On July 22nd I taught the 4th hour of my practicum in the Conversation Cafe. I like the consistent pattern I have established for the flow of the class. I like to start each class with a relationship based activity. Today’s question was asking students to share their secret talent or special skill. I was very surprised by the variety of skills. One of the student’s shared they were double-jointed, which I responded that watching bodies bend in ways that they normally shouldn’t makes me feel nervous. She had a good laugh from me explaining my discomfort.
I believe I picked an activity for the class that was able to engage my high flyers and my low flyers at the same time. We watched a quick tourism video to start the activity before the video started I told students it was their job to pick two or more activities they were interested in trying. At the end of the video, we created a list as a class. I think the list helped the students that maybe couldn’t remember the name of the activity that they wanted to try. Next, the students were placed into groups to discuss which activities they wanted to try. In the discussion, they had goals to use functional language to keep the conversation going. I popped into each group to start them off and encourage them. When I was in the first group I came up with the idea that if they wanted to stop their turn, they had to ask someone else for their opinion. This way they were encouraged to connect with their peers and use the functional language to meet their vocabulary goal of the lesson.
Next class, we will be returning to presentation skills. I am excited to see if we can generate more conversation about the video we will watch. I have noticed the class is quite comfortable having a discussion when they get to type their responses, but now I am challenging myself to engage the students more in verbal discussions.