Difficulties w/ New Lessons, Small Successes

This marks a new lesson I have been trying to construct for the class.  Previously the class had a second writing assignment after the midterm.  Last semester I spent a lot of time on that in the second half of the semester before working on preparation for the final.  This semester the school eliminated the second writing exam and added a comparison component to the final speaking exam.  In the final the students will now look at two pictures and describe what is the same and what is different.  This has been a new lesson that I have been trying to construct.

The problem for me is not that I lack foresight, but that I lack correct foresight.  I never seem to correctly anticipate the problems the students have, nor do I do things the right way.  I ran the exact same lesson 6 times this week and I feel that I only did it correctly the sixth time.  My plan was to do it step by step, using PPIPP and scaffolding to get the point where the students could produce on their own.  This generally did not work well until the final class.  I identified a few things I did wrong.  They needed more activation than I originally gave; I should have led the class there a bit more.  Some classes were able to pick up the basic form of sentences from my modeling, some could not.  Some of my examples were unclear in that I should have used pictures with more obvious or easily explained differences.  Some things were a little rushed.  Sometimes I expected a bit too much.    

The good news is that it went really well by the sixth time.  One the one hand this was due to a bit of trial and error and experience.  On the other hand, it was also due to paring the lesson down to the simplest and most basic level.  I need to recognize the difference between simple/complex and easy /difficult when making lessons.

Other good news is that by consistently writing “How do I say _______ in English?” on the WB and leaving it there the students have been using it a lot.  I hear them say it quite often, even when I am not near their desks.  I think this means they are using it to get a translation or clarification.  This is a minor success.  I have also started dragging more information out of students in warm ups.  They used to just give one word answers or bull shit platitudes  about what they have recently done.  Answers like “slept” or “studied English” were common responses to “what did you do last weekend?”  I have been starting class by talking for a while about something I have done, making has many sentences as I can, before asking them to talk to their partners.  I don’t think it is very important to talk about their weekends, but it is important to get them producing.  It has a noticeable impact in the class.  The more they say in the first 5 minutes, the more they tend to say in the next 70.  It usually gets them more engaged with their partners.  They tend to ask more questions, back channel and peer correct if they chat early.  Another small victory…