This week I set out to teach my 3rd graders about
adjectives. This lesson supports the government textbook Lesson 10: It’s Big
(Learning about adjectives)
Segment
|
What and How?
Classroom Interactions
|
Medium
|
C.I. mode
|
Time
min
|
Warm up
and activity
|
Repetition
|
PowerPoint
|
T to SS – SS to T
|
5
|
Assistance
|
White Board
|
T to SS – S to T
|
10
|
|
Comprehension Check
|
Pair work
|
S to S
|
15
|
|
Comprehension continued
|
PowerPoint Game
|
S answer individually
|
10
|
I started out with a similar plan to my previous warm up,
but expanding it to cover a 40 minute class.
We started with a PPT to introduce the target language for
the lesson, to try for early total participation. I taught this particular
lesson eight times over the last two days. My co-teacher and I prefer to start
with the PPT or a video to grab the Ss attention and settle them down.
From there we moved on to using the whiteboard to better
explain the concept of adjectives.
The students picked up on the basic concept of using
adjectives to describe nouns, and when prompted were able to give some example
sentences. So far so good.
Moving on to the comprehension check stage, I had the
students pair up in order to try step away from teacher dominated monologic
classroom discourse and move towards the ‘Holy Grail’ of teacher assisted
dialogic discourse.
The result? Failure. Resounding failure. Four out of Six
classes completely bombed at this point, with only two classes turning out a
successful interaction. I couldn’t even stand to try it again for the last two
classes, as my patience was at an end.
Why? Perhaps the students are not used to my pushing so hard
for S on S interaction. Now that the captain is not steering the ship, the
sailors seem to think it the perfect time for a mutiny , and that we can just
drift aimlessly through the English Channel. Students were not interested in
trying to interact with each other in English unless I was standing over them
and policing their actions. I had kids screaming out ‘Crazy! Crazy! Crazy!’, a
particular adjective that Korean children really seem to latch onto. I had snot
and tears, anarchy in the isles, cats and dogs living together, and one fight
between two boys that ended with them losing their seats and having to stand
facing the back wall for the rest of the lesson.
When my co-teacher lifted a questioning eyebrow at my
continuously trying to force this particular type of interaction, I explained
that I was trying to ‘create more opportunities of interaction’ for my students
as is preached in the good methodology bible. She said that the kids were
possibly too young, their skill level too mixed, and the number of students in class too high.
So If I take a deep breath and take a step back, what do I see?
I see a sudden loss
of classroom control.
Why?
The students are not used to me giving them the floor on
quite this scale.
Can the problem be
addressed?
Yes, I believe so.
With gradual increase in dialogic discourse my students should start to get an
idea of what I expect from them. This may require some carrot and stick action,
but after watching Dan Pink’s video on the effects of rewards I’m hesitant to
bring in the bribes just now. I might try reducing the time for the activity
(it had the largest allotment of time for this particular lesson) until they
are more used to having control of the floor.
We have no more lessons this week due to Chuseok holidays,
so I will wait until next week to try and modify my interactions as per Long’s
(1996) Interaction Hypothesis. I must
keep his main points in mind:
Interactional modification makes input comprehensible.
Comprehensible input promotes acquisition, therefore
Interactional modification promotes acquisition.
I am teacher. Hear me roar.
No comments:
Post a Comment