Transcripts taught me to / that:
• Give short and clear instructions
• Speak less - Say more
• Facilitate the learning
• You are not the star! The students Are!
Transripts are my extra pair of eyes - when the class is over I can analyze them and will help me improve myself as a teacher!
• Give short and clear instructions
• Speak less - Say more
• Facilitate the learning
• You are not the star! The students Are!
Transripts are my extra pair of eyes - when the class is over I can analyze them and will help me improve myself as a teacher!
Hi Renata Todorovska, love the metaphor about transcripts being 'our extra pair of eyes' :-) Agree with your points 1 and 4: indeed, focusing on Ss as being 'stars' reminds to pause and check if we are clear (and say less). I'd like to learn what you mean by 'facilitate learning' (I think the process of recording the interactions and analyzing the script can be one step in this direction?)
ReplyDeleteZhenya
Zhenya Polosatova Thank you Zhenya!
ReplyDeleteI think that our job is to facilitate students' learning, to help them achieve their goals, to help them learn the language - which means- to guide them, support them, motivate them. If we analyze our teaching, we can improve and become better!
"Transcripts are my extra pair of eyes" <-- I love this. Sometimes the classroom is such a busy place and there is so much going on in my brain that I miss things in front of my face. It's really good to have an extra pair of eyes. And transcripts don't tell us what's good or bad. Just what happened.
ReplyDeleteAnne Hendler I agree Anne! Transcripts are the mirror of our classroom, transcripts allow us to learn from our experience!
ReplyDeleteSpeak less and say more and give short and clear instructions are crucial discoveries.
ReplyDeleteWe can mean these goals if we demonstrate rather that give instructions and if we write the instructions on the board or if when we give instructions we ask students to write what we say. We will have to say the instructions more than once but the value of instructions is that it is one of the few times when we use English naturally. And students have to learn to understand directions in many areas--how to open a bank account, pay a bill, apply for a credit card, etc. But they do not learn instructions we give because there is too much language that is not part of their memory. But when they listen and transcribe our directions the say !Ah, ha! They begin to understand regular English. But without transcribing they do not learn anything. They can usually do the tasks by looking at what others are doing or because there are only so many things they can do--open their books, fill in the blanks, copy from the board, etc. But they have to master the language of these directions not just guess what they are supposed to do.
Speak less - say more. Beautifully put! Your phrase inspired me and I came up with a simple rule for my own teaching: explain less - ask better questions.
ReplyDeleteLiudmyla Beraud Can not agree more! Thank you!
ReplyDelete