Of drilling and music in YLE classroom

I was thinking about drilling last week, and not just because I've got a hole in one of my teeth...and I put  the idea into my 'blog about this soon' folder. This folder is just next to 'go home & eat dinner' in my head, and I think I must have been hungry that evening.

I just came across Martin Sketchley's timely post on his really good blog http://www.eltexperiences.com ARGH!!! on drilling which reminded me I had something to say! Martin's post is here by the way, and I especially agree on using music to do the hard work. A couple of the other ideas are new to me, but as our landlord complains about noisy kids (yes, he's a real gas) the full-volume one will have to wait a while. Find Martin on twitter as @ELTExperiences

Devon Thaggard of Super Simple Songs fame is an exponent of using music all the time - warmers up, coolers down (if that is a proper phrase I don't know!), scene shifting & transitioning, background & subliminal input...all of which I like but I find myself up & down like a yo-yo doing that, and so do this once in a while. But I do like to use his songs a lot - check out some of our Audioboos here.

Songs obviously have rhythm, and I enjoy the challenge this brings to my learners as they are in (L1) habit of giving each consonant the same weight, and not elliding (joining words together). Enunciating nicely yes (I hope - they are copying me after all!) but not getting whole chunks out quickly enough or with too much "oomph" (my favourite technical phrase in EFL since my CELTA course!).

The other day I was introducing my YLs to the this/that concept...by way of a song in English Time 1 (OUP). The children already knew the vocab, so simple matter of sticking the flashcards out of arm's reach (around the room, spread out a bit). Having never hear the song before, I just asked them to listen and touch or point at the approriate card. Windmills! Second time was more co-ordinated, and they wanted to join in (fine - not me forcing them too, and they wanted to know what the other words were...OK, I gave them!). They wanted to try again and do better...it's working!

The lyrics for the songs are in the back of the classbooks, which I really like - and they are also indented to identify different 'parts' in back & forth or question/answer chants.
This is a flower
       That's a bird
This is a flower
       That's a tree......
This makes it really easy to assign parts to students individually or in pairs/little groups, reading their 'bit' and hearing the other bit (a slow read through, focusing on actually reading - remembering? - the words). And then press play for a full speed go with all the words in, emphasising the this/that distinction as a 'battle'. Replay quickly with roles switched, and the little troopers will be singing all the way back to home :)

Here is a very impromptu audio grab of our efforts - remember, this was the 1st time they'd come across the song!


Check out all our Fotobabbles at http://www.fotobabble.com/media/list?username=LunaJim

Drilling is not a dirty word in my EFL classroom...it is just nicely disguised as 'fun'!

What? No books?

Martin Sketchley writes interesting morsels on his blog ELT Experiences and shares on twitter as @ELTExperiences.

Recently I came across a brave video of him teaching his class with his pants down - not literally, I assure you...but for a lot of teachers not having a table to lean on or a book to prop us up, 'dogme' means the same thing. Dogme is a bit of a buzzword at the moment, and seems to be the Marmite opposite to Web 2.0. You either like one or t'other.

Personally, I can't see the point of slagging one approach off, when maybe next week another angle of attack will work just as nicely! For example, my students rely heavily on their books...when I want them to become a bit more independent I often move books (open) to the far end of the room. Same with electronic dictionaries (I hate them with a passion!). If students want to have a peek, they can, but it is just enough of a nuisance to go and do so, that a remarkable flash of inspiration or memory comes to the rescue. Funny how that works. However, they'd find it very hard to join up their learning without a book at all (and find it intimidating). I do not have enough tricks up my sleeves to bedazzle every lesson, either.

Image via Wikipedia"Teacher uses twitter shock". A lot of people don't get twitter. I don't get how they don't get it - for work at least. How else would I have come across Martin's ideas & found a new way for my business class to get their brains going a bit quicker? Followed a short link to his video on my phone while I was waiting for train, and filed the idea away for a very rainy day. That was Monday evening, and I wanted my students to 'hurry up' and activate a fluency issue which has been slowing them down/tripping them up. Namely, using /to/ or /ing/ after certain verbs (which they were familiar with - mined a reading passage for them, sorted them, reviewed as homework, did pair work...)

I enjoyed the view from the other end of our classroom table, handily next to the coffee & biscuits. I offered them a verb from our list, and asked them to move to the /to/ side or the /ing/ side of the board (or the middle, one or two take both of course). I enjoyed the "I'm right/you're wrong" that this produced, and the kudos it gave the less able students who had done their reviewing properly versus those that had not done it thoroughly.

Once the grammar was agreed (checked at the annoyingly distant book if necessary - I was tempted to charge for this/add an element of gambling...next time perhaps) students were then challenged to quickly come up with a suitable sentence using the verb properly. I didn't say anything, but pulled a face or used my body language if I heard something a bit out of place - encouraged them to look at their listener, to listen to each other closely, & to be competitive/nick each others threads.My plan was to do this  for about ten minutes, but they got so animated I let it run - standing up they were gesturing a lot more than usual, interrupting each other, and reacting much more forcefully. They were visibly annoyed when we ran out of words!

Fortunately, Martin does not run out of words. Check out his blog some time - your students won't notice but you might get an extra cup of coffee out of it!