Today I did a 10 min teaching activity in a grade 6 about about comparative adjectives - and I have to admit, I didn't do a very good job taking in to consideration what I would like to call "student prerequisites" or maybe even "cultural differences".
The activity didn't go at all as I had hoped or planned for - and I should have known seeing as I've observed a few lessons in that class before - and in that English classroom in general (that's why I say "cultural differences").
So to the problem I encountered. They don't speak! They don't even speak Finnish! Out of 10 pupils (yes, only ½ class once a week) only 2-3 of them seemed to be ok with speaking English and the rest of them were very difficult to get to say anything (I still managed to get a few sentences from all of them, but it really took some effort from my side and it didn't feel very comfortable).
I wanted them to to their shoulder partner before saying anything to me or the rest of the class, but they didn't seem to know how to work together and most of them were afraid of getting too close to each other - even when they said something, their partner couldn't what was being said, because they sat too far away apart.
Today, as well as all the other times I've been in that classroom, I sensed a "stiff" atmosphere where things are very much controlled by the teacher. The pupils are always quiet and obedient - so in that sense there is no challenge in classroom management, but I discovered how much more difficult it is for me the handled the kind of "classroom management" I experienced today. It seemed as if the pupils were afraid of showing their personalities (or is that their true colours?) and didn't want me to come too close or challenge them in speaking activities. Let me be!
I know 10 minutes isn't much time - an unknown teacher in an unknown classroom with unknown teenage-pupils - but still, there must have been something I could have done differently to make the activity run more smoothly!
And indeed there is..
Exactly what would have worked is impossible for me to know, because I have to try it out in the class before I can know, but it's still worth it to give it a few thoughts of possible modifications.. First of all, I'd like to do a warm-up activity where they pupils got closer to each other and could laugh (but would they dear to laugh?). I would have then tried to make them sit closer to each other (or maybe even sit on the floor or stand or whatever) while they were doing the speaking activity. Hm. Maybe they should even have done a very different speaking activity. An information-gap activity of some sort... Something that could have given more purpose to what was being said..
I didn't get any negative feed-back from the teacher, but that is not really of any importance to me, because I didn't like how the activity went at all - for many different reasons, reasons that have to do with the - in my opinion - poor learning outcomes of the activity.
Well, this whole thing has made me wonder how Finns actually learn the speak English? The pupils don't speak English (at school, that is), the classroom language is Finnish, they learn speech by the "listen and repeat" principle and produce little or no speech themselves.
The above are my generalisations from observations at the University's practice placement schools - and not Finland. I've met quite a few Finns who speak very good English and other who don't speak any English at all - even teacher trainees at my age. I know Finnish EFL teachers generally use coursebooks and that they use more or less the same book series throughout the whole country so I find it very interesting to get to know more about these books and the learning theories behind the books. This week I will send out questionnaires to teacher trainees, teachers and one of the co-others of some of the course books, and I hope to have the answers back sometimes next week, which should hopefully give me time enough to analyse the answers properly for my "Action Research" and a couple of other courses where I use the same topic.
So, to go back to my teaching experience this morning I have come-up with a new challenge for myself for my next practice placement - or other places where I might encounter this particular challenge. I have to be me despite of such awkward and uncomfortable situations - and in stead of giving in to my surroundings, fight them!
PS Don't get me wrong, I do respect the teacher's way of teaching, she has her reasons, theoretically and practically well documented reasons, and I'm not of the opinion that classrooms in general have to be "open, relaxed, friendly, personal" and all that, but I also have my reasons for saying that the challenge of foreign language learning is made even bigger when the classroom atmosphere - or classroom culture - doesn't welcome and encourage the pupils to experiment with the language! And believe me, I can argue my opinion if I have to... But I'm not going to do so here. If I were to stay here for a long time, I probable would, but now.. no.
Oh! And I finally have a video! And tomorrow morning I'll get a second video - this time from the "International morning assembly".
How is it possible to develop speaking skills to the same extent as writing skills?
ReplyDeleteLet's say it is most effective to focus on developing one skill at the time - in which order should they then be developed to get to best results?
Fascinating!
ReplyDeleteI wonder how they learn to speak - is it safe to say that only a few 'survive' this TEFL approach without oral training and learn English because they find their own way of transferring? And the rest give up completely?
I also wonder how the teacher actually assessed the situation apart from the feedback to you. What is her exlanation for why they don't speak? Does she expect them to speak? How? or why not?
Order of skills - we normally recommend: listening, speaking, reading, writing in that order. Starting with confidence (which might benefit from the Silent Way) and then moving on to fluency with accuracy last. Apart from that we recommend integration of the skills for them to support each other.
I am baffled by the thought that Finnish people actually learn to speak if they never speak in class!
My dad, who is a maths ans science teacher, sometimes says that teaching has to be aimed at the weaker learners. This does not mean forgetting about the rest of them, but that teachers have to help the weaker learners with their hypothesis testing and enhance their ability think "sensibly", e.g. in mental addition, when you are working with big numbers you have to, mentally, round the numbers to whole tens or hundreds, add, and then subtract or add more. He says that strong learners develop this ability on their own, while weak learners develop this too late (already lost their academic self esteem or are lacking too far behind to ever catch-up with the others), and some of them never develop this "common sense - to think logically".
ReplyDeleteWell, my point is. Learners are VERY different, and somehow teachers have to aim at evening-out the academic differences, by supporting their transfer of knowledge. I assume, some learners will automatically be able to transfer their EFL knowledge and develop speaking skills on their own, while other never do (for many different reasons)...
Some teachers here say that the pupils mainly learn speaking skills by role-play, reading, and repeating, and that the pupils don't have to produce much oral language on their own, because it demands too much of them, when their level of spoken English isn't so high.
Hm. I wonder when they will be "competent enough" to produce the language?
Your order of skills is very interesting. From what I see here there is definitely not much actual speech in the classrooms. Speech is often seen as "chunks learned by heart" or reading out loud - in pairs or for the whole class.
Finns do learn to speak English - at least some of them do - and they are quite good at it, I must add.
Why? Individual differences. Different teachers, different abilities, different experiences, different wishes..
I've tried to recall how I learned English and from what I remember, the lessons were some what similar to what I see in Finland. I don't remember any speaking activities in lower secondary or upper-secondary. There were some in primary school, but not much.
And here we are, 11 years since my first English lesson. I see myself as a quite competent English speaker, and I would say the focus on grammar in primary and secondary school has helped me very much!
But.. I would not - at all - be this competent if it wasn't for my travel experiences and the International Line..
It could be interesting to do some research with teenage pupils who are very competent in English. Teenage pupils who still haven't had other academic education than public school.. As soon as you get older, it becomes very complicated to find out exactly how the competences have been developed..