Questions and answers
Monday, August 15, 2005
Here are the points
we discussed:
1.
How
do you teach writing?
§
Idea 1: Students write and correct themselves
before handing the final copy to the teacher. They follow a sequence of steps
by re-reading the text several times as opposed to trying to find all the
mistakes at once. For example: 1. check the text for clarity – can you
understand it; 2. check it this time for prepositions – are they there; are
there any missing; 3. check for verb tenses; 4. check for cohesion …etc.
§
The students can also be taught the ‘process’
of writing – brainstorming, writing
the plan, first draft, second draft etc.
§
Idea 2: for teaching letters, we often give
them a model to follow for proper structure and example phrases. However, it
has been observed in a class of students doing a writing assignment
(particularly business letters) that they all seem to write in exactly the
same way and using the same phrases (they didn’t copy from each other).
§
It is important to help students identify the
‘genre’ (style and type of writing) in terms of both language and
layout. So a film review is different
to a technical review.
2.
Are your Chinese students good at asking
questions?
§
Not often. Sometimes the teacher makes a
deliberate mistake (such as ‘I really had to get to work at 9:oo am this
morning for a meeting, so I quickly left at 9:30 am ………’ after making this statement, the students nodded in
agreement without pointing out or questioning the 9:30 departure time.
§
Always praise any question that comes up as
‘That’s a really good point/question, thanks for asking …’ or “I’m really
glad you asked that!” will encourage them to ask more questions.
3.
Teaching Presentations.
a.
Question:
a ‘presentations skills’ course was given over 6 hours and all necessary
topics were covered – planning, structuring, phrases to use in different
parts of the presentations, signposts, body language, eye contact, don’t read
the slide but speak to the audience. However, after showing examples on a VCD
and going through some practice, most students did not follow the plan in
preparing the presentation and simply read the slide or text they had without
looking at the audience or using anything that was covered in the workshops.
b.
Tip:
Teach micro presentation skills; one for each subject of a good presentation
– one at a time. For example:
i.
Only posture exercises
ii.
Working with an image on display – a simple
image – i.e. cows – and talking about it to the audience. Other students
evaluate the micro presentation.
iii.
Introducing yourself + posture
iv.
Introducing the topics with an image on
display …
v.
Etc.
Each micro skill practiced
(over several sessions) are all put together at the end with a complete
presentation. Other students (the audience) have a checklist and give
feedback as to what can be improved.
Students can also be asked to evaluate one particular area in a full
presentation.
If facilities allow, the
teacher can give written feedback to each student during the presentation
course and at the end. Also, you can
film each student’s presentations and mini presentations and then give them a
DVD so they can watch themselves at home and read your written feedback on
their performance for future reference.
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