Teachers Retreat, June 11, 2006
Basic Discussion Skills
Participants: Zorana Vasilijevic, Mary Jo Pichette, Steve Hesse, Suzanne Jensen, and Greg Lamb
At the start, the participants reviewed the course objectives. From there we moved to defining some of the problems which make attaining those goals difficult.
On the basic student / student attitude level, these were defined as:
• Shyness and reticence
• Being in an all-English class for the first time
• Low motivation
• Low energy levels
• Intimidation at being in a class with students from a higher grade
It was agreed that the factors affecting ability and performance were many, and that high motivation did not always correspond with skill level. We also discussed at some length the importance of spending sufficient time at the beginning of term getting the students warmed up to each other through games, cooperative problem-solving, and other activities.
As for achieving goals on the content level, the following difficulties were mentioned:
1. Note-taking: getting students to do it correctly takes a lot of training. Students tend to collect or copy whole passages because they don't know how to paraphrase or abbreviate. As a way of remedying this, creating an assignment focused on correct note-taking was suggested. Using an article selected by the teacher and pasted on the left side of their notebooks, students would then write notes based on the article on the right.
2. Interpretation of texts: despite their high school exam training, most students' reading skills are inadequate for most English newspapers, magazines, or websites. This leads to difficulties interpreting meaning, paraphrasing what they have read, or simplifying the information so that it can be understood when being presented to their peers. A solution to this would be to increase the number and variety of simplified texts available for student research on the Chuo website
3. Making presentations: All students tend to either read from their (word-for-word copied, or worse, badly translated from Japanese) notes or memorize a text and recite it at an impossibly high speed (or fall apart because they forget a line). Several remedies were suggested:
• Scrupulous monitoring of the note-making by the teacher (as above)
• Practicing many times: using the notes as support only
• Working in small groups, getting peer feedback
• Mandatory self-assessment after each presentation
4. Listening: Listeners rarely ask a question, make a comment, or offer an opinion. This could be a manifestation of the cultural notion of "presence" (i.e., It's enough to be there warming the seat; response/reaction unnecessary.) To counteract this, it was suggested that the speaker prepare some questions for the listeners to:
• Test the listeners' comprehension
• Invite, encourage, (coerce!) some opinions from the audience
5. Getting some feeling, natural expression into students' speech: Students tend to speak in monotones and avoid eye contact (again, linguistic and cultural carry-overs, mixed with insecurity about ability, etc). One way of improving on expression, intonation, use of gestures, is through role-play and student-created dramas based on social issues (e.g. trying to rent an apartment or get a job as a foreigner, etc)
6. Defining "Basic Discussion Skills": In truth, this course is not about presentation "skills" (gestures, stance, etc), but about developing students' ability to organize materials, express an opinion, listen to another's opinion, and exchange ideas. To that end, every teacher of this course should be thinking more about very basic training in one-on-one or small-group work, and giving a good portion of class time to open-ended talking.
Near the end of the discussion, teachers got on a roll talking about "triggers," as in things that can cause little explosions in the brain (e.g. students' over-use of erasers, "conferencing" before answering a teacher's question), and agreed that it was best to find humorous ways to wean students off their self-defeating habits, and work on our own reactions to the harmless things.
Finally, Mary Jo showed the group a very fine set of teaching materials on child labor, called "Lost Futures." She has generously offered to leave the packet in the teachers' room so that we can all have access to it.
(Summarized by Suzanne)