English Conversation Hour_Final Class!

December 3, 2013

            The last class has shown itself! I really wasn’t expecting a lot of people to show up since it was the last class but to my surprise we had the largest class ever. A total of eleven people came to the conversation hour. Since it was the final class we decided to use one subject and center our activities on that. Last class one of our students expressed her want of knowing more idioms and their meanings so we decided to just use that as the lesson for our last class. First we talked about what idioms were and how they are used. We had each one read one from the many handouts we gave them and discussed the meaning behind them. In order for them to have a deeper understanding we split them up into various groups so they could discuss new ones and give their opinion on what they might think each one is to allow room for intelligible input. Excited discussions broke out through the groups so I believe they were enjoying themselves. Whenever a student had a question about a particular word they didn’t understand they would ask for help from each other which I thought was really good since they were doing this while speaking in English, allowing for great conversation. Improvements have been made! Before when they had questions they would ask each other in Spanish. After they spent time on that activity we told them to now come up with situations in which you would use those phrases and afterwards we would come back and share.

            The overall class went really well, the environment was nice and everyone was really interested in the lesson. Some things I noticed from not only this class but from the others as well is that as a teacher giving instructions or help to language learning students can be really tricky. Personally, I am used to explaining some things in an ‘extravagant’ way so I noticed that with the students I usually get I have to explain in a simpler form. This is not to say that they aren’t advanced it’s just that they aren’t used to the way Americans explain things or the way we ‘twist words’ to give meaning. I can definitely tell as I observed my regular students that they have made some progress when speaking English conversationally. One our students used to struggle to get words out in the beginning but now they seem to come much easier. It does a teachers heart good!       

Shaunice Ivana Walters

Teaching Journal

Lesson 5
25 November 2013

Basic English

Our class this week felt more like our first class than how our classes have gone the last few weeks due to our lack of confidence and our relative disorganization. Perhaps because our class has been so predictable the past couple of weeks, we got a little too comfortable with our lesson plan, adapting a “we’ll be fine, our class is great” attitude. We’ve had the same four students since the beginning and then out of the blue two more showed up this week. We didn’t have enough copies of handouts because we’d just sort of assumed that by the fifth lesson we’d have established our regulars. Truly though, with a class as free-form as ‘free English at la biblioteca publica’, we should be extra ready to adapt. That lessons should be adaptable is advice that we can carry to every lesson we plan in the future.

Though I left the library more dissatisfied than satisfied with our fifth lesson, after some reflection as to what exactly was not right, I feel confident that the three main causes of the breakdown were that the content of the lesson was too advanced, that we tried to teach too much and the students were quickly overwhelmed, and that too much Spanish was spoken—by both the students and teachers. It’s important to mention that our beginner class is just that—a beginner class. Conversations take a long time and what they are able to say in English is based on chunking and language learned from exposure to English speakers rather than explicit grammar instruction. Our elder students studied French in grade school and for this reason, my partner and I found explicit grammar to be a helpful vehicle for our lessons. Our basic model has been to supply new vocabulary, a basic grammar lesson and then activities to practice both. This week we chose a theme of ‘current events’ and gave vocab lists with words about the media, the news, and common verbs used to define the state of affairs; our grammar portion consisted of simple past tense and using the passive voice. We chose this topic because we wanted to give our adult students the tools they would need to talk about the things they are actually interested in, rather than something dull, such as the weather. The truth is, that might be closer to the level that they are ready for. The passive voice posed a challenge for us to explain and also for them to understand. Additionally, looking at the lesson in hindsight, passive voice seems sort of irrelevant for a basic conversation class. The next challenge was definitely the amount of information we gave to the students. We would have been fine to provide only the simple past tense conjugation and it seemed like while they were still grasping that conjugation were moving on to single and plural subject passive voice conjugation which meant we had to conjugate ‘to be’ and also provide the past participle of the verbs. Just too much.

Finally, we realized how easy it is to resort to the L1 when there is any sort of confusion. What ended up occurring was one of us would give directions or explanations in English and then the other would translate directly, which is just counterproductive in a language class. It discourages trying to listen to English when you know you’ll hear it in Spanish shortly after. Really though, it’s much better to speak English and use rephrasing and copious comprehension checks to get the point across. When I consider my Spanish classes in the past, my teachers really never spoke English to us. 

Third class, still working out kinks!

   This week was the third conversation hour I've facilitated. It's been much better I think! I had trouble getting my students together, to regroup and change to different activities, or different groups for conversation. There is still improvements to be seen, however. I have begun setting minute limits for the conversations they have, which insures that they are prepared to move to different groups. I know my students prefer time to just talk, but I think that they will get more out of more structure though. I have mostly been posing conversation starting questions, and trying to put them in groups with people they don't know, to encourage trying new things. It's been going well, and they do like that, but I want to try putting more structure in. I'm planning on organizing some games for next week, so that there is a slight competitive, but fun, edge to using English. In class we've been looking at task based activities in language learning classes, and I think giving my students a task will help. I don't want them to have no fun though, because I'm not grading them and it's not a very intense course, I think games will fit the task perfectly. I want to try to get them moving around more, and in different groups than they normally gravitate toward. I've also been allowing time at the end of the course for questions, but I am not sure how much they're getting out of it, I think it is helpful to have if they want it. I've also been trying to talk with each person, but it's difficult in a group of 15 give or take (and 1 baby). I try to have more prolonged conversations with each one, so it's not surface level, but that is proving a little difficult. I think putting different sorts of activities in will help, as it will provide a less conversation based structure, but more of a group dynamic. The students will still have the opportunity to use the second language, but it will be less free-form. I don't think it's the best to just set students to go with the instructions "discuss," as it allows for use of the not target language. I've heard my students discussing in Spanish, which I want to get them to leave behind. I understand it's difficult, especially in a course where everyone has a common first language, and few consequences. I try to make them feel like they shouldn't use Spanish at all when we're there though!
    Altogether, there have been improvements, but there are still strides to make. I am going to try my best to make the rest of the time successful!

Week 2!

Having had a chance to get a feel of what class was going to be like from the first course, we went into our second class expecting students with varying levels of English, meaning our lesson plan was going to have to incorporate both basic and intermediate elements. Though we did get some range, it was not as much as last time, only getting one returning student and four new ones, who for the most part were at an intermediate level. We started off by reviewing what we had done the first week, which basically consisted of greetings, goodbyes and likes/dislikes. After introducing some new vocabulary by incorporating it in demo conversations between us, we put them into smaller groups so that they could get better practice. Sitting in with a group of three I was able to get the conversation going between them, even though they were at different levels. Because there was only one man who had a very small background in English and the rest of them were at a higher level the conversation flow was constant for the most part. After giving them some time to practice the concepts that we had learned the previous week using a script we had put up on the board, I wanted to expand the conversation a little more, so we got them talking about themselves. Though they had some struggles as they explored new terms, they all became more comfortable talking as time went by. Both the beginner and intermediate students accepted constructive criticism quite well and seemed to use it to their advantage.

                The fact that this was the second class made it a little easier for us to improvise for the different levels that we were working with, being that we had a very similar situation last class. Initially we used the ALM method simply for reviewing the previous week’s material. As we went into the more communicative part of the class, the activity became more learner-centered, allowing them to interact with one another and catch each other’s errors as they went. Because no script was provided for them when it came to talking about themselves, the activity provided genuine questions, allowing them to seek for new vocabulary. This called for a mix of clarification requests and recasts, as they searched for the correct way to express themselves. Students in all levels seem to react quite well to the feedback provided after both, indicating that they understood I was showing them the correct form to state the phrase not simply responding to them. Considering that we practically got a whole new set of students from the first time around, having had an idea of what worked and what didn’t from last time around, made it much easier for us to manage the wide range of levels in our class. 

Jamie´s entry...

Going into our second class, Shaunice and I thought that we had more of a grasp on what to expect. However, it proved to be different than our expectation yet again. Although this time the weather was in our favor, and we had a foundation from the previous session, we still wound up with only a group of three people. After communicating with our peers from the SLA class about the amount and type of participation that they had, I assumed our class would be larger and contain more varied levels of fluency. Before class we drew out some information from our lesson plan focused on home and families. We restructured our lesson to form a sort of “middle ground” amongst the different levels, while concentrating on communicative competency. However, it turned out that all of the participants were yet again advanced speakers, one of which had studied in the U.S. for several months. This made our idea of a “middle ground” impractical. We began the class with introductions as planned, then started in on the first section of the lesson plan. In this brief warm up it was evident, by picking up on cues from the learners that we needed to change our approach and go in a different direction. We ended up using our initial lesson plan as more of an outline for topics for conversation, adding several cultural references and vocabulary along the way.

From the two classes that we have hosted we have found that what we expected for this experience was vastly different from what these students anticipated. Although the class was advertised as intermediate, it is clear that we will have a majority of advanced speakers throughout the program. I believe that this is due to the fact that the general population of people that would want to attend a class like this, have a genuine desire to learn the target English language. Without having the opportunity to submerge themselves into an English-speaking culture, these people are driven to find ways to advance their fluency and communicate with native or expert speakers in other forums. This does however, prove their willingness and motivation to learn. Through our class discussions we have found this aspect to be a vital key in mastering a second language. So instead of turning away from this new recognition, we will manipulate our strategy to best suit the needs of this type of learner.  We will create an environment for both learner-to-learner, and teacher-to-learner interactions in which we can negotiate meaning. We will create outlines based around pragmatic conversation, building their colloquial speech, and downplaying some of the semantics that we had previously built our teaching model around. Possibly centering discussion on a problem, role play interactions and debates. In the case that we may have a lower level member join later down the road, we will adapt and mold to that as necessary instead of the other way around.       

Week one!

My first conversation hour at the Biblioteca Publica went very well, if a little differently than I expected. Although I had a lesson plan, it was far below the level of the students who attended my class. I went to the library thinking I would have eight moderate english speakers, but found thirteen (and one infant) students with a higher level. The lesson plan I had, which practiced introductions, daily activity, and personal interests, was not of a use to them as a whole. Instead I decided the many students would gain more from discussion with one another, as their levels varied person to person. This I facilitated, and helped to continue, gaining a feeling for the group so I may arrange more organized lessons for the future. I haven't got a partner, like the other people leading conversation groups. Something I found more difficult than I anticipated was the idea of intelligible input. I often found myself speaking using cognates, because I knew they would be understood more than words I would more regularly use. I need to keep in mind that possibly, with a high level group speaking in a regular way may be more advantageous than speaking in an intelligible way. I need to find different ways to break the groups up, and tell them what to speak about, and see if there is a better way I can help them. Another thing I didn't realize when going over class goals was the idea that I want the students to achieve what they want, and I want to tailor the time to suit their needs. I am going to try to work in more culture, more grammar, and more variation. It was a good start, and there remains room for improvement.

First week of workshops!

English in action, despite the rain!  We were received with much enthusiasm and gratitude!
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