This class was smaller than the other classes I have observed. It was similar to the other classes in process and exercises. I found with this class, like the first class I observed, that when the icebreaker activity is more physical, the class energy level is higher, as is the engagement level for the beginning exercises.
My main point of reflection today is around the use of set phrases. They are an important tool for the beginner learner to be able to have some immediate interaction in their L2, but the downside is that they leave no room for personal expression.
The two things that I have been thinking about in the STHC context is that these students are in a multi-year EFL program, so I wonder whether they will have much opportunity to use the set phrases they are learning. Secondly, although many of the students are young, they are still in this program as young adult learners, and their identity and willingness to communicate may suffer without the ability to express some aspects of their own personality in their L2.
I think a possible resolution to the problem would be to offer some alternatives with the set phrases. While teaching the phrase “Do you like …?”, you could also teach “Do you play …?” for sports, instruments and games, “Do you watch …?” for sports and movies, “Do you listen to …. ?” for music and podcasts for example. With the responses, while teaching “Yes, I like …”, you could teach “Yes, I do”. These ideas offer the student a choice in expression with minimal additions to vocabulary learning.
If there is a concern because with learning the extra verbs, there are extra concepts to learn, I believe that could be offset as well with the use of translanguaging. If the more complex ideas were connected or defined in the L1 as well as the L2, then it relieves the stress of the additional lexical learning and makes connections between the L1 and the L2.
I was told I didn’t need to observe this class, as it was the students presenting their midterm projects to the class. I asked if I would be allowed to come and watch and was welcomed.
This was both a group project and an individual project. It was group research, but individual presentations of a recipe at the front of the class using a PowerPoint (PPT) presentation. I believe that the PPT files were sometimes a group effort as well. They were all quite well done. The students had to use IPA transcription for some of their ingredients.
Where it was possible to see the group effort was when the PPT was excellent, the English and IPA was perfect, but the presenter was a very beginner English user, and even when they looked back at the screen, they could not sound-out the word or read it. Some of the students’ presentations suffered from their high level of anxiety. It was clear from their shaking hands, their compulsively looking down to read in the middle of a sentence, and their pale, clammy skin. I tried to encourage the students with a smile and nod each time they made eye contact with me.
I had a few surprises during the midterms. The first was that the teacher did not speak to the students at all except to tell them whether to present their pastry PPT or their biscuit PPT. Normally the teacher was smiling, and kept the students going, but for the midterm she was very serious and quiet.
The second was that for one student who was having anxiety, she allowed them to have their best friend run the PPT instead of the same person who did everyone else’s. The teacher also allowed this one person to have their friend discuss with them how to say things and give them help with the script of the presentation, which no one else was allowed to have. In this case, the best friend had the best presentation in the class in my estimation. With the number of times they stopped to talk and how long they chatted, the presentation was very long, but the teacher did not say anything
The third surprise was when the teacher got frustrated with one of the students, snapped at them and told them to go sit down not quite 2/3 through their PPT. The teacher commented that it was taking too long. This student was also quite nervous, and a beginner speaker who did not seem to understand her presentation. The teacher’s frustration lasted to the next student, who was also cut short just before the break. Time had run out. The teacher had to cut the last presentation short in order to give the students their break on time.
Watching the presentations and having been asked to grade them, as a matter of interest only. I found it an awkward situation. I had no idea what the criteria were for the rubric, what lesson (s) the midterm was based on, what the cultural norm is around work being completed as a group, or what the expectation is for the class around pronunciation and reading ability. I graded based on what I could see of the class as A1-A2 students, in a high-pressure situation. I didn’t dock for what seemed to be help making the PPT, because I had no idea. Just because a student is having difficulty and anxiety with production of speech in this situation doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t capable of it, or that they aren’t capable of the written production or creating the PPT. I erred on the side of higher grades for the effort I could see and how much production it led to.
I really looked forward to this class for the chance to observe the pedagogical approach to culinary ESP. The lesson in this class was to introduce a recipe. The vocabulary was vegetables. The part of class I observed was dedicated to reviewing and pronunciation of vocabulary and reading the recipe. I believe that there were some writing activities in the textbook as well that may have happened after I was dismissed. It seemed at this point in the curriculum, this was a common lesson format.
The teacher took the students through the vocabulary list numerous times, but each time, it was a step more difficult. At the beginning, each vegetable picture had its name displayed underneath. The teacher took the students through the list repeating after her, then together, then just the students, then randomized, all with the names displayed, finally randomized, and selecting individual students to say/read the vegetable name. She then repeated the process without the names displayed.
She then followed with the two small group activities. One was a match the picture with its label activity and the other was a reorder the steps activity. The final activity before the break was going over the pumpkin soup recipe, both the ingredients and the instructions. The teacher discussed with the students each step asking if they remembered the meaning of the instructions.
Watching and listening to the vocabulary repetition reminded me of my own experience in learning kanji in Japan. Each class, our teacher would use large, handheld flash cards and do much the same process. For me, personally, flashcard repetition has never been an effective study method because I can’t keep it up. Creating the flashcards, and then flipping through them one at a time doesn’t give me a sense of accomplishment. For memorizing vocabulary and kanji, I made lists by chapter and I would write out one to three lists worth each day. Usually, 1 for review, the 1 we were on and the one we would be looking at next. My aim was speed and understanding. I would do this before doing my homework, so that I was more successful at the exercises in reading and writing.
In a sense, I was priming my mind with all the vocabulary and kanji I needed to complete the homework, then I completed the homework quickly and efficiently, with a mind that was focused and relaxed. In the STHC class, there was rote memorization followed by a single activity that reinforced the repetition, but then the vocabulary was not really used in the 45-50 minutes until the first half of the class and the break ended. The new vegetable words were not in the recipe, but they were probably used in the textbook exercises in the second half of the class.
I thought it was an interesting idea to have one activity for the vocabulary, and one for the recipe, but I might have spaced them differently. This is the order I would have used to keep the students engaged:
Introduce the vocabulary, doing the first round of repetition, and check pronunciation.
Then a Kahoot game where the students had to guess the vegetable from a description of its properties. The descriptions could be in both Vietnamese and English, with the answers only in English.
Then the activity to match the picture with the label
Then the large group quick review of the vegetables without the labels (this would be optional based on time)
Then the activity to reorder the recipe steps as review
Have the students read the recipe in their small groups for 5-7 minutes and come back to the large group and do a 3–4-minute review and answer any questions.
Have the students look for a recipe online, or write one they know, that uses at least 2 or 3 of the vegetables from the list. They would need to write as much as they could in English and then collaborate with their small group to see if they could fill out their English recipe.
The students are in class for more than 3-hour blocks with only 1 break. It is a long study period. Changing the type of activity regularly and size of group they work in, allows the students mind to keep moving and stay more engaged and alert. It is even better to plan periods of physical activity (TPR), and use realia to allow the students to connect to the material in as many ways as possible.
In speaking with the students, I realized that they were learning food vocabulary, cooking technique vocabulary, but when I asked them if they were learning to be a cook or a chef, they got confused and said no. They are learning food but not who they are as they interact with the food, and how they might need to interact with the public, even though they work in the kitchen. Perhaps they will need to answer a room service call, or when setting out a dish on a buffet, a guest might ask about the dish, or even something as simple as answering a question about needing eating utensils, or the location of the bathroom. I am very interested in the overall curriculum of an entire program. Is there any intercultural communication training at the higher levels, or information about language differences between English dialects. These students have undertaken English to make themselves more valuable on the job market, but they don’t need to just memorize set phrases, they need to be able and willing to communicate in English. In Peter MacIntyre’s theory on willingness to communicate, he has found that the two main supports for that willingness is a low level of situational anxiety, and confidence in self-perceived ability. There are many other factors involved, but these are the main two. My interest in curriculum development is to see how the concept of willingness to communicate, intercultural communication and a multilingual identity can be fostered at the higher level.
The class began with about 15 Ss and the final 6 Ss trickled over the 15-20 min it took for the whisper game to be played. It seemed like it was a normal occurrence as no one commented or specifically greeted the newcomers. They just quickly and quietly put their bags down and joined in the activity.
While playing the game I noticed that in both lines the Ss strategically placed their best writers at the end of the line. I found it interesting that quite often, on both teams several members would lean together to hear the message and confer to ensure it was passed on correctly. I wondered if it was a cultural norm to work on problems as a group, so the idea of passing the message along 1 person at a time to see how much it changed wasn’t as important or funny in this context. There was some sense of competition, but very little, and the winners of the round and the game received polite applause.
What really excited me in this first class was noticing that Ms Van spoke quite quickly to the students, and that some of the instructions were given in English, and some in Vietnamese. I have been studying translanguaging, and believe that it would be beneficial, both linguistically and emotionally to Ss as they learn a second language. Linguistically it can allow them a chance to get a deeper understanding of a term by having it relayed in their own language, or they can get to instructions better if you can repeat them in both languages. Also, their is not the sense that you want them to stop thinking in their own language to learn a second, letting them dynamically construct their own sense of identity as a multilingual person with knowledge of two languages and two cultures. As I don’t speak Vietnamese, I might have new vocabulary translated for the Ss on worksheets, or have them keep a vocabulary journal to write down new words, or words they wanted to ask about.
The next section of the class was dedicated to practicing past/present/present continuous tenses. It was a simple review activity, that the Ss participated in. I noticed that at each of the four tables the students would talk to each other and then someone would answer. Most of the Ss were quiet but almost participating in the background with their notes?
The reading comprehension activity was an introduction to new material, and it seemed strange all around to me. The first was the material, it was a British English National Geographic textbook, but the article they were reading was about the United States, so the terminology about the activities seemed all wrong because culturally they were inaccurate. The article was about a man who helped build houses for people on the weekends. His current project was building tornado-resistant houses for people who had lost their home to a tornado. Then, as the class completed the first activity, they had to say how they knew the “builders” weren’t professionals, and they unanimously said it was because they weren’t wearing uniforms, and Ms Van said “Yes, that’s right”. Of course, it would have been right in Vietnam, but not in the United States or Canada. I didn’t interrupt or explain though, because I would have had to explain the difference in terminology, plus the difference in cultural attire, and potentially safety equipment? I didn’t want to throw that much of Ms Van’s lesson off base.
After the Ss did the exercise where they answered questions about the text and identified where in the text they found the answer, Ms Van asked me to help the Ss with any vocabulary they had questions about as she also went around to the tables. The first table I approached asked me for meaning to “almost”, “tornado”, and “tornado-resistant”. We made our way through it together with some giggles and pictures and my phone. Ms Van asked me about how it went after the class, I told her what words they asked me for, and she looked at me very strangely. I thought maybe I should have stuck to simpler words, but I don’t think it hurts to answer their curiosity, in fact it may encourage them to continue asking questions or looking things up, thereby increasing their language experience and motivation in the way the Robert Gardiner speaks about positive experience increasing motivation. These Ss are also looking working in the hospitality industry. I wondered if their vocabulary shouldn’t include more alternatives than just British English as they will be meeting with people from around the world. Mind you, that may come later in their education.
The final part of my observation for the day was the musical marker game, which was a conversation practice game. I had never seen it before and was very impressed. The Ss are passing around two different colour markers. Whoever has them when the music stops are the two participants for the round. One colour is for the question asker and the other is for the respondent. The thing I would have done differently is to have everyone away from their tables in a circle and each round the two people sit down. What I saw was the same people end up speaking over and over, and one entire table that avoided the game almost completely.
In summary, I very much enjoyed observing my first class here. I was impressed by the games, saw some translanguaging that I am interested in following up on to find out if it is a pedagogical practice or just something that happens naturally, got to interact with the Ss, and saw things that I would both like to do and do differently in my teaching practice.
