Reflection#6

This week a new student joined theAdvancedclass.HeisoriginallyfromKorea,buthas

lived in the U.S. for several years.WhilehisEnglishisalreadyatthecollegelevel,hejoinedthe
ESL program as a way to use his free time productivelybeforehestartscollegeinJanuary.This
means I have now four students in my Advanced class, which has been helpful for doing more
pair work. The focus of all classes this week was on review and practice for the midterm exam
whichstudentstookonFriday(today).

For vocabulary practice, I used activities such as crossword puzzles and gapfill
exercises, as they have proventobeaneffectivewaytoengagestudentswiththetargetlanguage
over the past few weeks. For my Advanced class, I used this crossword puzzle as a review
exercise. The day before,studentshadcreatedflashcardsofthewords,reviewedtheirsynonyms,
and classified them according to their part of speech. We had also worked on makingsentences
and checked how the words were used in some of the readings in the textbook. Therefore, this
activity served as a miniquiz of the vocabularyforstudentstopracticespellingofthetermsand
their associated word forms. I implemented anactivityWeimer(2013)callsquizcollaboration
(pg. 235) that promotes studentcentered learning by facilitating peer collaboration and
communication. Students had a set time to try their best at completing the puzzle alone. When
time was up, students were given five minutes to talk to their peers about their answers and
change any answers they wished. They then finished the puzzle and we had a debriefsessionto
check the answers, as well as to discuss how talking to their peers helped them ornot.Students
agreed that talking to their peers helped them increase their understanding and they could see
how acertainwordfitintoasentencethattheymightnothaveconsideredbefore.Indeed,asthey
discussed their choices, it was clear when a light bulb went off in their heads and they realized
the correct answer to fill in the blanks. As Weimer (2013) argues, a studentcentered classroom
should allow students to discover answers for themselves and motivate them to take
responsibility for their learning.Byhavingstudentsworkaloneandthentogethertodiscusstheir
answers, this activity encouraged them to draw ontheirpriorknowledge,makeinferencesbased
on the clues givenandthecontextofthesentence,andactivelymanipulatethetargetlanguageto
discover the answers. I could see their motivation increase as they helped each other and were
able to successfully solve the puzzle. Using this activity not only underlined the importance of
integrating collaborative work in the classroom, but also reminded me of how helpful it is to
allow students to give input on how they are learning and what helpsthemlearn.Givingthema
chance to share how an activity helped them or not (in this case peer work) is a way of sharing
power and building community in the classroom (Doyle, 2011). I plan to continue promoting
collaborationinfutureactivities.

In the PreIntermediate reading class, one new thingIincludedforreviewingvocabulary

is theuseofindividualdryeraseboards.Ipurchasedtwominiwhiteboardsandusedthemduring
a lesson to review synonyms and antonyms of a set of words we had studied the day before. I
provided a clue such as This word is a synonym for respectful and students had to write the
correct word (in this case the word tolerant). The first student to write the word yelled done
and we then reviewed if they got the right answer. The student had to showushis/herwordand
then use it in a sentence. If there was a mistake in spelling, I would ask students to think about
the word (e.g. astonishe? or astonished) to encourage them to notice the mistake and we
would spell the word again together. This activity turned out to be a very effective way to help
students notice errors in spelling and increase their retention of the target vocabulary. Not only
did students enjoy thechallengethatcamewithcompetition(beingthefirstonetowritetheright
word), but they seemed confident when explaining the words and making sentences. I was
happily surprised to see how well they remembered thewordsandspelledthemcorrectlythere
were very few mistakes overall. In addition, this activity aligned with learnercentered teaching
because students were actively exploring the target language and doing the learning as Doyle
(2011) contends. Rather than the focus being on me or on the board at the front of the room, it
was up to the students to produce the language and then be able to explain it. It felt as if they
were running the lesson and teaching each other, and I was facilitating by pointing out to
common errors or clarifying doubts. Students were interested and motivated in learning. I
definitely plan to continue using these boards in the weeks to come I will try out a pictionary
anddictationgamenexttime.

Finally, I used technology to create and play a review Jeopardy game. I found this
website that provides a Jeopardy template for free to create games for the classroom and it was
extremely easy to use. Here is the game thatIcreatedformyAdvancedclass.Sinceitisalarger
class, I divided students into two teams of two to play. Overall, the game wasaveryinteractive
way to reinforce concepts and energize the class. If one team got a question wrong, the other
team had the chance to answer the question and I encouraged them to explain their answer as a
way for them to teach each other. This promoted a sense of community as they clarified the
concepts together, asked questions to each other, and exchanged ideas. In fact, as Walker and
White (2013) hold, games can inspire active learning and help students experiment with the
target language in a more engaging way than completing a worksheet. Students were interested
in answering the questions and discussing their answers. Theyaskedmetodothisactivityagain
as they said that it was fun, gave them an opportunity to look back and reflect on what they
knew, and as one student put ititmademethink.Iplantousethisactivityagainforreviewing
inthefuture.

Overall, this week I learned about interesting ways to create engaging classroom
environments,energizestudents,andpromotecollaborationamonglearners.

References:

Erben,T.,Ban,R.,&Castaeda,M.E.(2009).T
eachingEnglishLanguageLearnersThrough
Technology.NewYork:Routledge.

Walker,A.,&White,G.(2013).T
echnologyenhancedlanguagelearning:Connectingtheory
andpractice.Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress.

Weimer,M.(2013).Learnercenteredteaching:Fivekeychangestopractice.SanFrancisco:
JosseyBass.

Doyle,T.(2011).L
earnercenteredteaching:Puttingtheresearchonlearningintopractice.
Sterling,VA:StylusPub.