Monday 23rd November 2009

Every other Monday I have half of the class of second graders. Today I had the high level half and we worked on careers and the past progressive.

Although we had done the stepping stone activity but on different target language two months ago they didn’t mind re-doing the activity which I feared.

My impression is that my students are happy to repeat activities so long as two months or more has elapsed before repeating them and that the target language isn’t being repeated either.

The 2-2 boys showed reluctance at first to complete the writing activity but the stamp system I’ve implemented generate ppp and so the students make an effort to write their sentences in order to be awarded with a stamp.

24th November 2009 

Morning 

The musical chairs activity with 1-4 girls took a while to arouse their enthusiasm. I sense that it was not only because these activities were novel to them and took a while for them to understand how to engage in and complete the activity.

What's more, the classroom arrangement wasn’t as good as it could have been. There shouldn’t have been a line of students sitting behind another where they could hide from my gaze for example.

After thinking about how to arrange the classroom after the classes in order to play the musical chairs game and to have everybody in my sight I’ve designed a seating arrangement that should achieve this and should make therefore playing the language game an enjoyable one for all the students.

The classroom is small in comparison to my classroom at Seongsan. I have 36 students in the class and 26 tables. To play the game I need a U-shape and every student has to have a desk. The trouble is to make a U-shaped classroom with there being a desk for each student there isn’t enough space for the complete U-shape of desks can only reach 22 tables.

Therefore I have 22 tables and I need 36 more. However all I can add are 7 more desks to form a square that makes 29 desks for 29 students but there remain 7 students without desks.

To squeeze them in I‘ve chosen seven spots in the classroom where these seven students can sit in between students at their desks. The seven extra tables which’ll make the square are at the beginning of the lesson lined in two rows in front of the Teacher at the front of the class in the middle of the U-shape.

When the musical chairs game commences these seven tables and chairs will be moved by the students to make the square. On these tables I will put a A4 shaped piece of paper  wth 2 written on it which means that when the game commences two students will be at these tables but at all the other tables only one student can sit.

When the game finishes the seven students will return their seven desks to the row position in the middle of the classroom for the subsequent activity.

I feel that if I had come up with this seating arrangement plan before I had my lessons with 1-4 girls they would have enjoyed the activity more.

With 1-3 girls I did the lesson on careers and was going to do the musical chairs activity with them but thought best not to because this morning they were unusually noisy and I didn’t want to do an active activity to make them even noisier so we went straight onto the worksheets and it hushed them immediately !

This was clear enough for me to realize that they are above all passive learners so I won’t do many active activities with them in the future.

Having said that though, although 1-3 seem to be more passive learners they do like diversity such as oscillating active and passive activities and so I will make sure that they will participate in this activity the next time I teach them and I'm even keener on playing the language game with them with the knowledge of how well it went with the second grader boys with the better seating arrangement.

I will also make a point of doing it again with 1-4 girls too hoping that they’ll be more enthusiastic with the seating arrangement being better organized.

I must also make sure the textual information on their matchbox-sized cards is not too difficult for them. Many of the students in this class (1-4 girls) have difficulty reading English so I will keep textual information small and simple.   

The classic bingo activity with 1-4 girls took a while to arouse their enthusiasm which we did afterwards. However this was in aprt because their interest in the lesson had waned because of the not so perfect organisation of the musical chairs we'd ahd done before and also because this Bingo activity was unfamiliar to them.  

I noticed however that once they did get the gist I was able to leave them to their own devices and they completed the exercise all on their own and with enthusiastic gusto ! :o) 

Afternoon 

Well the musical chairs game went perfectly with the second grader boys 2-1 and 2-2. Enthusisam was high and language use was in full swing so the seating arrangement worked which means I will set up the same seating arrangement when I play the musical chairs activity next with the first grader girls.

However the classic bingo game didn’t arouse much enthusiasm with 2-1 boys maybe because there involved a lot of writing. I’ll make sure the next time there won’t be so much writing involved. Also I’ll favour using my variations of bingo which have aroused enthusiasm before with this class. Alternatively after an active game like musical chairs these students appear happy to spend the rest of the lesson completing passive activities like putting dialogue into order, matching up exercises etc.

I learnt today that one of the secretaries at Pyeosan Middle School majored in English language education so I’ll see what knowledge we can share in the future.

25th November 2009

As myself and CT  had hoped my idea of the diamond class lesson went marvelously well with the second grader girls (2-4, 2-3) at Seongsan and with the boys (2-1, 2-2).

Although the latter were noisy they were less noisy than when they were a whole class working together on the same exercise. As a result, they were easier to manage.

Indeed, instead of having to control 36 students while they completed an activity I only had 18 and my CT the other 18 and as they were separated there was less distraction and so they were more focused on the lesson.

The two groups we separated the class into were divided into levels one high the other low. As a result, the better students weren’t dominating over the other lower leveled students and the latter seeing that the competition was fairer didn’t withdraw as before and participated more.

We also made a point of separating the most disruptive students so they couldn’t distract each other which again made class management even easier.

The other advantage of arranging the class in this way is that it prevents shy or unwilling students from hiding themselves behind the others in the back row.

Also, the language games I play with them are easier to conduct in these smaller numbers than a whole class of 30 to 36.

26th November 2009

All the hard work that goes into preparing material, activities and making the lessons with my students different each week is worth it when, like today, the students not only progressed in English but also enjoyed it immensely.

It’s also proof for me that the lesson I prepare are pushing all the right buttons because the students are so actively involved in them. The dominoes language game we played a month ago for example aroused so much interest that now they want to play it again !

27th November 2009

A colleague yesterday complained to me while we were having lunch of how difficult it is to get some students interested in learning English and how much they misbehave (playing truant, showing no interest in the subject, being rude) and how difficult it is to make them better behave.

She told me that even the penalty point system which is implemented in all schools in Jeju doesn’t work here nor does corporal punishment because the students just aren’t afraid of it and most students’ parents she said don’t care much about their childrens’ education in this area of Seongsan for they see the school as a means to be free of their children for the day.

As a result, the task of getting students’ disciplined is even harder because they don’t have the help of their parents.

It’s then when I mentioned Michael Gurian’s advice in his book Boys and Girls Learn Differently of schools encouraging community collaboration from retirees and volunteers and the success they’ve had in improving student behaviour. She thanked me for the advice and expressed agreement in the idea. Will such a project be implemented ? It remains to be seen.

Her observation  that most students’ parents don’t care much about their children’s education in this area of Seongsan for they see the school as a means to be free of their children for the day may in part explain why my first grade students are so audible, immature and restless as they were today during the diamond class which paradoxically  worked fantastically well this morning with the first grader girls as it did with the second graders.

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They (the first grader boys) never stop moving about, talking, shouting even, and sparring with their classmates before during and after the lesson !

My colleagues observation makes me lead to the assumption that discipline at home has to be loose or their parents or whoever parents them don’t convey to their children the importance of getting an education and how to behave in school.

Are these first grader students so audibile in other classes ? If not why are they so in my class ? What can be done to reduce their audibility ? What can be done to make them better learners for the benefit of all ?

Over the last three months I’ve done all I can to enhance the effectiveness of my teaching and their learning ability but still the students can’t behave in a mature studious way even though they show an active  interest in me and in coming to my lessons !

What’s interesting is that the students are aware that they’re misbehaving because they apologise to me as soon as I give them the silent treatment and quieten down for a few minutes then the noise level rises again ad infinitum.

I don’t dislike my first grader boys at all at Seongsan I just wish they’d be more mature and self-disciplined. It’s as if Michael Gurian’s observation that the cognitive and bodily transformations which affect their learning ability is so severe with these students (30+ in each class) except a few, that they cannot control themselves no matter how much I try to make the activities of my lessons take into consideration these body transformations to maximize their learning ability.

According to a friend of mine who was born and raised in Jeju the rowdy temperament the majority f my first grader students  may in part be explained by the fact that in contrast to the schools in Sang-Ju and Andong and other towns in Gyeonsanbuk-do (where the students I had certainly weren’t as rowdy as the ones I have in jeju) Confucianism has had less influence in Jeju.

This suggests that families from Gyeonsang-buk-do unlike families in Jeju make more of an effort to instill Confucianist values such as obedience to parents, elders and teachers and appropriate behaviours toward these member of the family and society and as a result behavior in the classroom is somewhat calmer and more disciplined in schools in Gyeonsanbuk-do than in Jeju-do well at least in Seongsan and Pyeosan where I teach. Thsi view is corroborated when we take into consideration the complaint of another colleague who stated that the parents of students in Seongsana nd Pyeosan see school as more of means to free of their children than to be a place where they're edcuated.

Although the majority of my first grader boys fit Michael Gurian’s description of boys whose learning ability is hindered by cognitive and bodily transformations  there are a few who are exceptions to this rule. Indeed, there are some boys who are islands of calm, maturity, self-discipline and self-composure in a sea of noisy, undisciplined and immature students.

This sounds rather harsh and should be balanced with my observation that these unacademic characteristics of the students constitute a mask for I sense that beneath this mask which is perhpas put on due to negative peer pressure (it's uncool to be studious negative peer pressure) there is potential for the students to progress and to be as good as the higher-leveled students int he class.

Perhaps the families of these students have successfully instilled the Confucianist values mentioned above which I feel they have for I was treated with utmost respect when I met some of their parents on a field trip last Saturday.

These students yearn for a more studious environment and with this aim in mind have even voluntarily taken on the role of teacher assistant into making the other students quieten down and to focus more.