The objective of week6 was to describe a picture or a set of pictures. In the end of class, students could complete this mission. The beauty of week6’s lesson is to make students keep describing various pictures in activity 1 through activity 5. For example, students looked at various travel destinations in activity 1, described travel essentials in activity 2, matched check-in/out procedure with the pictures in activity 3, described the room in activity 4, and lastly tour program in activity 5. In reality, especially after travelling, people describe how their travelling was. This lesson plan was designed for the practical purpose of language learning.
Next, the teaching group dealt with wide useful vocabulary of travelling. The amount of vocabulary was demanding to my students and me, but it was a good chance to look over them. It also resulted in the students of Jooyeon and Mr. Lee used lexical chunks when they presented their tour program.
Personally, I was very sorry for teaching group by often misleading my little sisters. For example: I gave them wrong information of customs in activity 3, I misunderstood the meaning of artist in activity 4, so I let them choose one of real artists (I hope that they won’t feel embarrassed). I couldn’t explain amenities (room amenities and property amenities) in activity 5. Through week6’s lesson, I learned that I should read the lesson plan and reading homework THOROUGHLY to support the teaching groups, not to hinder their lessons.
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Jeongeun
4/8/2011 06:27:24 am
edit) I hope that they didn't feel embarassed.
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Jeongeun
4/8/2011 06:35:08 am
Edit)I was so sorry to teaching group because I often misled my little sister.
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Haewon
4/9/2011 05:18:52 pm
The group 3 did their lesson based on the theme traveling. Their reading homework was well planned, had a lot of useful information and was also very authentic. Some of my students said the reading material was bit hard, but they managed to finish their homework. Students learned a lot of vocabulary words from the reading and those words were used throughout the whole lesson. First, the teaching group tried to use many authentic materials to draw students’ attention to the topic and I think it worked well with my little sisters. They started sharing their experience with others and some vocabulary words from the reading were actually used even during the brainstorming time. Soohyun looked a bit nervous before the class started, but once the lesson started, she looked fine as usual. Although the teaching group was worried about the class being boring, I thought it went great and some students actually said the game was fun and they wanted to share the answers with others for the questions that they got wrong even after the game was over. Plus I found my little sisters used some lexical chunks from the reading and for the presentation, they actually tried to recycle the words from the reading (they constantly checked the reading to refresh their memory). However, when Soyun asked the students about whether they liked the activity or not and she was willing to take their criticism, it was a bit awkward but I could see that Soyun was very nervous so that she asked such question. It was cute though. ^^
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Jooyeon
4/10/2011 12:03:17 am
The topic was well-suited with the task of describing pictures and telling processes. The activities encouraged the students to perform the target tasks. Activity 1 was to talk about the dream travel destinations of each other. Activity 2 was to describe travel essentials in form of speed game. The students were quite interested in the game and eager to describe the items but they used too many gestures, and often utter phrases rather than sentences. Activity 3 was to tell the process of checking in and out of the airport. In my opinion, even though the activity needed memorization skills and didn’t need meaningful(?) production, still the activity was very helpful for the students to internalize the given input. For, a lot of new vocabulary and expressions are needed to describe the process. I liked activity 4 most, which was to describe the room and draw it. Students tried to describe the room using “there is/are…” and a lot of locational prepositions such as “in, on, between, behind, etc.” It was a good idea to make the students hands on the back so that the students had to produce language instead of pointing to the paper or using body gestures. The teaching group also kept reminding the students to use sentences. Activity 4 was a very dynamic and there were many meaningful interactions going on between the information holders and getters. The last activity was to describe the tour plan. The teaching group clearly showed which information should be included in the plan so that the students didn’t have to lose track. But I thought more time should have been given to prepare for the presentation. We were short of time to organize our plan, even though the students wanted to think about what to include from the given pictures. I doubt if the idea to show the poster after the presentation was good. No students were distracted by the fancy posters, and the students could have done a better job of describing the tour plan by pointing to the pictures on the poster one by one. Overall, the activities were fun and helpful to produce languages and most of all, the input provided in the reading assignment was deliberately designed to be used in the activities.
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Soohyun
4/10/2011 11:58:21 am
The goal we planned to achieve was to describe a picture or procedures of a particular series of a task. Thus, we designed picture-describing tasks for the 2nd and third activities. I think the form of game built up an anxiety-free environment and I could see students enjoying while producing language. However, I wished if there were enough explanations about what the carry-on and luggage are. Also we should have distinguished clearly what the amenities and accommodations are through the reading assignment to avoid confusion since I saw not only little siblings but big siblings struggle to explain and understand the differences during last poster-making activity.
As Jooyeon pointed out, only memorizing the procedures of checking-in and out at the airport didn’t seem to have a point to learn language as well. Maybe it would be better to provide them a few phrases and words to coordinate the steps on their own. It would be more thinking-provoking and there would be more varieties of sentences that they could come up with by themselves.
I think also we should have been more careful with time management. The beginning phase of the lesson seemed to be a bit lagging but later on, during poster-making activity, students couldn’t prepare the presentation enough since they put most time to decorate the posters. The reason we planned to show the poster after their presentation was that we wanted them to think thoroughly about what they have to say in a sentence when presenting instead of connecting word phrases looking at the pictures on the poster. However, I also doubted if it went the way as we expected. They kept looking at the slides to remind themselves the things they have to say. Also, I wanted to mention who did well on the organization of the poster since all the tasks emphasize not only on contents but also on the structure or organization. Again, we ran out of time so I lost the chance to praise.
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Mr.Lee
4/10/2011 12:10:41 pm
Group 3 did another great job. The lesson was full of fun and productive activities. It was especially impressive to observe that those expressions in the reading assignments were made good and direct use of throughout the class. Among several activities, the drawing one was excellent. I never saw students produce that much speaking. Come to think of it, it would be challenging to play such a game even in Korean, nonetheless, students mustered all their available linguistic knowledge, and that led to a maximum amount of language production. It was a good idea for students not to use gestures or body language. It looked funny because they had to keep their hands behind the hips like a prisoner, but they seemed to have lots of fun.
The last activity, selling a tour program, was another fun game. I saw my students discuss a great deal until an agreement was reached. Even though everyone had a different idea of a good sightseeing place, they were fairly cooperative and supportive in making a poster. Students seemed quite comfortable making a presentation at the front. The overall lesson finished in time, which indicates group 3’s good time management skills.
There are a few things that would have been done better. During Speed quiz, students were supposed to describe items, but some of them were using gestures and drawing the shape in the air, which might have prevented them from producing speaking. Additionally, they were not allowed to pass any of the items, and that somehow affected a smooth flow of the game because certain students were having a hard time describing, and that seemed to lower the morale of the team because it was taking a bit too long. Some of the illustrations were a little confusing; luggage and carry-on. My students asked for clarification between the two items, and I was even confused with the illustrations. In the reading assignment, there was a typo.
Overall, it was a fun, productive game, and group 3 deserves to be praised.
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So Yun
4/10/2011 12:31:54 pm
The theme for week 6 GEP class was travel and the objective was for the students to be able to describe a picture or a set of pictures. Activity 1 was a warm-up section where students looked at the pictures of some travel destinations and described the picture that they chose. Activity 2 was a speed game in which students had to describe the picture in order for their group members to guess what the item in the picture is. Activity 3 was a chain game where students had to produce the input in process. Activity 4 was to draw based on their group members’ description. Activity 5 was selling a travel product of their own.
Here are some of the reflections of the class that Soohyun and I performed. First, the speed game had some problems when was put into practice. Soohyun and I didn’t think too much about what to do when students had a lot of difficulty in describing the picture or guessing the item. In my opinion, the game would have gone a lot smother If we could add a “pass” system where a student who finds it very difficult to describe a picture or guess the item could just have a second chance later on. I could witness that they started relying on their body gestures when they had difficult time describing the picture. Another problem was that Soohyun and I didn’t have very clear set of rules in between us. There was an item which Soohyun and I had different opinion on. I regret the fact that we didn’t go through more careful discussions on everything that we have prepared for the class. Next, once again, I should talk about the fairness of the game. I realized it was really hard for the teaching group to be fair in such speaking games. I have to admit that I wasn’t being very fair when some of the answers were considered correct while some of them weren’t. I should put more thought into how to make speaking games more enjoyable but at the same time fair enough. Third, when the students came back after looking at the picture in the next classroom, I could see how they well they kept the rule of not using the gestures. However, I could see that the painters of each group pointed to the places in the paper in order to ask the position of the objects in the hotel room. I realized that I should have made the rules that the painters should not as well use gestures when asking about the descriptions of the objects in the hotel room. Finally, the time management was another issue. More time should have been given for the last activity. I could see that students had to stop in between of the activity when they were having much fun. For future classes, I would definitely assign more time for such activity of making posters.
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So Yun
4/10/2011 01:52:54 pm
I have one more thing that I want to add. It was impressive to see 구지영 produce the chunks that were highlighted in the reading assignment while she was giving her presentation. I think more students will start using the chunks as we highlight the importance of chunking in our classes.
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