Star Wars!

The presentation given by the group 6 was like a brief show of the movie,Star Wars. The background music of the movie and funny props really fostered my interest in what was going to learn. Vincent, Hyde, Billy and Harry were all inherent actors. They seemed to quite enjoy what they were doing and be good at giving us deadpan humor which I found it made their acting more entertaining. I appreciated that students were exposed to the reading material with a literature content emphasizing the concept that reading enhances writing skills. I totally agree with it. However, it would be better to simplify the content. On the other hand, I like the activity that students were asked to write about how they introduce Tamsui if someone visits, since it has something to do with students’ personal experiences. But there was a downside that the group 6 seemed to give little responce and evaluation on our writing. I felt I just producing with no feedbacks from teachers or peers. As we all know, writing involves many skills and there’s still room for us to teach writing.

Feedback on Teaching Reading

Well, our presentation didn’t come out all right. These continuous sections of teaching reading, pre-reading, during-reading and after-reading, have something to be adjusted and modified. In the initial warm-up, we used power point as our teaching aid. To draw the link between students’ prior knowledge and the topic we were going to present, we then tried to display the picture of General MacArthur and a string of questions on the author. The teaching moved on to the main body which generally works in the mode of teacher-centered. I think it is alright to be teacher-led at times but somehow it is hard to get students’ attention. To get away from this possibility, we strived for figuring out what kind of “garnish” could be with the “meal.” To be honest, I like the “synonym” part and sentence making. Finally, the teaching ended with 4R activity which is similar to the information hunting. Well…I got to say sorry to all of you since the worksheet seemed a bit hard for you. I thought that all of you would certainty see the sheet as a walk in the park, so I made it much more challenging. This was my first time to prepare the worksheet on gap filling. And I’m about to keep this in my mind. Again feel sorry about that.
By the way, the two songs I played as the backgroud music were as follows, hope you enjoy it!^^
1. Sugar Ray – Answer The Phone
2. Avril Lavigne – Runaway

Group3 and Croup4, Good for You!

In everyone’s perception, it is undebatable that the abilities of listening and speaking are connected tightly. For group3, it is effective to present a film without showing its subtitles as the warm-up. However, there is one thing I’d like to point out. The worksheet which group3 passed down left me with a bit haste to fill the gaps on it. Maybe it’ll be well modified to leave much amount of words between each blank. On the other hand, I agree with the repetition of role plays which students can be well informed and get to be familiar with the vocabulary. The teaching sequences of group3 are fairly smooth as a whole.
As for group4, wow…the presentation was not so much a real lesson as a TV program. Like the group3, they did well in warm-up. It could be told that they tried their best to create a learning situation authentic to the real life. In addition, I like the website they displayed as the presentation of ppp strategy. The visual aid was graphic and in turn I could focus my concentration all the way to the end of their presentation. Today’s both groups did excellently and had something in common. Among the similarities we’ve talked in class, role play is the part I’m particularly interested in. Since it not only triggers learners’ attention to their peer’s acting, but allows them get to familiarize with the learning concept effectively by way of the process of acting.

About Grammar Teaching

I found that Group Two provided a quite smooth transition during their presentation. As the first presenter, Shirley did her job that she gave students clear instructions about what they were going to show in class. Besides, I really appreciated that they applied a game as the warm-up activity. It was a nice shot indeed, since my concentration was caught and I kept looking forward to what the coming show was. Still, there was a great interaction between the teacher and students. In a word, Group Two really succeeded in meeting those points which I think they are rather difficult to achieve as a beginner.

To strike a balance between both extremes of a structured based curriculum and the interaction in class, I have an idea that playing board games might be helpful. Once I went to Wall Street language institution, I found board games were largely used in class, including Snakes & Ladders and clue games. A foreign teacher would explain the targeted grammar structure first by presenting a certain situation or story telling. Then it was time to practice by playing board games which were structure-based communicative activities. While students were involved in the game, our foreign teacher jotted down mistakes we made. Later on, teacher explained proper usage of words and grammar in response. I think that teaching grammar in this way quite fits into cognitive approach to the communicative one.

Comments for Group #1

It’s admirable that you shot the film by yourselves. In the self-made video, your acting is quite natuarally. This video certainly draw my attention. Apart from what we evaluate in class about your weaknesses, you seemed to leave a moment of blank during the transition to another activity. That’s why my excitement failed to last all the way to the end of your presentation. Anyway, I like your self-made video. Good for you!:-)