30th of October 2015 - finally back!!! (much and many)

Oh I was so happy to finally be back. This was the first English lesson after the holiday (and my sickness) and it was an amazing lesson! The double lesson was about "how much" and "how many" and when to use which.

Since I don't like the expression "countable" and "uncountable" at all (because are stars really countable?) I wanted the kids to make up the rule themselves and that's how the lesson was:

First we welcomed our guest, the president of the "Schulpflege" - so basically my boss, with our good morning conversation just with the difference that this time the kids told him good morning and asked him how he was today and all that with no preparation. They just definitely had initialised "my part" by hearing it so often that they could easily adapt it to this new situation.

Then I asked them NOT to take out their stuff yet and just told them to speak along this text they had listened to passively just as much as they could... I read the text out loud and pretty much the whole class was speaking along pretty much the whole text and this after quite a long time without listening to it.

Then I went to the blackboard and wrote "how many" on one part of the blackboard and "how much" on an other. I told them that they have heard and read these two expressions several times in this text and asked if they could recall sentences which had these word in.

(They still had no text in front of them!!!) Well half the class raised their hand immediately but I waited a few more seconds until ALL of them had thought of a phrase: So I asked a weaker girl and she answered "How much spaghetti do we need for 20 people?" (WOW!) So I made her a compliment and wrote spaghetti on the "how much"- blackboard. - Another boy said: "how many tomatoes we put in the sauce" and the next said "how many grams or kilos was that?" and so on and so on. I didn't have to add ANYTHING! They found the onions, salt and pepper, Parmesan cheese. So this was my blackboard:

"how many"
 tomatoes, onions, grams, kilos, packs

"how much"
spaghetti, cheese (which I accidentally spelled chees - and one guy told me that there an "e" missing :-)), salt, pepper


So I asked them, if they could think of a rule to know, when to use which. What most of them saw right away was that the "many" words were in the plural form and the "much" words in the singular. Fantastic, I haven't even thought about this myself. They formulated this aspect in different ways (always ends with a "s" etc) but they couldn't think of counting the objects yet. I gave them more examples like skin, fingers, sand and books but it still didn't click. So I asked a concrete question:

If I asked you: "How many books are there in the shelf" what would you do to find out? I let them think about this for a moment and then they told me, that they would go to the shelf and COUNT the books. And if I ask you "How many tomatoes are there on this desk" - they would count them. So I asked this question with all countable nouns we talked about. Then I asked,  what they would do if I asked how much air there is in this room or how much water in the lake or how much sand the beach. They looked a little puzzled but agreed that the could not really count water nor air nor sand.

So I wrote the words "countable" on the "many"-side and "uncountable" on the "much"-side.

One girl said, that she could count the sand grains (one boy added "or pillars of sand like in the song") and this perfectly lead us to the question, how to make UNCOUNTABLE things countable using the examples of the text. I asked how Betty, Tom and Oliver knew how much spaghetti they had to buy if spaghetti was uncountable? Or how much spices or how much salt and pepper... They all knew it by heart: 4 packs of spaghetti, one glass jar of spices, one pack of salt and pepper...

I gave them some more examples like the ones in the "Young World Pupil's Book" but some of them are a bit confusing. I mean I can count the sun. There is one! But how much sun will cause cancer? So I added some myself like sunshine. For meat I added steaks. And I asked about the stars... About half the class though that stars were uncountable and they are so right but in our case stars are countable. I tried to explain them that if they could start counting like "one star, two stars and MANY more" we say it's countable. Same thing for the Autumn leaves in the forest, we'll never be able to count them all but we can still say "one leaf, two leaves and MANY more"

I handed out an ABC list with with two colons. One for "many" and one for "much" and I asked them read through page 4 of there decoded text and make a preparation for their "part of speech test" (Wortartentest) this afternoon because guess what: If a word is a noun in German, what part of speech is it in English? It a noun too. I chose the last page since there are about as many uncountable nouns as countable nouns and it's not too long. So they highlighted all the nouns and wrote them on the right side of their list. In the meantime I went to "my boss" and the first question he asked me was how they knew this whole "shopping for a school camp" text by heart. I showed him the decoded text and said that we had clarified all the vocabulary and the kids had passively listened to it at home while doing something different. He was very impressed :-)


So the bell was about to ring and I wanted to the kids to compare their solution to their neighbour's and if they had different results they should ask me. One question was the dinner which can be countable or uncountable but with a change of meaning. "I cook dinner 3 times a week" or "I usually don't each much dinner"...

So the bell rang and I let them take a brake and had a conversation with my boss. He seams to have liked this lesson and said he was going to send me an e-mail.

After the break I handed out the "Young World Activity Books" for the first time this year and I asked them to do Exercise 12 on page 7 and the ones who were finished could start with 13. They did so well. From having the text initialised so deeply they could easily fill in the caps and the whole shopping list without listening to the text again.

After having been sitting for such a long time I thought it was time to get them moving so I took them outside with the aim to work in pairs and find at least six things on the school yard which they could ask a question about - at least two countable and at least two uncountable. They had to write down the questions and the answers in their note books.

I realised that they had no idea how to formulate questions like "How many stones are there under the tree" or "How much rubbish is there in the bin" but I just let them try... In the next lesson on Monday I will put some more chunks on the wall and they will be writing those sentences again in a correct form. But they really came up with some real good thing. And just about at the end of the lesson they had all found six or (mostly) more things that they could formulate questions with.

Critical reflection of the Rainbow Serpent Reading Project

Well, where should I start...

I think I got a little carried away by this project. At the beginning, I just needed a gap filler for about two weeks, while the class was passively listening to the "shopping for a school camp" text. I just looked through my posts again and here's a very short resume:

Monday, 7th of September
Introducing the project / clarifying the aim of the project / letting them pick their text.

Friday, 11th of September
Understanding the story / clarifying unknown vocabulary / start listening to the audio book

(no homework over the weekend)

Monday, 14th of September 
Reading along the audio book / silently > as an echo > at the same time

(Tuesday - Thursday = camp = no homework)

Friday, 18th of September
Practise and preparation time / practising in many different ways

(no homework over the weekend)

Monday, 21st of September (visitors day)
last practise / first reading out loud

(first time I could give them homework - which was to practise, since on Friday all of them had to read out loud)

Friday, 25th of September
Reading in front of the class and in the other room to record it.

Monday, 28th of September
The one who was sick read to the class and together with his mates to the dictating machine.
(while starting with shopping for a school camp)

Friday, 2dn of October
Giving back the grades (CD Cover) and going through the questionnaire.



MY CRITICAL THOUGHTS

So all in all it took us four weeks to finish the project even though we just spent two weeks (or a little more) with preparing the text (clarifying vocabulary and practising reading it out loud). The rest of the time was used for their presentations, the recordings, folding their CD cover and answering a questionnaire...

Well the question is, if all this wasted too much time or if it showed the kids appreciation for their effort and accomplishment? It's hard too say but by the looks at their faces, as they folded their CD cover with themselves being one of the "artists" they really enjoyed it. I wonder if any of them listened to their readings again at home or if they showed it to their parents... I'll definitely ask.

If I could have found a way of reducing the time they read in front of the class, that might have been good. But since there were up to four kids reading the same text they seamed to be disappointed as I just wanted to give them a couple of lines so most texts were presented more than once which made it boring for the listeners... Due to the fact that the kids who read their texts at the visitors day wanted to read their texts again it was probably too much time that we spent reading them out loud in front of the class. And still I believe that it was good for their self-esteem to make such good performances in front of the others. So from that point of view, it was well worth the time.

By looking through the aims of the project again I realised something... I didn't really stick to the checklist I wrote and I definitely should have! Only four of the kids read it to me before the read it in front of the whole class!!! I wrote, that they could tell me whenever they thought they were ready and they could read it to me. Then I would tell them the part they were going to read in front of the class and then they could go home and practise this particular part again!!! SHAME!!! I had such a fantastic idea when I wrote these aims and then I completely ignored this step!

I have realised, why I made something like a short cut... There was this visitor day and I was told, that it would be good if the parents didn't only see the kids sitting in their desks and working for themselves, so I thought that would be a great opportunity to start with the reading presentation. But actually  I think that was a mistake... Just by sticking to the plan, I could have saved a lot of time... Because if they had all read to me first, they could have practised their particular part and we could have heard all six stories only once in class... But still, it would have taken a long time to have all of them reading the whole story to me and I would have had to find an additional task for the ones that were ready longtime before the others...

And there is one more thing that I realised... This one worksheet I handed out for the class to do while I was in the other room with each group to record their readings was never even looked at again. For me it was just something to keep them busy but I should have gone through the answers with them because I know some of them really worked through it thoroughly. To avoid having to leave the class working alone until all stories were recorded, I could have showed them how to do the recordings themselves and so each group could have gone to the separate room by themselves to record their readings? That might have been a better idea...

Well and then there is the grading... I got just one grade out of this whole project... And it's a speaking grade. It's a bit confusing because it's a reading project but here, reading out loud is considered as speaking and reading means reading comprehension. So I should have given the project a different title... AND I could have made a reading comprehension grade on this too... AND a writing... AND a listening... First I thought of letting them write a couple of sentences about their story, or giving them a couple of questions about their texts or the texts they have just heard from their class mates. That way I would have gotten grades for more sections of the report card but I decided not to since the aim was clearly: Reading a story to the class... I'll have to think of wider aims on the next project or I'm never going to fill these report cards. 

MY CONCLUSION

Well after all these thoughts I'll try to come to a conclusion:
Making a project like this (especially for the first time) is probably full of making compromises. I don't know if it would have been "better" in a different way... But here are a couple of points that I do judge as positive and negative:

Negative:

• The level was too low for some of the kids. In the questionnaire one boy mentioned that he got bored by reading the same text over and over again. So in the future, for a heterogeneous class I need heterogeneous texts, especially if it takes us 4 weeks until we get though with them.
• If I give the kids a clear schedule like in those aims - I have to stick to it and not change it because I wanted their parents to have a more exciting visitor's day. 
• I should have showed them, how I will grade their performance and I should have thought it through thoroughly. This would have made it clearer for the kids and it would have saved me lots of time.
• Next time I plan a project, I'll have to think about grading the kids so I can set the aims in a way I cover more than just one skill. If ever possible I should try to cover "reading", "writing", "listening" and "speaking" in order not to spend 4 weeks on a project and just getting one skill graded.
• And here are the points, the kids liked the least about the project:
• Rather boring stories (5) - Well this is the first point of my critics too.
• Reading in front of the class (4) - OK, I can remember how I felt in school when I had to stand in front of the class. I really hated it... So I can understand those guys who didn't really enjoy this even if all of them did great!
• Nothing (4) - oh that's charming ;-)))
• Always reading the same text (1) - well yes! That the thing about heterogeneous texts. I totally understand this critic.
• The audio book was read too slowly (1) - Same thing!
• Uncomfortable earphones (1) - You bet. I have to do something about this. The MP3 players did their jobs but they are really not luxurious at all. 

Positive:

Well that's the thing about me... I'm not too good in making compliments to myself. I always think I could have done better, but I'll try to write down what I think was pretty good.

• Well the outcome of the whole project was definitely great! They all did a fantastic job. Hearing all these kids reading English out loud so fluently and with such proper pronunciation made me incredibly proud. Especially since they have not been known for being strong in English at all. 
• My thesis, that learning a language is something very auditory cannot be too wrong. I don't think that reading these stories without the help of the audio book would have caused such great results.
• I do think, that the kids had fun. At least most of the time. I see that some could have done with one or two lessons fewer or with more demanding stories but except for that I thought there was a very productive, motivated and jolly mood in the class while working on this project. 
• I think it was good, that the kids could choose their story (even if there were only six simple ones) and that they could work on it individually.
• And here are the points, the kids liked the most about this project:
• The MP3-listening in class (9) - This I realised. It was new for them but they really enjoyed reading along the audio book. Even as they had the choice to read it without the MP3-Players, none of them wanted to miss the opportunity to listen to the texts.
• That they have gotten a CD (2) - This is good to read because it cost me plenty of time :-)
• That it was something different (1) - Oh this definitely was different than just the "Young World"
• Understanding all the words and knowing how to pronounce them (1) - This was nice to read especially since it came from the one guy that wrote that he didn't really like the project because it became boring. He did enjoy knowing the whole text and being able to pronounce all the words. 
• Not having to study vocabulary (1) - mmmmhh... Well I'm sure they liked this even if I think I could have gotten a whole lot more out of this project, just like I wrote a little above.

Analysis of the questionnaire

This is my first post after a long time. This autumn brake turned out to be so different from what I had expected. The first week I spend searching for an au-pair that would like to come to Switzerland to stay with us and I made about a thousand phone calls to figure out how this all works here. My best friend got her baby, the twins enjoyed her mom being home and so one. And then by the end of the holiday I got this terrible frontal sinus infection that put be in bed without being able to even look into a computer... I'm still ill but better. Now I have a cough and a weird stomach but I'll survive...

I will be able to make up the three misses English lessons - so there will be a lot to write about shortly...

But now I want to write my reflection about the Rainbow Serpent Reading Project.

First I would like to share the answers to my questionnaire:

The one that didn't like is one of the best in class and in the open questions he wrote, that he got kind of bored, reading the same story over and over again.

 

For the second question I didn't make a diagram since all students said, that they have never practised reading out loud like this before.

What was surprising here was, that one of the kids that thought it was too little time had a grade 6 (A) and the other one a 4 (C). And one who was not very satisfied with the outcome thought it was too much time.

This probably was not the smartest question I asked... I actually just had one boy in mind that might say that he didn't take it serious... I could have done without this question.

Well, the two boys saying that they didn't really use the time in class were in the same group and always volunteered to go to the separate room... They must have goofed off a lot in there... Well but actually, they did great when they read their texts, so it must have been too easy for them as well.

Here, the one boy that didn't practise at home was one of the best readers. AND the one that said he didn't really like this project because it became boring. The two who practises a lot are the two the other teachers were surprised the most about their performance.

One of the three who said, that he wasn't satisfied with he outcome is the boy who had a 5.5 (A-B) even though he's freed of learning targets in most the subjects, so he's probably just very critical with himself. He could be more than satisfied with his reading. He did fantastic. The two others were two who said they could have practised more.

So these were my questions but I get so much more out of the open questions I asked at the bottom of the page:

What did you like most about this reading project?

• The MP3-listening in class (9)
• That they have gotten a CD (2)
• That it was something different (1)
• Understanding all the words and knowing how to pronounce them (1)
• Not having to study vocabulary (1)

What did you like the least about this reading project?

• Rather boring stories (5)
• Reading in front of the class (4)
• Nothing (4)
• Always reading the same text (1)
• The audio book was read too slowly (1)
• Uncomfortable earphones (1)

What do you like the most about our English lessons?

• The MP3-listening (5)
• The songs (3)
• That it's different form just going through the Young World (2)
• Reading along the audio (1)
• Working in groups (1)
• The new method (1)
• Learning a foreign language - I want to speak it perfectly one day (1)
• I like all of it (1)

What do you like the least about our English lessons?

• Nothing (9)
• Listening to "shopping for a school camp" so often (2)
• It's sometimes hard to understand everything you say (2)
• The good morning conversation (1)
• Translate each and every word (1) 

Well the last four questions give me so much more insight in what the students liked or didn't like. That's worth so much more than just knowing how many of them "liked" the project. And I'm pretty sure that many answers are true for many of them... I shouldn't have asked for the best and the worst but for the five things they liked the most and the five things they liked the least... So this was my little reflection to the questionnaire... My reflection to the whole project will be in a separate post.