Teaching Speaking Day 4

Today's speaking class lesson was about dining customs, table manners, and different types of restaurants. I started with a short video depicting some very bad table manners. While the students watched the video, I watched them to see how they reacted. Some found it funny and at least one made a face showing dismay or disgust. I then asked these students what their reactions were, and why.

I put the students into pairs or groups of three, making sure students from different countries with different L1s were together. First, they worked through an eight-question Customs Quiz about North American dining customs in their textbooks. I instructed them to take turns reading the question and then their answer from the choices. I also instructed them to choose not only the best answer, but also the worst answer, as many of the questions had more than one plausible answer. Instead of discussing the answers with the class, I used a video which showed most of the customs, along with some "wrong ways" to behave at a formal dinner. After the video, I explained some of the vocabulary that was used.

For the second activity, using the same Customs Questions and the same student groups, I had the students ask and answer according to what would be acceptable manners in their own country. I also had them discuss their personal preferences regarding eating out. I gave them prompts and examples to encourage them to answer in full sentences. (See Discussion Questions link below.)

For the third part of the lesson, I had planned to use a vocabulary matching activity in the textbook. Since time was running short, I did not assign this to the class. However, when I noticed some of the groups were finishing the discussions before the others, I assigned this activity to the individuals in those groups, so that they would have a learning activity to work on. (The classroom teacher had previously told them to study that activity for their next test.)

I used the Let's Share activity from the textbook, which explained different types of restaurants in North America. I had the student take turns reading the categories and descriptions, as well as share similarities and differences for their home countries.

The final activity involved writing dialogues for different eating out situations. The textbook provided the "waiter" portion of the dialogue and the students had to write the "customer" portion. After the pairs wrote their part of the dialogue, they had some time to practice, and then each pair read their completed dialogue to the class. I listened for any misunderstandings or pronunciation errors, and was able to give a few corrections, along with praise for their efforts. My students have very good imaginations!

Not all groups got to share their dialogues, so I will have them do that during the next class. I did not have time to play the remainder of the Table Manners video. Nor did I need to use the contingency activity.

Lesson Plan #4
Discussion Questions for Lesson #4

My teaching strengths:

1. My lesson was well planned, with a variety of activities, and additional activities if there was extra time at the end of the class.
2. I required students to read the textbook information aloud to each other, thus giving them practice in speaking, and especially pronunciation.
3. I included speaking prompts and model dialogue for the discussion questions, thus encouraging students to use complete sentences and avoid one-word answers.
4. I gave each group some attention and encouragement as they were doing their speaking tasks.
5. I kept track of which students I called on to share their answers with the class, making sure that each student was called at least once during the class.
6. I recognized that there was not enough time for all the activities, so I left out the one that was least important to the flow of the class, and also required the least amount of speaking for the students. 

My teaching weaknesses:

1. I missed some cultural differences regarding noisy eating and tipping at restaurants. (I will try to incorporate this into the next class.)
2. The second video was too long, and not as interesting as I had hoped. It had too much new vocabulary. I should have discussed the vocabulary before I played the video, so that students could listen for it and understand better.
3. I forgot to note which dialogues were assigned to which groups. (I will make sure to do this next time.)
4. I do not wait for and insist that students stop talking when I needed the whole class's attention. 
5. My on-screen displays are too small. (I will switch to PowerPoint, at my sponsor teacher's suggestion.)
6. I still have difficulty remembering names. I need to devise a memory association activity that will help me and the students remember everyone's name!

Resources:

Genzel, Rhona B, & Cummings, Martha Graves, (2010). Culturally Speaking, 3^rd Edition. Boston: Heinle, Cengage Learning.

Rocha, Mariana. (Mar. 31, 2011). The King of Queens - Bad Manners. [video file]. Retrieved from . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVt06gKIfEU.

The Distilled Man. (May 20, 2017). Table Manners 101: Basic Dining Etiquette. [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDGGv7z5r2c .

The Course Outline, Instructor's Guide and the Curriculum for the course were provided by the school, but cannot be cited due to privacy requirements.

#TESL0170

#teachingreflections

#CdnELT