A glimpse into the everyday...

Hi Everyone,

I was lucky enough to have a good friend visit me yesterday and observe and help me teach. This means I have a lot of footage from this week's lesson- which I think is pretty niffty. So, I've changed the picture on the right to a picture of my students and added a new album, cleaverly labeled- "teaching". I am also trying to upload a video or two of me teaching, so please enjoy! It might take a few days to upload the videos and pictures- I'm still trying to wrestle with technology! This should be a picture of me looking silly- I was trying to get the students to guess what what was in the envelope!



As you can see by looking at the pictures, I write an agenda on the chalk board (yes, chalk board) everyday. I also write a daily phrase. This helps the students get into a routine and helps them practice and learn some English classroom vocabulary. I try to keep the phrases and agenda as simpe as possible so the students can read and understand what is happening. This week's phrase was "May I go to the bathroom?" Which was inspired after a few students did not know what to ask when they had to use the bathroom- my bad! Th first three weeks were phrases to help the students understand things I will say in class on a daily basis: May I have your attention please? (ala Kent, it works in Korea too!) Do you have any questions? Please pass your papers forward.

The lesson I taught this week was about Green Eggs and Ham. Actually- that is the story I used to get the students speaking. The real goal/objective every week is just to make the students speak English. There is no curriculum I have to follow and the textbook they use seems very disjointed to me. Besides they use the textbook with other teachers- I'm not supposed to use that. So, as much as I would like a unit/curriculum map my essential goal is to have the students speaking English. They know the vocabulary, the grammar, etc- it's all stored in their minds after years and years of rote memorization. My job is to tap these resources and get them to use what they know. I have begun this task by using American music (last week's lesson) and books (this week's lesson) to get the students hooked into the lesson and from there to get them speaking.

Green Egs and Ham worked really well because it was something the students could read- and felt confident in reading. Yes, the actual words themselves are easy for freshman English Foreign Languge students to read and speak, but I added a rather difficult twist to the task: put the story together before we read it. I literally cut up and laminated the story into 41 parts (41 students being my largest class) so every student would have a piece of the story. I grouped the pieces by page number (divided the actual story into just 5 pages) and then coded each piece of paper with a letter- my secret answer key. [This really didn't take too long.]

In class I gave a quick intro. to popular kids books in America, some of my favorites! Then I told the students we would read a story in class, but bfore we read it, I needed their help. I explained very thoroughly about how each of them would get a part of the story, but they would be putting the story together in groups and I would be there to help and support them. I passed out the pieces of paper and watched the students get to work. Now, after 13 years or so of rote teaching methods, my students were very eager to work in groups to complete a hands-on task. It was relaly neat to see! The only hesitation students had were if they did not understand what I was saying in English. Once a stuent helped translate into Korean they were off. I walked around to each group and checked in to make sure they were on the right page. I helped with giving hints "read the pieces of paper out loud- it will help!" "look for similar words on the pieces of paper". For some classes/students this activity was above their heads, but most students could complete the task, and other students flew through the activity. After I had the students read thir passage together before they were finished so they could hear how the story flowed (Dr. Suess is great for this).

Then I had the students sit back in their original seats. I showed them the full text of the story- explaining how each page I showed was a page of the story each group put together. It helped them understand what they just did. Putting the story together with no real prior knowledge of the story was very difficult for them. Debriefing the activity helped a ton- I even asked the students "was this difficult? Why?". I would even pull out a few sentences and read them aloud to the students. Instead of me reading the whole story to them, I found the cartoon version of Green Eggs and Ham on YouTube. This was much more of a visual for the students and a lot more interesting than Miss N reading through the story. Watching the cartoon really helped with their comprehension.

Class ended with one more debrief of the story itself. "Was the story easy or difficult to read (speak)?" My students- "Easy!" Me- "Why?" After waiting a few minutes a few students will throw out answers, "same words (repetition), same sounds/like song (rhythm), for kids (short/small words and simple sentences)" Last question, "The story was written for children, so it has a message or a lesson to teach them- what do you think the message of the story is? What it is trying to teach kids?" After a few moments- "Encourage, try" Me- "Great! Exactly, we should try new things! The man in the story would not eat green eggs and ham, but once he did, it turned out (he ended up) he liked them!" One boy in class even said the message was "Don't judge a book by its cover" I nearly fell over I was so happy! So, I tell the students that message too. I think it's a great lesson for them when they learn English too. All my lessons have similar components- speaking and an extra lesson like confidence, or to try new things.

As you can probably tell, I am really excited about how well this lesson went. I was a little nervous at first, but am glad that I stuck with my instincts because my students surpassed my expectations. I alwyas have high expectations of them, but am continually amazed at their abilities nonetheless.

-me :)