Today's topic was on different markets around the world:
the floating markets of Bangkok,the market in Provence,the souks of Marrakech.
As a warmer the students talked about their favourite things:books,films,food and drink.
In addition,there was revision of prepositions of time.
Jig saw reading activity:
GroupA:Bangkok: Makram,Zied,Afef
Afef interacted most when talking about the market in Bangkok.
Makram was trying to express his opinions but the others weren't listening as well as not encouraging/inviting him to speak.So...
Group B:Provence:Semia and Ghada
It was mostly Semia who talked about the market in Provence.
Group C:The souks in MarrakechHouda and Yoshi:
It was mostly Houda who talked about Marrackech and greatly helped
Yoshi to understand the text and the questions.
CLASSROOM DYNAMICS:INTERACTIONS Exploring the interactions that take place between learners in the EFL classroom.Does interaction help with learning a language?
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
The Thief,His Mother and 2 Billion Dollars
Today's topic was the news and a crime story 'The Thief,His Mother and 2 Billion dollars ',a story about a man who had stolen over two hundred paintings!
Plus simple past and past continuous.
Predicting the story stage:
In two groups the students used the verbs,connected with the story,to discuss a possible story,it was Houda and Zied who interacted most of all in group A,whilst in group B,Sadok,Marwa,Semia,Afef and Ghada.
Making up a funny short with the expressions unfortunately and fortunately stage:
Group A enjoyed this activity especially Houda,Sadok and Semia.
In Group B Marwa,who has become more confident in her speaking,Afef,and Ghada also enjoyed the activity.
Meanwhile Makram had switched off and was just making jokes,and later had to leave the class early.
In the previous class it seemed the atmosphere of the class had changed,with Marwa,the young school girl not wanting to work with Makram.In fact,Houda said Makram was strange;it seems he alienating himself via his jokes and his behaviour.
Plus simple past and past continuous.
Predicting the story stage:
In two groups the students used the verbs,connected with the story,to discuss a possible story,it was Houda and Zied who interacted most of all in group A,whilst in group B,Sadok,Marwa,Semia,Afef and Ghada.
Making up a funny short with the expressions unfortunately and fortunately stage:
Group A enjoyed this activity especially Houda,Sadok and Semia.
In Group B Marwa,who has become more confident in her speaking,Afef,and Ghada also enjoyed the activity.
Meanwhile Makram had switched off and was just making jokes,and later had to leave the class early.
In the previous class it seemed the atmosphere of the class had changed,with Marwa,the young school girl not wanting to work with Makram.In fact,Houda said Makram was strange;it seems he alienating himself via his jokes and his behaviour.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Adverbs Poems!
Today the lesson focused on the adverbs from the James Bond story 'The Man with the Golden Gun' (yesterday's lesson)
and writing a adverb love poem!
Writing in pairs:
The students enjoyed working together on their poems and also their pronunciation.
Houda,as usual,was the student who interacted most of all;the other students seemed a little quiet.
and writing a adverb love poem!
Writing in pairs:
The students enjoyed working together on their poems and also their pronunciation.
Houda,as usual,was the student who interacted most of all;the other students seemed a little quiet.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
James Bond
Today the topic was James Bond and the film 'The Man with the Golden Gun' and revison of simple past regular and irregular.The students worked in groups of fours,with the late people joining either group one or group 2.
stage 1: putting the pictures of the story in order and discussing the possible story:
There was lots of interactions between the students either with the students suggesting the right picture
or part of the story and a group concensus of agreement/disagreement.
stage 2: the students listened to the extract of the story and checked/compared with their version and talked about the similarities and differences.Houda in group one and Zied in group two were best in interacting with the other students in their group.Houda showed leadership qualities.
stage 3:the students dicussed the continuation of the story.
Interactions:For some reason,Nabil and Makram switched off from the discussion in their group
stage 1: putting the pictures of the story in order and discussing the possible story:
There was lots of interactions between the students either with the students suggesting the right picture
or part of the story and a group concensus of agreement/disagreement.
stage 2: the students listened to the extract of the story and checked/compared with their version and talked about the similarities and differences.Houda in group one and Zied in group two were best in interacting with the other students in their group.Houda showed leadership qualities.
stage 3:the students dicussed the continuation of the story.
Interactions:For some reason,Nabil and Makram switched off from the discussion in their group
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Who Let The Dogs Out?!
Today's lesson:
revision of simple past verbs,regular and irregular,forming questions,plus pronunciation of -ed.
'Let let the dogs out?'listening/reading activity.
Warmer;taking about their favourite animal.
Interactions in the final stage of lesson: Talking about themselves re past events.
The students who interacted most of all were Sadok,Zied,Houda,Houda,Khaula,Nabil and Afef.
revision of simple past verbs,regular and irregular,forming questions,plus pronunciation of -ed.
'Let let the dogs out?'listening/reading activity.
Warmer;taking about their favourite animal.
Interactions in the final stage of lesson: Talking about themselves re past events.
The students who interacted most of all were Sadok,Zied,Houda,Houda,Khaula,Nabil and Afef.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Living In Another Country
The main activity today was a jig saw Reading activty on living in another country.
Jigsaw Reading stage:Lots of interactions especially when two students swopped groups:
Although the text was short,the vocabulary might have hindered Yoshi interacting with the others.However,I did pre teach some of the most important vocabulary.
In group B Nabil,Houda and Zied were interacting a lot,
After the discussion I gave the students a reflection questionnaire on the discussion they'd just done,and when they were comparing and discussing their opinions there was further interactions in fact Makram had't really contributed that much to the discussion,apart from little jokes.
Jigsaw Reading stage:Lots of interactions especially when two students swopped groups:
Although the text was short,the vocabulary might have hindered Yoshi interacting with the others.However,I did pre teach some of the most important vocabulary.
In group B Nabil,Houda and Zied were interacting a lot,
After the discussion I gave the students a reflection questionnaire on the discussion they'd just done,and when they were comparing and discussing their opinions there was further interactions in fact Makram had't really contributed that much to the discussion,apart from little jokes.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Talking About You!
Most of the students came today except Kelly and Nabil.Today's lesson focused on speaking fluency and revision of have v. have got,something simple but some students still get the forms mixed up.There was also a pronunciation spot on Intonation:showing interest and surprise.
Stage of Interactions:
The grammar stage:Houda,again,interacting with her class mate in explaining the construction of the sentences and questions.
The pronunciation stage(at the end of the lesson)where the students enjoyed practising their intonation with the modal dialogues and then adapting them.
Stage of Interactions:
The grammar stage:Houda,again,interacting with her class mate in explaining the construction of the sentences and questions.
The pronunciation stage(at the end of the lesson)where the students enjoyed practising their intonation with the modal dialogues and then adapting them.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Different Lives
For Friday's class the focus was on the lives of two peole with very different backgounds:Anne Marie,a business woman, Canada and Lien, factory worker,from China
Kelly was absent for the class which was a pity,as she's from the Congo,and the discussion could have been even more interesting.
The discussion activity provided lots of interactions for instance when the students talked about the person they found more interesting,most of them preferred Lien from China,they said her life was similar to many Tunisians,which was interesting for Yoshi,the Japanese student:he said 'I'm surprised you found Lien more interesting' He also mentioned ' my country the young people are lazy..'Nabil then mentioned he had recently read an article on Japan.Sadok and Semia also showed a lot of interest in this topic.Though the level of the reading was pretty easy for most of the students the topic stimulated lots of discussion and interactions.
Kelly was absent for the class which was a pity,as she's from the Congo,and the discussion could have been even more interesting.
The discussion activity provided lots of interactions for instance when the students talked about the person they found more interesting,most of them preferred Lien from China,they said her life was similar to many Tunisians,which was interesting for Yoshi,the Japanese student:he said 'I'm surprised you found Lien more interesting' He also mentioned ' my country the young people are lazy..'Nabil then mentioned he had recently read an article on Japan.Sadok and Semia also showed a lot of interest in this topic.Though the level of the reading was pretty easy for most of the students the topic stimulated lots of discussion and interactions.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
The Way We Live
Well there were 12 students today so a better turnout than the last couple of days.Afef who had missed 4 classes,apparently because of her son's illness,came today.
Today's lesson covered frequency adverbs,daily activities and a pronunciation spot on stress and intonation in social expressions,which the students enjoyed very much.After the break,I did a 'How often do you? mingle activity,which Makram found very funny.
Re:Interactions
In general there are much more interactions taking place when the students are working in groups of threes or fours.
Group 1:Afef,Marwa,Khaula,Kelly Group 2:Siema,Zied,Sadok,Nabil
Group 3:Houda,Ghada,Yoshi,Makram.
Kelly helps and supports the others in her group.Kied is quite proactive in his group. Houda,Ghada and Makram interact with the others a lot,though in the later activities where the students were talking about their daily lives Yoshi talked much more especially in talking about his volunteer work,he works at one of the Tunisian Ministries.
Nabil often appears as if he's not interested in the topic of the conversation but will suddenly start talking with the people from his group or another group.Siema often seems wrapped in her own thoughts.
Today's lesson covered frequency adverbs,daily activities and a pronunciation spot on stress and intonation in social expressions,which the students enjoyed very much.After the break,I did a 'How often do you? mingle activity,which Makram found very funny.
Re:Interactions
In general there are much more interactions taking place when the students are working in groups of threes or fours.
Group 1:Afef,Marwa,Khaula,Kelly Group 2:Siema,Zied,Sadok,Nabil
Group 3:Houda,Ghada,Yoshi,Makram.
Kelly helps and supports the others in her group.Kied is quite proactive in his group. Houda,Ghada and Makram interact with the others a lot,though in the later activities where the students were talking about their daily lives Yoshi talked much more especially in talking about his volunteer work,he works at one of the Tunisian Ministries.
Nabil often appears as if he's not interested in the topic of the conversation but will suddenly start talking with the people from his group or another group.Siema often seems wrapped in her own thoughts.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Getting to Know Each Other ...
Only nine students today,but Zied had to leave the class early as he had a meeting at work.
I did another warmer activity,from Hadfield's 'Classroom Dynamics' where the students looked at sentences about some of the students in class and work out who the sentence was about.(I got the information for the sentences from the students' letters of introduction).The students enjoyed doing this activity;they used the modal verbs of 'must,might/could and can't be' to make their deductions and of course this activty helped them to get know each other better plus developing the class atmosphere.
As I was doing some pronunciation work I also did a dictionary game and at the end of the lesson the 'Stress Monsters' game from the Oxford English File web site.
Observations on the Interactions:
In the dictionary game most of the students interacted with their peers even the simple interaction of Yoshi asking the another student to repeat the definition.
In the group with Houda,Makram,Semia and Yoshi it's again Houda who interacts most especially with explaining things.In addition Semia and Makram.
In the group with Ghada,Marwa,Kelly and Khawla it was Ghada and Kelly who interacted more but Marwa has become confident in working with the other students.
For the 'Stress Monsters' game Yoshi didn't participate but simply observed maybe because of his character and he might have been assimilating the information about the vocabulary.
I did another warmer activity,from Hadfield's 'Classroom Dynamics' where the students looked at sentences about some of the students in class and work out who the sentence was about.(I got the information for the sentences from the students' letters of introduction).The students enjoyed doing this activity;they used the modal verbs of 'must,might/could and can't be' to make their deductions and of course this activty helped them to get know each other better plus developing the class atmosphere.
As I was doing some pronunciation work I also did a dictionary game and at the end of the lesson the 'Stress Monsters' game from the Oxford English File web site.
Observations on the Interactions:
In the dictionary game most of the students interacted with their peers even the simple interaction of Yoshi asking the another student to repeat the definition.
In the group with Houda,Makram,Semia and Yoshi it's again Houda who interacts most especially with explaining things.In addition Semia and Makram.
In the group with Ghada,Marwa,Kelly and Khawla it was Ghada and Kelly who interacted more but Marwa has become confident in working with the other students.
For the 'Stress Monsters' game Yoshi didn't participate but simply observed maybe because of his character and he might have been assimilating the information about the vocabulary.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Blind dates and Star Signs
Today's topic was star signs and blind dates plus adjectives of character.
Well only nine students attended today's lesson and half of them were late,punctuality is not particularly a Tunisian virtue.Dora,the photographer who finally appeared yesterday didn't come today,strange.
I got the students to sit in order of their star signs:from Aries to Pisces.
Overall the students enjoyed talking about blind dates,though for the Tunisians it's alien to their culture.
As there were nine students,in general they worked in groups of threes.
Group 1:Semia(Gemini),Yoshi(Leo) and Makram(Virgo):
Makram was the student who interacted most with the other students in his group.Yoshi,finds it more difficult as his level is not as high as the others,in fact he's the weakest student in the class.Semia sometimes switches off from the lesson.
Group 2:Nabil(Capricorn),Sadok(Aquarius),and Zied(Capricorn):
Zied was the student in this group who interacted most with his peers.
Despite Nabil and Sadok's high level of English they don't intereact as much as Zied.
Group 3:Houda(Capricorn),Ghada(Capricorn),Marwa(Aquarius):
Ghada and Marwa are a little quiet and shy,so again Houda is the student who interacted most with her peers especially with helping Marwa to understand the character adjectives.
Capricorn is the sign of hard workers and four of today's students are Capricorns!
Well only nine students attended today's lesson and half of them were late,punctuality is not particularly a Tunisian virtue.Dora,the photographer who finally appeared yesterday didn't come today,strange.
I got the students to sit in order of their star signs:from Aries to Pisces.
Overall the students enjoyed talking about blind dates,though for the Tunisians it's alien to their culture.
As there were nine students,in general they worked in groups of threes.
Group 1:Semia(Gemini),Yoshi(Leo) and Makram(Virgo):
Makram was the student who interacted most with the other students in his group.Yoshi,finds it more difficult as his level is not as high as the others,in fact he's the weakest student in the class.Semia sometimes switches off from the lesson.
Group 2:Nabil(Capricorn),Sadok(Aquarius),and Zied(Capricorn):
Zied was the student in this group who interacted most with his peers.
Despite Nabil and Sadok's high level of English they don't intereact as much as Zied.
Group 3:Houda(Capricorn),Ghada(Capricorn),Marwa(Aquarius):
Ghada and Marwa are a little quiet and shy,so again Houda is the student who interacted most with her peers especially with helping Marwa to understand the character adjectives.
Capricorn is the sign of hard workers and four of today's students are Capricorns!
Monday, August 16, 2010
My Best Friend
Today's topic was 'My Best Friend',involving listening and speaking activities.
The absent student from last week appeared;it was Dora,a young professional photographer,who had worked in Paris for ten years and is going to work in London for three months.
The female students who seem to interact best of all are Kelly,a Congonese from the city Brazzaville,and Houda,who's interested in becoming an English teacher.
Houda was very helpful and supportive to another classmate with explaining the grammar.
Of the male students,Makcram works well with the other and has no problems interacting with the others.
The Japanese student might have problems interacting with the others as it's not that easy to understand his pronunciation.Nevertheless his friendliness will help him to integrate into the class.
The absent student from last week appeared;it was Dora,a young professional photographer,who had worked in Paris for ten years and is going to work in London for three months.
The female students who seem to interact best of all are Kelly,a Congonese from the city Brazzaville,and Houda,who's interested in becoming an English teacher.
Houda was very helpful and supportive to another classmate with explaining the grammar.
Of the male students,Makcram works well with the other and has no problems interacting with the others.
The Japanese student might have problems interacting with the others as it's not that easy to understand his pronunciation.Nevertheless his friendliness will help him to integrate into the class.
More interactions
Friday was a holiday,women's day,well at least in Tunisia.
I didn't actually find out until I got to work that today was a holiday,no wonder I couldn't get a bus this morning.
Some of the students were a bit late.
Anyway,I got the students to say what they could remember about the other students but they couldn't actually remember that much so more getting to know activities on the way.
The rapport and atmosphere in the class is good.
The basic topic of the class was a revision of tenses plus getting to know each other but in more details;probably not the most exciting class but I did finish with a nice activity where the students had to form words with the letters of the word 'Ramadan'.
The students enjoyed comparing and talking about their words.
I didn't actually find out until I got to work that today was a holiday,no wonder I couldn't get a bus this morning.
Some of the students were a bit late.
Anyway,I got the students to say what they could remember about the other students but they couldn't actually remember that much so more getting to know activities on the way.
The rapport and atmosphere in the class is good.
The basic topic of the class was a revision of tenses plus getting to know each other but in more details;probably not the most exciting class but I did finish with a nice activity where the students had to form words with the letters of the word 'Ramadan'.
The students enjoyed comparing and talking about their words.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Summer Intensive Pre Intensive
The first day of the Summer Intensive courses last Thursday :my Pre-Intermediate class seem to be a nice group with most of them communicating in English all the time.
Most of the students are either students at school/university or with a variety of different professions.Most of the students attended the first class except for Dora,a young photographer who I'd placement tested last week.
For the first class I did 4 ice-breakers from Jill Hafield's 'Classroom Dynamics' to help the group bond.I shall use the other warmer activities later in the course.
Regarding interaction patterns between the learners I noticed that,though Nabil,a student studying in France,was very confident,he didn't interact with the other students as much as I thought;it seemed he needed thinking time to reflect on the activity/task.In general there was plenty of interactions taking place,for instance when the students were doing the 'My Home Town' activity one of the students,Yoshi,a Japanese man,took out his map of Tunisia so that his classmate could use it to talk about her home town.
From the book Reflective Teaching in Second Language Classrooms,Richards,J.C.,in the chapter,approaches to classroom investigation,some important procedures are recommended:
Bailey 1990,Porter et al.1990,Walker 1985 state that it's important to make entries on a regular basis and immediately spend time after the lesson in writing up about the lesson
In addition to review the journal entries as some things which were not obviously apparent might appear so later on.
On page 16 Richards,J.C. mentions some reflection questions to guide thé writing of the journal:
What did you set out to teach?
Were you able to accomplish your goals?
What teaching materisls did you use?
What grouping arrangements did you use?
Did anything amusing or unusual occur?
Did you discover anything new?
Did students contribute actively to the lesson?
Were the students challenged by the lesson?
What do you think the students really learned from the lesson?
What did they like most about the lesson?
What didn't they respond to?
The students seemed pretty confident in working together,only Marwa,a young school girl was a little shy in the speaking activities.
Most of the students are either students at school/university or with a variety of different professions.Most of the students attended the first class except for Dora,a young photographer who I'd placement tested last week.
For the first class I did 4 ice-breakers from Jill Hafield's 'Classroom Dynamics' to help the group bond.I shall use the other warmer activities later in the course.
Regarding interaction patterns between the learners I noticed that,though Nabil,a student studying in France,was very confident,he didn't interact with the other students as much as I thought;it seemed he needed thinking time to reflect on the activity/task.In general there was plenty of interactions taking place,for instance when the students were doing the 'My Home Town' activity one of the students,Yoshi,a Japanese man,took out his map of Tunisia so that his classmate could use it to talk about her home town.
From the book Reflective Teaching in Second Language Classrooms,Richards,J.C.,in the chapter,approaches to classroom investigation,some important procedures are recommended:
Bailey 1990,Porter et al.1990,Walker 1985 state that it's important to make entries on a regular basis and immediately spend time after the lesson in writing up about the lesson
In addition to review the journal entries as some things which were not obviously apparent might appear so later on.
On page 16 Richards,J.C. mentions some reflection questions to guide thé writing of the journal:
What did you set out to teach?
Were you able to accomplish your goals?
What teaching materisls did you use?
What grouping arrangements did you use?
Did anything amusing or unusual occur?
Did you discover anything new?
Did students contribute actively to the lesson?
Were the students challenged by the lesson?
What do you think the students really learned from the lesson?
What did they like most about the lesson?
What didn't they respond to?
The students seemed pretty confident in working together,only Marwa,a young school girl was a little shy in the speaking activities.
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