Aint no mountain high enough

This is my response to Brad Patterson’s latest blog challenge, which can be found here - http://www.edulang.com/blog/teaching-metaphor/

Teaching is like climbing a mountain. Preparation is key. Like a class of learners the mountain and its environment can be unpredictable. Always take the correct equipment (materials), check the weather report (post lesson reflection+lesson planning) and tell someone where you’re going (observation). Don’t over pack, this will mean you have too much to carry and tire yourself out (think about your materials, are they necessary?)  Keep your equipment in good condition, maintain it and upgrade when necessary. (Personal and professional development through courses like DELTA, in-house training, blogging, Twitter, further reading, action research)

All packed and ready to climb Mt Huayna Potosi. 6,088m

Respect the mountain and its surroundings. (Respect your students and make their surroundings the materials you need, they have lives and a lot to say. Give them the chance to say it.) Pace yourself when climbing the mountain, it’s a marathon not a sprint. Why rush to the top and back down again? Enjoy the journey and wonder at the beauty of it all. (It takes time to become a good teacher. Take the rough with the smooth, learn from your mistakes and turn those experiences into learning points.)

When you reach the top, take time to enjoy the view and take lots of pictures. It will be a one-off and every peak will have a different view, as will the journey to get there. ( Document your teaching experiences, be it with a blog, a personal diary or just continuous feedback with your peers. This will keep it fresh, provide other avenues through which to receive feedback and allow other people to feel as though they were there with you.)

On top of Mt Illimani, Bolivia. 6438m

Don’t be complacent on the way down. 80% of all accidents that occur on Mt Everest happen on the way down. ( Maintain classroom management, keep your standards high and this will reflect upon your students, maintain motivation for yourself and your students by pushing yourself that little bit extra to make sure concentration is sustained.)

When you get to the bottom and your legs, back and shoulders ache, take pride in what you have achieved. Not everyone has the courage, determination and willingness to accomplish what you have just done. (Teachers are awesome)

The second challenge was to talk about something that wasn’t teacher related but has brought something to the classroom more than anything else.

For me, it isn’t just one event in my life that has sculpted the way I am in class. It has been a lifetime of experiences, ups and downs, good times, bad times and luck that allows me to bring something personal and unique to the classroom.

Life is for living.

ELTchat summary – Guided Discovery

So out of guilt, seeing as it was my proposal to talk about Guided Discovery, I volunteered to do the summary for the ELTchat that took place on April 4th. The full title was ‘How effective is Guided Discovery in the ELT classroom? Can it help promote learner autonomy?’
Why Guided Discovery, I hear you ask. Well, it all started after Jim Scrivener’s talk at IATEFL about High demand teaching in ELT and the subsequent ELTchat that followed a week later. See summary here by Lizzie Pinard -http://bit.ly/Hr9YCr

I began thinking about how I could implement this in my own classroom and what would really make my students work harder in class and feel as though they have learnt something, rather than simply enjoying the lesson and walking away with relatively little learning actually happening.
Guided Discovery was something I was introduced to on my Trinity Cert course and actually found it rather difficult to get my head around. On a course with so little time and so much to take in I just wanted them to give me the information so I could take it home and study it. I forgot about it and it wasn’t until I read Scott Thornbury’s post on guided discovery that I actually thought about it again. http://bit.ly/liw66q

I was hoping that the chat might lead to some interesting links, resources and lesson plan/ideas. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

We talked about what Guided Discovery was;

@wellmichelle

Guided Discovery: students uncovering the rules and structures to the language themselves, but with teacher support #ELTchat

We then discovered that a lot of people use guided discovery, particularly for teaching grammar;

@hartle	#eltchat I often use it with a text and the grammar related guided discovery questions refer learners back to context meaning and form
@Marisa_C	RT @Shaunwilden: @Marisa_C Well i used it a lot as part of inductive grammar approach #eltchat > so no rule giving but rule discovery
@reasons4	RT @esolcourses RT @bealer81: So who uses guided discovery? #eltchat  I use it. supplemented with help > isn’t the help the guided but

Then the next question, which for me was the most important, the one where I would be inundated with links and the chance to actual see how a Guided Discovery lesson worked and have, perhaps, a couple of good examples to go away and practise with.

@ShellTerrell

What specific lessons have you done in your classrooms that are examples of guided discovery? #ELTChat

And I waited, and continued to wait, and then we went off on a random tangent about Dogme and GD and the chat was over. I couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed. This was by no means a fault of the ELTchat format or of the great teachers that took part. The impression I get, and this also includes my findings from searching through various books and scouring the internet, is that there just isn’t that much lesson material or research for Guided Discovery done in ELT.  I have managed to find these articles, which provide a good description of what Guided Discovery is http://bit.ly/HYgp1x and http://bit.ly/JfWR9I Perhaps the best breakdown of guided discovery, with examples, can be found here http://slidesha.re/IuRAHu (Vicky Samuell) But, my point remains. There are very few examples being shared and talked about. Which seems such a shame, as Guided Discovery appears to be a very effective way of demanding more of our students and giving them a sense of achievement, leading to greater learner autonomy.

ELTchat may not have answered my question or provided me with the plethora of examples I was hoping for, but it certainly highlighted the need for some further hands on research and investigation. Now, I may be looking in the wrong places or typing the wrong words into my search engine. So please tell me if you know of any great resources. I know that there must be research papers out there, but for teachers what we really need is examples and people writing or talking about their experiences with it. So if you do use Guided Discovery and have some ideas get them out there, blog them or put it out on twitter. If you don’t I may have to do another action research project. Oh wait, that sounds like a good idea!

Here is the complete transcript for the ELTchat – http://bit.ly/HLKaBp

Move, Eat and Learn

So I had ticked off listening from my to do list and the students want list. Now, it was time to move onto the video clips. Luckily for me, I already had something tucked away from a previously trialed lesson, late last year. So, it was just a matter of dusting off the old note pad and seeing what happened.

I asked the students to discuss this question:

If you could move anywhere in the world where would you go?

I wrote it on the board and asked if they recognised the structure. With some eliciting they got it and they began to discuss it with their partners. I listened in and noticed that the majority of the students had immediately reverted to using the word ‘go’ instead of ‘move’. I let it run and then we did pair feedback as a whole class. Error correction and some on the spot pronunciation. I then went to the board and pointed to the word ‘move’ and asked what the difference was between moving somewhere and going somewhere. There were lots of ‘aahs’ and nodding of heads, so I asked if this would change where they said they wanted to go.Instead of changing their answers they justified them by using some interesting bits of language;

“If I moved there I could find a job that links to my degree”

“I would move there because it has a better quality of life”

Now it was time for the video. I explained that they would see a man moving from country to country and I dictated two questions for them to answer while watch.

How does the man scare the pigeons?

What does the man jump over in the middle of the road? 

They checked the questions in pairs and we watched the video.

http://vimeo.com/27246366

We watched twice and checked the answers. It was surprising that most of the students didn’t know the word ‘clap’. We talked about the video and the places that they saw in the video. At the bottom of the video is some information about why the video was made and what it involved. I asked if anyone in the class would like to do the same and there was a resounding, yes.

Next questions:

When was the last time you learnt anything and what was it? 

If you had the chance to learn anything, what would it be?

These questions produced some really interesting answers. A lot of the students are at University, so they simply said what ever they had learnt in class that day. One student said that he learnt the word clap and another said he had learnt to change the oil in his car. I pointed out that the majority of things they had learnt was information and that only one person had actually learnt a skill, something that required them to use their hands. This led into a small discussion about whether or not what we learnt was really useful or not and led nicely into the second question.

Second video. Again two dictated questions, pair check and watch the video.

http://vimeo.com/27244727

Again, we talked about the video. The students picked out the things they would like to learn and we discussed them. We then moved onto the third and last question.

When was the last time you tried something new to eat?

Unfortunately, due to time running out we didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to discuss this part. Two more questions, pair check and the final video.

http://vimeo.com/27243869

It was safe to say that everybody left the lesson hungry, but more importantly everyone seemed to enjoy the lesson. Talking, listening and video, exactly what they wanted. I think it would be great to re watch the last video in the next lesson and launch into a food based lesson. It would be great to know what other people think of these videos and what you would do with them in class. Enjoy.

Been listening

So, two weeks into the new trimester and all is well.

On the last proper teaching day of the project, before the Christmas madness kicked in, I carried out a feedback lesson with the students. A few useful and entertaining activities to gauge how much they think they have improved since the start of the course and what they would like to work on in the new year. I also managed to video all of the class talking about how they think the course is going and their feelings on the unplugged approach to teaching. All positive stuff.

The three main things to come out of the feedback session were these;

• More listening
• More grammar (explicit focus on grammar)
• More videos

No surprise with the grammar or the video one. Although, I was a little surprised with the listening one. A lot of the students had mentioned how they disliked listening activities and that they really liked listening to the teacher (me) as it was natural and I spoke slowly and clearly for them. Anyway, this was what they wanted, so this is what they got.

After a very quiet and poorly attended first lesson, which focused mostly on what had happened during the holidays, we had a near full house for the second lesson. The lesson was based around some old videos I had made while travelling in New Zealand. I started the lesson by bringing in some of my hiking equipment and getting the students to ask me questions about them and what they were used for. Then I briefly mentioned why I loved hiking and because of this I travelled to New Zealand to hike as much as possible. Cue the videos. I had prepared some listening for detail questions, which when I looked back on them straight after the lesson, were simply too hard..

The students were trying really hard during the exercises but I could see that it was just too difficult. What I should have really concentrated on was things such as connected speech and probably more general questions such as how I was feeling or how they thought I would be feeling at that particular time and so on. Lesson learnt. The lesson went well, but I think that the listening had perhaps taught all of us that it’s an area that needs a lot of work and specifically for me, careful consideration of material selection.

Below are the videos I used. I’ve never really shown anyone these, so please don’t laugh. I would be really interested to hear how you would use these particular videos and what exercises you think might be worth trying out with them.

To follow-up the above lesson I decided to do another listening. This time I used my Dictaphone to record the staff in the school talking about the thing they enjoy doing the most. The only rule was, they couldn’t actually mention what it was they were talking about.

After reviewing the last lesson and getting some feedback about the listening exercise, I introduced the Dictaphone and announced we would be doing another listening. I was expecting some moans and groans, but I was surprised when what I actually got was some enthusiastic nodding and people drawing their chairs closer to the Dictaphone itself. The exercise was simple. The students would listen to each extract and have to work out what that person was talking about. They were free to write down anything they heard. During the first listening everyone was listening with great determination and not writing anything down. Some good guesses, but still struggling. Next I asked them to work with their partner and to make sure they write something down as it will help them when discussing it, after listening. I asked them to concentrate on the content words only. During the second listening there was a lot more writing. They discussed in pairs. We reviewed the vocabulary they had written down in open class feedback. I pointed out that if we put these key words together we might be able to find a common topic to help us work out the answer. Words like chords, playing, practising song and strings came up. Suddenly the answer came. “Guitar! They like playing the guitar.” We continued doing the same for the next three recordings. Working on picking out the key words and working out the answer from these. It worked well and we managed to get the rest of the answers and the students seemed a lot happier after this listening than the previous one.

So that’s the listening practice they wanted. There will be more where that came from. Now onto finding some interesting videos to build lessons around and ways of feeding in the grammar they so eagerly want to learn.

Unplugging the Spanish classroom.

Now that the term is well under way, and I have settled into a nice routine, I feel as though I can concentrate on other things. I have decided to start Spanish lessons again, beginning on Monday. Nothing earth shattering I know, but after getting published in the Guardian, did I mention that by the way http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/education/2011/oct/11/class-report-native-speaker-woes, the Spanish teacher at my school started asking questions about teaching unplugged and has taken it upon herself to try to read ‘teaching unplugged’. (Thornbury&meddings, 2009)

A couple of days later, I asked if she would like to practice teaching unplugged with me. Two, hour lessons a week, no more photocopies, adapting activities from the book and generally making it up as we go. She seem’s very excited about the venture, as do I. A great chance for me to be on the other side of things, more importantly, I’m helping another teacher to try something new and develop, as well as perhaps helping to spread the unplugged gospel, in the Spanish teaching world.

I was wondering if perhaps I was being a bit too hasty in asking my Spanish teacher to go unplugged, until I read this blog from Ben Naismith, http://eltstew.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/random-spanish-vocab-at-its-finest/ He talks about learners learning what they want to and not what is prescribed by the teacher, emergent language and the dullness of set material. I know that I hate being handed a stack full of photocopies, filling in endless gap fills and listening to conversations between Pedro and Jose in a cafe. I know, that if I went back to Spanish lessons such as these, like Steve, I would probably lose interest and drop out. Therefore subjecting my girlfriend to listen to my painfully bad Spanish for another 6 months, before deciding to try again. I suppose it must sound a little selfish too. Expecting my teacher to learn and deliver a brand new way of teaching after only just learning about it. But, I think we are both aware of the possibilities and difficulties that we face and I see it as more of a partnership than a normal teacher, student relationship.

So on Monday a new chapter to my unplugged adventures starts. I would love to know if anyone else has tried a foreign language in this way. I would hate to think I was the first and only. I will post some feedback as the weeks go by and hopefully get some comments from my teacher too.

 

Q & A

So the first lesson had come and gone. The seed had been planted and now it was time to get down to basics and begin teaching. The first lesson was dominated by me and delivering the idea of the project. Now it was time for the students to get to know each other and their teacher.

For this lesson and some future lessons my D.o.S, Emily Bell, (https://twitter.com/#!/emilyvbell) joined me in the classroom, to observe, teach and generally oversee the project.

The aim of the lesson was simply for the students to get to know each other through a simple Q&A session and to gather enough information to write a profile on their partner. To warm up, the students would interview Emily and myself. Their aim was to write five questions that would prompt the teacher to give the most interesting answer. The group with the most interesting answer would win.

We split the groups in half and monitored the question writing stage. Offering suggestions, helping with question construction, error correction and pron work. Thinking that the students would write their questions with the teacher who was helping their group in mind, I decided to swap with Emily so that we would get questions from the opposite group. Below are some of the questions;

What do you think about climate change?

How many tattoos do you have?

What has been/is your biggest challenge?

What was your most embarrassing moment?

The students wrote down our answers and when the two groups were finished we shared the questions as a whole class and boarded the answers in two lists. The eventual winner was my answer to the most embarrassing moment question, which saw me describing the day I managed to knock my self unconscious, while trying to climb through a window after locking myself out of my house.(worthy of a blog post in itself)

Now it was the students turn to interview each other. Again five questions and again writing down the answers of their partner. We monitored as before, noting errors and using the board to highlight language points. The interviews began and we encouraged the students to follow-up their initial questions with others to try to find out even more information to build a better picture of their partner. With the lesson nearing an end we did a whole class feedback asking each group to tell the class the most interesting thing they found out from their partner. Their homework was to use their questions and answers to write a small description of their partner.

Lesson reflections

A livelier lesson with a lot more talking from the students. A very simple idea lasted for a full hour and a half and produced a lot of language points for future lessons. Below are the main points that Emily and I noticed would need further work and that caused the students problems throughout the lesson.

• Pronunciation (this area requires a lot of attention)
• Tense endings and confusion between simple past and present perfect.
• Conditionals
• Wishes and regrets
• Reported speech

Personal reflections

I enjoyed this lesson and really appreciated having Emily in the classroom to help out. It added another dynamic to the class and allowed me to spend some time to really work with the students on a more one to one basis. More importantly it gave me the opportunity to get immediate feedback on the lesson and see where things could be improved and also to hear what I was getting right or wrong.

I’m looking forward to teaching the class on my own and sitting back to try and tune into the whole class rather than working with one half of the students at a time. I think this will give me a more balanced idea of the areas to correct and work on.

Early days but some positive comments. Lots of areas to improve and work on.

Blog Update – New Pages

Just a quick one to let you know I have added a two new pages to the blog. Lessons and Project unplugged. The first is simple summaries of completed lessons, while the second is about a small-scale project I am carrying out in the coming school year. Simply click on the tabs to read all about it.

Time to think, time to develop.

“After playing in any match I’m usually very hard on myself and rarely feel satisfied with how I’ve performed. Even if I have done well I seem to remember the mistakes I have made, more than the things I executed well. I think this mindset helps me to be a better player, as it means I’m rarely satisfied and always looking to improve but it doesn’t always make me very good company in the days after a match.” (Evening Standard, Aug 2011)

The above quote was written by Tom Palmer, a rugby player for Stade Francais and a full England International. I instantly saw the parallels in his routine post match analysis with my own reflection on my teaching. Having lots of time on my hands this summer has allowed me to look back on the past teaching year and try to pick out areas that need improvement.  I read the above quote during a particularly long journey home on the train and it prompted me to whip out my note-book and to draw up a list of areas that I hope to improve on in the upcoming teaching year as well as including some new ideas that I would like to introduce into my teaching.

1.       Continuity – My first teaching year involved a lot of time trying to find interesting and engaging lessons for my students. This took precedent over whether the lessons were taking on any kind of natural progression from one to the next and I found myself jumping around from topic to topic and language point to language point without any real cohesion in my lesson delivery. I hope to stop this scattergun approach and concentrate more on delivering a series of lessons that have structure and clearer aims.

 2.      Self reflection – Something that I only really started to do in the last 2 months of my teaching year. Hopefully this blog will help but it needs to be more consistent and then acted upon rather than just talked/blogged about.

 3.       Board work – Something that needs to be improved more for my students more than me. I see this as the record of the lesson and therefore it needs to be clear, readable, reliable and well organized.

 4.       Video recording of Lessons – Something that I would like to start doing from the beginning of the year and to start putting it on this blog. Regardless of whether I think it’s a success or a failure it allows me scope to get feedback from a much larger audience.

 5.       Further reading – Again something that I only really started to do at the end of the year.  My reading in the summer has made me really look at the way I teach and how much I can and need to improve. Reading has provided me with lots of ideas that I want to put into practice and therefore has kept up my enthusiasm and interest throughout the summer. By continuing it through the teaching year it will hopefully maintain my attention and allow me to continuously introduce new ideas into the classroom.

6.        Recycling language – The amount of times I would introduce large amounts of vocabulary into a lesson and the next day never follow it up or even mention it still makes me cringe.  Good board work and continuity in my lessons will hopefully combine to allow me to introduce and carry this out effectively.

7.        Pronunciation in the classroom – Pronunciation only ever become a main teaching point with my YL classes when it was supported by material from the course book. My knowledge of pronunciation is woefully lacking and it is something I hope to really work hard on during the summer. My aim is to make sure some form of pronunciation work features in all of my lessons and probably more importantly to be confident in teaching pronunciation.

8.         Being positive – It seems obvious but I think this can override any lack of knowledge or lack of preparation in the classroom.

“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.” (Herm Albright)

 

Further reading:        www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/ways-continuing-professional-development