The scales have fallen from my eyes
English is a multifarious subject.
I’ve suddenly realised something. I was having a look at PAL 2’s Learner Diaries today. Last week before the holiday, we started a unit with a food theme while, unknown to me, the little darlings were also doing a unit about chocolate in their Chinese English class. What have I suddenly realised? They mistook the theme of the unit for the subject of study. The pupils in my classes for the past ten years have probably thought that English class was actually a kind of pot pourri of subjects. I may be trying to teach them English, which is likely to be thematised, but I suspect that they don’t understand the object of the exercise.
The food vocabulary at the start of Unit 3 is just vocabulary per se, but I wouldn’t be surprised if students expected to be tested on it specifically whereas the actual focus of Unit 3 is the writing of an informal letter about a trip to a restaurant. (09.10.11 Lo and behold! in one of the Learner Diaries I saw this morning, a student specifically stated that she expected to be tested on the food mentioned in Unit 3.)
The book tends to build up to the main exercise with various preliminary activities. It ought to clearly flag the main exercise because by the time students have had another crack at practice for Exam Exercises 1 and 2 or have done some more speaking or listening practice (all focusing on the particular topic of the unit), they’ve forgotten what they’re really meant to be doing in the first place.
The book tends to build up to the main exercise with various preliminary activities. It ought to clearly flag the main exercise because by the time students have had another crack at practice for Exam Exercises 1 and 2 or have done some more speaking or listening practice (all focusing on the particular topic of the unit), they’ve forgotten what they’re really meant to be doing in the first place.
I understand the point of building things up because students are practising skills for other parts of the exam while they’re being primed for the main exercise. But they can’t remember what that is, and as the book drags on and my interest flags as well, I forget to mention that there is a point.
Of course, if we gave them a textbook where they had to do every exercise 500 times without any of the preparatory exercises, they’d probably be happier even although it wouldn’t really improve their chances.
[24.08.14. I realised even more recently that I’m really attempting to teach English through Social Studies, while not forgetting that my primary purpose is to teach English.]
[24.08.14. I realised even more recently that I’m really attempting to teach English through Social Studies, while not forgetting that my primary purpose is to teach English.]
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