Ramblings

Use of Film in the Classroom

2009-05-22T08:36:00.001-07:00

So we're having a new workshop on the use of film in the classroom. For the activity, I've chosen the film Persepolis, an adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name by Marjane Satrapi. I thought this would be a good movie for teen classes, which I've been having trouble motivating lately.

It's Satrapi's autobiography, chronicling her years of growing up, ie. her childhood in Iran, her teenage years in Austria and her return to Iran as a young adult, set during and after the Iranian revolution of 1979.

First, I would use photocopies of the graphic novel to introduce the students to the film. I would use a collaborative reading activity in which different students read different sections of the novel, and later tell each other what happens in their sections. They would then work together to put all sections in correct order.

We would then have a discussion with the class about Iran - what did they know, or what had they heard about the country before they read the novel? I'd also ask them if the novel changed or reinforced any of their perceptions of the country. We would discuss similarities and differences within cultures. We would discuss stereotypes of different countries and different cultures.

We could also discuss different political situations, and try to understand the differences between democracies, dictatorships, theocracies, etc, and try to come up with a list of different governments we could classify under those headings.

Next we would watch the movie (the only time the students can see the entire story). I would create a worksheet with questions about small details within the movie, diving the class into two groups, and they have to pay attention to find out the different details, and try to answer as many questions as possible.

We would then check the worksheet and have another discussion on different aspects of the movie. For example:

What do you think of the main character Marjane?
How does the style of animation affect your feelings about the film? Would it have been better as a live action film?
How would you feel as a teenager living in that political system, or in wartime?
What are the restrictions placed on Marjane, and how does she rebel against those restrictions?
Discuss the situation in Colombia when you were growing up.

Workshop the Fifth

2009-03-07T14:32:00.000-08:00

The fourth workshop was basically looking at blogging tools, so it wasn't really useful for me. Though maybe I will start using tags on my posts from now on.

The fifth workshop was about adding technology/internet resources for each of the levels that we teach (with the American Inside Out text) to the wiki, which I think is an immensely useful exercise.

These are the pages I've created, for future reference:

Intermediate A
Intermediate B
Intermediate D

In the Inter D page, I have listed a number of podcasts that might be useful. Listening is still one of the hardest skills to practise, and I think podcasts can be a great tool for students, as long as they are interesting, fun, relevant and not racist.

And I've updated the general Resources page. I will add to this list as I create more pages.

A quick note on the wikis, for those of you not in the know. The Colombo Tech wiki is a very useful tool for us teachers, created by us and for us to make our lives a little easier. I have no idea why there's another one, or why it's called Abraham Lincoln Lab, but it seemed less cluttered so I posted my resources there.

I am the...

2009-02-10T20:43:00.000-08:00

WebQuests

2008-12-09T06:07:00.000-08:00

It's the third workshop, and we're looking at WebQuests. I was randomly following links, and found this lesson, called "Eyes on Art".

I think art history is fascinating, as well as studying the technique of art. I'm not completely sure about how to integrate art history into English teaching, but I think it's a good resource for students in that it can sustain their interest, if only for the beautiful images. It's very visual - much more fun than just reading big blocks of text all the time. It teaches people to analyse images and art, which contributes to other areas of intelligence than just the linguistic. Studying art also helps develop critical and analytical skills. I think it's important to make English teaching interdisciplinary - this will help students renew their interest in the language perpetually, and also help them retain their knowledge.

I think this is a great activity for adults, and for Intermediate or Upper Intermediate level students. The only problem I see with this is that it may be a little too specialised in one field, and will not necessarily teach students commonly used words (though words like colour and texture are obviously important). However, talking about specialised topics is often a necessary evil, especially if we are going to focus on content-based learning.

So, using the "Eyes on Art" lesson as a jumping off point, I've created my own WebQuest, which you can find here: Learning English Through Art. It's just a first attempt, and maybe more than slightly flawed, but I find the topic interesting myself.

~~~

This is what I did during the last workshop - creating mini-lesson plans, trying to incorporate technology into as many of them as possible. I tried to focus on difficult or boring units from the book, in order to improve them and make them more interesting.

Technology in the Classroom

2008-11-27T19:07:00.000-08:00

As a new teacher, I'm only starting to discover different ways to help my students learn, and so far I've mainly been sticking to the tried and tested methods. I try to involve a lot of communication in my classes - interaction with other students and with me. I think it's important to make English fun and relevant to them as human beings, as social beings. Face-to-face communication is especially important. I don't think you can learn a language solely by interacting with a computer.

But at the same time, I love technology - I love the internet - blogging and youtube and even facebook (!) can be manipulated into learning tools. The internet is a great resource for facilitating human communication, as I've discovered from experience.

I don't really use much technology, as such, in the classroom. However, I always try to encourage students to explore technology-assisted learning outside the classroom. This is one area where I don't think I can provide all the motivation and structure - it is a tool for motivated, independent learners to use on their own. I provide URLs in class for students to visit at home, and I often use authentic materials, texts, and sometimes video downloaded from the web.

The reason why I don't use much technology (even in the way of video and such) is that it is often time-consuming with little payback, untried, as well as susceptible to failure at awkward moments.

I like the one-month cycles that the Colombo has. While it doesn't leave much room for project work, it does keep students motivated to be exposed to different teachers every level. It also helps the teachers stay motivated, in my opinion.

As far as the DID model is concerned, I find it interesting and complex; it makes me think of what else I could (or should) be doing in the classroom. I agree with the steps of the model, in large part. I especially think that knowing the learner is important, since we are working with students of different abilities, ages, and backgrounds in every class. I'm not sure about stating objectives and how helpful that is, though. It's easy to tell a student what they should have learnt by the end of the lesson, but human nature, the way that memory works and the way that learning works ensure that they will have forgotten whatever they "should have learnt" right after the exam, if not sooner. They need a lot of review and real world practice to retain the knowledge.

I also find the DID designer (as well as the accompanying documents) to be very vague - maybe it should be accompanied by a practical example of how we would use these guidelines in a real class. I believe that every class should be well-planned. However, I also think we should include an element of spontenaity in all classes, because a lot of learning takes place in surprising, unplanned ways - both for the student and the teacher.

First Post

2008-10-10T08:06:00.000-07:00

The most original entry yet. Just another blog in the sea of blogs I've created already, and left to die a quiet, unremembered death.