An experiment: Connectivism (part 3)

After the first 3 months, I asked students for feedback through google forms, and through 1:1 chats. They had just taken their end of term exam, and offered me quite a bit of useful feedback which I could act on. I dropped some of the activities they didn't like so much and introduced some new ones. Students seemed more open to change now and there were noticeable differences in achievement.

Results so far
Students seemed to be making big strides forward in speaking, listening, and writing. Students seemed to be coming along fine with reading, but still struggling with pronunciation. I decided to look at this. Students also informed me that they would like to be introduced to the IELTS, have more speaking and pronunciation practice, and wanted to feel more confident with listening.

Changes made
Pronunciation: Students were introduced to pronunciation apps, and Siri! Pronunciation apps helped students with words and sentences in their free time.  Siri helped with grammar, and Pronunciation. Students had to ask questions in class and Siri would reply. This made students more conscious of mistakes, and they refined their speech more. It also produced some funny situations we could all have a giggle at. In addition, students could use Siri to find out information for grammar tasks.

Speaking: Siri, Skype buddy, IELTS speaking mini lessons, and English language meetups. A stated above this was an area of real growth in the last term but students were wanting more. As classes are already communicative I decided to focus on things students could do outside of class. Skype buddies, and English language meetup events in the city became useful. I found a list of events and my students picked one they were interested in and went. They loved it. I also worked with another teacher in Spain and paired my students with hers. In class we also did some mini IELTS speaking lessons. This also appealed for the reason below.

IELTS practice: The IELTS is a huge achievement here in Vietnam and can really open doors. It's no surprise that although my students weren't ready, they wanted to know more. To respond to this I created some mini lessons for different parts of the speaking and writing exam. These involved looking at model answers, watching the exam, and learning skills and strategies. These were graded to the level, and really helped students to connect with writing more, and to challenge themselves to speak better.

Other things I introduced

Tea party - Students are given questions but only one answer, They must mingle to find and write down the other answers.

Field trip - we went on our first field trip to a modern art space. In the at galley students were given questions and had to discover the answers. After this we brainstormed what we had learnt, and used it to discuss the topic. This also really gave students tons of materials for an arts project we did where students made an art exhibition and curated using passives.

British Council Learn English - This website gave some really good tried and tested materials which were often a hit.

Guardian, BBC, Short story websites - The videos, articles, and stories really provided fantastic authentic activities.

Things I wish my teacher knew -  Students anonymously give feedback, saying things they feel i've overlooked or feel embarrassed to say.



Other things
Projects are going better, as are all activities except video. Confidence is improving but there are still some issues.

An experiment: Connectivism (part 2)

The first three months

On my first encounter with the class and there were certainly some issues, which will be familiar for ESL teachers in many east and south east Asian cultures. Education in Vietnam is very traditional, and you can see Confucian ideas in practice. The expectation can often be that the teacher will transmit knowledge, with a big focus on rote learning, and repetition. People can often see it as a transaction where paying for something fixes a problem and creates expectations. The class were university students on average around 20 years old, so were open to new ideas but still challenged by them.

Other issues included nervousness, often missing homework, or arriving late as is common here. To overcome the first issue about educational culture, activities were more structured at first with  gradual release of control to students. Regarding student responsibility I set up a fines system with proceeds going to our end of term party, and student choice of homework. My students love apps, IELTS tasks (with lower expectations), and Kahoots.

Activities that went well
Treasure hunt - Students took a while but really got into this, but remarked they wanted to feel more confident in themselves an would like more follow up.

Chopsticks - They really enjoyed the competitive element, but it sometimes held weaker students back. It was important to pair strong and weak students together.

Kahoot - Worked well, allowed me to see what they knew and didn't know, and added a little fun to class.

Ted Ed - TED talks graded for the level were a lot of fun as my students already enjoyed TED talks. A lot said this was their favourite activity.

Film English - This added something fun and interesting to stimulate learners.

21st century skills mini lessons - These were really fun and useful according to the students. Students learned skills like sending an email, presenting, and researching. This helped with projects in the long run and also in other class time. It was a great way to build learner autonomy but can require a fair bit of trial and error and some time.

Activities with issues

Google hunt - Students didn't really see the point of this and felt that they would prefer me to give them the answers.

Flipped classroom - Students felt that again they wanted me to teach them, and additionally lacked confidence.

Video - Students talked about being self conscious, or not being technical enough.

English Pronunciation app - This helped students with sounds and they liked it but eventually the novelty wore off as it can be a bit 2D.

Projects - These really took a while to grow on students and were difficult for students. Often people wouldn't speak in the first project or 2 because they were 'not confident' or didn't understand the usefulness. This changed over time (see part 3 and 4).

Things I learned and changed

Students need quite a lot of scaffolding and patience to do this well. An activity may take a few trials before it goes right, and due to cultural issues students may find this to be strange.

A lot of time will be spent building confidence and doing supporting activities. This may seem time consuming but it will be worth it.

In my time i found Edutopia very useful for ideas and recommend you check this website out. It has great ideas for connectivist studies.

An experiment: Connectivism (Part 1)

Connectivism is an educational theory which although not mainstream has been gaining traction in recent years. The idea behind it is to make education reflect the 21st century. It is most frequently used by MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), by organizations like Khan Academy, The Open University, and online British Council courses to name the more well known. That being said there has been a move to introduce this to classrooms as we know them with 'blended learning'.

Learning is connectivist if...
It removes the teacher from a central leadership role and puts them in a guidance and facilitation role.
It puts the teacher as a source of knowledge on par with other sources e.g books, the web, museums/art galleries/information centres, peer learning, and guest speakers to name a few.
Digital learning is key.
It focuses not on the transmission of knowledge, but the discovery of knowledge and learning through creating learning networks.
Learning goes beyond the classroom.

This appealed to me as a teacher who shares the same ideals, and who is always looking to build on my knowledge and practice.

Over the past 9 months, I have ran a connectivist course with one of my adult courses. The course was pre-intermediate, with university students. I chose the time frame as this is what it takes to progress from pre-intermediate to intermediate in most schools, I chose the level and age as this is a very common level and age, which I have a lot of experience with (as do most ESL teachers). The experiment will be presented in 5 parts.
Part 1: An overview.

Part 2: The first 3 months.

Part 3: the second 3 months.

Part 4 The final 3 months.

Part 5 Reflections.

Classroom management
The idea is that students take responsibility for themselves and their team with a few functional guidlines. Students watched a video by Steve Jobs in the first class and had to write down his tips for success. We then created a class contract with some guidlines and a series of fines for breaking each one with the proceeds going to the end of term party.

Activities

Treasure hunt - Information is placed around the room, students have a series of questions to answer.

Google hunt - Similar to the last one but using google.

Tea party - Students are given questions but only one answer, They must mingle to find and write down the other answers.

Chopsticks - the information or text is in fragments, students have to race in turns with a pair of chopsticks to answer questions with their partner.

Kahoot

Siri - This was good for finding information and speaking practice.

Fieldtrips - Every so often we would do our lesson somewhere different like a local art gallery, or museum. Discovery tasks or English language tours would be used with a big conversation/debate at the end.

Ted Ed - Sometimes I would plan lessons around Ted talks,

Film English - This website has some amazing films that can help students practice language points.

Project Based Learning - Projects were used to explore themes and practice language in an authentic and communicative way.

Skype buddy - I worked with another teacher at my old language school in Spain who teaches students of similar levels to arange a skype buddy for each student as an extracurricular way of practicing speaking.

British Council Learn English - This website has many listening, reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary tasks to help students to practice.

21st century skills mini lessons - These often took the form of guided challenges and focused on skills like sending an email, confidence in speaking, team work, digital literacy, vritical thinking, research, creativity.

Flipped classroom - Occasionally students would be given a lesson where they had to find the answers and teach the grammar point or vocabulary to the class.

Guardian, BBC, Short story websites.

English Pronunciation app - Students would download an app and practice certain sounds at home.

Video - This helped me to observe my own lesson, and also helped students record speaking at home to undertake self correction or to allow me to correct.


Homework and extra curricular
The idea is that students shouldnt feel forced to do things, and that they should learn because of intrinsic motivations. Not only this, learning should be authentic and should not just be confined to the classroom. To address this, I gave homework like 'a list of ways to practice speaking, listening, reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation in your free time' including apps, films, events, websites. I then followed  up on this by asking students for a weekly review of the activities they tried. Other times I gave a kahoot, or a fun task e.g for 'make' and 'do' students had to do 3 things with 'make' and 3 with 'do' e.g. make a cake or do homework and take a selfie of this activity. Students then had to email the selfie to me with a sentence about each.

Finally we also created a schoology page where students and I could share assignments, information, awesome things they found, plan projects outside of class, and ask questions. Alongside this we had an email stream where we also shared things.

In the next part I will review the first 3 months.

Below are some resources about Connectivism if you are a little curious.

Books
Connectivism for EFL teachers: A theory of learning for a digital age - by Thomas Baker
Connectivism &connected knowledge - by Thomas Jerome Baker

Websites
http://education-2020.wikispaces.com/Connectivism
http://www.itdl.org/journal/jan_05/article01.htm

Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx5VHpaW8sQ
https://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud

IELTS Reading and Listening

A strong result in the listening can really shine on university application forms. Listening is the most common receptive skill, but is often a challenge due to accents, and limited vocabulary. Below are some strategies for the listening paper, and some self study and class study activities.

1) Predict - Before the tape starts try to predict what will be said next. With a lot of fill in the blanks questions, this is certainly possible. You don't need a crystal ball. In class you can try this as a betting game with fake money and real prizes. At home you can use lyric trainer, or watch a TV programme and pause it every so often to guess what happens next.

2) Keywords - In some tasks you are required to seek specific information, or answer true or false questions. Take a few seconds before the start to underline important words in the instructions or statements. Listen only for these! In class why not use Ted talks or School of Life youtube channel and their transcripts with statements or gap fills. Outside of class you can use these too.

IELTS Writing

Below are some strategies and activities to get the best IELTS score possible in the writing section. In my years teaching the IELTS writing has generally been the most difficult for students. Students struggle with the unique and complicated spelling rules and patterns of English, organizing thoughts, and keeping pace with time constraints. Below I will offer 3 tried and tested solutions for these problems focusing on each part of the exam.

problem: time - Strategy: Pass yourself. Set aside 5 minutes of each task to plan, 5 minutes to edit at the end, and the rest of the time to write. 400 words in an hour is less than it sounds. and time management underpins all else.


IELTS Writing part 1

Problem: Organization - Strategy plan write edit: You have 20 minutes to write 150 words! Your brain tells you to write like you've never written before, and whether you realize it or not you've made silly errors, lost coherence, and failed to answer the question as well as you could have. 20 minutes isn't long but 150 words is less than you think. Put your sense of urgency to the side, read the question, reread it, underline the key words, and write a very simple plan which gives in no more than a few words the point from which you will write. That will take a whole 5 minutes. Write for 12 minutes referring to your plan. Finally stop take 3-5 minutes to reread and answer these questions: does it make sense, are there any errors, is it logical. If the answer is no edit it. This will help with coherence grammar and lexis.


IELTS Writing part 2

Problem: Going on a tangent - Strategy focus - It can be easy to get lost in this task. This then induces panic, which repeats the cycle. With every sentence you think of writing ask the question you are given. Finally remember this structure

personal opinion
overview of what you will write

supporting point
evidence

opposing point
evidence

summarize

Stick to this and you will find it easier to get the best score possible in coherence, and stucture.

Past perfect a lesson plan

Level: Intermediate - Upper-intermediate

Age: All ages

Materials: Ipads/tablets/laptops, story, mini whiteboards, whiteboard, maps of students hometowns

Warmer: Sushi line - Students make 2 lines facing each other and answer personal questions about memories with the person opposite (use past and present perfect tenses). Move 1 line 1 person to the right after each question so students have a new partner for each question.

Lead in: Story time - For kids you can use one of aesops fables or for teens and adults you can tell them a funny story from your life and get them to complete some questions.

Teach grammar: Tea party - On the board write some questions that different students have answers to. Give students a cup with a drink and a piece of paper with a clause of a sentence and an answer about past perfect.  Students mingle and share the information they have to answer the questions on the board. Timelines, information about when we use, and example sentences, and anything else that focuses on meaning are the most useful pieces of information.



Language in use: Sentence jumble, grammar auction, and a kahoot - Use the sentence jumble to familiarize students with the form,  a grammar auction will cement this, and a kahoot will allow students to review everything.

Controlled practice: Guess what happens next - Say a had + past participle clause and get students to complete the sentence. To make it competitive you can give points for the funniest, or most creative, or most surprizing.

Freer practice: Memory lane - Students are given a map of their town and are asked to think of memories and anecdotes. They must use the past perfect for each anecdote at least once. Students then share these with the class.