He is getting paid well though!
I have to take a 45min speaking class, mixed nationalities, mixed levels tomorrow. Topic?
[quote=“TomHill”]He is getting paid well though!
I have to take a 45min speaking class, mixed nationalities, mixed levels tomorrow. Topic?[/quote]
The Ashes!
[quote=“almas john”][quote=“TomHill”]He is getting paid well though!
I have to take a 45min speaking class, mixed nationalities, mixed levels tomorrow. Topic?[/quote]
The Ashes![/quote]
Or he could get a pot of paint, apply it to the nearest wall and get students to write a journal?
Oh goodness this computer amputated the end of my commiunique (sans flippy thing about the e) (aigu)) Ooh, double brackets. Don’t see many of them around.
Topic dear boy.
Topic: Television.
Loretta: I can’t really offer you much except cynicism. You’re obviously quite experienced and knowledgeable, and I always find these kinds of posts from you fascinating to read, even if I can’t offer anything in return. Thanks.
If kids find any mistakes in what I write, I give them extra marks. It’s the complete opposite approach. I don’t know what they think of that, but I guess it’s an attempt at creating an open environment where even if the teacher is some dickhead who doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s willing to admit it and work on it, so maybe the kids shouldn’t be afraid either.
Also, once, I was a judge at the county speech contest for the senior high school section. Most kids gave the usual kinds of speeches on safe topics in safe ways that had obviously been heavily influenced by their teachers, if not outright prepared by them. One girl got up and gave a speech that was completely different. It was something about owning a bookstore in the future, and she did a lot of it as dialogues with famous literary figures. It was by far and away the most original speech. I tried to push for her to get first, but the Taiwanese judge (who had ultimate say) had two criticisms. The first was that it was strange. The second was that her accent wasn’t “correct”. I told her, slightly more politely than this, that she was an idiot because the girl had obviously spent a considerable amount of time in New Zealand (I later found out that the girl had been an exchange student there). I mean, for fuck’s sake, this girl spoke better English than the judge.
[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”] I mean, for fuck’s sake, this girl spoke better English than the judge.[/quote] Which was, of course, why she could not win.
I checked on Okami’s info about the high school teachers doing the grading for GEPT and he is correct. If the level in my class is anything to go by, there are an awful lot of students who are being graded by teachers with lower abilities than them.
Anyway, I had a good class today. Dude was waiting with his Far East Reader, I showed them a few things they could do with the first section (reading) and then had a nice chat about alternative approaches to classroom management for the questions. That seemed to get them interested, and combined with the primer on Weds they were then willing to talk about the relevance of the vocabulary being taught.
How often does anyone use a word like ‘blight’? The BNC says 144/100,000,000 words, but there it is in the book to be memorised and regurgitated by kids who can’t state the main idea of a passage. I really think they got the point.
That led into a nice chat about debating and how the points are awarded. For reference, the most important of the debating competitions in Taipei is the Cicero debate. In each section you get twenty points for logic and coherence, 10 for presentation, and five for English. That little bit of information changed a few people’s ideas and refocused them on the importance of teaching a structured approach to writing or presenting.
My conclusion is that high school teachers are too top-down and this means that they have to go at one speed through the material provided, regardless of the spread of ability in the class. And this leaves no time for more useful activities. If you can alter your classroom management so that the students are a bit more empowered and motivated then they will work at their own speed without much supervision, which enables you to help the ones who are having problems. It also frees up some time for the more advanced students to do more challenging activities after they have blasted through the bookwork.
Next time I get invited to do this (if there is a next time) I will focus much more on classroom management and underlying values. It’s more about how the teachers interact with the students than what the actual activity is.
Hope this helps anyone who reads it.
Loretta: Interesting. Thanks.
How very, very true.
You could also say that of most of the research and teaching about ELT in universities here. None of it will ever get practised in a real classroom, largely for the same reason.