Language Teaching Methods: Communicative Approach 10/5

Observing this lesson allowed me to see the Communicative Approach in action. This approach is all about students trying to make themselves understood and learning language in a way where communication is the primary focus. This was a class of around 17 adult learners in the Intermediate level. The teacher introduces the topic which is centered around ‘the best place to live’.

The students are presented with a scenario: The teacher has 2 siblings and all of these children have moved to different places. Their retired parents want to be closer to the children but need to decide whose place they would move to. With this context setting, they talk about the advantages and disadvantages of big city, town and country living.

Next, the teacher presents the structure of persuasion they are following – Opening, Strengthening, and Closing – to practice making a case. The students are provided with sentence examples to start them off in talking about where they live and what they like about it, such as “I like living in a big city because there are better jobs and a wider variety of people you can meet.” The students are then put into groups of 4 for the main role-play activity. They were to think of various reasons and present them in their small group work. The teacher acted as a facilitator and went around to assist each group when needed. I liked how if they need more reasons, the teacher has hints on cards available for them to look at, that way the emphasis is placed on practicing their fluency. The small group discussions seemed to go really well as they prepared for a final ‘family council’ at the end where each ‘parent’ decides which argument was the most convincing and report their decision to the class.

It was fascinating to see how well the students could do when they were engaged and when their focus was on expressing their opinions. When they had a basic guide (structure of persuasion) they were able to share their ideas and feelings with relative ease. I loved that at one point, after a student presented ideas about why their place was the best, the teacher was very encouraging and said “I’m ready to move there!”  The Communicative Approach is one where teachers are more concerned with teaching language functions and have students practice communicating using language that’s appropriate to the setting. I liked seeing that when the students in this class were using English for a specific purpose, they were able to forget about they don’t know and instead focus on getting the message across, in turn getting a lot of practice speaking, and actually using the language as opposed to just learning knowledge about the language.

Teaching English in China: Primary School Teaching 10/1

            The class observed was a full class (around 50?) of Grade 6 students in China. The teacher used visuals to introduce the topic of talking about holidays. The lesson was introduced by a question “What is a holiday?” Different pictures  such as one of the beach, the city, the jungle, and the Arctic are presented. The students said the words and spelled them out. They also talked about each setting, ie. For the beach, there were hints in the image and also clues given by the teacher to ellict the sentences: “You can sunbathe. / You can lie under the sun. / You can swim. / You can make a sandcastle.”  Sometimes the teacher would ask a question about the picture such as “How is the weather?” such as for the jungle image, and then the teacher uses their responses to talk about it more and naturally lead to talking about the activities – You can walk through the jungle. / You can see many animals.

            The students often said the answers in unison and spelled out words, which may not be what we are used to here, but I thought it was appropriate within the context, as we need to take into consideration the cultures and customs of the places in which we are teaching. Even though some of the teaching method was more traditional, I thought the teacher did a great job making everything flow smoothly and the introduction of topics and target language was always natural. She also explained words such as skyscraper by first checking if they know what “scrape” means, and then explaining it further by saying that the words together literally means that the building is so tall it almost scrapes the sky. Adding the imagery was a great way to make definitions interesting and memorable.

Something else I took note of was the fact that the teacher used her own photos in the slides that almost had short journal entries on them. “I went to the jungle. It was very hot! I walked through the jungle and I saw a monkey…..” She used her own photos for the beach and New York City as well. I thought her adding that personal touch made the students interested and were immediately engaged (whispering to each other “Is that her?..”) We also saw that the teacher transitioned into the topic of past tense by saying “If I’m talking about today, I say ‘I go…’ and if I want to talk about yesterday, I say….” to ellicit the answer “Yesterday I went…” from the students.

            After a review of all the phrases, the teacher had each person read them one by one (going up and down each row of students) It worked out pretty well and the students were even able to correct one another! A follow-up activity was matching the things you see with the places in which you see them, such as snowman with Arctic. Before the last activity where they practice with the person next to them, the class went over the past tense verbs in “I went to..” “I saw…” and “It was…” The teacher instructed them to have a conversation with their partner about a holiday they went on or pretend that they went on. I think this was an important part of the lesson but with the class size, it was hard to supervise and keep everyone on track even though she was walking around to different students. What ended up happening was that some students were just chatting instead of practicing. I am very curious to learn what to do in this situation. As a final note, I really liked that the teacher took what was a more of a traditional teaching style and made it her own by planning with intention.

LLC Conversation Club 9/27

            The class observed was led by a student teacher. Approximately 12 beginner to lower intermediate students were in attendance at this Conversation Club. The topic was “Mmm…Food!”

            The student teacher started out with the opening question “What is your favourite food?” The students wrote down one food item they liked on the interactive whiteboard. According to what was on the board, she picked food items and had whoever wrote them talk about it for a little bit. For example, someone who wrote down ‘chocolate’ talked about how chocolate is not really a food but more of a snack item and he likes it because it’s sweet. I liked how the more free structure was used here as food is a general topic that most students would be able to talk about!

            The next question was “What do you prefer? Healthy or Unhealthy food?” This activity was done in a similar style to the previous, with no language focus but a general speaking practice where it’s an informal chat / discussion between everyone. The student teacher used the poll function to ease into this topic, and the students bonded over the fact that most people had similar thinking in that they like healthy food but love the taste of unhealthy food. It was naturally a topic people mostly felt confident talking about. The student teacher also had them extend their answers by explaining themselves a bit.

            The conversation topic to follow was Cultural Foods, with the question “What foods are traditional in your culture?” Some students drew pictures along with their answers on the interactive whiteboard to show what these national dishes looked like. (Some examples are pig blood cake, spicy hot pot, dumplings, and borsch) They then proceeded to talk freely about the food. The teacher was helping by typing in some of the words which might not have been clear to everyone such as “sweet tooth” and “kebab” in the public chat box.

            The last activity was watching a short clip from the TV series Schitt’s Creek where the characters who were cooking didn’t understand the term “fold in the cheese” in a receipe and it resulted in a funny exchange between them. The student teacher then asked “Are you a good cook?” in the form of a poll and published the results. Students were called on to talk about why they think they are or are not a good cook. I think it was a good idea as having the students practice expressing their thoughts and ideas fully in a natural situation is helpful for their language development.

            In this particular class there were some technical issues where the student teacher wasn’t familiar with the functions so it caused quite a bit of delay at times. I would keep in mind to get familiar with the functions for the online class and to keep chatting when something happens so everything will flow more smoothly. Being mindful of the pacing is one major takeaway from this class, as there were long lulls sometimes whenever a student finishes speaking. The teacher was there to prompt the student teacher to pick someone to talk to next. I learned that you really need to get comfortable taking the lead and just confidently take over the whole show, so to speak, so there aren’t constant pauses and so it doesn’t look like everyone’s waiting for someone to take charge. There was a small section about phrases for eating in each other’s languages, which I thought might have been better suited for the beginning of class while waiting for students as more of an icebreaker.

Tanya Cowie 9/22

            In this beginner’s class of around 13 adult learners, the objectives were to become familiar with the dialogue for shopping at a clothing store and to learn related vocab. The students learned sentences for asking for help when shopping and vocabulary for basic clothing items.

            The lesson began with the teacher asking “How are you?” and practicing with each student, giving them the correct response when necessary. When practicing with each other, the students formed two lines facing each other, then went down the line to switch to the next person to practice with. This was very streamlined and efficient for the type of question and answer practice. The teacher spoke slowly and sometimes even omitted words from sentences to make them simple and straightforward for the students’ level. Before the first activity, she elicited the target language by asking “What do you say when someone comes into your clothing shop?” etc. before going in to introduce new phrases. She also used gestures to elicit the sentence “Belts are over there.” Other techniques used were repetition and the information gap. The students practiced as a class and were then instructed to practice with a partner four times. Then the teacher erased some words on the board and had the students say the sentences, and finally erased all the words during the last time, showing the students they had learned the sentences already. A card game “Go Fish” was played as a communicative activity. The instructions were very clear and the students had the dialog with question: “Do you have a (pair of shoes)? “ and answer: “Yes here you go.” or “No sorry. Pick up.” The teacher goes to the different groups and helps out during the game. At the end the class reviewed the clothing items on the walls before the teacher proceeded to pull out items from a big bag, asking what each item is called. Students learned more vocab as well as using the plural form for clothing items, counting syllables, and the pronunciation of “r” sounds, which were very useful for this level. For the closing activity, the teacher reviewed one of the key points they learned from the lesson by asking each student “What are you wearing?” and the students had to name the clothing items they were wearing such as “I am wearing a black jacket.” as they were leaving the classroom.

            I really liked that the teacher used the students’ names throughout and the fact that the lesson had a good flow. She was very engaging and used props in emulating a real life situation. At the interview she talked about how she also tried to connect what they learned in the previous class (parts of the body / illness) by saying things like “the hat goes on your head” etc.  

She says one of the challenges for this group is that for many of them, academic training had stopped a long time ago, which may make learning difficult for some or even have them frustrated enough to want to quit. The repetitive practice needed for this level is tiring for some learners after a long day, which is why she uses games and has a relaxed environment for them to use the language. She also tries to teach really essential language and students’ first language is only allowed when translating for another student.

LLC Conversation Club 9/20

This was a conversation club attended by around 10 students in the beginner level. The theme was “Getting to Know You.” Before all the participants arrived, the teacher did an informal conversation practice with a few students. She asked them the questions “Where are you from?” and “What’s your favourite dish from your culture?” This was a great ice breaker and prevented the students who were already there from being bored.

The first main activity was practicing WH questions through 2 Truths and a Lie.  The teacher spoke slowly, matching the students’ comprehension level. The students had to ask questions using what, when, where, or why about the statements in 2 Truths and a Lie, such as “Where is your sister?” In the next activity where they try to find out 2 things they have in common with a partner, they practiced simple present sentences such as “Do you like Canada?” (or Do you like pets / movies, etc.) The students were also introduced to IF sentences. For example, “If you could speak to anyone from the past, who would you speak to? and “If you were an animal, what animal would you be?” These sentences were typed out so it was easy for the students to follow along. The final activity they did was a Would You Rather game with questions such as “Would you rather live in a cave or a treehouse?” and “Would you rather be infamous in history books or forgotten upon your death?” which allowed for explanation of new vocabulary.

There were some challenges due to the online format, such as when the breakout rooms didn’t work. The teacher was calm and helpful in instructing them to manually join breakout rooms. When that didn’t work either, she turned the activity of “find 2 things in common with your partner” into group work with everybody. The online poll was used in order to look for something we all had in common with each other and it turned out to be pretty fun. Another challenge was when a particular student didn’t understand the two truths and a lie game which was evident from his WH questions which were unrelated to the statements. The teacher dealt with it by telling him “Someone else can demonstrate and we will come back to you.”

I liked how there were visuals used in the online presentation of the activities and games, as it helped clarify topics and made it more interesting. The structure of Conversation Clubs, by default, is casual and allows students to converse naturally and without fear. The teacher’s relaxed, friendly demeanor further facilitated the flow of conversation.  She also always asks “Why?” after students’ responses, so they get as much practice as possible in speaking. Sometimes students took a very long time thinking of a response and depending on the situation, I might try to get them to keep thinking and tell them I will come right back to them.

Intermediate Adult TEFL Class—Giving Advice 9/16

            This class of approximately 15 Intermediate adult learners had seating arranged in a horseshoe shape conducive to interaction and where students could see one another. The teacher starts by asking if anyone has heard of a certain medicine he brought in and saying “I’m sick, do you have any advice for me?” which introduces the topic of giving advice. The students proceeded in giving answers such as “You need to get more rest”, “Take medicine”, etc. which was an opportunity for the teacher to assess their language skills. Setting up a context for the language was also a great, organic approach to the learning.

            Before listening to an audio, the teacher asks the students to see how many pieces of advice they could hear, which was great to get them to concentrate and listen with intention. They also had half of the room listen and see how they gave advice while the other half listen to the responses to suggestions. They checked with each other by comparing answers with the person next to them and then practiced the target language by finding someone from the other group to practice giving advice to. The other exercises they did involved forming three groups – relationship advice, job advice, and advice about education for their kids – to practice the sentence structures they learned: Why don’t you…”, “You should…” etc.  They had repeated practice with giving advice throughout the lesson, such as thinking up 2-3 areas of English they’d like to improve on and speaking to at least four people using the focus language. The students were instructed to speak to someone different the following time for further practice. Another technique used was getting the students to correct mistakes such as “Sometimes you can to read” and “You’ve got a lot of vocabulary” As these were intermediate students, it was effective in teaching them to self-correct. The teacher also clarified with students before fine-tuning certain phrases such as “comfortable zone” and “it wasn’t courteous” to “it wasn’t good manners” (to cough without covering). He clarified the difference between “Why don’t you…” and “ You should…”, by asking the students, to which they answered: “You should.. is stronger” and helped them gain a natural accent when speaking by teaching them to connect sounds in “Why don’t you” and “You could just try” by drawing curved lines and clapping out the syllables.

            I liked how the teacher was subtle in his approach when correcting and came across as informing them the right usage. He also used praise and gave feedback whenever appropriate. The atmosphere was relaxed and interactive and everyone got ample talk time. A DO for me was how the teacher ended the lesson by getting the students to give him advice for his cold again now that they have learned the new sentences. It is a final confirmation for the students that they have acquired new language skills and are reaching learning goals.

EFL Class in Korea 9/15

This class was with children who were in the beginner level. It was a class size of around 30 students or more. The focus of the lesson was learning simple past tense sentences.

The first thing I noticed is that there were two teachers in the class. They worked together by taking turns with the lesson (asking students questions for the drills, and playing the game at the end) and had pretty much equal time teaching the students.

They started off by asking “How was your day?”, which introduces the language lesson of the day. The students were given time to think of responses and ideas to write down before practising and while doing so, the teachers went around to the different tables to check and assist, which is great to make sure the practice or game goes smoothly. The teacher only spoke Korean to help some students understand the “Louvre Museum” and sometimes the students wrote ideas in Korean, and the teacher had to tell them to write English responses. Other methods used were practising with a partner, using claps to regain everyone’s focus and attention, and playing a group game. Some of the tools used were video clips with a dialogue between two people demonstrating the language focus and reward and praise including prizes for the winners of the game. There was a song that was played first, taught line by line by the teacher, and then everyone sang to which practised past tense sentences such as “What did you do?” and “It was fun!”  Before watching the videos and writing down the sentences on the board, the teacher would ask the students “Who do you see in the picture?”, “Where are they?” or “What are they doing?” first, eliciting the target language. After listening to a dialogue, one of the teachers asked “What did you hear?” to again elicit the language they have just heard, which were sentences such as “How was your vacation?” and the past tense response with it.

I really liked that you could really see the energy level go up with this group of young students while playing the Last Word game. It was a great idea to move the chairs when forming groups for the interaction. One thing I might change would be when they had two students stand up in their seats to almost recite dialogues (it was not as natural as it didn’t seem like they were talking to each other) I would probably have them either go up in front of the class and face each other or just practice with the person next to them. At the end, I might have reviewed all the past tense verbs we covered in that lesson: went to, watched, ate, studied, visited, read, bought, made, etc. with a short sentence for each.