Category: Reflections

For this reflection I observed a meeting of the Conversation Club on January 27, 2021. One of the first activities was a fill-in-the-blank exercise, but I noticed that when the instructor offered students to volunteer an answer, the students didn’t seem keen to participate. However, the fill-in-the-blank exercise did a good job at promoting specific answers from the students. Because the questions were not open-ended, students were restricted to a specific range of responses that challenged them. The instructor was able to successfully get students to participate in the fill-in-the-blank exercise both by gently encouraging the group to respond voluntarily and by calling on individual students to participate. As each student provided their response, the professor used it as an opportunity to start conversations with them and encourage them to speak more in the dialogue. The next exercise involved the interactive whiteboard. The instructor displayed an image of a circle and asked students to mark their hover their cursor in a position around the circumference. Then, the instructor moved clockwise around the circle asking each student to utter a phrase in the style of “I like [X], how about you, [classmate]?” We went around the circle twice, giving students multiple occasions to come up with new questions. Students were more willing to participate in this exercise as well, as I think the circular order made their participation feel inevitable rather than optional.

For this reflection I observed an online video resource demonstrating an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) class recorded in Korean classroom.  That which most stood out to me was the rapid rate of speed at which the instructor delivered his lesson. It was clear the students were used to the routine as the instructor moved briskly through different stages of the activity. First the students listened to a pre-recorded dialogue, then the instructor re-read the dialogue to them. After that, the instructor began engaging individual students, asking them to perform the dialogue with him. Another highlight of this observation was the seamless transitions between the native English speaker and the Korean instructor. They had the air of stage actors delivering a well-known, well-rehearsed performance. I was impressed by this, but I think I would hate it. It seemed clear that they were completely embedded within the structure of the lesson, like robots or something. The students seemed comfortable with this format, though, and in unison would chant correct responses to the queries of the instructors. The reason I find this unappealing is, on one hand, because it seems like too much work from an entry-level perspective. Personally, I am not thrilled at the prospect of rehearsing lessons and practicing lines so I can deliver mechanical lessons at breakneck speed. Students seemed to thoroughly enjoy the English song they listened to as part of their exercises. I was impressed with the courage of the English instructor when he sung the song to the children even though he cannot sing. After singing the song, the students were asked to sing along with the instructor. I think the use of songs within the lesson is very useful as melodies are inherently memorable—they get “stuck in your head,” as it were—meaning that the associated lyrics are likely to be more memorable as well.

For this reflection I refer to an online video resource surrounding the communicative approach. In the lesson, the instructor taught students how to build convincing arguments. The style of the instructor was “communicative” in that the bulk of the class consisted of him speaking directly with the students, both one-on-one and as a group. The instructor also had the class work in groups for a role-playing activity wherein each student played the part of a person trying to convince someone of something. This gave them an opportunity to practice structuring their arguments in the manner that the instructor laid out in the beginning of the lesson. The students seemed to adopt their roles naturally, and they were able to articulate succinct arguments in favor of living in either the city, the country, or a small town. This worked well as a topic because each student had genuine opinions which they were eager to express. The fact that students came from different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds encouraged them to speak in English, for it was the common language in which they could all communicate. After the group exercise the instructor called on individual students to make a case for their preferred location, and he used it as an opportunity to ask follow-up questions and assist students with challenging vocabulary. The choice to center the arguments around preferred locations was appropriate because it is a common subject of conversation which students are likely to encounter from day-to-day. For the homework assignment, students were asked to compose an argumentative piece of writing in the format that they practiced verbally that day. This gives students a natural opportunity to review the material they have already learned, which helps to solidify those concepts for maximal future benefit.

I observed the TRU conversation club on January 25^th. It was a lot of fun. It was also a good learning experience to see how the instructor led the students through conversations and dealt with challenges. The instructor centered the conversation around Friends, a popular American situational comedy from the 1990’s. Friends was a great topic for engaging the students because it has a huge international audience. It is also an appropriate topic because, at least in my experience, many people naturally enjoy talking about their favourite TV shows and characters, so it is the kind of conversation that will likely have in their day-to-day lives. The main exercise was a discussion about the different characters of the show. Students were asked one by one to describe each character, and the instructor engaged each one in a dialogue, encouraging them to expand and assisting them with vocabulary where needed. The character discussion challenged students to generate a lot of varied language to capture the disparities among the characters. One challenge, which I think is most common in the online environment but likely occurs in the classroom as well, was that some students were reluctant to speak. In most cases, the instructor was able to gently encourage them to turn their microphones on. Students also spoke at different levels within the class, and the instructor was able to successfully adjust her approach depending on the needs of the individual student with whom she was working.

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