Reflection: Up, Up and Away

Reflection: Up, Up and Away

*updated: 1:24am 11/21

Thank you, Jeremy Harmer! Four words I probably don’t say enough. I was struggling for an activity for my debate class this week, when I came across a gem of an activity on page 350, the likes of which I had never seen on Dave’s ESL or anywhere else in my six years of scrounging online for fun, innovative ESL activities. You can find it under the bold header “Formal debates.” Basically you assign students (or let them choose) the identities of famous and prolific historical figures. These public figures, whether they are Julius Caesar, Marie Antoinette, Albert Einstein, King Sejong (for that local flavor) or PSY (for the less cultured learner) are all flying in the same hot-air balloon, when suddenly a catastrophic fire means one of these timeless icons has to jump out of the basket and sacrifice him or herself in order to save the group from certain death. Of course, being somewhat self-absorbed celebrities, none of them are too eager to do so. So the premise is they have to conduct a spirited defense for why they deserve to live. This is performed in the style of a debate. For brevity’s sake, I’m pasting below the exercise-sheet I prepared today for the class, based on the original exercise from the book. Oh, and these are the same debate students I’ve written about before, and reiterating from previous reflections, they are mostly higher intermediate and lower advanced speakers.     

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Balloon Debate:

Each person should pick a different famous person:

You can pick your own. But if you have trouble, here are some examples to choose from; King Sejong, Shakespeare, Ban Ki Moon, Cleopatra, PSY, Ghandi, Leonardo da Vinci, Walt Disney, Barack Obama, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Prince William

You and your famous friends are in a hot air balloon!

You are having a great time flying across the world…. but SUDDENLY DISASTER!!! There is a small fire!! The balloon will crash and everyone will die, unless one person jumps out and sacrifices him or herself to save the group. But nobody wants to be the one to die.

Come up with 3 reasons for why you (as the famous person) should live. The other group will judge who has the best answers.

I, _________________, am too important to die, because….

1)   ____________________________________________________

2)   ____________________________________________________

3)   ____________________________________________________

For BONUS points, come up with a reason for why one of the other famous figures SHOULD die:

____________________________________________________

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Then after they completed the sheet and had time to consider what they’d say and how they’d express it, they delivered their defenses in the punchy 90-second format of a debate (alternating with each numbered point), with rebuttals (where proficiency allowed it) and counterpoints made. Since there were six students, three students debated each other, while the other three students played the role of judge (and I guess jury and executioner), deciding which two students had the strongest points and which one went cloud diving.

The class was a lot of fun and the students who lost accepted it with good humor. When we previously had judged debates, the losing side had appeared discouraged or sullen, but not this time. There was a consistent rapid-fire discourse in the class that didn’t have as many pauses or trailing off as is usually present.

The past couple of weeks I felt I had been treading water in my debate class a bit. The formula of choosing an issue they felt passionate about, such as school uniforms or using smart-phones in class, and then discussing its merits or downsides had become stale and predictable. In inserting a bit of fantasy and having them personalize their roles as these revered figures, I could feel the atmosphere becoming a bit lighter and more easygoing than in previous weeks, when it had started to feel a bit too workmanlike.

I think some of the learner’ enthusiasm was due to the fact they were fulfilling a role that was detached from them personally. This was a fantastic role of someone very idolized (in most cases), so it gave them an extra boost of confidence in portraying him or her. They were able to step out of their L2 learner shoes and embody a public persona known for success. This is just my personal theory, but in my own experience when you act (and perhaps Tom, you would understand this too with your theater background) and personify a character other than your own, you leave behind a lot of your insecurities and inhibitions. In TESOLese, I believe this exercise lowered the students' affective filter and provided them a more passive and comfortable learning environment. In the course of the exercise brainstorming and actualization, there were lots of student-to-student interactions, student-initiated IRF, personalization, critical thinking and logical reasoning skills utilized. While NOT cooperative learning, it contained elements of it, such as the students being held individually accountable for their success, encouraging a healthy competition between them, a greater trust being placed in their abilities and peers giving each other feedback. Of course, they didn't work together in this instance. I suppose if I want to do a cooperative learning exercise in the future, a debating class would be a natural environment to do it.

In summation, the Harmer activity challenged me to re-evaluate how I teach my debate class and to think outside the box a bit, instead of relying on the same old formula of pick-an-issue, brainstorm it, organize points and debate. There’s a hidden angle there that I hadn’t fully considered and one which the Harmer exercise in question has opened my eyes to. I hope next time I can come up with my own original debating activity that is as effective as this one.

  

ICC Lessons Reflection Part One of Three: Introduction and Set-Up

ICC Lessons Reflection Part One of Three: Introduction and Set-Up

In the last week I have filmed two pre-planned ICC lessons in two different environments with two different learner-types. One lesson was a private lesson in a coffee shop setting with two former University students of mine, their proficiency level advanced-low to advanced-mid in my determination.  The ICC lesson I put into practice with them was based on my lesson I had crafted for class a few weeks previously (which I have titled ‘Intercultural Comparisons of Family & Friends’), focusing on the differences in how holidays are celebrated and social interaction between family and friends. The other lesson filmed here (‘Native Culture Expectations Meet Target Culture Reality’) was during an afterschool class at my current public middle-school job with students who were mostly intermediate-high to advanced-mid, with one novice student being the exception (her friend, an advanced L2 speaker had invited her to sit in, and I think since this wasn’t intended to be a heterogeneous class, she had trouble keeping up). The primary focus on this lesson, partly demonstrated by the extreme and ridiculous examples on the hand-out, was how tourists can unrealistically place their native-culture expectations on target-culture environments and treat such a place by their cultural rules, even when they are the visitor. This second lesson was requested and consequently generously provided to me by Sean Makarenko and is based on his original plan for ICC class. I imagine I taught it a bit differently than he would have, not to say there’s a correct way to teach it, but rather different approaches, different interpretations or responding to the needs of different learners.

In all honesty, I prefer my first lesson with my old University students to the second lesson with the middle-school students for a number of reasons. First, being in a more intimate setting (despite the din of noise from being in a crowded Starbucks… don’t worry the sound still comes in crystal-clear) I think they felt more at ease and retained a very low affective filter. This leads into the second reason, which is that I’m well-acquainted with them (one of them I first taught almost four years ago). Finally and perhaps most importantly, there is a degree of extra confidence, passion and familiarity that comes with enacting your own lesson plan. And again, that’s not taking anything away from Sean’s lesson at all. Led Zepplin are really good at playing ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ What if you asked them to play ‘Hey Jude’ by The Beatles? Because it’s a great song and they are great musicians, it would probably be pretty good. However, their rendition most likely wouldn’t be as good as The Beatles playing ‘Hey Jude’, because they are not The Beatles. And vice-versa, The Beatles probably wouldn’t be able to play ‘Stairway…’ as well as Zepplin. Anyway, you get my point. Sorry, for the strained analogy that almost turned into a musical theory tangent. Basically, because of this preference, I’m going to delve into and analyze my ‘Intercultural Comparisons of Family & Friends’ with my private-lesson students first, before transitioning to the ‘Native Culture Expectations Meet Target Culture Reality’ middle-school class.

Enough rambling. Without further ado…

Lesson One: Intercultural Comparisons of Family & Friends

Lesson Two: Native Culture Expectations Meet Target Culture Reality

ICC Lessons Reflections Part Two of Three: ‘Intercultural Comparisons of Family & Friends’ Lesson One

ICC Lessons Reflections Part Two of Three: ‘Intercultural Comparisons of Family & Friends’ Lesson One

As explained in the set-up, this is a private-lesson with two University students, advanced-low to advanced-mid speaking and listening proficiency. Both have studied abroad in the USA for about a year. The lesson was conducted in a coffee-shop, so please excuse the background noise. Their voices and my voice come in clearly nonetheless. Additionally, one of them requested not to be filmed, so the camera is mostly placed either downward or focused on the materials. In reviewing the film, I realized the shifting focus is a little vertigo inducing, but still watchable.

This lesson is initiated with a PPT describing the differences between the traditional Korean Chuseok feast and the American Thanksgiving culture (with some stereotypes peppered in). It then segues into a clip of the TV show ‘Friends’ in which a fight breaks out between two siblings, Ross and Monica, and they make accusations against each other in front of their parents. The language contains many topics that would be taboo in Korean culture and their demeanor towards their parents could be perceived as disrespectful. Transcripts that they can follow along with accompany this clip. At the end of the clip, they are instructed to highlight any parts of the transcript that struck them as inappropriate from the vantage-point of their native culture. On the second page of the transcript is a series of discussion questions, which run the gamut from identifying the taboo-breaking topics, to considering what the consequences of these actions would be in their native Korean culture and how would the tensions depicted here be resolved differently in Korea.

I start off by trying to elicit information from them about Chuseok, their Chuseok experiences and then asking them what they know about Thanksgiving in America, the “American version of Chuseok.” From there, a contrast is slowly built beginning with innocuous subjects such as difference in the food that’s eaten. As the students feel more at ease and their interest becomes aroused, the conversation progresses towards more abstract differences, specifically how different social interactions and attitudes are in the target-culture, culminating in a discussion about family fights breaking out at the dinner table. 

From there we watched the ‘Friends’ clip mentioned previously, and I asked the students to spend a few minutes looking over the transcript and highlighting anything that seemed offensive or at least exceptional from their ethno-cultural perspective. In the interest of time and not boring anyone to death, I elected not to film myself playing the 3-minute ‘Friends’ clip or the students highlighting their transcripts in silence for 4 minutes after that. However, if you wish to see it, it can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3hn40NlrVk

The students discussed the many topics mentioned that would be taboo in Korean culture, such as divorce, marijuana use, co-habitation before marriage and the general tone of disrespect the characters use to address each other and their parents. Their conclusion about the target-culture was that personal topics are discussed more directly, while Korean people avoid open confrontation over serious issues. What was striking is both students indicated they prefer the more open and casual environment of the target-culture to their own.

Later on, they discussed how Korean society expects one to be deferential towards their elders. An interesting aside was one student saying she thinks if she got in trouble or acted out, her father would be angrier with her mother than with her. In talking with them, while they agreed a general respect should be paid towards the elderly, they seemed to rebel against the notion that they’re entitled to unconditional reverence, regardless of their actions and behavior. Here I sense a generational shift; with the influence of globalized youth culture, people here are slowly drifting away from their traditional Confucian moorings.

I ended the lesson by asking them if they encountered anything that shocked them from their cultural perspective when studying in the US and they both mentioned manifestations of more open and casual social interaction, such as strangers greeting people, making eye-contact and even smiling.

I thought the lesson was successful, with a nice set-up complete with schema activation and visual scaffolding. From there, they had a good peer-to-peer dialogic discussion examining different cultures and personalizing it by relating it to their own experiences. These students are already fairly worldly, but I think they developed their “little c” intercultural understanding a bit with the frank and mature discussion that they held. Due to the taboo topics and mature insight required, I wouldn’t recommend teaching this for children or teens. In being proud of the fact that I conducted an accomplished class, I still had issues and that is again too much teacher-talk and too much feeding of answers. I’ve improved in this regard, but problems remain. All in all, it was an enjoyable lesson to teach and even I, as a teacher, received some valuable target-culture (Korea being my T-C) insight. 

ICC Lessons Reflection Part Three of Three: ‘Native Culture Expectations Meet Target Culture Reality’

ICC Lessons Reflection Part Three of Three: ‘Native Culture Expectations Meet Target Culture Reality’

In contrast to the previous lesson’s more mature approach towards cultural norms and taboos, this takes a more light-hearted, humorous approach by focusing on extreme ethno-cultural defensive reactions or denials when encountering a new foreign culture. As previously established in the set-up post, this class was a middle-school class of mostly intermediate-mid to advanced-mid students, with one novice student sitting in. Additionally, while my other lesson was my own product, this lesson as originally devised is by Sean Makarenko, although my approach, interpretation and learners’ needs probably differed from his. The basic premise is that very entitled tourists travel to foreign countries and complain when things aren’t done the way they’re used to in their homeland. They erroneously and quite arrogantly believe they can bring their native-culture setting with them when they immerse themselves in a foreign-culture environment. A typical complaint on the hand-out, which contains about 30, reads “there were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners.”  It’s bafflingly offensive that someone who chooses to travel to another country would view its natives as “foreigners” and I use this point later to elicit some thoughtful responses from the students. Additionally, it makes one wonder what the point of travelling is for this non-adventurous complainer, who obviously isn’t embracing the unique culture of the host country.  

Anyway, in beginning the lesson, I do some word-association and elicit some words they think of when they hear “vacation.” I put these words on the whiteboard and try to build off of them, although I find many are more to do with expectations of generic sun and fun, and less with culture, so I find myself steering the conversation a bit. Too much, in fact. In an attempt to fill the void of a thoughtful silence, I ramble on with too much teacher-talk, corrective feedback and over-explanations. There’s also a lot of hesitancy and uncertainty in my diction as I try to think of the best way to frame my points and setup the different steps in the exercise. I attempted to split my lesson into three distinct stages of presentation, practice and production, but found my presentation lasts twenty minutes. In having them arrive at the desired answers and insights, I found I pushed them too much. While we did eventually have a fruitful discussion, there were other problems, such as students conversing in Korean when doing pair-work (usually a proficient student explaining something to a less proficient student) and some students speaking too softly to be fully audible on the camera.  While reviewing this problem-riddled setup makes me cringe a little, there are some useful moments, such as helping them to establish the difference between fact and opinion and how opinion-based complaints are influenced by our cultural expectations. We also had a lot of fun when reviewing the insane complaints left by people travelling, and I used that interest as a spring-board for them to reflect on how they would feel if a foreigner told them they were behaving incorrectly in their own country.

(NOTE: From 11:30 to 14:00 it’s mostly students working together and me proctoring and helping along less proficient students, so I would suggest skipping here)

This would eventually lead to a roundtable discussion of their own intercultural experiences, prompted by some of my own typed-up questions (such as “what complaints did you haven when travelling?”, “were these complaints influenced by your culture?”, “were your complaints fact or opinion?” and “what cultural complaints might someone have when travelling to Korea?”) the end-result hopefully having them consider how their own culture seems from a target-culture perspective. Most of the students had travelled or lived overseas, so there were lots to talk about in terms of food, customs and experiences. One girl brought up the fact that salespeople in Canada did not seem friendly enough in comparison to the salespeople in Korea, but she recognized this was more a complaint influenced by her culture than an irrefutable fact. Another girl interestingly brought up the fact that the air smelled differently in New York City, although no one else seemed to notice. To her, the air had an unpleasant odor, but although this school is in the heart of Gangnam, she thinks Seoul air smells clean. She does consider from a foreign-culture’s perspective that if she came to Korea, the air might smell like garlic. The practice stage came to an end as we considered different ways we could prevent cultural misunderstandings (some suggestions were buy a guide-book, do research on internet, make a friend, etc).

(NOTE: Again, a lot of slow moments. Feel free to skip around)

I ended the class with a short production stage where I asked them to volunteer their ideas about how to better understand and anticipate target-cultures when travelling (similar to the last step in practice, except less prompting and assistance from me in the hope they can formulate their own ideas without teacher feedback or interference).

I think overall the class was a successful failure.  On the plus side, the students seemed to enjoy the casual atmosphere of the talk, the funny hand-out and they were pushed to consider other points of view. On the downside, this activity could have been presented in a much more concise, interesting and efficient manner than I did, with less teacher-talk and more building blocks. I should have also prepared some kind of video to show them, perhaps of a pampered tourist complaining in a sun-weathered country, in order to activate their schema and pique their curiosity more. There also existed the uncomfortable fact that a novice EFL student who had never been outside of Korea, was sitting in on the class, and this was not a heterogeneous lesson that could properly cater to her needs, so her partner the most advanced student in the class was constantly prompting her along and translating stuff in Korean during the pair-work. I felt like the novice student was receiving i+100, while the advanced student was receiving i-1, due to the huge gaps in their proficiency levels and my uneasiness about how to tend to her (she was a last minute addition and unexpected).  In conclusion, if I were doing the lesson again, I would approach it differently and find some way to introduce some more interaction, perhaps including elements of a game or providing catagories for different things they would encounter overseas, such as “cuisine,” clothes,” and “customs” from the start.