Thursday, March 29, 2012
Pei Pei's Lesson
Happy Birthday to you......! She sang as she walked into her class. She discussed the occasion and when she got her students engaged, she moved on to a map. Students had to 'read' a map and answer her qs about preposition. I had no idea how the 2 activities were connected. Until she distributed a birthday invite and a map for students to answer questions. This is great! Students get to read something other than an article! BUT, Pei, the bday boy is a 12 year old? Why cant we make him 16? Another concern discussed was the 2 different sheets given to low and high proficiency students. When one group discussed an answer from their sheet, the other group was not involved and did not know what was happening. Some thoughts were shared in class about this. Do you remember them?
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Good points—a very lovely, lively, zealous and interesting English teacher. With her friendly attitude and smile, students are more willingly to participate in her class. A surprising set induction, straightforward emphasis on the lesson—prepositions and various teaching aids—map and invitation card including reading passage, the learning outcome of the lesson is well achieved.
ReplyDeleteAspects to work on—There is a breakdown between the set-induction and the preposition learning stage. Pei Pei could have provided a transitional period during the two activities. Maybe she can put forward the invitation card and tell students they are invited to a birthday party, then she introduced the preposition used in passage, after that, students are required to make sentences after learning the usage of “on, at, beside etc.” in context.
Good points - the happy birthday singing part was very cute (it's a shame that no one actually had a birthday on that day - would be a great idea if one or more students had had a birthday). The instructions were clear, and the idea was very good (connecting the map with prepositions), overall great class!
ReplyDeletePoints to work on - I think the solution for the two different activities could have been that every one gets the cross word, but the students with higher level could get the other worksheet as an extra, a challenge. If the class was of 30 students it would be hard to seat them lower+higher for this activity, hence it's better to have them do the same activity to avoid "but I want this! it's not fair!'. In fact, if the lower proficiency students have finished their crossed word and wanted to have the q&a sheet as well just to check their abilities, why not! Even low profie students like be challenged at times :)
I personally think singing for her induction session is VERY COURAGEOUS. It shows that she may be tiny but packs a punch as a reliable educator! Though so, she moved on so suddenly to preposition that I lost connection with the earlier idea. She could fix this by asking the students where did they have their birthday and how did they get there.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that she separate the class means she has to remember who has higher proficiency and who needs more help, which requires the teacher to know her class very well. Also, realistically, both level of proficiency may sit very far apart and purposely pairing them like this consumes time and raise unnecessary questions. I would suggest to give them the same materials and those whom are done could move on to the next set of activities.