UCE, module 2, teacher's diary

TEACHER'S DIARY

I kept a diary after every double lesson in which I wrote down immediate observations, impressions and thoughts about my teaching and the reactions from the students.

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diary entries

January 8, 2002

January 15, 2002

January 29, 2002

February 5, 2002

January 8, 2002
There was considerable discussion concerning the fact that the homework had to be handed in by e-mail. It bothered mainly one student who feels great resistance towards this means of communication. Furthermore, several students didn’t understand the necessity of signing a contract. They felt compelled to things that seemed for granted to them anyway. I felt that they were afraid of being pushed into something they didn’t want. ‘Here comes the small print’, said one of the students. After about 12 students had signed a first copy of the contract, some mentioned that group pressure was arising. At that time, I realised that they were signing with their real names and told them I would bring a second copy of the contract in the following lesson which they would sign with their drama names.

The students enjoyed very much having authentic coins from foreign countries in their hands. It was difficult for them to identify Irish and Finnish money (a small cultural lesson on Gaelic being the native language of the Republic of Ireland with the explanation that ‘Eire’ means ‘Ireland’). The students engaged actively in their conversations and used the grammatical structures that were implicitly asked from them in the task.

Later, I introduced the necessary words to talk about financial matters. Since the students were familiar with the type of vocabulary exercise I used, they could work efficiently and conscientiously and stayed on task very well. Only few of them had to be reminded not to speak Swiss German.

All in all, I felt that it was a very satisfactory start into our drama project. The students were not overwhelmed with a lot of non-verbal, physical activity that they had questioned so strongly after their first drama project. They could gradually start developing their thinking in role and will hopefully move within the role easily in
future lessons.

January 15, 2002 [up]
In spite of my initial doubts, I felt quite comfortable in my role. The students were sitting in a circle at the beginning of the lesson and looked at me anxiously when I was getting ready to start the lesson. They observed me how I was getting into role, namely when I was putting on a headscarf to signal my new identity as nurse from the Silver Beach residence. Some of them started to giggle a little bit or give me a puzzled look, but I quite confidently started to deliver my prepared opening and within a few sentences felt very comfortable in my role. As the lesson proceeded, I took off my scarf at times to signal that I was out of role again. Later, the students and I found a smooth way to move between roles in that I not only answered their questions concerning language learning but also talked to them in role. They realised immediately when I was trying to get the conversation in role going and co-operated well.

Mistake: I missed to introduce myself. However, later in the drama work, somebody called "Miss Küpfer”, and when I didn’t react, he said: "What’s your name?” So I apologised for not having introduced myself and said my name was Cindy. I hadn’t thought about that in my preparation but was quite quick at inventing a name. The students realised my hesitation at saying it and might have been pleased if I had got stuck, but that way, I made myself credible and might also have served as a role-model of how to find a way out from situations of linguistic emergency .

The group was familiar with the task of creating paper locations. Some of them set out very quickly to create their paper locations, others needed more encouragement, but all of them ended up having about 4-8 pieces of paper with words on them. The layout was only partially successful, but I didn’t put too much pressure on them. One of the students explicitly asked why she had to do this. I realised she was out of role but kept answering in role, arguing that it was Selma’s wish to know who the people were she was going to leave her money to. I stressed that she wanted to have a more visual idea of them than just the photo of a person she hadn’t seen for ten years. A bit reluctantly, she then moved her pieces of paper from a flat layout on a table to a more visual, three-dimensional one.

I had the impression that the sceptical ones now understood better what the purpose of the previous activity had been. Some of the pairs engaged in active conversations, pointing out several items of the rooms they had created. As I walked around, I commented on some of the places and the students had fun talking to me in role and explaining their imaginary dwellings, especially if they were unusual ones like living under a bridge or in Queen Elisabeth’s palace.

After the break, there was a funny incident. One of the students had laid out a paper location of snow hills, a cave, a fire and a mammoth. One of the students who wanted to sit down on a chair next to the mammoth accidentally stepped on the piece of paper with the word ‘mammoth’ on, which made ist owner shout out in shock: "Oh no! You have killed my mammoth!” When I heard this, I shared his feelings and asked him if he was sure the mammoth was dead. We found out from him that there was nothing to do to revive the animal. "What can we do with the dead mammoth now?” I asked. Its owner suggested to grill the meat and eat it. "But where could we make a fire to cook the meat?” I asked. "Does anyone know a suitable place where we could go and make a fire?” "There’s one right here,” replied one of the students, so that problem was solved. I then wanted to know what we could do with the mammoth’s fur. The students signalled they didn’t understand the word ‘fur’ (some of them verbally, most of them non-verbally). One student, however, suggested we could make a coat of the fur. I approved of the idea and said she was going to be the one to receive the fur coat. By repeating the word several times in context this way, the rest of the group had a chance to pick it up and reinforce it. Finally, we had to decide what to do with the mammoth’s tusks. he word was new to the group as well, so I said "the mammoths big, long teeth” and showed their shape with my hands. One of the students said: "We can make the thing for the teeth (and pretended to use a toothpick). "Oh, yes, that’s a wonderful idea!” I said, "we’ll make toothpicks from the tusks! I would never have had the idea to make toothpicks of tusks, but I think it’s brilliant!” And through this repetition, the whole group had a chance to hear the words ‘toothpick’ and ‘tusk’ again.

PW: Showing each other their favourite room at home and catching up with times past. This was another sequence where moving in and out of role worked very well. The students immediately engaged in lively conversations, having a peak at the OHP once in a while to make sure they were covering all the aspects. To me it was a wonderful moment of seeing how conventional patterns of teaching and drama can be mixed. I overheard several students who used conditional 1 instead of conditional 2, so I pointed out to them that they could not count on receiving any money from aunt Selma at this point, that we were still very much in the speculative phase. All of them recognised the point and started using the appropriate form.

Nobody doubted the usefulness of the vocabulary cards I handed out as further inspiration for their speculations about what they could do with sudden wealth, even though only few of them could actually serve as input for their conversation. Some pairs continued their conversation without taking much notice of the cards, others integrated the sentences in their conversation, still others checked whether they could translate the sentences from German into English. One student took out her book and asked me if she could ask me for help for some of the sentences in the book. At first, she was hesitant because she addressed me in role, but then we both quickly switched to the language learning situation. I might even have said that I happen to understand German and could help her out.
None of the groups spoke Swiss German!

Writing in role: All the students worked quietly on their texts and were very concentrated (see photos). I occasionally helped out with words and expressions. The students used the dictionaries that are in the classroom. After the lesson, we immediately looked at the photos on the monitor of the digital camera and deleted the ones that we felt could not be published. I explicitly asked for permission to use the ones that were left. Some students were pleased to hear that I felt they looked good in the picture. It was fun to decide together which scenes rendered a good impression of our work and the atmosphere in the class.

When my boyfriend asked me in the evening how everything had gone, I told him about several episodes and realised the enthusiasm I felt. Successful drama work for me means that I can work without feeling the tension of having to keep the students on task and making sure that they don’t use Swiss German. After both afternoons of the conditional project, I felt relaxed and eager to write down my impressions and thoughts about our work. It will be interesting to see how the students feel about this way of language
learning.

January 29, 2002 [up]
I cannot claim this was a drama lesson in its true sense. We spent most of the time sitting in the circle, reading texts. Although all this happened in role, the students had very little chance to be in role themselves. This is a problem that arises when too much linguistic material has to be covered. Work with a novel will be more suitable to apply a wider variety of drama strategies in the future.

February 5, 2002 [up]
Today, I didn’t feel very comfortable. The students politely co-operated, but I had to invest a lot of energy to set them on task. The most frustrating moment was at the very end, when practically none of the sentences were completed correctly. A total failure — from a structuralist point of view. This impression was reflected in one of the students’ feedback, namely when she said she felt she hadn’t learned anything. Another one, however, opened a completely new perspective in this discussion when she said she had liked the fact that the class had had to write so many letters. To her, it was a good occasion to apply the grammar she had learned in class. One student missed her desk and said she didn’t like sitting in a circle and writing on her lap. Another one wanted to have class discussions, but behind their desks with the teacher in front of them. Obviously, nobody appreciated the fact that I had tried to move myself out of the centre of attention. However, there seems to have still been quite a lot of teacher dominance. Certainly, there was little leeway for the class to take decisions. I was busy enough trying to cover all the material with the coursebook and develop a situation which would be of interest to the students. It was really only after the first lesson that I felt relieved because I sensed I had been able to step back from my role as a lion tamer (wrong image; usually, I have to invest a lot of energy to bring the students to life...)