Dropping Keys

Name: Monica Schneiderman                 Entry: #1                              Class: 10th Grade (High School)
Date: November 3rd, 2010                      Time: 10:00 – 11:25am
Topic: Natural Disasters                            Issue: Teacher  Teaching Grammar

Background: I am in training for Peace Corps TEFL Nicaragua and we are doing our ‘Practicum Week.’ During this week I will be teaching my first three English classes ever in Nicaragua. I am working with a Nicaraguan counterpart all week. In this lesson his role will be the observer, offering me feedback and suggestions afterwards and I am like a substitute teacher.

This is a typical Nicaraguan classroom. We have 38 students total: 16 male, 22 female. They are in the 10th grade and have been studying English for 4 years at the high school. Their English proficiency as a class whole is extremely low and many claim “I don’t know anything about English.” Their normal teacher is very animated and is always trying to get them to participate in different activities yet they are reluctant to do so sometimes.

The topic is ‘Natural Disasters’ which appears in the MINED (Ministry of Education) curriculum for 10th grade. As part of this unit students are expected to learn the names of various natural disasters, characteristics of them, and safety precautions / prevention strategies. The grammatical structure we’re required to teach is ‘should,’ used in giving suggestions and recommendations.

Issue: My primary goal in this lesson is to teach grammar in an easy to understand and non-traditional way. I want to avoid the traditional approach to teaching grammar in Nicaragua which is presenting the structure and then having students complete a ton of exercises unrelated to one another and out of context. The final activity will be a jigsaw activity in which students will share and hear several examples of ‘should’ statements all related to natural disasters.

Narrative: I began the class by writing the phrase ‘what should you do it…?’ big across the top, center of the whiteboard. I then explained that this question is used to asking for advice or suggestions (in other words a good idea). From there I put up a chart with several problems and solutions. The first problem was ‘sick.’ I mimicked someone who is sick coughing and sneezing and feeling my head as if I had a temperature. I then wrote up the question: What should you do if you are sick? The students shouted out answers in Spanish, so I directed them to the solutions column in the chart and we went through each of the choices one by one reviewing what they mean until we got to the correct answer which I purposely put last on the list. We formed the correct response to the question: If you are sick, you should go to the doctor. I underlined the pieces we inserted from the chart to show the students the structure we’d be using.

We then moved onto the next problem: cold. I again mimicked the meaning of this word as review and asked the question: What should you do if you are cold? Some students again answered in Spanish but a few responded in English. I thanked the students for participating and reminded them that we needed to select the correct response in English. From there we wrote the correct answer: If you are cold, you should put on a sweater. We did another example the same way with the third problem: money. Then I asked the students to work in pairs to complete the last three problems after we went through what those three problems meant. Some students volunteered to put the answers on the board and I let them do so.

We then moved into the next portion of the class period. I wrote up the question: What should you do if there is a natural disaster? I told the students we’d be answering that question using the phrases they had studied in the previous class and we did an example with ‘flood.’ I wrote: What should you do if there is a flood? The students got silent so I asked them to open up their notebooks to the previous class for some helpful vocabulary words. At that point, one student told me: ‘turn off electronics.’ We used his idea and we made the response: If there is a flood, you should turn off all electronics. I gave another example too: If there is a flood, you should find higher ground.

After the flood example, I explained to the students that they would be doing the same thing for a different natural disaster in small groups. I divided the students up into six groups using playing cards 1 – 6 (two decks! Two groups had an extra person). Each group was given a natural disaster and an example suggestion. As a group they had to write down at least two more suggestions in their notebooks following the given model and practice reading them aloud. While they were working, I collected their cards and reorganized them as I walked around checking their work and giving them some help. Then I redistributed the cards so that each group had a person 1 – 6.
When the groups finished writing their suggestions, the students regrouped using their new numbers. In their new groups, each student read one of his/her suggestion to the group and everyone else wrote down their suggestion in their notebook. The reader repeated the suggestion as many times as needed for their classmates. Many students cheated by showing their classmates their notebook instead of reading their suggestion out loud.

Unfortunately we ran out of time so I didn’t get to the last part which was supposed to be a quick presentation from each group. I wanted to have one student from each group give a suggestion for one of the natural disasters. I was going to select a number (randomly) and a natural disaster and the student who had that number playing card would read me a suggestion for that disaster.
Their homework was to draw a visual representation of one of the suggestions they heard today. It could be one from their original group or one they heard from a classmate. Next class they’ll share their drawings with one another to review vocabulary and ‘should’.

Reflection: This lesson plan was designed as a follow-up activity for a class in which they had already studied natural disasters in some depth, including necessary vocabulary to describe what occurs in each disaster. The purpose of this activity was to introduce the expression “you should” as a means of offering suggestions and get students to discuss what you should do if there is a natural disaster in Nicaragua or wherever they live. I decided to start off with a few problem/solution controlled exercises on the board to introduce the new topic ‘should’ and give the students an opportunity to practice that grammar unit in closed-ended scenarios. I thought that the students needed to practice the topic in a simplistic (i.e. easier) manner before I asked them to do the more open-ended (i.e. more complicated) jigsaw activity I had planned for the rest of the class. During this time I was able to do a quick evaluation of their understanding of the meaning of ‘should’ and how to correctly form an if… should… suggestion before moving on to natural disasters. This section seemed to go rather well. The students were working and the majority was able to correctly complete the remaining three problem/solution exercises I left them to do. Also some students offered up quick oral translations, showing me that they understood the meaning of the sentences we created through the mimicking done. And although the students did answer me in Spanish a few times, at least they were participating, putting the pieces together, and together we got the sentences written out correctly in English.

I have to admit that the jigsaw (group work) portion of the lesson did not go quite as planned. However, I don’t think it was because of my lack of organization getting the students into groups or giving them instructions but rather because of the students’ pena (shame) for speaking in English. Actually, my number card system worked great! At first the students were confused as to why I was passing out playing cards, but after my directions, the students got in their groups easily and quickly. In addition, collecting the numbers from each student after getting into groups helped ensure that each student was where they were supposed to be. There was no ‘I forget my number’ and it was a lot harder for students to change their groups to be with friends. I liked it! Also, when the groups were reorganized after the redistribution of the number cards, the students knew exactly where to go and very little instruction was needed. It was a quick and easy transition! Great for time management.

The initial ‘expert’ groups went well. The students got into the activity and were actively participating. Most students where sharing their ideas and writing down suggestions. Some groups even wrote more than the two required suggestions. However, I think the groups might have been a little big: 6-7 students. I saw a few students in each groups sitting back and relaxing. Maybe I could have doubled up some of the disasters to create smaller groups.

Student pena (shame) came into play a lot in the ‘sharing’ groups which prevented a lot of them from speaking / reading their suggestions out loud. What ended up happening is that instead of speaking, they passed their notebooks around the group and each group member copied down the others’ suggestions. I guess in the end the students did share their ideas with the group and everyone had the necessary information but my intended speaking exercise fell through. I wonder what I could change to make this part of the activity work as I had planned.

There were a lot of factors out of my control in this lesson that hopefully in my own classroom I could control better to facilitate student confidence in speaking. First of all, I don’t know theses students well, or at all… I was just a substitute teacher here. In my classroom I’d hope to build an atmosphere in which everyone feels welcome and respected so that stepping out of their comfort zone and making mistakes isn’t as difficult. I also don’t know if these students are used to speaking in front of others and how much emphasis is put on speaking/listening as opposed to reading/writing on a daily basis. Oral communication is very important to me, so my classroom would have frequent speaking activities similar to this one. Finally, I think there was too much novelty in one lesson: new teacher, new card system, new topic, new activity. By introducing each aspect one by one, slowly, maybe I’d get a better reaction from the students because although new, the group work did run fairly smoothly. If I could make it routine in the classroom, it could be a powerful tool for group work and sharing of ideas!