(Social-Distancing teaching)
Hmmm…
So… in the “social-distancing” era of ESL teaching how are you adapting?
Personally… I didn’t go back to teaching in classrooms until June 1st. You’d think I’d have a long time to strategize how to approach lessons going forward… but I also have a toddler. Excuses aside though I have massively changed my teaching style.
The teaching style that I developed over my time in Japan was centered on student’s teaching each other. Lots of group work and communication activities. I liked letting students get an objective that required them to get more information via verbal communication. So they would form questions, ask those questions, and then record what they learned. Then they would disseminate that data and share it.
Buuuuut… group work is not an option. Students are allowed to work in pairs, but desks have to remain around 60cm apart from each other. To be frank I think it is unnecessary. All the students are wearing masks. If we have COVID spreading the current precautions we are taking probably aren’t going to halt its spread. Students still hang on each other during breaks. They still talk in close groups and touch each other. They have to remove their masks to eat. They walk home together. They play and hang out after school and on weekends. I digress.
With the social distancing handicap I’ve moved on towards using the very thing I’ve railed against for years. PowerPoint.
Now I’ve covered my issues with PowerPoint before and I won’t rehash those now. (Full disclosure I totally did write a lengthy rehashing, then read it, realized I probably have unhealthy issues and the 4 of you who will actually read would be bored so I deleted it…) But for all the problems I have with PowerPoint it can be an extremely useful tool, if used right.
I make heavy use of animations in my PowerPoint presentations. Here are some that I’ve made with corresponding worksheets. Basic premise is making activities based on Japanese quiz/game shows in style. So far student participation is 100%, though only because I make each row stand up. I don’t love these lessons, but the kids enjoy them so far and while speaking and active communication time is drastically cut only because 1 on 1 and conversation within groups are now not possible given the parameters necessitated by COVID19.
My 3rd year students missed the last month of school so the teacher asked me for an activity for them to practice using passive voice as it was confusing them. TBH I dislike passive voice and I think it’s importance is overstated by Japanese English curriculum.
Starting off we warmed up with this passive voice quiz. Students all stand. I read the verbs and they would raise their hands to say either the past tense past participle. Then I would reveal the answer by rolling the animation and the students would write it on their worksheets. After students answered we would play Rock-Paper-Scissors and if they won then they could pick a friend to sit down. If they lost then only the student who answered could sit.
Next is the quiz/game/activity PowerPoint. If you run through the slideshow it’s easy to see how I ran the activity because I explain it visually in the PowerPoint.
My 2nd year students have broken into their 2nd year curriculum and we did similar quiz game as a class.
ALT(er)native Teaching 