Below is the video of a class I filmed last Friday for 5th grade. Basically the students are doing a cultural themed lesson on national animals (ICC) then they make a house (art?). After they are done making the house, they will put some animal stickers and appliance stickers around the house using descriptions. The hamster is under the table. The fork is on the sofa. This latter part is not filmed.
The Plan:
- World & Me textbook picture preview
- World & Me video
- National Animal Discussion and websource
- Explain Do & Show activity
- Work on Do & Show project (Mostly absent from video)
- Do Do & Show presentation activity
5.4 Class Video
The relevant section for culture runs for the first 8 and a half minutes.
I start buy looking at the pictures in the book seen below.
I start buy looking at the pictures in the book seen below.
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| Cultural Lesson |
The video was entirely in Korean, it briefly went over the 4 animals in the picture as well as the national animal of Vietnam (Water buffalo). I didn't ask many questions, except for them to repeat the animals. The only one they had to watch for was Vietnam because it wasn't in the picture. I don't have the transcript of the video. But essentially it said the country, the animal and a very simple explanation as to why it was chosen. The video then reminded us of the task.
We did the task as a class. I just went to the Wikipedia website -List of national animals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_animals
We started with Canada and scrolled through the list looking at a few more. I gave a brief description of the animal, one student managed to guess the beaver. I then briefly explained why (Canadians know :). I then said some countries have strong animals, some have delicious animals, some have imaginary animals, some have useful animals, some have strange animals.
We then moved on to the other activity. I didn't go in depth or ask their feelings.
The ICC Reflection:
The students enjoyed the cultural section as it is in their work book. The title of the lesson is How many Monkeys are in the tree. The only connection with national animals is that some animal names are practiced in the unit. Where are the cats they are under the horse. Where is the elephant, it is in the house.
The lesson was teacher and textbook dominated. I warmed the students up with the picture. I told them to watch for the countries where the animals came from. I asked the students very simple comprehension questions. It was certainly a big C cultural lesson.
After the video when I was scrolling along the Wikipedia list, things became a little more interesting. Students really wanted to see the national animal of Russia for some reason. I eventually obliged in chronological order. I also pointed out animals I thought would interest them and elaborated on animals that they seemed interested in. They are mostly interested in animals of neighboring countries and unique animals.
We went over the different categories of national animals. I categorized them as powerful, delicious, imaginary, useful and strange. I wanted to choose words the students would know. They all laughed at the Rooster. I just said it was delicious. I could have told them because it helps keep a schedule, takes care of hens and is brave (hence the term cocky). Someone said 'le coq sportif' which is a clothing brand, but was surprising. I want them to come to their own opinions. During the video, it was mentioned that tigers were popular during Joseon dynasty, somewhat implying they are now extinct. So it seemed to the students that the animals could be historically significant, currently significant, or in the case of imaginary animals, purely symbolic.
We made a little joke about the grasshopper being strange. I asked why, they just said "jumping jumping" and started singing a popular Korean song. I probably should have figured out why Mexico chose the grasshopper. Mexico has a lot of animals and it is the national insect. I never got into why it is the national insect and to be honest I don't know. The students just liked the idea that it's Mexico's national insect. If you look closely at the 5000 won note there is a grasshopper on it, it is significant to Korea, too. My guess is it is related to agriculture.
I would have loved to get into a discussion about the significance of national animals. I did a little with the beaver because I am familiar with that and more comfortable discussing it being a Canadian. I said it wasn't beautiful. I said it was smart for building. I said it was useful to make nice hats and we used to get a lot of money. The students were dropping hints that they had deeper understandings as to why not every national animal needs to be powerful like the tiger. I just hope they realized that a lot of countries have different animals for different reasons. I didn't really poll them about their feelings on this. I don't really like to ask children their opinions, specially when they cannot communicate their feelings in English very well.
I used the textbook lesson this time because I wanted to work on the normal cultural lesson for my students. It is usually presented in L1 and some display questions are asked in L2. The follow up task usually isn't as substantial as what I did. Usually I only show the video if there is time. Discussing meaningful cultural topics with children in L2 is always a challenge. Their feelings are important, that's why I did show them the animals they were interested in. Although, I think their opinions aren't necessarily something I want them to share as they live in a very Korean world. The mission of my book is to introduce them to the world, not to open them up to it yet.
I think if I taught the lesson and had more time. I would have them categorize animals or make a checklist. They could do it by unique, powerful, delicious, useful, symbolic(misc) etc. I could then pair up with my Korean co-teacher or have their homeroom teacher get into more of a significant conversation with them in Korean. I'm sure the students who are interested will discuss it more outside of class. When they flip through their English books, it is one of their favorite sections. They also like the video because they understand everything since it is in Korean.
National animals are a good insight into a country since they are a national symbol. We can discuss why it is symbolic and if the animal is symbolic or not in our own culture. I did point out that quite a few other countries have large cats (or in the case of Iran pretty ones) as their national symbols. Korea is not unique in this regard, unlike in the case of the house cat's sound (see ICC 1). Korea is unique in that (I believe) it's the only country that claims it is also shaped like a tiger and where the tiger no longer exists in nature.
Usually I leave this section of the textbook to the Korean English teachers. Lately since I have been taking this course, I have been teaching it more often myself. The students do seem more interested. Maybe it's because I show more interest, maybe it's because I offer them more insight that regular, or maybe it's because a foreigner talking about the world is somewhat more authentic. I suppose I will ask someone else what they think.
Other Reflection:
This is what the active instructions were:
This is what the active instructions were:
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| Lesson Production Stage |
The students are meant to make a house with four different rooms (well hopefully not all kitchens). I told them to make different rooms. I briefly explained how to fold and cut and what to draw. I didn't feel I needed to go into detail because the diagram was in Korean and obvious. I monitored and assisted the students who had difficulties.
*This is where the video ends, but I do reflect on the activity and the rest of class.
Since it was a production activity, I wanted them to work largely independently within their groups. I withheld the glue until they were nearly done. After they glued all pictures together, they discussed their pictures as a group and stuck on little animal stickers. In the picture below they would each say something like: This is a kitchen, the girl is washing dishes. The hamster is on the oven.
The finish product looked somewhat like that. They wrote the name of the room, described it and then discussed where the animals were during their presentations to the class after their group practice.
I figured my explanation was sufficient since every student produced a room. Not all students could draw as nicely as the above one pictured, but it's not art class. This lesson was definitely not teacher dominated. I only monitored and solicited volunteers to present their rooms after modelling an example presentation with my coworker. I felt that students definitely contributed to the activity in class. They were allowed to be creative and work independently. Since they were in groups, they asked each other for help and assistance. I think they enjoyed the artistic element of designing a 3D room. I don't think they learned a lot, I just think it gave them an opportunity to use the target language in a manner that was more personalized than usual. Some of them designed normal rooms (minus the animals all over the place) and others designed strange rooms. One student drew a bath in his living room and said it was his dream. He put a duck and a naked boy into the bathtub. I thought that was funny. I asked if he wanted to take a bath with a duck and he said that was dirty.
I found this production activity to be quite successful. I stuck to my plan throughout the lesson, except we ran out of time and couldn't do a review activity we had planned during that class. I accomplished my goals. Every student said three sentences to the class about their picture. Some students said more advanced and creative sentences so the activity had heterogeneity. The only thing different about the lesson was spending more time on culture than usual. Although, since the focus was to teach a cultural lesson, I thought that was fine. Students really like expressing their creative minds, when their use of English is limited a picture they draw themselves can help them unless their natural creativity. It can help them use English in a more more creative way while describing their picture.
I think I succeeded with unleashing their creativity, I learned that integrating simple art into a lesson can help students become more creative. I don't know what is going on in their minds, but they must have been doing some thinking in English because they managed to produce some personalized speech.
Other:
I did a lot of speaking tests this week. I think I described them in several other postings. Basically we have students memorize a few lines of a dialogue each and then recite them to us with a partner. This time was more successful and the student did better. Not only did they take it more seriously, but we explained things better and they were used to it. They took it more seriously because they weren't happy with their marks the first time. We explained things better as in which points they may have trouble with accuracy. A lot of students forget articles and final 's' or don't reverse the order of 'it is' when asking questions. We told them to watch for it. We also reminded them to gesture appropriately and pay attention to the video for this.
One major change was telling them that we would choose the roles. We thought this would potentially increase the challenge. It had the opposite, effect. Another intention seemed to be it would make the students focus on every line except their lines so they could prompt each other if mistakes were made. This was successful.
I also had a few discussions with coworkers because it is renewal season and open class season, everyone was thinking about next year. They told me I am developing as a teacher and getting better. I said probably because of this course and experience in general. It was a pleasing comment to hear.
I will try and get another reflection on a pronunciation lesson done before Saturday's class and maybe even discuss my open class.
*This is where the video ends, but I do reflect on the activity and the rest of class.
Since it was a production activity, I wanted them to work largely independently within their groups. I withheld the glue until they were nearly done. After they glued all pictures together, they discussed their pictures as a group and stuck on little animal stickers. In the picture below they would each say something like: This is a kitchen, the girl is washing dishes. The hamster is on the oven.
The finish product looked somewhat like that. They wrote the name of the room, described it and then discussed where the animals were during their presentations to the class after their group practice.
I figured my explanation was sufficient since every student produced a room. Not all students could draw as nicely as the above one pictured, but it's not art class. This lesson was definitely not teacher dominated. I only monitored and solicited volunteers to present their rooms after modelling an example presentation with my coworker. I felt that students definitely contributed to the activity in class. They were allowed to be creative and work independently. Since they were in groups, they asked each other for help and assistance. I think they enjoyed the artistic element of designing a 3D room. I don't think they learned a lot, I just think it gave them an opportunity to use the target language in a manner that was more personalized than usual. Some of them designed normal rooms (minus the animals all over the place) and others designed strange rooms. One student drew a bath in his living room and said it was his dream. He put a duck and a naked boy into the bathtub. I thought that was funny. I asked if he wanted to take a bath with a duck and he said that was dirty.
I found this production activity to be quite successful. I stuck to my plan throughout the lesson, except we ran out of time and couldn't do a review activity we had planned during that class. I accomplished my goals. Every student said three sentences to the class about their picture. Some students said more advanced and creative sentences so the activity had heterogeneity. The only thing different about the lesson was spending more time on culture than usual. Although, since the focus was to teach a cultural lesson, I thought that was fine. Students really like expressing their creative minds, when their use of English is limited a picture they draw themselves can help them unless their natural creativity. It can help them use English in a more more creative way while describing their picture.
I think I succeeded with unleashing their creativity, I learned that integrating simple art into a lesson can help students become more creative. I don't know what is going on in their minds, but they must have been doing some thinking in English because they managed to produce some personalized speech.
Other:
I did a lot of speaking tests this week. I think I described them in several other postings. Basically we have students memorize a few lines of a dialogue each and then recite them to us with a partner. This time was more successful and the student did better. Not only did they take it more seriously, but we explained things better and they were used to it. They took it more seriously because they weren't happy with their marks the first time. We explained things better as in which points they may have trouble with accuracy. A lot of students forget articles and final 's' or don't reverse the order of 'it is' when asking questions. We told them to watch for it. We also reminded them to gesture appropriately and pay attention to the video for this.
One major change was telling them that we would choose the roles. We thought this would potentially increase the challenge. It had the opposite, effect. Another intention seemed to be it would make the students focus on every line except their lines so they could prompt each other if mistakes were made. This was successful.
I also had a few discussions with coworkers because it is renewal season and open class season, everyone was thinking about next year. They told me I am developing as a teacher and getting better. I said probably because of this course and experience in general. It was a pleasing comment to hear.
I will try and get another reflection on a pronunciation lesson done before Saturday's class and maybe even discuss my open class.
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