6th of November 2015 - MANY different things...

THE AIM OF SPEAKING ENGLISH IN CLASS
For today I wanted to think of a way of getting them to speak English instead of German in class because they are still so used to replying in German whenever I ask them something in English. So I asked them at the beginning of the lesson, if they liked their "speaking grade" so far and all of them said yes because they all did so well in the two Speaking tasks they had so far. I told them, that I would add an ongoing speaking task now which will also give them a grade. So if it's just a regular lesson I put my Australian flag on the front table and this means that we are in Australia and that we are not allowed to speak any other language than English. I divided their attendance or name table in two columns, one for negative and one for positive. So each time I hear something in German I would draw a line on the negative side and since I just did not want them to be quiet all the time I would draw a line on the positive side for every English answer or question. It was only allowed to use German words for vocabulary clarification like "How can I say _____ in English". Well they got the point and after I had drawn about 5 lines on the negative side they really started sticking to the English but there was no way I could draw all these positive lines anymore so I told them that today was like the final rehearsal and we would start this on Monday but with a different method. Well what I would really love is a little flag pole with a flag and if you press on the + the flag goes up and if you press on the - the flag goes down. That would help me pick the ones that haven't yet said a lot. Because I always see how far up they are... But I'm not sure if I can organise something like this till Monday. Maybe just a wooden stick and a peg with a flag stuck to. Well, I thought about coins but that way I won't be able to see how far they are... But it was amazing that they really stuck to English from then on. I should have done this "years ago".

FORMULATING QUESTIONS
I had three blackboards ready and handed out some paper to take notes. I made a statement like "it is snowing" and asked them to formulate a question. After several wrong tries and lots of hints we found out that the question was "Is it snowing?" - "You speak English" was turned into "Speak you English..." but they agreed that it sounded strange so we found out that it's "Do you speak English". I wrote all the questions with the "to do" on the right hand backboard and all the questions with an auxiliary verb on the left one. Then I asked them what the difference was but they just saw that one side started with "to do" and the other one didn't... So I wanted to start with the whole explanation about the sentence having an auxiliary verb or not but I saw it in their faces that they needed something different to "ventilate" their brains because this whole thing about finding the right questions was pretty difficult for them.  And the bell was about to ring so I'll leave this for next Monday's lesson... I'll create a worksheet for them. An easier one this time ;-)


DIY (do it yourself)
For this lesson I prepared some DIY "posts" (I don't know if this is the right English word...)

• READING BOOKS: I brought all the Level 1 and Level 2 Penguin Readers with me. I have 2 "level 1" books and 9 "level 2" books. I have a few level 3 books at home but I want them to try the level 2 first because they have the A2 level which the class is supposed to have after primary school (if they are good, and of course I want them to be good :-))

Level 1 books

Level 2 books

• WRITING LETTERS OR DIALOGUES: I had lots of writing paper ready so they could write letters in English to someone or if they wanted to work in pairs they could write down a dialogue... So just writing in stead of speaking. 

• LISTENING TO SONGS: I will have decoded songs ready for them to listen to and learn the lyrics but I just didn't get to do this yet. I will start with about two or three songs to chose from but they will become more and more.

• READING "OCEAN TREASURES" ON THE LAP TOP: I put a Birkenbihl language course on my lap top they can use. But this one I'll have to explain first.

• WATCHING ENGLISH DVDS - I will get some DVDs they can watch in English with English subtitles so they can read along while they hear the words so they'll have the same effect... 

This is all about giving them the opportunity to do something they like IN ENGLISH and giving me the time I need with the slower ones while doing the active reading until they really understand and the opportunity to work with with a smaller group while the others do something else.

ACTIVE READING - THE ARCTIC TERN
So, in 2-3 weeks we'll be finished with our Unit 1 and so I'd like to get the kids ready for Unit 2. But this time I'll do it differently. The first text we read has 3 pages and I split it into 3 parts and do the active reading just as part of three lessons and not like last time as I read the whole text over and over again which took me over a whole lesson.
So I wrote the following procedure at the blackboard: (I wrote the key words and explained what I meant.)

• Read quietly and highlight the unknown words in German.
• (While I read it over and over again)
• 1. time - read the German part while I read the English part.
• 2. time - read the English part except for the highlighted German words (so all words you don't understand yet.)
• next times - Read more and more in English and just the words you don't understand German
• When you think you understood it all - Turn over your paper and just listen one more time.
• > Understood it all? - if YES get up quietly and DIY, if NOT then read along a few more times until you really understood it all, then turn over your paper again...
• and so on...

This was so much better than last time. I think the length of the text was just about right, and those DIY posts are worth a lot!!! Many of the kids didn't have half as long as the slower ones and now the slower ones don't have to worry about the other getting bored because they know that they are doing something fun. Well the DIY posts were just the books this time but there will be many more. I started scanning all these books so the ones who are interested can chose one and I'll print them their own version and put them the audio book on a MP3 Player.