I used Beyonce’s song I was here as a class material when I taught one class at PRC. Considering the fact that the students had different levels of English proficiency, I made two versions of worksheet (see below), supplied with the translation exercise of the students’ first language, Spanish.

Level 2 was for the intermediate students and level 1 was for the beginning students. The translation exercise is the same for the students from both levels.

I had a small group of students (5 students in total) when I planned the activity. Though the group was small, there were about 2 beginning students and 3 intermediate students. However, I found that even for the intermediate students, completing the worksheet by themselves was a little bit difficult for them because the speed of the song was fast for them. I played the song 3 times, but the students still did not catch a lot of phrases. Thus, at last, I read aloud the lyrics slowly. This time, the intermediate students was able to get most answers. Then I asked the students to pick out the vocabulary they didn’t understand in the first paragraph and explained the meaning and use of the vocabulary.

Things that went well: Female students really liked the song. They would sing along when I played the song. Also, the students were able to pay attention to the use of past tense because there are a lot of past participles in the lyrics. The level of the vocabulary was also manageable for the students.

Things that I would improve next time:

1. Choose a slower song for the students. The speed of the song was obviously too fast for their levels.

2. I would not include the translation exercise because some of the students did not have the literacy skills in their L1. The exercise was a little confusing for them and the Spanish was also a little bit strange to the students. I think next time I would use the translation as a reference for the students to comprehend the lyrics instead of making it into an exercise.

3. Use drills when teaching the vocabulary. Ask students to pronounce the vocabulary after me. Also, give students chances to practice these vocabulary in activities/conversations.

There is an interesting article I read on the New York Times. The title is In Raising Scores, 1 2 3 Is Easier than A B C. It begins with a reflection of a reading teacher:

David Javsicas, a popular seventh-grade reading teacher known for urging students to act out dialogue in the books they read in class, sometimes feels wistful for the days when he taught math.

A quiz, he recalls, could quickly determine which concepts students had not yet learned. Then, “you teach the kids how to do it, and within a week or two you can usually fix it,” he said.

Helping students to puzzle through different narrative perspectives or subtext or character motivation, though, can be much more challenging. “It could take months to see if what I’m teaching is effective,” he said.

Educators, policy makers and business leaders often fret about the state of math education, particularly in comparison with other countries. But reading comprehension may be a larger stumbling block.

The reading caught my eyes because I could easily identify with the feeling of the reading teacher. When teaching language, especially high intermediate and advanced levels, it’s hard to see our teaching takes effects immediately. As a new teacher, I always wonder what is the effective way to make students learn/improve their language skills. Even from my personal experience as an ESL learner, I felt I didn’t have the answer to the question .

“Is it a vocabulary issue? A background knowledge issue? A sentence length issue? How dense is the text?” Mr. Peiser said, rattling off a string of potential reading roadblocks. “It’s a three-dimensional problem that you have to attack. And it just takes time.”

Similar with teaching reading to native speakers, teaching language skills to L2 speakers takes a lot of time and practice. And it’s more complicated because there are many other things language teachers need to take into considerations, such as learners’ L1, L2 identities and cultural backgrounds.

Although teaching language is a challenging job, it is very important and essential, even in solving math problems. Once, I helped my landlord’s daughter, who was a 7th grade student, on her math problem. It literally took me several times of reading to understand the question. The question is like a short story reading test, which talks about a girl who wants to make her own monopoly board and cards. Thus, it requires the student not only to have the background knowledge of monopoly game, but also to have the ability to incorporate reading comprehension skills into solving the math problem. In a word, literacy skills becomes more and more important for every academic subject.

Reference

Rich, M. (2013, May 29). In raising scores, 1 2 3 is easier than A B C. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/education/reading-gains-lag-improvements-in-math.html?from=us

Reflection: When we tried to think of an activity that help learners practice giving directions, we came up with the map activity for the intermediate-level students . We gave students 2 types of map (A and B). Map A and Map B are complementary (see Appendix A). Thus, students with Map A need to ask questions to students with Map B in order to figure out the location of a specific place, such as bank, restaurant, park, etc.. Also, students cannot show each other the maps while talking. The activity went pretty well. The students were able to have the chance to use the language for some meaningful purpose. However, we also found that the map activity was a little confusing even to the intermediate-level students. Further, although we intentionally put PRC on the map to make students identify with the materials, the activity seemed not so practical because the map was not authentic.

Things that we would improve next time:

1. Model the activity before distribute the maps to the students.

2. Use authentic materials, even though it may be a little difficult to the students’ actual level.

3. Give students some scenarios to play with. Instead of asking directions, we will provide them with more detailed settings. For instance, you are a tourist who just arrives in the hotel. You plan to send some postcards to your family and then go to a nice place to enjoy a meal. Ask your partner to figure out how to get to the places where you can fulfill your agenda. By doing the activity this way, learners need to come up with the places by themselves (i.e., bookstore, post office, restaurant/cafe). Further, creating a scenario give learners reasons to ask for directions.

Lesson Plan

Warm-up/greeting

How is everyone doing?

What did everyone do last weekend/in the last week/etc?

Review and practice possessive adjectives using worksheet

Directions Vocabulary – whole class

Introduce vocabulary of names of places (e.g., hospital, library, etc.).

Verbally explain to class the meanings of the vocabulary

Have students say each vocabulary out loud.

Inyi and Vicky role played the here, there and over there vocabulary.

Practice the vocabulary

Draw map on board

Ask students to describe the locations of places.

Ask students to fill in the empty space according to the directions given by the teachers.

Map Activity:

Split into 2 groups

Beg:

Go over alphabet – Go in circle and have each student write letters on individual whiteboards then quiz students. (“Show me an ‘F’”)

Direction – TPR the direction vocabulary

Practice names of places

Ask each student to give direction to get to one place using the map

Int:

Give students 2 different maps (A and B)

Pair students up to do fill in the blank locations on their maps

Reconvene as a class; each pair present their work to the class;

Review the answers and vocabulary

Last 5 minutes: Correct journal entry & write one thing they learned today

Appendix A

Based on my teaching and/or tutoring experience in the past two years and especially this semester, I have come up with the following teaching guidelines for myself.

• Don’t be too laidback (my personality, I think) in class. Of course, I’m not a control freak, but I need to speak with an affirmative tone.
• Know what I want students to be able to do. Tell them what to do. Be clear and specific!
• Keep working on my own knowledge of the target language. For example, what is a schwa sound?
• Start developing my resource database (e.g., songs, games, and movies, activities for practicing pronunciation)
• Learn more about different cultures. Students come from everywhere and some might be rather sensitive to certain things.

As I am becoming more and more confident as a language teacher, I am looking forward to the Princeton in Beijing summer program, where I am very likely to be challenged by those smart and probably over-confident American college students.

Overall, I think I’m getting better at classroom management. After teaching for a whole week (week 5), I started to establish myself as the co-teacher for the OC class. I was able to get students’ attention as soon as I called their names. My voice became louder and stronger as well. However, I think I still need to be more culturally sensitive when it comes to classroom management. This semester, I got to teach one lesson for the 5th graders at the Stevenson School (Sisu Wu’s class). The 5th grade class was huge for me. There were about 25 students. When the students were chatting when I was speaking, I said “hey” to them, which turned out to be really rude and offensive. (Of course, I didn’t know their names.) In the future, I would love to observe more K-12 classes (not  necessarily language classes) to see how American teachers deal with those loud but emotionally vulnerable kids.

This semester, I also had some interesting interaction with the American students who participated in the Cross-Strait Immersive Learning Module. After listening to one student’s sharing about our trip at a panel, I felt angry at his indiscreet comments about the discrepancies between Mainland China and Taiwan since he was not really listening to and couldn’t understand most of the talks during the trip due to his rather low proficiency level. His irresponsible attitude (ungrounded generalizations) drove me nuts. Later that day, I made a comment in Chinese on my Facebook, saying “It’s not like that many people on here can read Chinese. Might as well speak my mind. The students from the Cuba group said that what they learned on their trip was how important it is not to bring your prejudices with you when you travel, otherwise the only things one notices are the things one doesn’t like. On their trip, they saw a lot of things that were not exactly what they had expected. That made me think of our trip to China and Taiwan. I’m pretty sure everyone who went had their own biases (myself included). Then, when we saw things that fit those biases, we naturally felt like our assumptions were confirmed without even realizing that whatever we saw was only a fragment of the whole. It’s not really about whether someone’s way of answering questions is “direct” or not. More often, it comes down to his or her narrative, which is framed by their position. People in politics all play the same game.” (translated by an American who’s doing Chinese-English T&I). Actually, the translation reflected my opinions, but didn’t keep the original sarcasm. When some of the American students on that trip saw my Chinese post, they were discussing at a bar whether I was criticizing them or not, according to one Chinese student, who was asked to translate my post into English that night. The story ended with me having lunch with that student who made the inappropriate comment, our open talk, and his apology.

One important lesson I have learned from this experience is that open communication works best in conflict resolution. My parents were worried about me after hearing this whole thing and they told me to keep a low profile. However, when I told this to some of my American friends, they said something totally different. For example, “My mom would say ‘go for it and fight to the end for what you think is right!’ Dad would probably say the same thing, but less enthusiastically.” “It oftentimes takes a lot of courage to do things that we don’t feel like doing (for example: confronting someone, or talking to someone about issues where each person has opposing views). Good for you. It’s not an easy thing to do sometimes, but you have to stick to your guns (uphold your opinion). Well done.”

Anyways, I think I need to learn more about effective intercultural communication and “manage” my Facebook as if it were another classroom, probably having multiple accounts to interact with friends versus students.

In this session, students were asked to do two presentations. After helping Adrienne to facilitate the presentation preparation, I have come to realize how important it is to set up a specific timeline, making sure that students finish each step on time so that they can successfully move onto the next step. I really enjoyed watching students’ presentations, which showed their investment in topics of personal interest. I also liked the way Adrienne incorporated self and peer evaluations in those presentation projects. Below are some sample materials we used for scaffolding the two presentations.

Presentation 1

For your first presentation, you have two options. You can either show us how to do something, or you can explain how something works. This will be a 5-6 minute presentation, so please make sure you practice ahead of time to know exactly how long your presentation will take!

How-To Presentation

For this type of presentation, you will show us how to do something you already know how to do! This is similar to the video we watched on how to charge an iPod using fruit. You should follow the steps below:

1. Make a list of all the items you need.

2. Make a list of the steps in the process (first you should…, then you must…).

3. Practice how to explain the instructions using the items needed.

4. Bring all the items to class on the day of your presentation as a visual and demonstrate how to!

How Things Work

For this type of presentation, you will either explain the way something is made or the way something works. An example of this type of presentation is the video we watched on how donuts are made. You should follow the steps below:

1. Make a list that shows the steps of how something works (first this happens…, second, this happens…)

2. Create a visual aid that shows the process. This can either be a powerpoint presentation, or a poster that clearly identifies each part of the process.

3. Practice how to explain the steps.

4. Bring your visual aid to class on the day of your presentation and teach us how something is made or how it works!

Presentation 2

Interview Presentation Guidelines

Your final presentation must be between 5-7 minutes and use a visual aid. You can either use PPT (strongly suggested) or create a poster. Please remember that you must ask at least 10 people and they cannot be members of our program!

Additionally your presentation must contain the following sections:

1. A clear introduction that explains why you are interested in this topic and why you chose the questions you did.

2. An explanation of the answers to your questions.

3. A conclusion that explains what you learned about your topic and why this information is useful.

Timeline:

Ask people your questions in class on Monday, May 13

Compile your data and bring it to class by Tuesday, May 14

Complete a rough draft of your presentation by Wednesday, May 15

Present in class either Thursday, May 16 or Monday, May 20

Presentation 1 Self Evaluation

Presentation Self-Evaluation

As you watch your own presentation, rate yourself in the following categories and answer each question:

Pronunciation

Is your pronunciation good overall?

Is your voice loud and clear?

What could you do to improve your pronunciation? Be specific.

Grammar

Is your grammar good overall?

What could you do to improve your grammar?

Body Language

Is your body language good overall?

Are you facing your audience the entire time?

Are you making eye contact?

Do you appear confident?

Introduction

Did you use one of the introduction strategies we talked about in class?

If not, what could you do to improve this?

Conclusion

Did you use one of the conclusion strategies we talked about in class?

If not, what could you do to improve this?

Now that you have watched your entire video, answer the following questions:

1. What is one thing you’re really proud of? (something you think you did well)

2. What is one thing you’re not so proud of? (something you want to do better on next time)

Presentation 2 Peer Evaluation

Presenter 1______________________________

What introduction strategy was used?

What supporting evidence did you hear (facts, statistics, other numbers)?

What conclusion strategy was used?

Adrienne suggested that we could set up different stations in class so that I could be in charge of one station and practice giving the same instructions multiple times. (Good practice for me!) Students were also able to engage in several activities during the class. It turned out that students enjoyed the class with stations.

For one class, we had three stations and students rotated every 20 minutes. I was in charge of the snakes and ladders game station to review grammar (simple past, past progressive, relative clauses, the order of adjectives), pronunciation (e.g., word stress, -ed sound), and the facts about the people in the IESL program. Adrienne was in charge of the pronunciation station with the movie Up.

Pronunciation Station

Today you will practice your pronunciation with the movie Up. Follow the instructions below.

1.     Watch the video clip and just listen! Don’t write anything down! Then talk with your group about what happened in the clip.

2.     One person in your group will be Carl (the old man), one will be Russell, and one will be the listener. Choose your roles!

3.     Listen for a second time. This time, the person who is Carl will mark the stressed words for Carl’s character. Russell will mark the stressed words for Russell’s character. The Listener will do both!

4.     Listen one more time! This time, mark the intonation for your character. The listener will again try both.

5.     Now that you have listened 3 times, compare your transcripts. The Listener should have the same things marked for both stress and intonation as Carl and Russell.

6.     Now Carl and Russell will practice together and try to do the same stress and intonation as the original. The Listener will listen and judge whether or not Carl and Russell have used the correct stress and intonation by comparing their speech with the transcript.

The last station was the presentation workshop station, where students helped each other to prepare for their presentation.

Presentation Workshop Station

At this station you will use the first half of the time to work independently on creating the questions for your presentation. The second half of the time will be used to get some feedback from your group members and make sure your questions are grammatically accurate.

Step 1: Use the Presentation Preparations worksheet to begin listing your questions. Make sure all your questions are on the same topic. Think about the way we asked follow-up questions yesterday. You should ask questions that anyone can answer.

Step 2: Work with your group members. Ask them your questions. Do your questions make sense? Are they grammatically correct? Give each other some feedback.

Step 3: Practice giving your survey to your group members. Track their answers on the grid in the worksheet.

In this session, we incorporated quite a few movies into our class. In the future, I’m looking forward to developing a repertoire of movies/movie clips, which I can use to target specific grammar and/or pronunciation teaching. Below are some examples of how we used movies in our OC class.

1. Practice simple past and past progressive

Movie Scene Description

Step 1: Partner A will watch the scene that is loaded on the iPad without showing Partner B. (the sound should be off!) Partner A must describe what is happening in the scene.

Partner B will listen to what Partner A is describing and try to picture what it looks like.

Partner C will listen and make a list of the things that are happening. (Use the Notes section below)

Step 2: After the scene has ended, Partner B will watch and describe the scene to Partner C. Partner A will make a list of the things that are happening.

Step 3: This time Partner C will watch and describe, Partner A will listen and Partner B will make a list.

Step 4: Once all partners have described the scene, you will work together to explain what happened in the scene. Remember that you have completed watching it, so you should make sure that you use past and past progressive to describe the scene.

 Notes:

2. Practice pausing and reduction

http://movieclips.com/fxZU-how-to-train-your-dragon-movie-stop-being-all-of-you/ (movieclips.com: great resource!)

Be Dramatic!

Instructions: We have talked a little bit about using rhythm. As you listen to the following clip from the movie How to Train Your Dragon, mark the places where you heard pausing. As you listen a second time, listen for any reductions (remembering that function words are often reduced!). Then, work with your partner and decide who will be Craig and who will be Hiccup. Practice your scene, paying specific attention to your rhythm.

Craig: Up!

Hiccup: Oh come on! Let me out please! I need to make my mark.

Craig: Oh you made plenty of marks. All in the wrong places!

Hiccup: Please, two minutes. I’ll kill a dragon, my life will get infinitely better. I might even get a date.

Craig: You can’t lift the hammer, you can’t swing an axe, you can’t even throw one of these!

Hiccup: Ok fine, but this will throw it for me.

Craig: See now this right here is what I’m talkin’ about!

Hiccup: But it’s a mild calibration issue…

Craig: …don’t…no. If you ever want to get out there to fight dragons you need to stop all…this.

Hiccup: But you just pointed to all of me.

Craig: Yes! That’s it! Stop being all of you.

Hiccup: Oooooooooh

Craig: Oooooh yeah

Hiccup: You, you sir are playing a dangerous game. Keeping this much raw Vikingness contained. There will be consequences!

Craig: I’ll take my chances.

3. Practice pronunciation; attend to everything!

Movie dubbing project

To complete your movie dubbing assignment, please keep these dates in mind:

• A complete transcript including marks for sentence stress, intonation, pausing, and reductions is due in class on Thursday, May 30.

• You should be prepared to perform your scene (using your script minimally) for the class on Monday, June 3.

• Your final movie dubbing clip is due in class on Wednesday, June 5.

Following the get passives exercise, I did one listening activity about passive voice. Below’s the handout I used for that activity. For part 1: I played the news twice, and asked the students to share their understanding of the news in groups. Then I played the news a third time, and then asked the students to complete part 2.  I think this activity went well since students not only practiced passive voice but also learned some new vocabulary items, such as trap, transport, and approve. Moreover, the students found the news a little bit challenging, therefore I encouraged them to listen to more news on a daily basis, which I believe could help them advance to higher levels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzCsObEEHSQ

Part 1: Listen to the news, take notes, and summarize the key information.

As you listen, please pay attention to:

• Who is it about?

• What happened?

• When did it take place?

• Where did it take place?

• Why did it happen?

Part 2: Use passive voice to fill in the blanks.

One person 1) ___________________ and another seriously 2) _____________ in a parking garage collapse at the Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda on Thursday, May 23th.

Both individuals are construction workers who 3)_________________ when a 50,000-pound section of the concrete parking garage fell.

Emergency workers responded to the call for the collapsed structure and rescued the survivor late Thursday afternoon. After more than four hours’ efforts, the man 4)____________________ to a waiting helicopter and 5)________________ to hospital.

The three-story parking garage was undergoing renovations and 6)____________ to the public at the time of the collapse. This construction project 7)_________ first _____________ by the county in 2005.

Reference answer keys:

1) was killed 2) injured 3) were trapped 4) was transported 5) taken 6) closed 7) was approved

Overall, I feel so rewarded to have had the opportunity to work with Jen Hickey at the IESL program. Her years of experience really helped me to learn so much more and faster than had I taught a course on my own. It was both a blessing and a curse to have taught a content-based elective course. In addition to not knowing very much about media literacy, Jen and I also often had difficulties planning our units and lessons because we felt so overwhelmed by the amount we could teach, with the little amount of time that we had. Although it was difficult for us at times, I am grateful that it was. It isn’t often that I can work under such an experienced teacher. So it was great being able to learn how to teach a class that has a difficult theme from Jen. I feel more equipped to teach a course with a hard topic in the future!

My relationship with the students was…interesting. Of the ten students in the class, only two of them were new, and the rest had been attending the IESL program in previous sessions. I have been working for the program for over a year now as an Activity Guide and a workstudy in the office, so the majority of the students knew me well at the beginning of the course. They’re views of me were more as a peer and a friend, rather than as a teacher–which proved to be an interesting dynamic in the classroom. I feel like they were more willing to open up to me because they were comfortable with me. At the same time, however, it was difficult for me to feel like they respected the deadlines for homework assignments. Perhaps they felt that since I’m so relaxed and they view me as their equal that they could turn in assignments late. It was difficult for me to establish a relationship with them involving that kind of respect.

One aspect of teaching this course that was a good learning experience was the process of lesson planning. Near the beginning of the course I would write out elaborate and detailed lesson plans. As the class progressed, however, I felt my lesson plans lessening in the amount of detail. Instead, I trusted my instinct more with the tasks being done and the progression of the class periods.

I also, and most importantly, felt my ability to give instructions improve. When I first started teaching the class, I couldn’t give very clear instructions and I would fumble my words often. However, I noticed considerable improvement throughout the weeks. Hurray!

What a great experience this has been… 😀