Freezing Chicago

Hi All.  I was in the States for a week and spent the last weekend in Chicago.

First of all, it was colder than Matsumoto and had snow on Saturday.

Luckily, I could have a fun this time.  I went to the United Center to watch the ice hockey game, Chicago Blackhawks vs Vegas Golden Knights.  It was my first time to watch the ice hockey game.  The players moved around on the ice so quickly and the speed of shooting was so fast.  It was the exciting game until the last minutes, but Blackhawks couldn't beat VGK.

If I could have another chance to watch the ice hockey game, I want to learn about rules, teams and players so that I can enjoy game more.

Leading a horse to water; how to make it drink?

After a month or so of "I don't know", "I guess", "Yeah", "Maybe" & "Not really" responses to just about everything we have tried, Damian & I have been scratching our heads & thinking outside the box for this class, considering a project-based approach. Our learner is far too cool for school, and his English far too good for a traditional approach...plus we know he will start yawning & pull his hoodie back up as soon as we revert to type & try to start teaching. A follow up to an in-class brain-storming activity never got off the ground because the written product was so utterly bizarre I did not know where to pick up...man-eating carrots, flying volcanic robots & reincarnation. My efforts to flesh out the narrative had us going in ever-tightening circles of teen logic & reticence.

Clearly this kid plays way to many games. A Placement Test we rely on had given us our first 'false' reading (I think) in that he was about 2 CEFR levels below where we had pencilled him, so we are still trying to establish a baseline level we can work from. OK. Writing didn't quite work out, so let's see what we can do about a vocabulary exploration.

Word Up the tool of choice here, expecting a short 'it's too hard/boring' after 20 minutes...but no. "Can I use a dictionary" and "I'm gonna loose if I just use 3-letter words, aren't I?" revelations. Uncovered a will to win/compete with people (not just programmes) and thinking about strategy - as well as accepting tips/hints to do better (after outright rejection at first - couple of big scores from me vs 'dog' did the trick!).

So, introspective reluctant learner wants to win - games - and has an impressive vocabulary. Dislikes traditional classroom approach but mum wants him to be given essays for homework! Gamification might be an answer; I have seen a few presentations now of using games for courses, but I'm not a gamer myself...I really doubt I could become a Minecraft ninja in a hurry and build this into a strategy. Likewise, I have no interest in descending into the depths of Second Life and all the escapist/obsessive traits that seems to bring out in people. Last thing we really want to do is loose this learner into an even deeper layer of withdrawal from us! Not that we can play crossword games every week either (fun though that would be for me!).

Conundrum. Any suggestions, fellow teachers?

Round the houses - make a meal out of a simple game!

Obviously kids will forever be wanting to 'play games' rather than having to 'study'. The nifty teacher will manage very vocal demands for a game with the need to make sure that any game is not a 'throw away' event - chewing up precious time without actually doing something...rough input of language; recycling vocab/grammar or dialogues; generating a need to read; interacting with peers; coping with losing too!

Just before the holidays we had a super hot, humid day & any text book work would have head heads lolling in no time. I love this little board game because there's "No English" on it - so when we open up the box and have a lot it's not at all daunting...just very colourful & no obvious 'class stuff' to get in the way of having fun.
I wasn't planning on spending so long on the game - we all know attention spans wither in the heat, and notoriously short for younger lads in particular. However, these two decided they were going to win this game, no matter how long it took!

(A teachery aside: It annoys me when teachers feel they have to explain the rules of a game first. If you do that fully, you'll need to do it in L1: pointless & difficult. Also if you do, you loose all that adrenalin rush of opening the box & wanting to play. You also paint yourself into a corner, if you want to adapt your 'rules' later eg run out of time, make sure you don't have a massive 'loser', stretch it out a bit etc. Kids cotton on quickly enough - get started asap and let them find out as you play; they'll naturally ask you questions and discuss amongst themselves, dicovering/exploring/checking theories. Strategies to actually win > great reason to play again...but then you have to remember the words you were using etc.)

This 'no English' game clearly had these two thinking hard - and being much more stroppy with each other about completing a full question or answer than I usually am (and I do insist children produce more than monosyllabic responses), and picking on each others' pronunciation or time-wasting! They used English throughout to manage the game - 'my turn/your turn/miss a turn', 'pass the dice please', counting etc. Key vocab was furniture (which we have not studied thereby generating a need to ask me, the oracle, for new words first - then each other if they forgot afterwards) and colours/size/shape adjectives. To win, they had to move around the board and collect furniture to fill their removal van, but they could lose items to each other 'on demand' (ie asking each other then janken = rock/scissors/paper ).

The best games for me have two results for players - first past the post, but another criteria which the teacher can manipulate - in this case, whose van was fuller. Both lads therefor won, and the teacher 'lost' (again).