I can leave out the fourth year class I think. There I am not particularly trying to concentrate on getting them to think about language.
I think I first got them into groups and wrote up the dialogue in the book, Transformations with 12 content words (banking) in Chinese. We did listen-and-repeat a couple of times. Rather I took one role, they took other.
First time or so, I explained/gave very conversationally the English equivalents or explained where they were in the glossary (of course they were in the original dialogue too). I may have asked them to work in pairs and do the dialogue and I may have recorded this.
Finally, I asked them to write the English equivalents on the board. This took the first hour. I must have done management things like explain the seating chart and ask about students not in the class.
In the second hour, I started off with US money in the book, using pictures from another book and also a knock-out competition between the groups based on a listening quiz from the same book I had used with the third-year classes. It made use of Tim [Newfield]’s pointing to two sides of the room to distinguish answers A and B. It is better than hands in the air, but it is still often unclear which direction they’re pointing. I also have to cut off people who are slow to point. Otherwise, everyone is just pointing in the same direction and no-one is forced out.
I also did letter addresses in English, giving letter address homework and alphabetical order with example (was to be quiz), cardinal numbers for dates.
In the third year classes, the aim was to get some pairs to do some recording and to do a quiz and to talk about ways to learn. The second class was better, but I was satisfied with the first class too.
In the first class, I started off with talking about my experience with Yoko reading a children’s book. How listening to someone reading is interesting. How I imagined them becoming good speakers by reading to a partner. (This is what the dialogue taping is! Reading into a tape. At least at the start.) They were very inattentive. I wondered if they thought children’s books were uncool. But I read all the way through. Then I explained how the taping would work.
This was the year 2000, my second year at ChinMin
This is too late. It becomes a plan for the next week. In 3C (March 1), I started off with reading a story. The idea is to get them to think about methods of learning English. My reading of the story in Chinese (actually listening to Yoko read) was useful for me. I wanted them to think/investigate about ways they could take the initiative to learn English themselves. (I think I’ve forgotten something I did before that. Probably wrote on the board that we would be using tape recorders to record a dialogue from the book. Actually probably just talked about that.)
I found it difficult to focus their attention They were talking too, more than usual. It could have been something happening in the 8-10 lesson before this one. It could have been that they regarded the children’s story about a humorous but monstrous badger/racoon (たぬし) and a mole (もぐら) as too childish and to be interested in it was uncool for 17-18 year olds.
Anyway I told the story and then told them how we would record
dialogues (Would you like me to set up the conference room? p88-90? of
book) I had prepared 3 recorders although there were 4 groups
teams, but there were only 3 outlets at different parts of the room, so
4 would have been a problem too.
I hadn’t really thought of what the 10 people per group
team not recording the dialogue would be doing. I think I
gave told the 2 people in the groups of 4 at the extreme
corners of the room to record. The other 2 people in the group told to
help them by coaching. The other Another group of 4 I told to
handle the machines. The last group of 4 in each team of 12, I didn’t
give any role to. (I think I told them to change seats into the
groups.)
When I set them going pandemonium ensued. I mean it was very noisy. I tried to do something with the team of 12 who weren’t recording. The exercise on the facing page? Or was it the dialogue itself? I was not able to get all the students in that team to face me. I gave up on this team and tried to oversee from the front the general activity of the other 3 teams. They were probably confused about their roles/what to do, so the noise level was very high. I was able to do little to intervene. I was confused about who was doing what & felt somewhat powerless just standing there. I didn’t feel I shouldn’t have done this recording activity, but I was dissatisfied with the noise & not being able to see if they were actually recording the dialog or not.
This continued until the end of the first hour, when there was a 10-minute break. I had to decide whether to continue or stop. I decided to continue for a short while. After the break, they seemed to be more on-task, or quieter, or something. I then ended the taping. I did not do any debriefing or listen to the tapes.
I wrote up at this time or earlier the homework. Everyone had to with one member of their group record one of the pattern drills, ‘Would you like me to set up the conference room,’ p88? They must identify themselves first. They must use a 60-minute tape. They must rewind the tape.
[ Christina came up to talk to me during the break. There’s something wrong with her arm. She has it in a brace raised so her hand is level with her head. It looks like she is permanently seeking to get my attention. But she does seem to be more vocal. Perhaps that’s just because I can hear her because she is in the front in the middle. She wanted to talk about the homework, (What can I do to make you speak English) I think & reassure me (I think) about the noise. ]
Then I asked them to do the choose-the-right-phrasal-verb exercise on the next page in groups. I told them I would test them individually. I think they are used to this now but I don’t know if they know why I am doing it.
I then put them back into the original seating order & asked them to write down on a piece of paper the answers. No similar test. Just the same as in the book.I asked them to passto a neighbor for checking. (I will have to work on this, because there are 7x7 seats). Then I got them to give back to the writer and go back to the learning group to add up their total.
Then I got them to give in the test slips & the homework & told them what I wanted them to do for homework this week (I had trouble with the Walkman. I don’t think it recorded.) After class, I felt satisfied.
In 3D (March 2), I realized I had to have roles for all the people. I started off the same way but had 4 tape recorders. I told the story but 2 (Maggie and Sabrina) who are more vocal enjoyed it, setting the tone.
I don’t know when they moved into the learning groups. Was it from the very start? I tried to explain how everyone had a role in each team of 3 groups of 4 students. 2 students in each corner recorded (A), 2 others in same group were coaches (B) (they didn’t know what I meant), 4 students in the second group looked after the tape recorder (C), 2 students in the third group looked for problems and wrote them down (D), other 2 students in third group reported problems to me (E).
I showed more carefully how everyone in 1 team had a role, naming students and their roles. I more quickly worked through other teams and I may have made some mistakes.
I then set them off. From the front, I wasn’t able to see whether students were on task, but I could see in one team where nothing was happening at all & there was no machine, so I called (E) students to tell me what was happening. This didn’t produce any results, but I felt more in control.
I misdirected one student, Sabrina (who came for help: I think I asked some to go through (D) and (E)). I had confused her with another active student she often sat with. Perhaps I put D students in the wrong group. And this may have been the reason the group doing nothing was inactive. It may have been because it was the only group with 3 boys.
I wrote up on the board:
?
Whose tape (one tape per group or person or pair, etc)
no problems
no problems
not interesting
And after the activity, I got D students to come up and write 3-5. This was the extent of debriefing. I think I said they did better than 3C. I didn’t play any tapes publicly I think.