Watching Others Teach

Today I watched dozens of teaching videos. Some of them I liked very much, others were not that interesting (I mean from an observer’s point of view of course). Here, in my blog I’d like to share with my reflections aroused by 2 clips.

The first one is about task-based teaching. Here it is: 

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_BSyFo3IFs)

The activity is task-based, so the main objective is to teach students how to use the language outside the classroom, in the real world. But what I see in the video is an instructor giving handouts with precomposed dialogues, which actually ruin the very idea of the activity. Because students just do reading and gap filling. There is no improvisation in the air.

If I decided to give my students this activity I would do the following:

1. As a pre-task I would ask my students to make a list of features (location, facilities, pet policy, etc.) characterizing the apartment THEY are looking for or they’d like to have.
2. I would bring to class realia (for instance, ‘For Rent’ advertisements from local newspapers).
3. I would split the class into Landlords and Renters (instead of A’s and B’s). Landlords would have advertisements I had prepared (maybe even 2 or 3 for each) and Renters would have their own criteria for apartment selection.
4. Then I would definitely ask them to switch the roles, so that every student would have an opportunity to be both a landlord and a renter.
5. During post-activity discussion all of them would have a chance to speak out (name the apartment of their choice and explain why).

Task-based activities are always the best choice when we deal with EAL students. First of all, students value such activities because they really will need this knowledge in the real world. Secondly, if presented correctly, task-based activities leave much deeper imprints in students’ minds than any other activities, because human nature is very selective – we take only those things we consider useful and applicable.

The task based approach to language teaching is considered to be one of the most effective nowadays. And I can’t argue with that. The majority of EAL students in Canada are newcomers. And most of the things, which we experience during the everyday life, seem natural and simple to Canadian-born native speakers, but they are quite challenging for recently landed immigrants. Newcomers may have a lot of difficulty, not only because they are learning a new language, but because they are also learning a very different way of life.

The second video is about games in the EAL classroom. I really enjoyed this one:

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtwDhKso2No)

I liked a great degree of students’ involvement the instructor managed to achieve, the positive atmosphere and competitive spirit. Students smile a lot and encourage each other.

Although I would add some activities involving more interaction between students.

I can’t tell what part of the lesson is this. If it is the very beginning of the lesson and the main aim is to revise material from the preceding lesson, then it’s really effective. I think the main “spice” of this video is in action. Students run and wack the white board, they clap to each other and so on. The instructor is also very energetic. Like morning exercises can make the whole day, energetic and fun warm up activities can make the whole lesson.

The main aim of the video is to depict how games may be used in the learning process. They are always very involving and thus effective. All adults enjoy playing games. Thus games in the EAL learning process let us mix business with pleasure. A Chinese proverb “Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand” proves a tremendous role of EAL games in the process of language acquisition.