I was thinking back to my good ole undergrad days this last week...about which teachers I thought were effective (and why) and which ones weren't (and why not) and so on. When I started my first of six Greek classes, I was really excited! My teacher had us get a piece of paper out and write a short paragraph (or just a sentence or two) about why we wanted to take this class. Remember, this was the first day of class, so we were all pretty motivated to be there and learn Greek. Woo!
So, we passed those paragraphs up (not knowing why he made us write them), and continued on with the first day of class. (They were anonymous, by the way). About a month or so into the class, we were all complaining about how hard parsing was and 'this and that' and how we had to spend so much more time studying for this class as opposed to our other classes. The next day, he began class by busting out a few of those paragraphs we had written the first day about why we wanted to take the class. It was so great to hear them. We forgot so fast that we were ever even excited to take the class in the first place....we were so concerned with the 'now' of things being so hard and forgetting what our 'future' goals were for why we were there.
I thought this was a great idea that could be carried over into any class that we teach. I realize that not all (or any) beginning ESL students will be able to write a paragraph, but more advanced students would probably be able to. For the beginners, you could have them (if they were willing) share why they want to learn English or be better readers or writers of English. You could write them out yourself, then when the students become weary and overwhelmed about class, you could read those back to them.
Has anyone else done anything like this with their classes or something similar? I just think, with a bit of adaptation, this could really be useful in helping encourage our students to keep going when they are discouraged...to remember their goals and why they want to learn English.
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yeah, it might also be reminder to students that they are actually making progress and the classroom methodology you are using is working. I have not, but it seems like a good idea. I suppose it can be a simular idea to a portfolio of work.
ReplyDeleteHaven't had an opportunity yet to work consistently with a class at an early level of writing proficiency, but I will remember this and use it. I did have to write something similar at the beginning of a research class ... why I was there, my understanding of certain statistical procedures, etc., which reappeared at the end of the class to be used by students as a kind of yardstick ... how far and in what ways we had developed. I think it might also be fun to circulate some of those "reason why" paragraphs around for people to realize how far they have come in a certain number of weeks. It can be both a reminder (hey, you were excited, remember!!??) or a kind of "yeah ... it's rough sometimes, but I'm making progress."
ReplyDeleteI am becoming a bigger and bigger fan of benchmarks along the learning road because without those little reminders of progress, it can sometimes seem that you're not making any progress at all. And that's supremely discouraging and will deplete motivation reserves rapidly.