Has anyone ever had to teach a 50 minute junior high school class with this magazine? What have you done to make the class more interesting/fun?
Just looking for any helpful ideas…
Oh God.
I used to broadcast for these kinds of things. Different company but the same idea. We had to pull 30, 60, sometimes 90 minutes out of our asses on these topics – usually movies that hadn’t come out yet, so we had to pretend that we’d seen them and discuss them. It was stultifyingly, horrifically, mind-numbingly highly paid. We’d get to the bottom of the half-hour and the engineer would signal we still had 90 seconds to fill and I’d be like, “Um…that reminds me of another idiom that has the letter “B” in it.”
Conventional wisdom would be: try to relate the content to your students’ actual lives. That will be difficult in many cases, because these magazines generally tend to take on Brady Bunch topics and avoid all manner of controversy. I’m not sure students at that age in Taiwan see these things are silly or stupid. They may not see the topics as incredibly engaging, but neither do they seem to have the urge to take the piss like a native speaking adult would.
[quote=“ironlady”]Oh God.
I’m not sure students at that age in Taiwan see these things are silly or stupid. They may not see the topics as incredibly engaging, but neither do they seem to have the urge to take the piss like a native speaking adult would.[/quote]
Which makes them even - more - depressing.
In one sense, yes.
But in another sense, it’s a reminder that we need to really take our students’ culture as the point of departure for what we do, not our own. Particularly when we’re in a different generation to begin with.
[quote=“ironlady”]In one sense, yes.
But in another sense, it’s a reminder that we need to really take our students’ culture as the point of departure for what we do, not our own. Particularly when we’re in a different generation to begin with.[/quote]
That’s true, although it does tend to lead to endlessly repetitive “I like play computer/go night market” “discussions”
Similar, (I imagine) magazines (Studio Classroom Advanced and Live ABC ) are options for the “external reading” course component here and I have used them with Sophomore classes, though I’m not using them this year.
In theory the students read them in thier own time and we just test/review, which isn’t the OP’s situation. In practice they dont, of course, read them so I did open book tests. Pretty dire. The only thing I remember more or less working was, where there were a number of travel destinations featured in the magazine and I got them to do presentations on these or other exotic places.
I don’t like them because I generally find them extremely dull, and because the content changes each month, so there isn’t an opportunity to build up a collection of support materials and activities. Also, the articles are not, IMO, sufficiently different from the reading component of an all-skills English textbook (which these classes are also using) to add any additional value.
OTOH the short articles are a better match for the students attention span than the Penguin/Bookworm graded readers that are the alternative, which I use but don’t get to work either.
Thanks for the replies so far.
The principal of the school wants me to have the class read this book in class, and make it fun, for 50 minutes. I have taught this book before to the same level students, for the same amount of time
and those classes dragged on and on. Students of that age group HATE answering questions. It’s like they’d rather have a root canal, than answer a full sentence question. I get bored only asking
yes/no questions, and I ask those questions because it’s the only kind of question they will answer. I was going to say quickly, but even with yes/no questions students can try and take up to 5 minutes
before giving an answer. Obviously I shouldn’t let a student waste 5 minutes like that and move on to the next student. However, I don’t like letting students get out of participating like that. If I let
one student do that, then more students will try and pull the same crap on me. The only thing I can think of is making writing exercises, where students of this age seem much more happy to do.
The problem is that I don’t know how much time I can “waste” on doing that as it’s supposed to be a 50 minute English talking class…
more students will try that.
Ah, the memories…
And all too often they begin their answer to yes-no questions with “Because”. Drives me bonkers.
The best way to use that mag is to wipe your ass with it.
Although not highly absorbant, it is smooth as silk.
If Let’s Talk in English were a perky young Japanese secretary, I’d put it on my knee and spank it. For its own good, of course.
Mmmmm, perky young Japanese secretary + spanking = happy thoughts…
Sadly, I don’t think I can apply this to my junior high school class. Well, not without a world full of trouble that’d bring.
Not that there’d be any interest what so ever in doing so anyways, them fishes are too small.
Now if it was a 18 year old senior high school, that fish is just big enough and wouldn’t be criminal. However, the parents
could still sue you. Not interested in that either…
Now back on to topic…
What good English games have worked for you with junior high school kids?
Horrible givaway question, I suppose, BUT, Is this assessed?
(Yes, I am a crappy, time serving, non-inspirational teecha impersonator)
IF it is, and IF (THE BIG IF) they give a shit about assessment, you could put them in groups/teams, and make it competitive. I routinely run a 4-2-1 grading for any oral questions, and I routinely get a group written solution for written textbook work (cuts down on marking) and back it up with “pick a victim” individual directed questions.
4-2-1 means if the victim answers, the group gets 4 points, if anyone else in the group answers, 2, and then I open it to anyone anywhere for one point.
5 seconds, counted out, to answer. Otherwise “Toooo SLOW!”
I sometimes give MmM’s or similar to the “winning” group. (I throw, they have to catch). This is at undergraduate level. At postgraduate level one might have to go to Ferrero Rocher. 
I try and pick victims that aren’t participating, putting peer pressure on them, and I occaisionally give groups a participation spot-score on a visual basis, which is quite easy to do if half of them are asleep.
Doesn’t always work. Gets old like anything else. Nothing works with a fuck-you class and with them I sigh theatrically a lot, which I hope gives the impression that I don’t really care, though irritatingly, I do.
Johnledoe:
Here are a few things that have worked with me. I teach university students, but I think some of these techniques would go over well in your classes.
- Dictation/dictogloss
I’ve found that dictations work very well with Taiwanese students. Participation is usually very high, and students get to work on writing and listening. You can use sentences from the teaching material. Here are a few articles with sample activities:
Using dictation in English language teaching
http://www.onestopenglish.com/support/ask-the-experts/methodology-questions/methodology-using-dictation-in-english-language-teaching/146383.article
Dictation for teaching English
http://www.onestopenglish.com/support/teaching-tips/skills-work/skills-dictation-for-teaching-english/146617.article
Dictation activities from Humanising Your Coursebook
http://www.hltmag.co.uk/mar01/teach.htm
The Dictogloss
jasonrenshaw.typepad.com/jason_r … pment.html
- Activities for exploiting and revisiting dialogues and texts
Sometimes it’s useful to have students look over a dialogue or a text again and do extra work with the vocabulary and grammar. Here are some more articles with useful ideas (some dictation ideas here as well):
Revisiting texts
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/revisiting-texts
Having fun with dialogues
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/language-assistant/teaching-tips/having-fun-with-dialogues
Bringing dialogues alive
http://www.onestopenglish.com/support/teaching-tips/skills-work/skills-bringing-dialogues-alive/146616.article
Six things to do with dialogues
sixthings.net/2009/10/29/nick-bi … dialogues/
- Student-generated dialogues
My students enjoy writing their own dialogues and performing them for the rest of the class. The article below has some suggestions on doing this:
Speaking activities
onestopenglish.com/support/m … 60.article
Are you allowed to give them a failing grade?
Are you allowed to give them a failing grade?[/quote]
Um…in moderation. When I first started here, I failed about 30% of students in the weaker classes. These weren’t fuck-you classes, those are a relatively recent phenomenon, just moribund/inert/comatose classes.
It was suggested to me that this was too high a failure rate, and I easied-up on the assessment by various tricks, including dictation, which I found to be very effective as a test grade raiser. (Up to now I’ve felt it was perhaps too boring to use in class teaching. Might look at that again.)
Weak first year classes with high failure rates I’ve adjusted down a couple of times to 20%, though thats a slippery slope. IIRC I have let fuck-you classes (I’ve only really had a couple so far) go to about 25%
The main failing element is the external reading, which they won’t or can’t read.
I’m voting for “can’t”. There’s a reason why the radio shows spend 30 minutes with some Chinese teacher explaining the grammar of each and every sentence, and then native speakers “chatting” about how to use it. Not that these efforts help kids to read these passages on their own.
You might try embedded readings – stripping the passage down to, say, five sentences, reading that once, establishing what it means, then going back and adding further details, over several cycles, so that finally they have the whole thing in easier language, and are then prepared to read the actual reading. That requires a lot more work on the teachers’ part then simply picking up the magazine, though, and it would probably be more appropriate if those readings were really a part of the curriculum for a reason, rather than as (what sounds like) a filler.
I’m voting for “can’t”. There’s a reason why the radio shows spend 30 minutes with some Chinese teacher explaining the grammar of each and every sentence, and then native speakers “chatting” about how to use it. Not that these efforts help kids to read these passages on their own.
You might try embedded readings – etc SEE ABOVE —and it would probably be more appropriate if those readings were really a part of the curriculum for a reason, rather than as (what sounds like) a filler.[/quote]
I think they are more there as a pain in the arse, rather than a filler, though I suppose you can have both.
I’d guess they were introduced as lip service to the idea of “extensive reading”, as plugged by, for example, the Bookworm people. While that idea is no doubt theoretically a good one IF you could manage to implement it, its stillborn here by (a) insisting on a single class text, so you can test it (which kills the “extensive” bit) and insisting, (in the case of the books at least) on too high a difficulty level, (as is the norm with ALL material used here), which helps kill the “reading” bit. Both the main graded reader outfits supply levelling tests, but AFAIK my pilot tests with my classes are the only time they’ve been used, and there wasn’t the slightest interest from the curriculun cttee in the (predictable) results. I do have them as evidence if I get caught using unapproved material, not that I would do that, of course. 
I’m not entirely convinced “won’t” isn’t a factor, though. I don’t think contemporary yoofs read much of anything, even in Chinese.
I guess I’m lucky that the magazine is part of their English curriculum and that the students’ Taiwanese English teacher goes over the material. Also the magazine
has a complete Chinese translation for all of the English articles.
tatterdemalion, thanks for the links for dictation/dictogloss. I’ll see if I can use that in my class. I suspect that the class will have a much harder time with it than
university students would, but I may be surprised. I think my biggest worry is that the students will see this as too much work that’s too hard to do and not put in
the effort.
ducked, you had a question if this is being assessed and by that I’m guessing is that you mean if they are being graded on this. I got the impression from the
principal that the class won’t be graded. Which makes it seem like a cake walk kind of class. However it makes me worry that I’ll have to find a Ronald
McDonald outfit to teach the class…
johnledoe said:
I have found that dictation is a superb activity for classes that don’t go for speaking/discussion activities. You might try this simple format - read out 7 sentences from the teaching material, each time reading twice, ask a few students to write their sentences on the board, then you correct errors. Once you’ve done this a few times, you can start experimenting with other things such as dictogloss and running dictation. Dictation by Paul Davis and Mario Rinvolucri has a lot of creative dictation activities, but they might not work for a junior high school class.
Everyone has their own methods to learn language.English is an international language and there are lots of people trying to learn English. I regularly watch English channels or English news to understand English language or to uncrease my listening skills.I read English newspaper to increase my reading skills.I watch free online English videos youtube.com/user/twominenglish to speak English fluently.I wonder what do other English learners do to speak English fluently.I love to hear tips aswell.