I’ve been working with a new lesson plan over the last couple of weeks with my students at Iwaki Koko. I tried to take on a different teaching style and tried to bring my students into a real life situation involving giving directions.
The inspiration for this lesson came from a lecture geared towards expanding our notion of what teaching really means and the different theories around teaching. The professor gave an example of a lesson that one of his colleagues had given in the past. The lesson was for a math class and involved multiplication. Essentially, the lesson involved putting the class into groups and then writing an equation on the board, something like:
4 x -3 = -12
The class had not studied negative numbers in multiplication yet. Their assignment was to make a poster and then make a presentation that explained how this equation works – without any explanations or material from the teacher.
The students were required to explore and to find their own questions, and then to come up with possible answers as to how, when a positive number is multiplied by a negative number, the product becomes negative as well. To be honest, I know that 4 x -3 = -12, but I haven’t a clue as to why this is.
The professor explained that there are actually many different ways to explain multiplication -- the most effective being “scaling” (a term that I don’t ever remember being taught in school). Quite often, the teaching of multiplication is quite narrowly focused and relies heavily on rote memorization. I can generally attest to this, as my memories of learning multiplication almost exclusively involve repetition of the standard “multiplication tables.”
I’ve been finding myself falling into a rut in my classes where I rely heavily on practicing dialogue, providing new vocabulary, and then setting up an activity where students have a chance to use this language in the hopes that it will help to crystallize it for them. This is based on the belief that we should provide the tools and the means for the students to learn and then expect them to internalize this knowledge so that they can use it later. This is also what is often considered to be “teaching.”
One question I’ve been pondering for a while is, “what is teaching?” is it giving homework? writing examples on the board? explaining things repeatedly? I can explain things, but some students won’t listen; I can draw on the board, but these examples may not make sense to everyone; I can give homework, but if the students don’t understand what they’re doing, it’s pointless.
The best definition that I’ve come up with is that teaching, means “facilitating learning.” In other words, if a student learns something – preferably in line with the prescribed learning outcomes, I’ve done my job.
I borrowed my lesson idea from the example given earlier. It is as follows:
-Organize the class into groups
-Each group receives a starting point and a destination somewhere in Iwaki
-each group must write down a set of directions in English, that a foreigner would be able to understand.
I tried to avoid giving any vocabulary whatsoever, but with most of my classes, I did give some preliminary definitions to get the subject initiated. If there are words that the students need to know, they all have dictionaries, or they could ask one of the two instructors in the room for help.
I decided that this type of lesson would be appropriate for my students at Iwaki Koko after I noticed that many students didn’t really need me to teach them anything. A few weeks ago, after giving a lesson on making plans with someone (We practiced dialogue, we used vocabulary from the textbook, we practiced more, etc.) I asked students to make a presentation in pairs where the students made plans with each other. Many students took it upon themselves to find their own vocabulary and language that was beyond anything that I taught them – which was awesome. I should mention that Iwaki High School students are generally very academically proficient and many of them work hard at learning English.
The lesson is designed to allow students to draw on their strengths and then to build upon their own knowledge to find new language that they can use. Also, part of learning a new language requires that we be aware of our weaknesses so that we know what areas we need to focus on. Students will not only be able to work with what they know, but they will also, hopefully, be confronted with the gaps in their learning.
It was my intention that students would first realize that this was not an easy task; navigating away from the school along twisting roads is not the easiest to explain in one’s native language, let alone a second language. But after some discussion, I hoped that each group would come up with some consensus on strategies for giving directions. Many students began by drawing maps; some destinations asked groups to choose their own destination, such as “Iwaki’s best ramen shop”; some groups made use of landmarks, others counted city streets, some used signage, some took buses, trains, or taxis, and another group gave me directions from the classroom to the school lunch service and called this “Iwaki’s best ramen.” In the end, each group had a product that was entirely their own and authentic to their real life experience.
In order to hear each set of directions, I sat down with each group for about 5-8 minutes and made sure that their directions were given in a way that made sense to me. If there were any gaps in their explanation, I would ask clarifying questions, and if there directions were exceptional, I would ask clarifying questions anyway: “why is this Iwaki’s best ramen shop?” “When was the last time that you were there?” This also gave me a chance to sit and talk with all of my students in a small group environment where they could all help each other and where they had a chance to prepare for the conversation. I think most of the students enjoyed the opportunity to talk with their strange foreigner ALT, and appreciated the challenges in communicating. I also have a feeling that there was a lot of learning going on.
One of the most rewarding aspects of learning a new language is when you work hard to learn something, and then you try to use this new language in real life, and the person you are talking to actually understands you. One of the most disheartening aspects is when you work hard to learn something, and then the person you are talking to has no idea what you are saying. Maybe it’s because I’ve been living in Iwaki for four months, but after several discussions – some longer than others, I can confidently say that I’ve understood all of my students’ directions so far (I have two more classes on Friday, which I look forward to).
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