WEEK 2 1 march 2010

This week we talked about possible solutions and what we can do when we encounter
problematic students in the class while we are having a group work. If one of the students in
the group dominates the group and talks a lot and loudly in L1 and doesn’t speak English
much what can we do ?

First of all, we should try to find the problem and then try to find solutions to the problem.
 Maybe, he’s afraid of making mistakes
 Maybe, he doesn’t know English well, so he talks in the class a lot and disturbs the
other students. So what can we do in this situation ?

Possible Solutions

We may assign him some tasks or we may design an activity that requires
participation. So, he will have to participate in the activity. In addition to this, we
should also choose an interesting topic and add some more activities that will attract
the attention of the students.

What I had difficulty in fuguring out is that I couldn’t understand clearly whether we
would design a new activity just for one problematic student. But now I see that there
will be always these kinds of students in the classes, so we should be able to reach to
the each of them and contribute to their learning and developmental process. This is
what we should do and this is what we are supposed to as a teacher… right ? 

5 march 2010

This week, Gülşen Hoca presented us some demos including some speaking activities
that we can use in our demos and in our classes. At first, in the first speaking activity,
she choosed one student from the class and gave her a Picture. That student ( Nazlı)
didn’t show it to us. She just described the picture by using some adjectives and we
tried to draw the Picture that she described. As our teacher said, it’s not a good
speaking activity, because most of the students cannot speak during the activity.Only
one student,describing the Picture, speaks. Moreover, the teacher didn’t give us clear
instruction; she just wanted us to draw it.

In the second speaking acticity, our teacher divided the class into the group of four.
In each group, there is someone who is good at drawing. At first, Gülşen hoca elicited
the subject showing some pictures. She showed us some pictures of monsters and she
asked us several questions like ‘ Have you ever heard monster stories ? ---Do you
believe them etc. And then, she gave rolecards to the 3 students in the group. In each
rolecard, we were asked to describe one part of a monster. For instance, one student
described the head; second student described the body and third one described the legs
and the other students drew the picture of the monster and when we finished drawing ,
we stick all the pictures of the monsters on the board. I think It’s a great speaking
activity. The students are given a chance to use their creative thinking skills. At first,
they form the image of the monster on their mind and then describe it using different
adjectives. I guess It’s a good way to foster their creativity and very enjoyable one.
The students will enjoy every moment of the activity while describing the features and
drawing the picture of the monster. So, I really liked this activity and I will appreciate
using it in my classes in the future.