Okay, so I agreed to do a 15-hour intensive English workshop (known as "stage" in French, and now I can never think of the word "workshop"). It's three hours every morning for 5 days this week.
2 down, 3 to go.
I have a 23-year-old in my class who is kind of giving me a lot of attitude. He's not horrible, just him and his friend are SUPER chatty and I had to ask them multiple times to be quiet until finally I said "If I have to ask you again, I'll ask you to leave for the day." So, yeah. Then that was okay. But it's freezing in the classroom, and my students seem generally unmotivated. But I don't think unmotivated is the right word. When I asked them to write for 10 minutes about grandparents, they wrote for 10 minutes about their grandparents and did it well. But then when I ask them questions in class, no one responds. I guess it's just an unresponsive class. They will do the work, and they're happy to do it, they're just not chomping at the bit to speak English. Or if they are, I don't know what to do to tap into that.
So, that's been a bit frustrating. Just feeling like a "blah" teacher. So, if anyone has any hints, ideas of things they liked in language class. PLEASE tell me.
That's what's new in my life. Other than I played Taboo yesterday in French!! And didn't do too badly! We didn't win, but we were a team of two English-speakers, so I'm okay with that. And now I'm working on making a Taboo game for the class. :)
That's all for now...off to plan more...
xoxo
Meghan
Sometimes when my kids don't respond too well to me, I put them in groups and have them talk to each other. In your case, they might not feel as much pressure to speak correctly to a native English speaker as they would to each other if they were in peer groups. That way you could wander from group-to-group and engage that way. They might feel less intimidated..? Hang in there!
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MOM
i was always nervous to speak in french class but the day we were split into two teams and debated about the smoking ban, our teacher couldn't shut us up. I thought it was nice because we were talking to each other so we were all at the same level, but Clark was there to help us with some words and phrases when we got stuck, so he was involved too. miss you so much, sorry about your slant bangs?... .( <--- one eyed sad face
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