Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello How Are You...

It’s been awhile since my last blog… So many things to do, so little time. Wish there were more hours in a day, then I could still be responsible and have enough time to play too! But good things come to those that wait. Plenty of time for playing in 8 weeks! That being said, this blog is to reflect on my micro-teaching and how it has changed my classroom interactions.

In my MT Tom had mentioned that I needed to focus on the “LaLaLa” part of the song. That it needed to be slowed down to teach tongue movement and the "LaLaLa" was meant to help the students with pronunciation.

For me, I had thought of these sections as being nothing more than filler choruses between verses, put in because the writers couldn’t think of anything else. It never occurred to me that these were exercises to help students with articulation. 

The following Monday I slowed down the song and also paid extra attention to how the students phonetically articulated the “LaLaLa” part of the song.... low and behold their tongues moved around like a "Wacky Waving Inflatable Flailing Arm Tube Man". They had no clue how to properly form the /l/.  Almost three quarters of all my classes would stick out their tongue for this part. Through a little teacher modeling, repetition and repeat, they have slowly begun to appropriately articulate the /l/. It was quite fun to watch how uncoordinated the students, especially the younger classes, were with their tongues. I think as a teacher in early childhood education, I forget that manners of articulation are skills that need to be practiced, taught, practiced again and honed. Before this program I never considered using a phonetic approach in my teaching practices, but have found it to be an extremely useful tool.

So thanks Tom… STG program strikes again with dropping some knowledge and adding yet another tool to my pedagogical arsenal. (Pedagogical arsenal… never thought I’d be using those words together)

Something that I had found pretty interesting happened last Monday. I had pulled up to school and parked under a cherry blossom tree as I do everyday. As I was putting my helmet away, I could smell the flowers from the tree and that combined with the nice weather made me really not want to be inside and teach all day. (But have to pay the bills someway right!?) As I was setting up for class my co-teacher informed me that the boss had decided that she was canceling regular classes and we're going to go to the park, since it was such a nice day. (Definitely a CCHHAAWWWWW moment.) My kindergarten is next to Hyochang Park, so we all hopped in the little bright yellow school vans and went to the park for two hours. (Why couldn’t teaching be like this everyday!) As we were running around in the park, some students needed me to tie their shoes. Being little kids they just yelled, “John Teacher” and then pointed to their shoelaces or waved their foot in the air so I could see the shoelaces dangling down. I told them to use English and ask, as I do in class, but they just gave me that look...

If you've taught little ones, you know this look! It's the sideways, head turned, puzzled look that a dogs does when its curious about something. Extremely cute, except when trying to elicit an L2 utterance that you thought had been previously acquired.

I thought that this was odd since it was my six year old class and they definitely know/use ‘Help me John Teacher” in class. I then tried to phonemically cue them with “hhhhh... hhheeeee.... hhheeeelllllp.....”, but nothing. Since it was a fun day at the park I didn't want to push them too much, so I just had them repeat after me while I tied their shoes. However I thought to myself, “How could they not be able to say ‘Help me’, I could’ve sworn that they had acquired this phrase and use it in class quite frequently.” I really had no clue of what to make of this until the next day in class. The same students needed help with the stickers in their textbooks, but this time perfectly and without hesitation they used the phrase ‘Help me John Teacher.’
This made me realize the that maybe their meaning of this phrase is only classroom based (only helping with books, stickers, etc...)  and they haven’t fully constructed the meaning of it yet. To better help the students to construct the full meaning, I’m going to find some games and activities that are not classroom based (role-play at the store or park) to show them it can be used outside of the classroom.

Add-on

The video below shows random acts of kindness done by people helping other people. First, I will have my students watch this video (on my iPad) in class without stopping it. Then the second time through, I will stop at relevant scenes (situations that could actually happen to them) and ask the students why that person had HELPed the other person. Emphasizing on the word help. Then do some role-play reenactments using modified dialogue.  

SCENES:
At :50 a boy helps an elderly lady across the street with her groceries. I can stop it and ask first 'why did the boy help her?' then 'why help' looking to elicit 'because old or grandma'.

At 1:48 a lady gives a man his wallet back that he didn't notice he dropped. Again, I can ask 'why help' but also touch on the subject of ownership and stealing is bad.

At 2:08 a man helps another man carry a heavy bag. At this point, I can now ask the students what is the special phrase (magic words) to say if you can't do something. "Help me"

At 3:20 man gives a girl her cellphone that she had left behind. I hope at this point that they have grasp this concept and here I can ask 'what happened' since in this situation I can't really put in dialogue that has the girl initiating the interaction. This and the wallet scene are good for the students because it lets the them see that people can help people without them asking.

The fact that this video takes place in an authentic setting can help the students construct a proper meaning of the word "Help".

Extreme Makeover

Hmmmmmm... I feel like I never know where to begin when I sit down to write these... So many thoughts racing around in the old noggin, hard catching up with one of them to put it into words! But luckily for you guys, I've made a couple of booby traps and caught a few of them.

One of them is actually is a thing that I had addressed in a previous blog, but have yet to act on it. It's the appearance/environment of my classroom. It's been almost a month since I had written about this and have done nothing to change it. A couple of reasons that this issue needs to be addressed again... Besides the obvious of me not doing it!!! Stems from our lesson planning assignment. As I was going through the sample lesson plan, figuring out what things I could steal and put in mine!!! HAHAHAH joking joking... I came to the section "location of lesson". This HONORS student had written about not having her own classroom to teach in (which I've experienced and did not like so much) and if she had her own class, that she would decorate it appropriately to give her students an environment for improving classroom life. Next, she goes on to quote Brown 'students are indeed profoundly affected by what they see, hear and feel when they enter the classroom.' (which I totally agree with too) and then talks about this classroom at her school that is perfect to assist in her pedagogy (I hope I used that word write... trying to talk like a big kid these days), but she is unable to use it because her students are too old. For her, there are all these things that could significantly help her if made available; then there's me... I have an opportunity and the resources to accomplish all these things, but have done nothing!

Unlike the last time, this time I actually contacted my co-teacher/boss and am having a meeting tomorrow morning with the wonjangnim about decorating the classroom, she has to approve what materials can go up before "Extreme Classroom Makeover 2014" can commence....

Hahahaha I’m going to make a new reality TV show on TLC about struggling teachers who need help, and my team of teaching experts come in and give their lesson plans and classroom a complete make over!!! I’d watch it!

For our lesson plan we are supposed to use a preview, to activate the students’ schema, get them ready (affective blocker down) and feeling comfortable. This is my goal for the classroom decorations. I want the students schema activated every time they come into my class. I want to put up a greeting song verse above my white board (Hello, Hello, Hello... Hello how are you? “feelings”), the alphabet (big and little), an interactive calendar (What day is it today? As the students develop their vocabulary, I can then start to introduce the phrase with yesterday and today. Also, can focus on the months and numbers) and an interactive weatherboard (How's the weather?, “sunny, raining, hot, warm, chilly, cold”).

Since these will be an everyday interaction and experience, there will be no pressure for the students to acquire the language within a certain time frame. I believe learning these key phrases this way will be highly efficient and less burden to the students because it will just become an everyday routine instead of an English lesson.

I will start of by doing T-C repeat/repetition and chant until I believe that they are ready and feel comfortable enough with a more complicated discourse. Next, I will have a S act as the teacher and lead the class in the morning greeting and warm-up asking questions like “How’s the weather?” or “What day is it today?” to the other Ss or S. Then as this starts to become easy, I will introduce new versions (+1) like yesterday/tomorrow or have them start to combine ideas in a sentence (It’s sunny and hot). My final goal for this will be to essential have them be able to do this in pairs. Starting from repetition and T ask Ss, then S asking Ss question for role-play was a way of modeling the interaction so they will be able to do in pairs. Given their age (4-7), pair work is extremely difficult to initiate. This is definitely a long-term classroom discourse plan.

I actually have a video I wanted to upload to reflect on greetings, my lack of preparedness and the horrible use of classroom time management. But that will have to wait for another blog. 

Side note here… I really like these reflective blogs (even though they take me forever to do) and how it’s a way of peeping into the box that’s ‘my teaching’ and figuring out what is really in it (who I am as a teacher). And then what to do with the things inside… throw away, move around and/or need to add.