Monday, May 17, 2010

Redundancy, Repetition good or bad?


I would safely say, "Not all repetition is bad for you", from the very book I read recently " Everything bad is good for you".
The very most common issue that bores students especially ESOL learners, is the repetition and redundancy of materials that has nothing new for them but that they have to master it, and will they?!

Well, they come close, but it takes a while.

Now, if we look at life, it is all redundant and it IS all repetition. The trick is how to fascinate ourselves with less of repeated but creative materials so we have more hope for future.

Now, in this regard, Classes taught online, bear a heavier shoulder in taking matters seriously. A class taught traditionally has more freedom, of exploring and playing around in other words. But, in an online class, you have to be creative. you have to present the redundant materials in a flashy attractive way to engage students to participate, or else, the class would be more of a passive environment with no interaction from the learners' side.

Giving such tasks to students to design their class, like searching website for content materials, linking to audio or video files, and using annotation tool bars to draw,write and answer questions, working in groups, using camera to connect with peers and in a word creating a virtual world of living environment, not only simulates a safe environment for learners but affords them with real scenarios that they can empathize, synchronize, give meanings, tell stories, play and finally design their own learning styles. (D.Pink )

Last week, I was teaching Car related issues, such as Car Rental, Auto Mechanics, and Roads & Routes to my students of level one adult foreign language learners.
The designing from my side was creating communicatve lesson plans on powerpoints, so they could use in class and I had in mind to engage them verbally as much as I could. It turned out that they all had better exciting stories to tell, when it came to sharing their experiences on road, and the problems with car. Not only the class moved on naturally and in an amazing fast speed, but rather it was not me, trying to engage the students but they themselves had taken control. I was only there to correct their sentence orders or pronounciations.It was time to fade away,though!

The Twilight Zone (1/2 hr) - I Sing The Body Electric

The Twilight Zone (1/2 hr) - I Sing The Body Electric
I sing the body Electric and Bicentennial man, the two print we had this semester and their differences with film form, encouraged me to practice a new method and desing in practicing video lesson plans in my class.
This time I had a class of kids around 4-6 years old, whom we used to watch and practice Nickjr shows in order to develop their preschool learning and also the target language.
The difference this time in my class was providing them with the Print copies of activities after watching the show and YES! it did made a big difference. Even after two weeks after the class, kids were still talking about the show, had kept their print copies, done and RE-done the activities and wanted more!

So next time, I asked them to choose a show and the activities they wanted to practice and they all wanted to have both the print and film ( movie ) format of the show. As if when they had the print copy in their little hands, they could touch the characters and they could communicate and get in touch with them closer. They had more fun in class and they even went that far of Encoding and playing the show out!

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Movie Theater


when I was a young girl,I used to take extra classes after school learning English as a foreign language in a Language school. There they had this big movie theater which to me at that time, was like a real big cinema, where girls were not allowed to go on their own. But this one was school's and they showed current and old movies in English. Students of higher levels used to go with their instructors to watch the movie and discuss afterwards. I was in a lower level class, so we had to sit and memorize the new vocabulary or repeat drills or listen to our instructor explaining about grammar and its Exceptions! Thanks to them all, ( I myself am a instructor now, and now how it feels to be under-appreciated for all the work you do )but it was boring, way boring for me.I sometimes skipped my class and instead went to that movie theater and sat on the very first rows,One, because nobody could see me and Two, I could absorb the film with all my body and mind.It was as if all the screen was mine and I was part of the movie and I listened and I watched..... with all my heart....
This is mainly the way I learned my English langugae. I used to watch a lot of movies in native language, I used to listen to a lot of tapes ( at that time we only had cassette tapes ), and I used to find any means of cultural connections with that language.
When I was in China, also, though I took a few courses in Chinese, but I mainly picked my Chinese with the random daily conversation I had with the people on the street, or from watching a lot of Chinese original movies.
There were times, where I was criticized for showing my students movies in class, and wasting students' time for watching just! movie. I didn't take them seriously because I believed in what I was doing. Learning a language is nothing but listening and absorbing the culture of that language into your lungs. At times, I asked my students to grab a movie in English, and watch it and write the expressions down, write the summary of the story and come back to class, presenting the story to class. It was not in the curriculum, but at the end the result was much better compared with other classes, if not in written or grammar, but in real conversational English, the reason they had registered in those classes after all.
Today, I am teaching my own native language to students here, and I am still asking them to try to watch movies in the target languge as much as possible. Talk shows, comedis, sitcomes, news, reports, films and any means of listening and cultural activities. Sometime they themselves, bring a movie to class, and want me to work on it with them. It is not only me teaching, but them designing their class the way they want it and learning what they want to learn.I just watch them, guide them, and by the end fade away. I hear them in the next door, sitting around the table and discussing the topic in the target language.