Proper learning for Taya

Here we get to "proper" learning (grammar drilling) with my daughter. She has been infected with this grammar anxiety and she asked me to give her a lesson about The Past Simple Tense. 

Do you think I grasped the chance to follow the PPP principle? Presentation-Practice-Production) What was the point? She has been using the Past Simple since she learned how to speak. I asked her to take a look at the pictures in the phone and choose one, to tell what was it, what happened then. - Successfully done!

Here is the game, the "FUN spot" they call it in this students' book.

How not to make it boring? - Personalization is the answer. More learner-centeredness.

I chose the event to speak about - her Birthday party, which we held a month ago. 

I asked her all sorts of questions just to make her disagree, to make her deny what I was saying. It worked perfectly! And I think that's because she had an emotion behind each statement. Because every point was important: 

♦ she still remembered how we were had been seeking for the recipes of cakes but finally decided to buy one from the baker's.

♦ she invited her best friends who were 3 girls (not 6 boys)

♦ we themed the party as "The Super Heroes School" (not Harry Potter or anything else)

♦ she had a costume of the Lady Cat, not the Ladybug

♦ we prepared a quest on our own

♦ we didn't cook anything but decided to order delivery (which actually failed and I had to send one of the mums to fetch it)

♦ we didn't have piniata this time (it was made for the halloween party earlier in October)

 So you see I had lots of ideas how to ask really provocative questions which made her deny every point and she had to give the right answer each time. We enjoyed this activity a lot!

💜 my final question sounded like that: No-one liked your Birthday party, because it was boring, wasn't it?

💚 it made her frown - she took it too seriously, forgetting for a moment that it was just a game, to make her use the proper form of Past Simple! - I had to give her a clue: Go on, Tasya, you've got to disprove it! Which she did.

💛 Actually, it was not boring, everyone liked it so much, they wish they could come again and play! 

Reflective journal

Though it was controlled, not really open-answered (there could be some options to produce her own statements, but still, she had to follow my clues)

Go Getter 3 SB - is a nice book with great ideas, with guarranteed exellent lesson plans. But still I find more grounds to design my own tasks. Recently I've watched a couple of seminars on the youtube which proves how a good lesson should work. Teaching unplugged by Scott Thornbury or  The Features of TBL lesson by Rod Ellis left me thinking that no matter how good the course books are there is nothing like free practice, student-designed tasks and real communicative situations. I think I am trying to fulfill it instinctively, as a communicator, not teacher.

What's more, I am still thinking about the ways to play this game with a group of students. Ex 10 is good for consolidating some travel vocabulary from the Unit. But what if I made a follow up task just to make my students speak more about the things they want? The instructions would be as follows:

You know, I think it's too boring to practice negative and positive forms of The Past Simple. I want you to practice something else. Being a good communicator (some extra-linguistic skills). Work in pairs. Look at each other. Think of each other's lives: hobbies, families, the way he/she looks, what likes to wear, to do, the choices he/she makes. 

Try to remember anything you already know about him/her. Values matter. And make a question with some false information. In the end we will see how well you know each other and if you've discovered anything new.

(Here is some dangerous ground: Students should respect each other, not remind any cases to put a person into shame, no bullying! Think of the corporative culture in this specific group).

▪ Did you cut your hair short two years ago? (if it's a girl who really loves her long hair and would never dare to cut it short) 

▫ Did you grow your hair long down to shoulder length two years back? (if it is a boy who would never do it)

▪ Did you have a pet spider  (if you know the person is afraid of spiders)

▪ Did you have some coke for lunch? (If you know the person is focused on his health)

▪ Did you make a tattoo which represents a scull (if you know he/she has something else, e.g. a flower and vice versa)

▪ Did your brother graduated from school last year? (if you know he's got a brother who is only three years old).

The last but not least is PEER ASSESSMENT part of the task. Students should vote for the most interesting, funny, provocative question. Whatever they like in this activity: learning something new about their classmates, becomming a better communicators, showing respect to other person's values.

***

Пожалуй, в вышесказанном есть спорные моменты, если не сказать заблуждения. Однако, оставлю это, как этап моего профессионального развития.