It has been a while since I have posted anything on this blog. Blogging involves a great deal of self-discipline, which I lack. Those bits of self-discipline I do have are all invested in lesson planning. Choices, you know.
Anyway, my third semester of teaching English discussion finished several days ago. Last lessons are always hard to plan: I find it tricky to stuff something meaningful, something memorable and something exciting into one lesson altogether.
I believe that the end of something is always a good chance for a reflection. That is why this time, I decided to begin the last lesson with a reflection.
At the end of almost every lesson, my students would write answers to two questions: the first question would ask them about what they liked or found interesting, and the second question would make them focus on something they thought was difficult. I wrote about this activity a while ago.
I thought that students would benefit from getting some tangible result from this activity. Even though I would write them a reply and hand it out at the beginning of the next lesson, I was not sure how many of them would actually read it 😀 Since most of my students admit that speaking English is stressful, I wanted them to see that these 3 months were enough to make some progress. Therefore, I prepared a simple reflective task.
First, I looked through their answers to the second question and made a list of top-10 difficulties/issues/problems they faced at the beginning of the course (first 5 lessons). Students were asked to have a look at these problems and circle yes or no when answering two questions:
1. Did you have this problem in the beginning?
2. Do you still feel like you have this problem?
After that, students would discuss their answers with each other and share their impressions. They would also answer some other questions, e.g., “Do you feel you made some progress?”, “Are English Discussion classes similar to your high school English classes?”, etc.
It was heartwarming to see how many yes became no! I heard some of my students saying that in the beginning, they were nervous and had some kind of negative attitude towards the whole idea of having discussions in English (something we can call demotivation, according to Kikuchi). However, after some time, they started feeling like it was getting easier and realised they actually could have long discussions in English. The thing is that in Japan, in most high schools, the grammar-translation approach is still used so when students get into universities that use CLT, they feel anxious and stressed out because they have to communicate in English – something they were not taught to do.
There is nothing more empowering than watching these students develop their English communication ability, watching how they rely on L1 less and less and learn to use communicative strategies effectively.
Another reflective activity I did in this lesson was a Semester Reflection. Students would draw a mind map for the following topic: My first semester at university. They would put whatever they think was important enough to be on paper. They would share their mind maps with each other and ask some questions if needed. They would also discuss some questions, e.g., “If you could go back in April 2018 and start your semester again, would you change anything?” and “What is your goal for next semester?”.
So far, I am happy with how the weekly dialogical feedback activity ended up being wrapped into an end-of-semester reflection. I would say the piloting was successful. Getting ready to try out the refined version next semester and write a paper on it! And for now, holidays.
There is one exciting thing I am planning for August (hint: it has something to do with Dogme), so stay tuned!
Side Notes on ELT 