Can't do my homework: Part 3 of 3 - flipped class

Activity from Primary Grammar Box (CUP)

Books closed, use it to hide a pair work activity and to lean on (one in-class learner paired with the Zoomer whose screen share also 'hidden' on another monitor). Pencils at the ready - no need to spell anything (although all the target vocabulary is familiar...didn't want to defeat the object of this exercise by getting bogged down again!) but the possible issue of artistic limitations/reluctance instead?

To be honest, I didn't monitor that output. Rather, I tried to see what the students were doing to get the language out...

• glancing at the rods to 'get started' & 'load' the full utterance in their mind before starting
• glancing at the rods to double check they'd 'used' each block/word ie completed their utterance (I wanted to make sure the time phrase was included to give meaning to the past simple target structure)
• moving a rod to make sure they'd used the right word needed to add a couple of extra rods for the plural (doubled the ones in play) forms - nicely previews or flips next week's lesson
• listening to each other better (for nitty gritty bits!)

...and of course listening to their spoken out & giving as much non-verbal encouragement as possible - which was not really necessary as they got on with the task really fluently, collaboratively and effectively. And, despite the masks, pretty chuffed smiles all round. And the dark clouds have lifted.

With that, I don't think any of us are dreading the next lesson! 

What are your solutions/suggestion/reactions? Let me know @oyajimbo on't twitter :)

Appendendum: a few days later I asked my son to get his homework book out (imagine the face!). I asked him to underline the words in the structure we'd been practicing with the same colours as we'd used midweek. Penny dropped - the colours had done the trick & he could correct his own work...

Where can you buy Cuisenaire Rods? 

Can't do my homework: Part 2 of 3 - a different tack

Cuisenair Rods = colour + length 'coding'

I wanted to take the words out of the equation, but leave them in somehow. Replace them?

The Game Plan...and no, I couldn't remember exactly all the words either.

Solution...post-it notes. As a group, I asked them to write one word at a time on to a post-it (books open if needed); my online student did so into the Zoom chat. So no, not a 'spelling test' per se. Fortunately, my post-it notes were not very sticky so they needed weighing down (fan was on for a reason!).

Online? I'd opened a Google Jamboard & drawn colour lines where I wanted my student to enter text. Hard for newbies, but he's been learning on the job for a year now, and could cope with the challenge (enjoys messing about with the mouse/keyboard when I give him control, defacing things!). Problem = few colours available for the pen/type tools on Jamboard than I needed...

Unsticky post-it notes...just the excuse!

So we had the question form on the table, in a straight line, and then the answer below, so's that words 'lined up'. Putting the Cuisenaire Rods on the post-its = words were there but obsured, and could be peeped at if we needed a prompt (ie "I want to read the word")  without referring to the book. We negotiated block lengths to suit the actual words...subliminally giving each part of speech a different colour code into the bargain.

I didn't want to hide the words for my Zoomer, as he's already operating from the far end of the telescope and he has a lot fewer clues to work with - cannot pick up non-verbals etc. But, as his workspace was on another screen, my in-class gang did not realise he had an "advantage", so he became quasi-sensei & his ego was suitably enhanced.

Did it work? 

(Part 3 will be posted tomorrow)

Cuisenaire Rods in action with graded readers - an example in 'How to'.

"My" boys did me proud today, re-telling their homework book from Golden Week (OUP Story Tree, Green series #8, "The Castle Adventure")

They had been asked to read the book, listen to the accompanying CD, and colour code s or es endings on words eg frogs, witches). Why? To notice that one of them gets an extra syllable...So you can teach syllable awareness to elementary school kids in Japan and kill of katakana? You bet! (Just don't tell them!)


I do use a bit of Japanese in this video - I had my hands full with book/video. I try to minimise my teacher talk time (TTT) as much as possible with my body language/facial expression/hand gestures...so not a great example of my teaching as I am asking them for nouns/verbs in L1. I hope you get the idea though . It also helped me suddenly realise (yet again - bell ringing moment) that my left-handed student had a glaring problem with word order. I'd never noticed, but we all did as we went along...and he got plenty of opportunity to correct himself. (I do have a few pet theories about south paws as language learners, non-scientific, but very related to my experiences with dylexia/or not, hearing impaired, and a considerable number of lefties I have taught and one I married).

Personally loved this Cuisenaire Rod exercise, as it was so competitive and really milked the workbook/homework aspect to death. How many times are they repeating the story (and getting more accurate because they want to)? How much are they listening to each other (a lot, and much more critically than in a usual Japanese EFL classroom I'd suggest)? How monotonous is their production? How much meaning are they putting into context/how much context are they interpreting in meaning?

I would love to get some feedback on this as an exercise. I would love to share feedback with the lads on their performances as well.