Now, I am participating in a practicum at an intensive ESL program at my university. My class consists of mostly young men from the Middle East, one Arab woman, a Korean woman, and an Asian man. It's a middle intermediate class on listening and speaking.
I missed the first two classes when I was taking comps, so my first class began with a quick test. I feel that I learned a lot from my supervisor, Katie (not her real name), about how to introduce a listening test. She had clearly listened to the CD ahead of time. She knew that it goes extremely fast, so she played it two or three times in each section. She also read some of the directions aloud even though they were written for the students. When I started teaching before graduate school, I never questioned tests or textbooks--but Katie knew the test's flaws. One section wasn't well organized; that was the one she played the greatest number of times. Afterward, the students seemed comfortable with how it had gone.
Next, Katie handed out a list of present and past tense English verbs. The class went over the different forms as well as the rules--there are many of them! She gave everyone an index card and asked us to write a present tense form of a verb on it. After checking to make sure that no two people had the same verb, she had us stand in a circle, holding our cards in front of us for everyone to see.
We made a story together. Each person had to make a sentence with his or her verb in it, in past tense, and repeat all the other sentences from the beginning. I started it, about a dog. As the story evolved, the dog became a model student! I noticed that Katie had been emphasizing American educational values throughout the class--she made a big deal out of telling the students to keep their eyes on their own tests, for example. The students seemed to have fun making the dog get up early every day, go to class, and do well on his English test (with some prompting from the teacher). I hope that I can take advantage of teachable moments like that, silly ways to maximize learning opportunities.
Lastly, we got into small groups, each with a baggie full of sentences. Some were correct, Katie explained, others not. She had us gamble for pennies, which seemed to motivate the students. My group consisted of the Korean, the Arab girl, and one Middle Eastern man. The girls were much quicker than the guy at giving answers. He would wait for them to say whether the sentence was correct, then still hesitate to give his opinion--I prompted him. I started only letting the penny go to the first person who got it right, and that seemed to make him go faster. My reasoning was that culturally, students are used to working together, so he needed guidance to own his individual work--the American way.
Overall, I am very excited about my practicum. I have enjoyed getting to know the students so far, seeing what Katie does, and trying out some concepts I have learned in my classes. I look forward to doing some informal research on this class!
I missed the first two classes when I was taking comps, so my first class began with a quick test. I feel that I learned a lot from my supervisor, Katie (not her real name), about how to introduce a listening test. She had clearly listened to the CD ahead of time. She knew that it goes extremely fast, so she played it two or three times in each section. She also read some of the directions aloud even though they were written for the students. When I started teaching before graduate school, I never questioned tests or textbooks--but Katie knew the test's flaws. One section wasn't well organized; that was the one she played the greatest number of times. Afterward, the students seemed comfortable with how it had gone.
Next, Katie handed out a list of present and past tense English verbs. The class went over the different forms as well as the rules--there are many of them! She gave everyone an index card and asked us to write a present tense form of a verb on it. After checking to make sure that no two people had the same verb, she had us stand in a circle, holding our cards in front of us for everyone to see.
We made a story together. Each person had to make a sentence with his or her verb in it, in past tense, and repeat all the other sentences from the beginning. I started it, about a dog. As the story evolved, the dog became a model student! I noticed that Katie had been emphasizing American educational values throughout the class--she made a big deal out of telling the students to keep their eyes on their own tests, for example. The students seemed to have fun making the dog get up early every day, go to class, and do well on his English test (with some prompting from the teacher). I hope that I can take advantage of teachable moments like that, silly ways to maximize learning opportunities.
Lastly, we got into small groups, each with a baggie full of sentences. Some were correct, Katie explained, others not. She had us gamble for pennies, which seemed to motivate the students. My group consisted of the Korean, the Arab girl, and one Middle Eastern man. The girls were much quicker than the guy at giving answers. He would wait for them to say whether the sentence was correct, then still hesitate to give his opinion--I prompted him. I started only letting the penny go to the first person who got it right, and that seemed to make him go faster. My reasoning was that culturally, students are used to working together, so he needed guidance to own his individual work--the American way.
Overall, I am very excited about my practicum. I have enjoyed getting to know the students so far, seeing what Katie does, and trying out some concepts I have learned in my classes. I look forward to doing some informal research on this class!
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