A Day in the Life of my Classroom

Here is what a day in the life of my classroom might look like, using lessons given in each of my teaching contexts.

Venting about the Dorm: Community Language Learning in a Low-Level Class (12 students, 90 minutes)

(I taught this class in Oman to an all-female group of freshmen college students. Many of them were particularly shy and unwilling to draw any attention to themselves. Left to their own devices, they would simply play on their devices. I decided to host an activity that would encourage the young women to speak about things that really matter to them, while those who really didn’t want to speak just yet could sit in an active listening position…where it would be difficult to covertly be on their phones.)

I go to the classroom early and rearrange the furniture. I put a desk in the middle of the room, place my phone on the desk, and set four chairs around the desk. I put enough chairs for the rest of the class in a circle around the smaller circle — a good five or six feet increase in radius. When the students arrive, they sit in the outer circle. I invite the few outgoing students to move to the center circle, which they do.

I explain that we are going to practice having a conversation in English. I demonstrate as I explain to the inner circle, “You think of what you want to say. You raise your hand. You say what you want to say. I will say it in correct English. You pick up my phone. Tap Record. Say the sentence I said. Tap Pause. Put the phone down. Then someone else thinks of something to say.”

We practice, with each student trying out the recording app on my phone. Then we begin in earnest. The conversation is stilted with phrases like “How are you? / I am fine. / I am also fine.” I ask them to talk about their dorm — something I know they all have strong opinions about. Now they speak much more passionately, and they get to use new vocabulary words along the way: crowded, disgusting, unhealthy.

When the conversation has come to an end, I play the conversation for them all to hear. They laugh. I congratulate them for having such a long and interesting conversation in English!

Normally with Community Language Learning, I would write the sentences they spoke up on the board. Since this is a smaller group, and since they are feeling warmed up and comfortable, I ask for volunteers to come up to the board. A few people from the outer circle volunteer. I give them each a marker. I play the conversation one sentence at a time, and the students take turns trying to write the sentence. They often need to hear each sentence a few times to get it right. I make small corrections after most sentences.

After the entire conversation is on the board, the students return to their seats. I number the sentences. I invite them to choose a number and practice saying the sentence. Each student tries a few sentences. It delights me to hear them speaking in full, correct sentences. They smile and laugh as they repeat the sentiments about their dorm.

I tell them, “We will use a little bit of different sentences to make new sentences.” I model with an example. I invite them to look at the sentences and think about new sentences they can make with the words on the board. “When you are ready, raise your hand.” One student raises her hand and tells me the numbers of the sentences she will attempt to combine: I don’t like the dorm. / The noise gives me a headache. / The food is unhealthy. She manages, “The dorm is unhealthy. It gives me a headache.” Success! She smiles, and soon other students give it a try too. In their excitement, they start asking for more words, and soon we have “rotten,” “old,” and “stinky” to work with too.

They rarely if ever get to vent their frustrations in class, and I can see the liberating effect it has on them as they now seem far more comfortable and open than when they first entered the classroom.

Immigration Experience: Participatory Approach with a Low- to Mid-Level Class (15 students, one hour)

(I taught this conversation class in the United States to a group of immigrant college students, ranging in age from 18 to 75, representing six countries, ranging from students who can barely make simple sentences to those who can hold more complex conversations. The one thing they had in common is the fact that they have all immigrated to the US. Knowing that students did not get many opportunities for speaking in their other classes, I wanted to give each student lots of time to speak about their experience of leaving their home countries and living in the US — the interesting things, the difficult things, the weird things. Each week, I wrote provocative questions on the board and invited students to get up in front of the class to speak. Most students would get up — they were used to following teacher instructions — but if a student was hesitant, I let them take more time watching other students before inviting them again. In addition, I asked other students to tell the shy student that it is okay, that we are all friends who want to help each other. Also, if they did get up to speak, they could use the board and the markers to draw pictures to help them tell their stories. Other students would ask them questions. When they each was done, we applauded.)

I write today’s questions on the board:

What do you like about your country?
What don’t you like about your country?
What do you like about the United States?
What don’t you like about the United States?

(I used to use the word “America” until a couple of my Colombian students informed me that South America is also America. Since then, I have switched to using “United States” instead.)

I welcome the students as they come in and get settled. I read the questions slowly. As usual, I model answering the questions, using countries I have visited as examples. As I speak, I draw pictures on the board and write out the more difficult words.

I ask who would like to come up and tell us their ideas. One student from rural Mexico eagerly gets up and tells us about the monsters in her country, that they are big and scary. “When the monsters are in the road, nobody goes outside!” We struggle as a class to find the word she wants. Finally, a co-patriot of hers announces: “Coco dills!”

“Oh! Crocodiles!” I draw a large picture on the board.

The student who has been telling the story says, “YES!” She goes on to tell us about the strange lights at night, the “oofos.” We figure out that one: UFOs. I write Unidentified Flying Object on the board. A Korean student makes a face: “Not really a UFO.”

I ask the speaker, “Did you know what it was?”

“No!”

I make a check mark next to the word “Unidentified.” I ask her, “Was it flying?”

“It was in the sky!”

I make a check mark next to the word “Flying.” I ask her, “Was it a thing?”

“Yes!”

I make the last check mark and turn to the doubting student, saying, “Maybe it was a UFO.”

Everybody takes a turn to speak. I continue to draw pictures and write the difficult words on our three large white boards for the rest of class. Some people take notes. Some people look up the words with their phones and show google images of these words to me and the other students.

One student has been in the US for a few years and owns a garage door installation business. He has the best English in the class and is easy to understand. He tells us how people call his business, hear his accent, and ask to speak to somebody who speaks English. It frustrates him. He is frustrated that none of his ESL classes have focused on accent reduction. I make a note to myself. I will find accent reduction activities and incorporate them into out future classes.

There is a new student in class today, a young woman from China. When it is her turn to go up to the front of the class, she does not hesitate. She tells us in that she divorced her abusive husband, left her young son with her parents, came to this country all by herself without knowing anybody or a word of English. How she has spent so much time learning English online to try to get better. She told us how little things have been so hard. She’s been here just over a year. She wants to get a job, but she doesn’t feel her English is good enough yet. I could understand her perfectly, and I address the class, “Can you understand everything she is saying?” Everybody says yes. I turn to this amazing young woman and tell her her English is good enough. I feel so inspired by her story that I have goosebumps. I admire her so much. I tell her, “You did a really hard thing. You did it.” We applaud her and then spend the last part of class talking about the ten-week career-track programs at the college she could do, and the names of who she needed to talk to to get started. She takes notes. I feel so proud of this group.

Our white boards are a collage of learning by the time our hour is up. As always, after I say goodbye to the last student, I stand back and admire all the language they have generated, all the parts of themselves that they have shared.

Politeness, Formality, and Interruption: Dogme in a High-Level Class (11 students, 90 minutes)

(I taught this class in Poland to an advanced group of freshmen college students. The only materials available was a chalk board and chalk, and so it was here that I explored using dogme to create lessons out of thin air. In this class I used two sequences of Activate Schema → Community Blackboard → Production, followed by grand finale that brought it all together. During Community Blackboard, I was able to see what they already knew as a class, and during Production I was able to see what they could do with it. The production activities gave them a chance to play with the knowledge they had or had just acquired, and I believe that the more a person plays with knowledge, the faster they can access and use that knowledge in more creative ways.)

First I activate the student’s scheme about politeness. I get the students into pairs to brainstorm a list of words and phrases you would use if you wanted to be polite, just a little bit polite, and very polite. I give them 5 minutes.

I collect everyone’s work by using a Community Blackboard: I ask one person from each group to come up to the board and write everything they have thought of. If I see obvious omissions, I will suggest them.

Back in pairs, the students look at what’s on the board, and they try to put all of the phrases in order of least polite to most polite.

I ask for just two or three volunteers to read their list so that I can get a sense of their understanding. I ask if anyone has anything very different. Nobody does.

I ask, “Before we move on to the next part, has anyone thought of any other phrases that we should add to our list?” If anyone says anything, I write it on the board and ask the class to add it to the correct place on their list.

I ask all the students to get up and stand in a line. I tell each student what their role is, starting with the student on my far right:

Citizen
City Councilperson
Mayor’s Secretary
Mayor
Governor’s Secretary
Governor
State Representative
Senator
Vice-president’s Secretary
Vice-president
President

I address everyone: “We are going to practice being a little more polite and a little less polite. When the person on your left tells you something, you must listen, and then turn to the person on your right and tell them what you heard, but you must use slightly more polite language.”

I address the Citizen: “There is a big problem in your town, and you believe that the president should do something about it. You’ve decided to go to your local City Councilperson and tell them about the problem and what you want them to do about it. As the Citizen, you use the least polite language.” The Citizen laughs. He tells the City Councilperson that he doesn’t like that his neighbor’s dogs are pooping in his yard and that he wants his neighbor to clean it up (per instructions, he says this with much less polite language, which makes everyone laugh). The complaint is passed down the line, each time becoming a little more formal and respectable.

When the complaint makes its way to the President, I address everyone: “When the person on your right tells you something, you must listen, and then turn to the person on your left and tell them what you heard, but you must use slightly less polite language.”

I say, “President, how would you respond to this problem? Tell the Vice-president.” The President tells the Vice president that he is very important, that he too busy for this.

The complaint makes its way back to the Citizen. He is told to go pick [it] up himself. Everyone laughs.

We come back together as a class. I ask them if they heard any other politeness words or phrases that weren’t already thought of. I tell them to write these down on their list where they belong on the politeness scale.

I tell them that we’re going to switch gears and talk about ways of interrupting people. I asked them to get into groups of three and brainstorm words and phrases they would use to interrupt someone when they are speaking. They have 5 minutes.

As before, I ask one person from each group to come up to the board and write everything they have. If I see obvious omissions, I will suggest them.

Next I ask them what phrases they can use when someone interrupts them. This time, instead of working in small groups to generate phrases, I call on individual students. They are plenty warmed up and are enjoying calling out phrases. Each time a student contributes a phrase, I hand him or her a piece of chalk, and they write it on the board. I have lots of chalk, and sometimes have five students at a time writing on the board. When they can’t think of anything else. we sit back and look at the list, and I invite them to write it down with their other lists.

I tell the class that they will be practicing using interruption phrases.

I divide the class into two teams, A and B. I ask each team to think of a famous fairy tale. They only have a few minutes to decide on a story, and I make sure that they don’t both choose the same one. One group chooses Cinderella and the other group chooses Little Red Riding Hood. I tell them that each group will go up and tell the story together. I give them time to plan what they will say. Each group discusses and rehearses. Just before the first group goes up, I tell the second group to interrupt their story as much as possible and ask questions, using phrases from the list of How to Interrupt phrases. I tell the other group that every time they are interrupted, they should use a phrase from the list of Ways to Deal with Being Interrupted phrases. When Team A is finished, they switch places, and Team A gets to practice interrupting Team B’s story.

We have practiced scales of formality and methods of interruption. It is time to put it all together!

I ask the students to get into pairs. I ask each pair to think of a celebrity that they know a lot about. I ask them to work together to write a list of questions they would like to ask this celebrity. I encourage them to ask embarrassing questions. This delights them and gives them a greater energy. They quite enjoy coming up with questions.

I tell the class that they will be putting their politeness words and their interruption skills together for the grand finale. I tell them that one of them will be the celebrity and the other will be the interviewer. Their reaction is palpable; one young man bends over on his desk laughing. They can’t believe the embarrassing questions they are going to have to ask! I tell them there are only three rules:

The interviewer must always use polite words and phrases when speaking to the celebrity, while the celebrity must always useless-polite words and phrases.
Either person may interrupt the other at any time.
Interviews must be between two and three minutes long.

Nobody wants to go first so I call on a pair to perform. The first group is a little hesitant to go up, but once they sit down in theire new roles they enjoy it quite a bit. They assume the postures and mannerisms of the celebrities they’re playing. One student plays Putin, telling the journalist that he wants the planet Mars: “Russia is red. Mars is red. Should belong to Russia.” Throughout the performances, the class is in hysterics.

Finally, we conclude with a Feedback Circle. Similar to a Way of Council Circle, I like to hold a Feedback Circle the first few times I try out new activities. I ask each student to tell me what they liked and what they didn’t like. I remind them, as I often do, that I want to be a good teacher for them, and that it does not hurt my feelings if they hate something, that I really want to know so that I can be better for them. They appreciate that I care. One by one they tell me they love the activities and wish their other classes were like this one.