Category Archives: INTERACTION

Crabbe (2003: 21) describes this category very simply as “speaking and writing with one or more interlocutors in real or simulated communicative situations.” We therefore post here ideas, tasks, tools and concepts for interactive behaviors for language learners, from pair and small group work to formal debates and academic discussions to writing and responding to blog posts and other online exchanges.

Spanish lesson with Professor Shaw

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Today, Professor Shaw demonstrated the Total Physical Response (TPR) method in class. He asked 10 student volunteers to participate and worked through many exercises in Spanish. He only employed a few parceled phrases in English to clarify directions.

The exercises included: standing up, sitting down, turning circles; recognizing body parts by touching them (nose, foot, head, elbow etc.);  walking  and dancing with specific body parts (Juanito Cuando Baila); recognizing four colors and three shapes; and employing prepositions by demonstrating specific placement of blocks; and exploring sentiments expressed by pictures.

Jerry was the participant, and Aaron was the observer. Jerry has never had a formal Spanish education before, so he was actually a perfect participant. After the exercise, Jerry shared how he felt about it. At first, he was confused between the two colors “amarilla” (yellow) and “Azul” (blue); he thought that “amarilla” was blue and “Azul” was yellow. However, through several repetitions, he eventually learned them.

Professor Shaw introduced ideas of color with the blocks, and reinforced the idea by reengaging ideas of color in relation to number (cup game), shapes (triangulo Azul),  and the demonstration of prepositional phrases. It could also be done with clothing, where students ought to stand or remain sitting depending on the color of their apparel.

Jerry also said that his previous knowledge of French helped him remember certain words like “roja” and “verde” because in French, they are “rouge” and “vert”. One interesting thing to note is that even though he knew French, he actually misunderstood “serio” as “sad” in English rather than “serieux” in French because he thought that the picture of Bill Clinton that he was holding appeared to have a sad expression on his face. Despite the difficulties, he was able to comprehend most of the Spanish sentences that Professor Shaw was using since they were comprehensible inputs.

There was ambiguity. For example, Jerry thought serio meant sad and brusquely memorized it as such. Without a system of backtracking, his misinformation might have lingered. A simple homework exercise linking (with actual lines) definitions to pictures to words all scrambled would make sure the students learn what you think they’re learning. We perhaps preposterously assume that they would check their work against an online dictionary.

Kathy mentioned that she used Brianna  (someone who has studied Spanish) as a model for what to do/when to place the pictures on the table. It is worth being aware of and appreciating how people of varying levels can work together to accomplish a task.

Professor Shaw mentioned that students can develop their own little folder of tools that teachers can employ for language exercises. They might include name tags, animal cards, True/False, or numbers. Then, the teachers can describe a picture in the target language to make students work on their auditory skills/understanding. The teachers may describe a mammal with fur and talons who lives in the jungle and roars and has a mane (exercising a lot of ideas), which the student interprets by holding up their personal lion drawing.

We think it is worth mentioning that Professor Shaw used the pictures to describe the guitar and hat as well as emotional states. Though it can be overdone, working from pictures has a lot of potential.

  • Written by Aaron and Jerry.

 

 

 

Lesson plan ideas using (English) Weather  

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After looking at the song, the poem, and the weather charts for Manchester, we became more aware of the extremities of weather by month in the UK. By comparing the charts to the song and the poem, we got an insight on a few different opinions of these extremities (although sometimes a bit over exaggerated) and thought of some interesting ways to incorporate weather in a possible lesson plan.

Our lesson plan is designed around intermediate-advanced students. We would start by having the students connect to their home country by picking a month (probably the month that the lesson is being taught in) and ask them to describe the weather in their home town, using some adjectives. This could be shared in the whole class or in small groups based on the seating arrangement.

After they have had a little time to reflect and connect to the topic, we present new vocabulary. The words we thought of using would all be adjectives and would also connect to weather, such as “dank,” “humid,” “muggy,” etc. We would also supply our students with charts or pictures of weather (depending on the level of the learners). For lower level we could have pictures of weather and ask them to come up with as many adjectives and other connections as they can to that picture. If we used charts the students would have to be aware of Celsius or Fahrenheit, and be more aware of the symbols used on weather charts. If we were to apply the song or the poem, we would need to make them aware of the artistic element of the writing, seeing as they incorporate the adjectives differently (using “filthy” to describe weather can confuse even native speakers of English).

At the end of the lesson, we think it’s a good idea to bring back the home country aspect using the new vocab to help them connect it to something personal. They can use their new vocabulary to describe each month, and depending on their level of creativity, they can come up with a way to describe each month in a song/poem/story format instead of a list. They then get together in small groups and present their ideas to their classmates, and lastly, it’s all brought together in the class as a whole.

Sara, Ben, Willow, Brieanna

Meeting Kentaro

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On the 2nd of October our language observation class had the opportunity to meet students from the University of Osaka. It was a rewarding experience and I’m glad to have been part of it.  The purpose of their visit to our class was for the Japanese students to give presentations on various subjects related to the research they have been conducting at their university.  We were told that we would have one of the Japanese students sit with us and that during his or her presentation, we would have to evaluate the student’s performance during the presentation.

I was initially a bit skeptical about this assignment because I felt a little uncomfortable about the concept of “evaluating” someone else’s ability to perform.  At the beginning of class I questioned my right to be able to judge a Japanese student’s presentation because I’m far from an expert on cellular biology (our Japanese student’s presentation topic) and giving speeches.  I was worried about the prospect of having the student potentially perform badly and then having to explain to them what he or she did wrong.  Fortunately, this did not happen as Kentaro (the student that joined our table) performed amazingly well.

Before and after Kentaro’s presentation I had the opportunity to have a conversation with him.  I asked him if his presentation was going to be difficult to understand for those that are not scientifically inclined.  He laughed and informed me that it would be more like a TED talk and that all the presentations would be geared towards a general audience.  I was relieved at hearing this information and began to feel a lot more positively about the exercise.  Kentaro told us that he wanted us to focus on his eye contact and use of hand gestures.  After the presentation one of the other students in our group pointed out that it would be best if Kentaro would have spoken more loudly.  During the presentation I didn’t notice any issues with the volume of Kentaro’s speech but he was definitely the most soft spoken compared to the other students.

Kentaro received the suggestion positively and thanked the student for his help.  It turns out that Kentaro had received similar advice in the past from others so it is something that he continues to work on.

Any time I meet an ESL student here at MIIS I try to talk about neutral subjects and the ESL student’s home culture to get the students more comfortable interacting.  It can be somewhat awkward to be forced to sit at a table with four Americans and expected to carry on a conversation as soon as possible.  I also had the opportunity to practice my Japanese a little bit with Kentaro and was grateful for that.  I hope we get to continue this type of activity in the future.  I really enjoy interacting with other students from different countries.

Osaka U. Bio-medical Presentations

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Graduate students from Osaka University have come to the U.S. for a four-week intensive English immersion program designed for field-related needs.  This is otherwise known as English for specific purposes (ESP).

One important component of the program is that students have the opportunity to practice public presentations on their topics of expertise.

Each student was grouped with five TESOL candidates.  We were asked to identify what specific feedback would be valuable to the student.  Our student Kentaro Yamamoto, who presented on health habits in cells, asked for feedback related to eye contact, choosing  vocabulary appropriate for the audience’s level of understanding.  He was also concerned with the effectiveness of his presentation’s visuals.

After his presentation, we shared feedback with him related to his topics of concern.  We were all very impressed with his presentation, specifically his ability to teach us new cell-related terminology and to describe biological processes effectively.  His graded vocabulary, body language, and visuals all contributed to this effectiveness.  One piece of advice we offered was that he increase his speaking volume.  While his speech was well paced, and pronunciation clear, we felt that increased volume would lend itself to clearer communication.  Kentaro mentioned that his peers had also commented on his low volume.  One of the TESOL students said that higher volume would make the speaker appear more confident.  The other group members however, felt that he was confident in his presentation due to his familiarity with the subject and relative fluency in English, the volume was simply too low.  This could be remedied with a microphone or a simple effort to project more.

We also asked him how he felt about the presentation.  He said that he felt good apart from volume.  After that, we all began to talk freely about his topic.  It was clear that Kentaro was comfortable spontaneously sharing his knowledge in small unrehearsed group conversation.  The notion of comfort relates to the Affective Filter hypothesis which we have been discussing in class.  We can theorize that the group conversation was beneficial to his language acquisition because the environment was less formal and structured.

More important than the presentation itself was the weeks of peer collaboration that preceded it.  Brandon, one of their instructors, mentioned that peer review was a critical strategy for both teaching presentation skills and facilitating L2 use.  Peer review is communicative in its approach, it promotes student to student communication over teacher talk time.  This diverges from what we’ve learned of Krashen, who emphasized that language acquisition was a product of input more than output.

Our mentor 3rd semester students hosted a discussion about what is useful about Krashen’s theory and what of his theory does not lend itself to teaching practice.  What is useful is to be mindful of notions such as comprehensible input, monitoring, natural order, and acquisition vs. learning.  The problem is these notions are not thoroughly explained and therefore resist application in the classroom.

We found the experience with the Osaka students valuable because it exposed us to a real-world ESP program.  We enjoyed their visit and hope to have similar opportunities in the future.

This post was written by Dylan and Josiah

Observations on the Presentations of Japanese Students from Osaka

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From observing and discussing Japanese students’ presentation today, we have found useful information on how to give feedback on our future students’ presentation and prepare them for presenting their work in public:

– The feedback should be given in an organized way. In other words, we should give comments and suggestions in different categories like visual aids used in the presentation (effective or distracting), verbal language/ speaking skills (vocabulary, specialist terminology, sentence patterns), non-verbal language (body language and/or facial expressions), etc.

– We can notify the presenter at the outset of their presentation which areas/aspects of a presentation they wish to have feedback on because they may have individual learning  needs that the teacher/audience is not aware of. In this way, the presenter can receive more precise and constructive feedback that help them improve their next performance.

– One more thing that we realized from observing the Japanese students’ presentation today is the audience needs to have the ability to have an objective assessment of a presentation about which they normally barely has background knowledge of. Regarding this point, the presenter also needs to think about what they should bring up in their presentation that can help bridge the knowledge gaps of the audience (many listeners may not have sufficient knowledge of what the presenter has been working on despite their shared disciplines) . As a result, the presentation can be delivered more smoothly.

– It is also important to keep in consideration the goals of adult English learning students. These students may have specific reasons for learning English (such as these future scientists from Japan) which is the pursuit of the sciences. Therefore, it would be helpful and very considerate on the part of the English teacher to provide authentic materials within this context.

– Another thing we noticed was that all of the Japanese students had a strong Japanese accent that prevented the audiences from understanding their presentations well. But the fact that they took time to deliver their speeches allowed the listerners to make sense of what they were saying. Also, they seemed to have practiced their body language in a way that it was not too disruptive during their presentations and only made minimum gestures that were necessary to get attention of the students. So pronunciation and body language are important components of successful presentation as well.

– In addition, while they did a good job explaining their concepts to a non-scientific audience several students exceeded the time limit. In a professional presentation setting where these students would be defending their research before a scientific audience, time management would be essential. Therefore, it is another responsibility of the English teacher to teach presentation expressions in order for their students to save time.

Team members: Minh, Brieanna, and Jerry.

Meeting an ESL student from Vietnam

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Last Friday was a very interesting day.  This was the day our class got to meet and interact with the ESL students who study at MIIS.  I was a little nervous because my wife is in that class and I didn’t know the protocol of how to behave myself in her presence.  I joked with some of the other students that it would funny if she were to be assigned to my table.  The gods must have been listening because sure enough they sent her my table.  After we indicated that it would most likely be better to have her sit at another table, she was sent away and a girl from China joined us instead.

At our table we had two ESL students.  The first girl was from China and her name was Jia (pronounced Tzia).  The second girl was from Vietnam and she asked us to call her Tamy.  Chandra and I were the other two seated at the table.  We had initially agreed to have a simple conversation for 30 minutes and then proceed to the activity Peter suggested to us for the second half of the hour.  That idea soon went out of the window as we began talking to the girls.  We initially began talking as a group and took turns asking questions.  I noticed that Tamy from Vietnam wasn’t getting a lot of opportunity to talk so I decided to ask her some questions and our group of four transformed into two groups of two.

I love Vietnamese food and have been to Saigon so Tamy and I had a lot to talk about.  Ever since I read Graham Green’s The Quiet American I’ve had a huge fascination with Vietnam.  I think that Tamy must have noticed because she went from being shy and timid to very talkative.  She told me that she was from Da Nang and that the graduated with a degree in finance. After graduating she began to work in a major bank.  She then told me that she immediately realized that she hated working in a bank and soon left to be a sports activities coordinator.

During our conversation I complimented her on her English and asked her where she had learned it.  She told me that she had studied English from the 2nd grade but she indicated to me that that had nothing to do with her English speaking ability.  She told me that she had also worked for an NGO and that before working there she could barely speak the language.  After working there one year she said her English improved tremendously.  She then began to tell me that in Vietnam, despite the fact that everyone studies English from a young age, almost no one is actually able to speak it.  She said that this is due to the fact that most schools focus on grammar and don’t really concentrate on speaking ability.  This seemed very similar to what Professor Shaw taught us concerning the grammar translation method.  Perhaps the French had methods of teaching foreign languages that were similar to the British methods and since the French colonized Vietnam perhaps that antiquated method continues to be employed there.

The found the meeting with the ESL students very rewarding.  I look forward to our second meeting with them.

 

 

 

 

Meeting ESL students

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On Friday Minh, Danna and I met with two of the MIIS ESL students. They were both from Asia; one from China and one from Vietnam. It was a nice mix because Minh is from Vietnam and they enjoyed catching up about their home country and what it’s like living in America. Plus I have a connection with China from my travels there and my time in Taiwan. We all talked about our experiences living abroad in cultures that are very different from our own. We compared stories of fun and excitement as well as homesickness and cooping mechanisms.

I am always interested to see how people’s perceptions of America and Americans change after visiting America. It was a great opportunity to see their reactions. I was surprised that they had both already lived in California for year. The girl from China, Vickey, has already been in the program for a while I believe. I was really impressed by their determination to continually excel. I enjoyed seeing how driven these students were to better their English, even though they were very competent already.

I was intrigued by the questions they asked. Through our book making project and our discussions we learned that they are trying to go to graduate programs in America, but they’re worried about the workload. We warned them it would be a lot of work, but definitely rewarding and an excellent leg up for their futures. The other things the asked about included our favorite TV shows and things we like to do around town. It was a really fluid and relaxed conversation and I’d love the chance to catch up with them again at some point.

Thanks for introducing us to such inspiring students Peter!

Happy Sunday everyone!

Annabelle

ESL Student

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My ESL student was fairly proficient in English, high intermediate, with a very clear and practiced pronunciation. Her purposes for studying English were work related: she hoped to better understand her foreign clients in China (who use English regardless of their native countries).
I initiated introductions not only to break the ice but also as a way of determining her English proficiency so I could adjust my speech accordingly (speed, accent, vocabulary, etc.) for the purposes of the day’s activity.
I then asked her if she had any questions for us, perhaps some homework she needed help on. She did, an interviewing exercise in which she had to ask “a local” questions about their education, hobbies, and goals.
I could see as she wrote down my responses her listening was very high because she didn’t miss a word. She once asked, “How do you spell_______.” which reminded me the importance of the English language teacher’s own ability to spell on the spot. Luckily it was an easy word for me, “archery”.
After lunch, my shy ESL student was much more comfortable with us and proceeded to ask us more questions outside of her assignment. She asked me what she could do to improve her fluency and what exercises I think work best, a question I get a lot. I told her what works best for me personally and what past students had told me works best for them. She also asked me about my personal future plans and what the biggest problem I’ve ever encountered when teaching was.
This activity reminded me why I like teaching so much and jumpstarted my motivation for continuing to study hard for my MA. It’s difficult having taught and enjoyed the energy and interaction of teaching so much to having to stop and read dense textbooks and write long papers. I can’t wait to graduate and start teaching again!

Brieanna Mele

Meeting with ESL students

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Today we met with the ESL students from one of MIIS’s 10 week ESL programs.  I was at a table with Dylan, and we sat with two ESL students, whose names were Assem and Han.  Assem is from Astana, Kazakhstan, and Han is from Shanghai, China.

It was a lot of fun to get to meet Han.  He’s married and his wife is a current MIIS student in the TLM program.  We spoke about a lot of different topics, including travel, movies, photography, and family.

Han and his wife both have interesting and artistic jobs.  Han is a photographer, and he showed me a lot of beautiful pictures he has taken, with such varied subjects as people, landscapes, animals, buildings, sunsets and light effects.  Han’s wife works in movie translation.  She writes Chinese subtitles for movies that were made in English, and she also translates the script, paying attention both to meaning and to synchronizing the new Chinese words with the actors’ lip movements.

Han has also traveled extensively, visiting Italy, Switzerland, Australia, various countries in South East Asia, and many parts of the United States.  We had a very interesting conversation and found a lot in common.

Dylan and I had a plan for some things we were going to ask the ESL students, and we had prepared a couple of different games we might play with them, but in the end we didn’t follow our plan at all, instead we just kind of let the conversation go where it wanted to. Likewise, Han and Assem came with a list of questions for us, but the only one which Han asked me had to do with movies, which is how we got into the interesting topic of what his wife does.

So in the end, we didn’t really follow either set of plans, and that’s ok.  The friendship and bond we formed in just an hour is more important.  Besides that, we had better and more natural conversation, and therefore English practice, as a result.

This ties in perfectly with the affective learning strategies we’ve been talking about.  I noticed that Han spoke haltingly and with more mistakes at the beginning of the hour and a half we spent together, and got progressively better as the hour went on, speaking fluently and almost flawlessly by the end of the hour.  I think that was due to his greater comfort level, and the bond we had formed.  The more at ease we feel, and the less we are afraid of making mistakes, the more true communication will take place.  Comprehensible meaning is better transmitted in a good affective environment, which, as Krashen says, is where how actual language learning takes place.

Meeting ESL students

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Meeting ESL students in class today was quite an experience. I’m not sure what I enjoyed more: hearing about their journey to MIIS and pursuit for higher education or making cultural connections and learning about who they are.

When they first came to my table and sat amongst my group of peers, I noticed that there was a bit of an awkwardness with meeting someone new. Sure, there is formal etiquette and standard procedures that are done that includes introducing oneself but I think after a couple of plates of food and easing into conversation about who we are, why we’re here, and what we hope to take out of meeting each other. . .  .man, the conversation became more lively and personal, filled with interesting topics about language learning, what our hopes and dreams are for the future, so on and so forth. It was pleasant, engaging, and overall very informative.

I think this activity of meeting, socializing, and talking on a personal level with ESL students (as well as future ESL students one might meet and work with in a future professional career setting) is not only important but also foundational when considering what type of students an educator will be dealing with, learning to accommodate any needs students might have, but most of all making personal connections with those students and enjoying what they can bring to the classroom.

-Danna A.