Task #2
Task #2
Danilo Ribeiro and I interviewed each other, and here are our answers:
"Tell me about your teaching place(s), special features, student profile and other interesting things you believe should be mentioned"
DANILO: I am currently working at a mainstream English school for young learners and teenagers who mostly are sons and daughters of well-educated, well-off parents. I teach young learners aged 7 to teenagers who are taking a prep course to start college. It is worth mentioning that these kids are usually cultured and have travelled abroad, and therefore always have something to share about their personal lives. And what kind of affective learning strategies do you use in class, or intend to use? I absolutely love teaching children aged 7 to 11. I believe this is the right time to foster learning and encourage them to always do their best. So, here are some of the techniques and activities I use on a daily basis.
THIAGO: I am currently involved in private tutoring, so I usually go to students’ companies or homes to tend to their needs. It’s been a great experience as I can now relate more to my students. Students come from several social backgrounds and range from company owners to high school students. They need English to talk to clients, to travel abroad, to apply for a job abroad or sit TOEFL or IELTS in order to try to move to a diferent country. We design curiculum together, and I am impressed at how much I enjoy ellaborating materials to cater for their needs. I’m not sure if there’s such a thing like shared curriculum, but since I have started doing that, I can see students feel more engaged and are bound to take more risks.
"What kind of affective learning strategies do you use in class, or intend to use?"
DANILO:
CIRCLE TIME: This is my favorite class element ever! it is in this moment that they are able. to voice their opinions, share their feelings, tell everybody something crazy that happened to them and so on. To me, it is an opportunity to identify potential problems and share them with my coordinator so that we can work collaboratively to tackle them. I know it is cliché, but I never miss a circle time.I also use it to review language items, work on jazz chants, tell them about my own life, tell a story....
COOPERATIVE GAMES: I avoid at all costs to play competitive games. When there is competition, in other words, a loser and a winner, they are likely to misbehave and not follow rules due to their being upset or sad because the other team won the game. I usually highlight that we, teacher and students, are a team that learns together and loses together. As a result, they learn to respect each other's idiosyncrasies, and know how to use them to their own benefit. I believe that by playing cooperative games, as well as language games, I am creating a safe environment where learners can make mistakes, and will never be mocked. Incredible cooperative games include 'human chain', 'balloon bop' as well as other cooperative language games.
WE RULE: This is a poster students make with rules they think are important to have in the class. Upon creating this poster, teachers must know their groups inside out, because rules that work for one group are not applicable to the other. When a class has rules, everything becomes easier and clearer to do. I usually sit down with them in the beginning of the year, play a random game without any explanation.Then, They try to figure it out without my telling them what to do. They try to play, and as a result, they fail. After that, I explain the game, check if they understood and they play it again. They usually have fun and perform way better than the first time. To wrap up, I get them to reflect on the importance of rules in the class. This is the moment where teachers will guide students to the right answer, and get them to register these rules in a poster that should be signed by everybody. Whenever a student is misbehaving, always refer to the rules. Examples of rules are: Respect your friends and teacher; Raise your hands to speak; Listen carefully to your teacher
THIAGO:
PERSONAL OBJECTS: Everytime I can, I ask students to bring meaningful objects for them to use in our activities. If we talk about hobbies, I ask them to bring an object they like to read/listen and ask follow-up questions. I also share some of my preferences so that they can feel closer to me and eager to connect by using adequate language for that. In the end, I feel that even though there is linguistic acquisition, the ultimate goal is to teach them how to connect to other people using a diferente language. Feedback is personalized, not only linguistically, but emotionally. We work out facial expressions, gestures and voice tones to express what they feel, help them convey their messages appropriately.
INFORMATION COLLECTION: When I plan classes, I make sure to use at least one piece of personal information I learnt from students in my activities. If it’s about family, I use their sons, daughters and parents as examples. Sometimes they show surprise: “Wow, how could you remember that?”, but the trick is that I take notes throughout classes about any important details I can sense and use later. I encourage them to collect information from people close to them and report to me in the next classes.
POSITIVE MINDSET: This one is the hardest with adults, as they seem to have very strong opinions about their own learning abilities and are very self-aware of their own weaknesses, sometimes they even create weaknesses out of thin air, as their linguistic self-esteem is, most of the time, low. I try to design different-leveled activities in class. Easy activities to build their own confidence, regular-leveled to build ground for the challenging ones, where I try to craft instructions carefully and work on independence and authonomy. We go over their mistakes until they can achieve a complex activity, or I craft a new one out of it so that they sense how much they achieved. I always try to use positive wording, but not euphemisms, as students notice when you are trying to sugarcoat. When I say: “this can be improved” instead of “that was not right”, I ask later “how?” and then I encourage students to improve his/her own production for real. Attitude matters.
Danilo Ribeiro and I interviewed each other, and here are our answers:
"Tell me about your teaching place(s), special features, student profile and other interesting things you believe should be mentioned"
DANILO: I am currently working at a mainstream English school for young learners and teenagers who mostly are sons and daughters of well-educated, well-off parents. I teach young learners aged 7 to teenagers who are taking a prep course to start college. It is worth mentioning that these kids are usually cultured and have travelled abroad, and therefore always have something to share about their personal lives. And what kind of affective learning strategies do you use in class, or intend to use? I absolutely love teaching children aged 7 to 11. I believe this is the right time to foster learning and encourage them to always do their best. So, here are some of the techniques and activities I use on a daily basis.
THIAGO: I am currently involved in private tutoring, so I usually go to students’ companies or homes to tend to their needs. It’s been a great experience as I can now relate more to my students. Students come from several social backgrounds and range from company owners to high school students. They need English to talk to clients, to travel abroad, to apply for a job abroad or sit TOEFL or IELTS in order to try to move to a diferent country. We design curiculum together, and I am impressed at how much I enjoy ellaborating materials to cater for their needs. I’m not sure if there’s such a thing like shared curriculum, but since I have started doing that, I can see students feel more engaged and are bound to take more risks.
"What kind of affective learning strategies do you use in class, or intend to use?"
DANILO:
CIRCLE TIME: This is my favorite class element ever! it is in this moment that they are able. to voice their opinions, share their feelings, tell everybody something crazy that happened to them and so on. To me, it is an opportunity to identify potential problems and share them with my coordinator so that we can work collaboratively to tackle them. I know it is cliché, but I never miss a circle time.I also use it to review language items, work on jazz chants, tell them about my own life, tell a story....
COOPERATIVE GAMES: I avoid at all costs to play competitive games. When there is competition, in other words, a loser and a winner, they are likely to misbehave and not follow rules due to their being upset or sad because the other team won the game. I usually highlight that we, teacher and students, are a team that learns together and loses together. As a result, they learn to respect each other's idiosyncrasies, and know how to use them to their own benefit. I believe that by playing cooperative games, as well as language games, I am creating a safe environment where learners can make mistakes, and will never be mocked. Incredible cooperative games include 'human chain', 'balloon bop' as well as other cooperative language games.
WE RULE: This is a poster students make with rules they think are important to have in the class. Upon creating this poster, teachers must know their groups inside out, because rules that work for one group are not applicable to the other. When a class has rules, everything becomes easier and clearer to do. I usually sit down with them in the beginning of the year, play a random game without any explanation.Then, They try to figure it out without my telling them what to do. They try to play, and as a result, they fail. After that, I explain the game, check if they understood and they play it again. They usually have fun and perform way better than the first time. To wrap up, I get them to reflect on the importance of rules in the class. This is the moment where teachers will guide students to the right answer, and get them to register these rules in a poster that should be signed by everybody. Whenever a student is misbehaving, always refer to the rules. Examples of rules are: Respect your friends and teacher; Raise your hands to speak; Listen carefully to your teacher
THIAGO:
PERSONAL OBJECTS: Everytime I can, I ask students to bring meaningful objects for them to use in our activities. If we talk about hobbies, I ask them to bring an object they like to read/listen and ask follow-up questions. I also share some of my preferences so that they can feel closer to me and eager to connect by using adequate language for that. In the end, I feel that even though there is linguistic acquisition, the ultimate goal is to teach them how to connect to other people using a diferente language. Feedback is personalized, not only linguistically, but emotionally. We work out facial expressions, gestures and voice tones to express what they feel, help them convey their messages appropriately.
INFORMATION COLLECTION: When I plan classes, I make sure to use at least one piece of personal information I learnt from students in my activities. If it’s about family, I use their sons, daughters and parents as examples. Sometimes they show surprise: “Wow, how could you remember that?”, but the trick is that I take notes throughout classes about any important details I can sense and use later. I encourage them to collect information from people close to them and report to me in the next classes.
POSITIVE MINDSET: This one is the hardest with adults, as they seem to have very strong opinions about their own learning abilities and are very self-aware of their own weaknesses, sometimes they even create weaknesses out of thin air, as their linguistic self-esteem is, most of the time, low. I try to design different-leveled activities in class. Easy activities to build their own confidence, regular-leveled to build ground for the challenging ones, where I try to craft instructions carefully and work on independence and authonomy. We go over their mistakes until they can achieve a complex activity, or I craft a new one out of it so that they sense how much they achieved. I always try to use positive wording, but not euphemisms, as students notice when you are trying to sugarcoat. When I say: “this can be improved” instead of “that was not right”, I ask later “how?” and then I encourage students to improve his/her own production for real. Attitude matters.
Wonderful interview! Thank you, guys!
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about COOPERATIVE GAMES. My competitive games have always worked until this year. I have three or more special needs students in all of my classes. Even though I find student are very helpful during class with the special needs students. The higher level students are now complaining during game time when their team doesn't win.
ReplyDeleteGreat interview. About competition games, I'm thinking they can be a lot of fun and source of motivation to play, but I would make sure to give the message that you need to learn to lose, congratulate the winner... Competition is part of life I'm afraid, and teaching to be a good looser and winner could be the answer.
ReplyDeleteWhat a solid point, Silvia Montufo Urquízar
ReplyDeleteDanilo and Thiago,
ReplyDeleteI loved reading your interview! I am very happy that I dared to propose this task as an alternative.
It is very interesting to see that both of you can be affective (and effective) language teachers even using different learning strategies for your students. Having a repertoire and knowing which strategies to use is key to promoting meaning, motivation, and confidence. I like very much to tell students which strategies I am using and to ask them if it makes sense for them as a way of promoting awareness about their learning processes.
In special, I would like to comment on Thiago's last strategy which I find very important when working with students that have a low self-concept regarding their language learning skills. It's extremely important for us to show students that their learning and performance are directly linked to their effort and the learning strategies they use.
Many students tend to believe in the myth of language learning as an inherited trait which divides students in good and bad. The problem is that this idea ends up causing self-fulfilling prophecies.
Helping students to notice their development and reflect on how they got it is a very empowering strategy.
Great to see all this affect in your classes, Danilo and Thiago!!!