Well.... Tuesdays class was great! We have moved into compare/contrast essays and I decided to work on a fluency/brainstorming exercise that includes drawing two rings that overlap slightly in the middle. You name the rings according to what you are comparing/contrasting and then in the middle were the rings overlap you list items or characteristics about the topics that are the same and on the outside, but still within the rings, you list the things that are different.
I started off by modeling the exercise to my students and we compared American cars to European cars. It was great fun! I really appreciate how some of the students get into it. I then broke the class up into groups of two and made sure that they we all seperated from their normal partners or people from their own countries. For instance, I wanted those from South Korea, Japan and Indonesia to be pared up with those from Saudia Arabia, Belarus, Morocco and Finland. I just wanted it to be as diverse as possible. I then had them compare/contrast their countries with their partner's country.
It was great! I couldn't believe how "into it" they got. They all learned a lot from each other and some of them wanted more time. It was very interesting for all. I enjoyed walking around and listening to their discussions. I will certainly remember this exercise for next semester.
Thursday's class on the other hand was not so good. We basically took the information from the compare/contrast rings that we did on Tuesday and plugged that into our essay outlines. I really try to make it as interesting as possible, but when comes right down to it, it's still a writing class and we have to write :-( We will be doing some peer-editing on Tuesday next week and then I have to think of something fun to do on Thursday that also goes over the structure of the compare/contrast essay one more time.
As far as applying reading to the class, it's very difficult because we are still just reading about theories, but while I was teaching the class on Tuesday and listening to the students converse with each other I certainly thought about the interactionist position on SLA. The students at times would have trouble understanding each other and would really interact a lot during their discussions to find meaning. It was very interesting to observe after reading the chapters on SLA.
I hope you all have a great weekend!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Go dog go! Sounds like you are doing fine with your class -- that exciting first-year kind of fine that is a little roller-coaster-y.
Are you teaching in a room where everyone has a computer on the desk?
I am researching a methods guy who says writing teachers should perform the act of writing for their students -- just like that -- crank out sentences or the whole 5-paragraph essay with all its back-and-forth revealed to show how it's done. . .would you, could you in a box? would you could you with a fox?proodgecocin
Post a Comment