). Some of teh students thought it was the wife that wnated something. So some of the students got the message wrong. But this misunderstanding was revealed only after the students started doing the task. So my suggestion here would be to first make sure that all the students understand the meaning correctly and only then give them the task to reflect on the text and come up with their ideas.
2. "Teacher talking time": Even a breif glance at the transcript clearly shows the disproportion between the teacher talking time and the student talking time. I used John's method and calculated the number of words (excluding the articles) the teacher and students said during the transcribed episode. And here is the statistics: the teacher said 408 words while the students collectively said something around 68 words, which makes 86% and 14% of the lesson time respectively. If the teacher speaks the predominant part of the lesson, it turns the goal of the lesson (the speaking activity) into "teacher speaking activity" :) Moreover, the teacher gave students too little time to actually talk and discuss the ideas: two times under 20 seconds. Which is absolutely not enough for a speaking activity.
So I would introduced the above changes even disregarding the rest of the procedure.
Now to my two alternative ways to teach the same lesson.
First of all, the procedure of an activity depends on the goal of this activity (which is rather obvious). So I suggested two different outcomes for the same activity that shaped the procedure of the activity in slightly different ways.
Alternative 1: A more controlled speaking practice
The goal of the activity - To practice grammar and expressions to talk about possibilities (such as, it might have been / it could have been / Perhaps / Probably etc). Here I assume that the students are already familiar with these structures and vocabulary.
The begining would be the same: I introoduce the text, clarify the meaning of the text, ask students to come up with their ideas on where I saw this ad and then ask students to work in small groups (preferably, in groups of three) to generate as many reasons why that person placed such an ad on the window of his shop as they could.
Then I would ask the students to share with the rest of the class the ideas they came up in their small groups. Then we would go through all the questions suggeted in the activity (suggestions about the age, the personality, the appearance and so on of the man and of a wife) in the similar way or, to make it less repetitive and boring, I would ask students to work on each question in new groups - thus, they will have the opportunity to talk with all the students from the class and have much more fun.
Then we would have an opinion poll on what they think are the most likely alternatives. And then I would reveal the true story to the students to see who got close to the truth or who had the mosr vivid imagination:)
Alternative 2: Freer speaking practice
The goal of the activity: to generate a story on the basis of the prompt.
The introduction would be the same. But after eliciting alternatives for reasons of the man to put up the ad, I would ask students in small froups to choose one alternative and to come up with one story about that man by using questions about his age, appearance, job and so on.
When students are ready, they would share their stories with the rest of the group. And then I would reveal the real story behind the ad to the students for them to enjoy how far their imagination has taken them:)
Dear Alexandra,
ReplyDeleteAmazing how many alternatives the short excerpt of Laura you generated.
I want to point out that as you said the teacher talked 80% plus and the students talked little but when the students did speak they made many errors. Not only did at least one get the meaning of Wife wanted turned around but one said "internet" and another "newspaper" in response to "Where did I see this sign?" Laura, said it could have been on the internet or in the newspaper. But a sign posted on a wall or a door cannot be in a newspaper or on the internet. She drew a sign and put dots in to represent pins to hold the sign. So though she said "sign" around 6 times none of them got the meaning even with the sketch on the board.
But in addition to being wrong content wise, the students said "internet" and "newspaper" without the articles and prepositions needed:
on the internet, in a or the newspaper.
So the students not only talked less but spoke incorrect English. We do not know what they said in their pair and group work since these comments were not recorded. But if they said incorrect English in response to the teacher's comments for sure they made loads of errors in their group work.
Every time we say something incorrectly the pattern becomes more deeply ingrained in our minds and it becomes more and more difficult to change.
So one could argue that during the lesson the students rather than learning something simply made their bad habits more and more deeply engrained.
I dwell on this point because all too often we think that getting students to speak is good. I would argue that it is better often to have students write first. They can write what the teacher says and they can write their answers to the questions from the teacher. And they can write comments on their notebooks about the topic and the teacher can go from student to student and correct what they have written.
Then the students in pairs or groups of 3 as you suggest can read what they have written silently, one at a time, cover their notebooks and say what they have written to the others. The others can write what they hear and then compare what they wrote with the corrected sentence that the first student wrote.
So in trying the alternatives you suggest have students write more, correct what they write before they say anything.
In most of the transcripts that I posted students are making errors as they speak. Sometimes the teacher says what they said incorrectly after they say it but this is a waste of time as they need loads of practice with incorrect forms not just one sample of the correct form said by the teacher.
Notice that Laura not only ignored the grammatical errors in student responses but said "It could have been in a newspaper." I mean how can a sign she saw on a wall or a door be in a newspaper?
I am sure Laura did not notice these facts since neither she or Jeremy Harmer, the author of the book the DVD was produced for mention this in their discussion of the lesson.
DETAILS ARE CRUCIAL AND IGNORED 99% of the time.
Believe nothing I say.
Sorry I missed commenting on your creative comments earlier.
J