10/20 The Old Boys and the Girls

Everybody was excited when the old boys came in the classroom. I guess for those old boys, the way those girls giggled was the most frightening thing in the world~ Just as Rainbow said, if Ss' questions had been polished, the activity could have been more successful. I suggest that we can teach Ss those useful expressions about love before they design the questions. Then, Ss will have more language choices as they design the questions and they will be more likely to produce those expressions while interviewing the guests. Although during this activity, Ss' attention often switches from using English to asking questions to dig out the old boys' secrets in Chinese, I still saw some successful conversations carrying on in not very fluent but definitely communicative English. I think this is an exciting activity and it is also a bold move to conduct such activity because the activity involves something more than English learning. It involves an issue that is so natural but so unnaturally constrained and restricted by adults who happen to have teenagers as their children; it involves people who are the opposite sexes of our Ss and who are not professional English teachers. If I were in Rainbow's shoes, I didn't know whether I could control it well. One thing for sure, I have to develop very good relationship with my Ss. Then, I'll have plenty teaching resources and "voluntary labors" in the future~ This time, I have a clearer idea of how the three classes react differently. It is very helpful for my future teaching.

10/18 The 1st Monthly Exam: Take Note

It usually takes 50 minutes to hand out Ss' answer sheets, announce the correct answers and explain some of those controversial or difficult questions for the Ss. Rainbow asked Ss to note down what they had considered the most confusing key language or grammatical points. They didn't have to revise every mistake or error they made; a simple but clear note-taking would be enough. I think this is a good way to direct their attention to the frequently made mistakes and to help them have a better understanding of some critical grammatical points. For those who didn't do well on the test, this assignment wouldn't become a burden because they didn't have to correct and write down everything. For those who did a good job on the test, on the other hand, they still could note down some key language to reinforce what they already knew or clear some vague ideas.

Vocabulary, the Prologue of a New Lesson --- Three Episodes

Episode One
1. Grammatical terms such as N, ADJ, VERB, CONJ are introduced.
2. Important sentence patterns or phrases are extracted mainly from the examples in the textbook; they are presented in skeletion form like " share Sth wth Sb".
3. Ss are guided and passively received the information from Ts.

Episode Two
1. Introduction to locating key information of a new word by searching the sentence structures or phrases printed in bold in the dictionary. An example from the Cambridge English-English Dictionary is provided.
2. Two in one group, each group is assigned to check two new vocab in their dictionary. They should write structures and at least one example they find on a handout.
3. Ask Ss to write down their finding in skeletion form on the board. Elicit Ss' finding and skip those that are rarely used. While explaining the new word, ask Ss to provide the sentences they find and at the same time, go over the examples from the textbook.
4. The task of checking new words is not threatening because every S only needs to be responsible for two words. After this task, most of them will find how insufficient their dictionaries are.
5. Ss are guided to learn independently.

Episode Three
1. Introduction to Cambridge Online Dictionary.
2. A handout containing a list of new words and some key structures is given. Ss are guided to practice looking for the assigned information and eliciting useful information from the online dictionary.
3. Teaching the vocab by using Ss' finding and examples from the same Cambridge Dictionary. Go over the examples in the textbook quickly.
4. Ss become active learners.