You’re right about the questions too. I see so many activities where students are given questions and asked to walk around the room or discuss in groups and most of the time the questions could be written by the students themselves. Although I do generally prepare some back-ups in case a student or two gets stuck, but I find the majority of the class can get by with nothing or small prompts like you suggested.

I tend to play the quiet student thing by ear these days. I do think we should encourage them to come out of their shell as much as possible. If we learn through using a language, as I and many others believe, by not using it the student isn’t making much progress. It’s like having a public speaking class where we let the students who are uncomfortable just watch. It doesn’t work. I do advocate pushing students out of their comfort zones. With that said, it’s also often a good idea to let students interact in ways they feel comfortable and provide opportunities for them to take risks on their own terms.

Thanks for the like

I also think it has the most important quality of any instruction – anticipation. Great instructors build in or on the fly, create this. Like a good movie, we should know the process of what will happen but not the actual “facts”. Commercials are great for this and I like how you used it in that vein.

About “questions” on worksheets/board. I have changed through the years. Now, I consider it the students who MUST create the questions as well as ask the questions (time permitting of course – time as Shakespeare notes is our master). At a minimum DON”T give questions lock stock and barrel but just word prompts with a question mark. That’s my opinion and how I’ve developed over time.

About quiet students — I’m of a different mind on this too. I really think we should create the best atmosphere for student production but if they don’t want to speak, I don’t think we should even go there. I know this is contrary to so many who say we should rearrange groups or prompt them or put them into situations where they have to speak. I just don’t think that is right. Let ‘em be and focus on the relationships in the classroom and the richness of “meaning” that is swirling around.

But like Darren, Turklis and Karenne mention — I think this a wonderfully rich and “whole” lesson/hour of study.

David

PS. I have a nice looooong list of commercials with comments for suggested use in the classroom on this blog post. http://eflclassroom.ning.com/profiles/blogs/commercials-in-the-efl-1

Also agreed on dogme. It’s definitely something better suited for experienced teachers in my opinion.

Is that true of worksheets, or just bad worksheets?? For one thing, conversation questions on worksheets almost always work better for pairwork than conversation questions on the board (despite the wasted paper).

I’m also a bit worried that Karenne is giving the impression that teaching Dogmy style is easy, whereas I thought it was generally agreed that only experienced teachers can do it well. To put it another way, is there no such thing as a bad Dogme teacher?

Thanks for the link Alex. As for me, I often take Karenne’s approach and gently prompt the quieter students from time to time, so they can get a word in. Asking the major talkers to take a short break can often do the trick as well.

There’s the danger of the conversation dying as well, though. We’ve all had those moments where we try to get the quieter students to speak up and then the class waits silently as the student produces a small sentence after a minute or two. Suddenly the steam is gone from your hot topic.

The quieter students are usually quiet because a) they are naturally shy or b) their English is below the rest of the class and they are having difficulty following or participating in the convo. Either way, they may be uncomfortable speaking to the entire group, especially as all eyes turn towards them when the teacher asks for their input. If they aren’t trying to get a word in, I’ll just let the conversation run its course. At the end of the lesson during the feedback you can put students into groups and have the quieter students report back on the major points or give a short summary. This gives them the chance to prepare something before speaking, they can use information already discussed, and the entire class isn’t silently waiting for them to finish so the conversation can continue. Basically, the pressure is off and they get a more structured opportunity to speak.

Quieter students also do much better in groups on their own. Rather than a whole class involved in a giant discussion I’ll pair up students with others of a similar level and this makes them all more comfortable on top of the smaller group size.

I think Alex’s points to consider are important, but Karenne, Jeremy, and Darren are also right on the value of the lesson. This was a 1-hour lesson and produced a wealth of language as well as additional material that came from the students themselves. It went very well and it can be a change of pace. As long as the lesson isn’t always unguided, I think its alright. i think that different lessons can have different purposes.

Darren – I really liked your idea that we teach so much more than just a language. There are so many other skills and so much knowledge that is taught in our classes that has repercussions on our students lives outside of just English. Very cool.

if the vocabulary was important, it’ll come up again naturally (vocba in videos is mostly high frequency) and the students have a context to refer back to i.e. when they’re looking for a word they may remember that video and do some association (or bridging as they call it here in Germany).

Re the second point, generally when I’ve one student trying to dominate, I simply ask one of the quieter ones if she/he has anything they would like to add.

Usually pointing a gentle spotlight helps shush the louder ones and gives the shyer ones an opportunity to contribute.

Re A’s third, absolutely recycle the vocabulary… by getting them to follow up with a blog post or essay retelling the story – using the new words and applying them to similar events in context.

Hmmm… I spent most of my time answering Alex’s Qs – whoops!

Great lesson, now off to find the link of what I really came here for, LOL, i.e. your teacher as narrative series.

Karenne

and/ or write all the vocabulary that comes up down and photocopy that sheet for all the students at the end of the lesson or before the next one so that they know what they should revise and try to use in future classes.

Will think about point number 2 a little longer

With a spontaneous discussion like this one I tend to have the most difficulty with point number 2. Do you have any suggestions or perhaps a related TEFLtastic link? Seems like you’ve covered the gamut of the ELT world at some time or other over on your blog