Improving the exchange ratios by crossing the blood brain barrier

Diagram of the blood-brain-barrier

For some reason that probably dwells somewhere back in my childhood, I tend to resist change. Perhaps it was the confusion of an Asian upbringing (Endo environment) within a Western culture (exo environment). Maybe I’m stuck between the SCT stages of object as to other and object as to self. Gah. I wish the methodology would permeate the blood brain barrier as easy as the anti-histamines I’m taking at the moment. But I digress

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The improved CIs have seen action and have survived first contact. The aim was to get the student talking to themselves, initially at whatever utterance level. It works, but I’ve pruned a lot of other question-answer dialogic back. These are really open and direct questions. Starters and salutations for real conversations between L1 speakers but, I think the students don’t see the point. But the students are talking to each other, and that is a stride towards a communicative conversation. The next stop on this train of thought is to make feedback communicative. Have the students answer the mis-statement.

I revisited my MT video and tallied up the TTT/STT ratio and the final figure was 10:4.5. Okay, it was a lot of instruction giving but, I’ve got to stop responding to every student utterance. Everything that the teacher says is processed by the student. Sure a conversation has utterances and confirmations, and the flipside is that if the listener is utterly stoic, it lends the wrong impression. But what is the right ‘exchange ratio?’ In the Vietnam war, the exchange ratios were down to 3:1. Multi-million dollar aircraft were falling to aircraft that were much cruder and much, much less sophisticated aircraft that what their aircraft had been designed to fight. The US navy realized that the neophyte pilots needed practice in air to air engagements. By the end of the war, the ratio was back up to closer to 13:1. I consider myself going to a training facility that makes good teachers better. (Please excuse the superlative). It’s time to improve the exchange ratios.

Filling in the holes in the plot, changing that alternative universe

The lesson is a speaking/ listening task, with the students doing a dictagloss task. My students (ably played by my STG classmates) are at Elementary level, though at the higher end of Novice mid/ high.

This past week, I’d been taking medication to aid the condition of my skin. A combination of corticosteroids and antihistamines, there’s no pleasure with this concoction. They made writing this lesson plan more difficult than others. But having said that , it’s like I’ve taken a retrograde step in my teaching methodology. I’ve got the minimum level of CIs. There was no ICQs on the instruction giving.

The plus side is that it is a creative  lesson plan, with plenty of student to student interaction.  I had gotten interest from my students, laid down a goal for the task and had them literally running about. The sad thing is that I didn’t put out the reading material out in the hallway for the ‘students’ to read. Talk about anticipation. Ouch, that is embarrassing.

How about the follow on to this lesson? Maybe borrowing Doctor Who’s TARDIS for the day, but to quote one of the lines from the show “Time can be re-written” and “This is a fixed point in time”. Talk about a plot hole. The later one of these is more true, and according to current Quantum theory, requires a huge amount of energy, and a journey back in time to the juncture point, far enough to change the current outcome. The parallel theory to this is, that at each juncture point, alternative universes exist. So technically, there is a universe where I did do well, and also a universe where I am also a manager of a super market.

But, I digress. Note to self, the CI’s available to you do work, but take time to implement. The results are good, but will take a little time to do. They work on a small scale, why not use them for all of the tasks, not just one? I’ve used a student to student interaction pattern quite successfully in my 4^th and 5^th grade classes. It works. I need to think about the other parts of the front end and change that accordingly. Have the students say “how do you feel?” to each other, have the students ask aloud “what day is it?”

Oh, yeah one last thing to note, was the acknowledgements given to the students. As far as evaluative speech goes, I think I've cracked it.

As for the other holes in this plot, more thought needs to be put into it, with a clearer head.

ICC(ky) and boring from old men and students

The lesson started off well, with the students ably remembering the names of the birds (was not the idea but had them watch the video). In some cases they got to watch the video again. No problem. Some issues with the Kiwi accent at the beginning, with the word ‘Moa’ [mɒʊər] being a problem. The kids had no problem writing, in sentences, to describe the old men in the advertisement, and then old men of Korea. Grandfathers.

What was a problem was finding words to describe peoples’ feelings or personalities. Even a sixth grader at this school would encounter difficulty in doing this. The vocabulary problem was not anticipated and therefore not planned for. It would be an uncomfortable 10 minutes during the class, and throughout the whole day that I was scheduled to run the lesson. However it was an uncomfortable 10 minutes that I’d had in a very long while. Still, it was noted by one of my students today that an analogy (in the form of two drawn straight lines) was it was like describing two things the same. In a word he was right. That the physical traits of Grandfathers from either country can be counted as the same but the personas, inaccessible to them and, by no fault of their own, unrecognized. Though the form was there (he/ she is + adjective) the adjectives in question hadn’t been taught or the themes broached, are not taught until middle school at least.

The salient message of this experience is, design a lesson to communicate an idea, a lesson simple enough for fifth graders. I taught the class, but the message, had not really gotten through in my opinion.

A number of points come to mind:

• When dealing with students of limited vocabulary and communicative skills, keep the terminal objective simple, and easily accessible.
• If the students’ lexical knowledge doesn’t possess the desired items, teach it.
• The themes can potentially be above their understanding. Modulate accordingly.
• If you don’t know their level, ask.

Another lesson (re) learnt is that when students are bored, they will play, and , not do as they are told.

The MIC’s I tried came in the form of a worksheet, video and revision of previous target language. I tend to think no matter how well put together, the best interaction patterns or presentation can be derailed by bored students and a task that was a little bit beyond their reach. Perhaps i^th + 3. 

Evaluative speech, dread it

evaluative language

“positive or negative language that judges the worth of something. It includes language to express feelings and opinions, to make judgments about aspects of people such as their behaviour, and to assess the quality of objects such as literary works. Evaluations can be made explicit (for example, through the use of adjectives as in: ‘She’s a lovely girl’, ‘He’s an awful man’, or ‘How wonderful!’), however, they can be left implicit (for example, ‘He dropped the ball when he was tackled’, or ‘Mary put her arm round the child while she wept.’”

http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Glossary?a=E&t=evaluative+language

In giving a response to an answer it shouldn’t be judgemental. Giving an answer to a student’s answer should also be judgemental neutral. Since,  Tt>> S, Ss dialogue should sound as close to natural speech as possible. So… unless you’re planning to start a fight or are wanting to butter someone up, then the language should be neutral as possible.

Yes. It can be seen as a form of confirmation

Okay. Is, it seems, okay.

Roger. Too confusing and it belongs to something a pilot would say. I need a word of confirmation that is not here nor there.

Banana. Gooseberry. Car.  Apple. Bun.  Automobiles aside, banana has a slightly negative connotation to it, while apple has a slight positive one. Confirmation using bread? No, it’s just too wheaty. As for gooseberry, it would have about as much impact as a kiwifruit.

How about using a phrase to confirm?

That’s correct. Seems to be harmless enough as it indicates if you’re on the right track.

Can you think of any other phrases or words to say to students that is non-judgemental?

Wait, that was off the scale!

My work colleague and I usually go out of school to get a cola (or Pepsi in my case) . On  the way to the front gate, there, are of course students galore. It's their lunch break after all. One of my fourth graders said hello to me. Nuthin' unusual about that, I answered in kind and then asked the stereotypical response... "How are you?" A short pause and the reply was "I'm fine". I continued on to the corner superette and to my waiting Pepsi. I thought. She had thought. I'd gotten a genuine response, (in my opinion) and perhaps something that had the kernels of a conversation. She'd responded to my pause, and not choked. The patterns are getting through, and that, I do think I'm teaching them good habits. The next step would be to teach them reading and listening skills. Awkward, but not quite out of my control.

Return of the video nasties, repeat after me...

Awkward to teach at times as I co-teach with a KET. She's generally open to suggestions. So I can actually say that she's supportive of my efforts at SMU TESOL. Good stuff, but the annoying bits of teaching in a Korean classroom (not that I've known any other that I've taught in) is some of the classroom management techniques. That squeaky hammer is a right killer. The material is at times, kitsch, simplistic and extremely not conducive to communicative language teaching.

Thus far, I've worked on their pronunciation through repetition. Repetition. One more time is sometimes enough, but the definitions given to me was until they get it right. One more after that, perhaps. At this point in time I don't think I'm in danger of them getting bored at any point. Universally, the way they pronounce bedroom still sounds like bathroom to me. So, it's a [d]/[t] error. Drill and repeat. Wash, rinse, repeat. Keep at it. Repeat. Keep at it.

As far as TTT/ STT ratios goes, it's getting there. I just have to get off my butt and give the instruction. But, isn't that contributing to TTT also? The warm up activity is pretty well set, I could do with another, so I'll keep on thinking. It just occurred to me to recycle the target language content from previous lessons. Good for them, good for me, and they get their feedback at the end too.

Do I understand? Well, they hear me, but I have yet to think up a line of questioning to have them paraphrase my question. Sheesh, I just got here with the repeat after me routine, time for another. In line with my previous blog entries, developing the perfect CIm. Classroom Interaction method. Some militaries have something similar, in the form of a CEM. I'm not that lethal.

Oh, and here's my video nasty. It was done today, October 14, and is of one of my fourth grade classes. They're not a bad lot, with some inclination towards naughtiness. I'd taught the same type of lesson all morning but, as soon as that finger goes down on that record button all sorts of strange things start happening.

The take home message is, MIC (key mouse)

Seeing Professor Stephen Krashen yesterday was quite enlightening to say the least. Fun, entertaining and still very much young at heart, he went on to to spin a talk (you could hardly call it a lecture, could you?)

Pretty good, I had no problems taking in the talk as it was a talk I'd seen on Youtube. Still, for something that he's spoken about for a little over thirty years. Have things moved and progressed that slowly in the realm of language acquisition theory? Well, for such a contemporary message, he's gotten good mileage from it. Nice work if you can get it, but I'm not sure if I could get it, no matter how hard I tried.

Comprehensible input this definitely was, and all credit to Professor Krashen for making the message so easy to digest. Nothing MICkey Mouse about it, but the one thing that I found the most pertinent was Comprehensible input. For me the analogy is that it'd could turn out to be a useful tool in my arsenal of teaching methods. If I can make myself clearer to young, Elementary students, then that would be a major step towards better teaching.

Aside from starting up my own Los Alamos laboratory, I'm going to have to read about it. For now, Krashen is going to have to be the Einstein or even, the Oppenheimer.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Reflective materials, I need *RAM

Watching my video of my micro teaching. I'm slowly getting used to my own voice on video. I didn't know I slouched that much. But by all means vintage for me. Asking questions was part of my childhood, so when I got into ESL, eliciting (with a bit of help) became second nature. No transcript to this lot thank goodness, but I did get some useful feedback from the tutor and a fellow classmate.

Could have done with more repeats on the chanting. Okay, I did read that if you do it too much then the students will rapidly loose interest and motivation. It's a fine balance. I also forgot to check individually their pronunciation. Damn. It's something I rarely do given the size of the classes. Need better ears.

I still need to engineer it so that the students either initiate or are given a chance to speak, en-masse. To that end, I'm doing that in class. Yes, it does take time to deliver but once setup, the results do speak for themselves.

Some of the comments from our illustrious tutor, Tom are, I have to admit, a little confusing. If I needed the target language, I was taught to elicit it. The previous CELTA training I had done stated that as soon as you wrote something in the board, or gave out material, the attention was off you. If you just happened to be in the process of giving instructions, then they wouldn't be focused on you. Well, as if I wasn't that interesting, but I must say that writing it on the board, speeds things up. I see that now. I guess old habits die hard, if you're eliciting it from them the first time, then okay. When is a good time to write on the board?! Hum.

"Ss helped to speak in complete sentences". Damn, not once did I spot a mal-formed sentence, but then again I didn't have the chance to use finger modelling. One begets the other.

Another notification was the examination of the nature of (my) teacher talk. Possibly because I know little about my own talk myself (videos do help), I didn't make any incisive statements. Well, okay, the essay was put together over a week, barely enough time to put ideas to paper, and then add refinements to clean up the finished product.

*RAM

Textbook is over simplified, fixes applied

Newly setup, the instructions I jotted down before class actually worked. Lots of activities to get through today, but in writing down the phrasing down and ICQing the class immediately after delivering the instruction worked. All this won't work if the little buggers aren't paying attention, but still one small step up the summit of professional development. A few bullet points come to mind.

1. Set the context, who are the characters? Where are they? What are they doing? Feeling?
2. Make the instructions operative. The essence of the task surmised in a very short sentence.
3. Motivate. Give them a task to listen for.
4. ICQ'd. Lets face it, I've tried to ask them another question and they didn't understand. The better approach is to have them repeat it.

The next stop on this ride is to have them paraphrase instead of having them repeat it. As said before, small steps. Discover. Integrate. Review.

The picture above is the textbook I, and my KET have to teach from. It does teach the syllabus content, but in a way that is too simple, and is beneieth the students ability. In short, bored students make trouble, noise and a generally a pain in the arse. Please, Frances Sohn e.t al, make the activities with a bit more thought. Even the non-speaking activities are just too simple. Computers and cute graphics are one thing, but go beyond the superficial, and you have no substance.