The first session was really interesting, suggested points made me think about how I approach my students and how...
The first session was really interesting, suggested points made me think about how I approach my students and how they benefit from activities during the lesson.I have been teaching for many years and being reminded about the basic principles is always helpful. I work with adults and most of my courses are individual so I spent the week after the presentation thinking and evaluating how much my students learn and what added value they take from every lesson.
Listening is usually quite challenging for many students, they struggle in many ways. What seems to be working with business adults is clear communication of goals of every activity. I explain the purpose, tell them about gist and detail listening tasks and they respond to justification well. Students feel they know what the expectations are form them as they are used to performance indicators at work. The theory behind communicated briefly makes their teacher a respected authority and students actually find how things are done from the side of the teacher interesting. Adults want to hear the logic behind what they're asked to do in class and with a great deal of support they find listening tasks challenging and encouraging in the end. Pre-teaching with adults can often be reduced to minimum or even not done. Asking adults to predict what listening might be about is highly motivating. Business people know a lot about the topics and are excited to talk in general and share their best practices. Finally, it's important to give them feedback on how they did and ask them how they perceived the activity and their performance. Their view on how they dealt with the tasks is a valuable piece of information for the teacher.
I would like to share one teaching tip that has been working with my students recently. When I teach vocabulary, we work with monolingual dictionary all the lesson long. We copy entries of new words or expression and students create their personalised dictionaries. They download these word documents to their phones and study whenever there's some spare minute during their busy day. I create gap-filled exercises afterwards, it's a fantastic warmer for the following lesson. We analyse the usage of particular words, recycle a range of meanings plus add L1 translation to make sure students understand the word properly. I find it essential to help the students develop the habit of autonomous learning. Moreover, once the course is finished, students see how much we've covered and how much they've learnt. And that's highly rewarding for them.
Listening is usually quite challenging for many students, they struggle in many ways. What seems to be working with business adults is clear communication of goals of every activity. I explain the purpose, tell them about gist and detail listening tasks and they respond to justification well. Students feel they know what the expectations are form them as they are used to performance indicators at work. The theory behind communicated briefly makes their teacher a respected authority and students actually find how things are done from the side of the teacher interesting. Adults want to hear the logic behind what they're asked to do in class and with a great deal of support they find listening tasks challenging and encouraging in the end. Pre-teaching with adults can often be reduced to minimum or even not done. Asking adults to predict what listening might be about is highly motivating. Business people know a lot about the topics and are excited to talk in general and share their best practices. Finally, it's important to give them feedback on how they did and ask them how they perceived the activity and their performance. Their view on how they dealt with the tasks is a valuable piece of information for the teacher.
I would like to share one teaching tip that has been working with my students recently. When I teach vocabulary, we work with monolingual dictionary all the lesson long. We copy entries of new words or expression and students create their personalised dictionaries. They download these word documents to their phones and study whenever there's some spare minute during their busy day. I create gap-filled exercises afterwards, it's a fantastic warmer for the following lesson. We analyse the usage of particular words, recycle a range of meanings plus add L1 translation to make sure students understand the word properly. I find it essential to help the students develop the habit of autonomous learning. Moreover, once the course is finished, students see how much we've covered and how much they've learnt. And that's highly rewarding for them.
Wow. Your dictionary work sounds like it helps students be more self-reliant. I wonder, do they find that the meanings in dictionaries are more difficult to understand than the words themselves and that it's not always easy to select the meaning that fits the context they're referring to? Those are my own worries about using monolingual dictionaries with students.
ReplyDeleteAnne Hendler Well, working on monolingual dictionary in class is a good practice. I find the online dictionary by Macmillan extremely helpful, since the definitions and the example phrases are both short and clear. I've been using it for a while with both teenagers and adults and it really works. I also use Google with advanced/upper-int students: first they look up the word on the online dictionary (on their phones), then, if they are not sure of the meaning, they google more examples, so that they can see the word in different contexts. Here I guide them to select the most reliable sources (an online newspaper rather than 'yahoo answers'!) and to reflect on the different use of the same word. I think that the 'selection' process you mentioned should be done in class, with the teacher as a guide and reference point.
ReplyDeleteAt the high level of the students here it's clear that they can benefit from the use of monolingual dictionaries. There's a problem of time, of course - it takes a lot longer to look up a word than simply ask the teacher - but on the other hand you are fostering good habits of autonomy and dictionary use. Another problem is, as Anne says, that sometimes they choose the wrong meaning out of several available in the dictionary; but Katarina solves this neatly by adding an L1 translation to check they have the right one. With lower level learners I tell them to use bilingual dictionaries - quicker and easier for them to access the meaning of the word, or (if I'm not at this point focusing on developing dictionary skills) simply ask me. I'm probably the best dictionary available in their classroom!
ReplyDeleteI've been using a decent English-Spanish / Spanish English dictionary with my students in Ecuador (I took plenty of copies to the jungle as well). I also teach the phonemic chart and the phonetic symbols early on saying that if they learn it well, they will be able to pronounce any of the 2 million English words on their own - without me.
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