Around the World -- Grammar game

Yesterday I posted the rules to my game called "Circle of Death" which is a variation on a drinking game, adapted to a classroom, for a more advanced/confident English speaker. Today I'll post the rules to a modified version that I created to accompany a group of pre-intermediate and intermediate adult ESL learners here in France.

I call this version "Around the World" and it requires the exact same set up as "Circle of Death".
As always, it's a good idea to have plenty of print outs of the rules for the participants and a full deck of cards with jokers.

Around the World Grammar Game

Rules:

Sit in a circle, each player draws a card and completes the corresponding action one at a time.

Evens – Questions on the right

Odds – Questions on the left

Correct answer = +5 points

Incorrect answer = - 5 points

2's : Ask a question to the person on your right using a “do”

3's : Ask a question to the person on your left using “to be” .

4's : Ask a question to the person on your right using “did”.

5's : Ask a question to the person on your left using “was” or “were”.

6's : Ask a question to the person on your right using the future tense.

7's : Ask a question to the person on your left using “if”.

8's : Ask a question of your choice to the person of your choice.

(Now for some fun..)

9's : You are the rule master. You can make any rule for the table to follow. You get 10 points.

10's : Stand up and mime an animal. The first person to guess correctly gets 10 points.

Jacks : “Categories” – Choose a category and each player must say a word in the category. The first player who can't think of a word in the category loses 10 points.

Queens: “7's” : Going in a circle, each player must count by 7 (7..14..21..etc) and the first player to make a mistake loses 10 points.

Kings: “Truth?” Ask the player of your choice a truthful question. (+5 for asking correctly and +5 for answering correctly) 

Aces: The teacher makes a rule for all of the players to follow. (points vary depending on the rule)

Joker: You can choose to add ten points to your score or to subtract ten points from the player of your choice. 

Circle Of Death Grammar Game

A year ago I was brainstorming ideas that I could use with my professional students in our talk sessions. Sometimes it's not easy to get people talking, especially when it's the middle of the day and they are thinking about whatever needs to get done in the afternoon. I like to use as many games as possible as discussion topics are often monotonous and tiresome.

I took the idea for this exercise directly from a drinking game, I admit. I created two versions: the upper-intermediate/advanced version, and the pre-intermediate/intermediate version. The version I'm sharing in this post is my upper-intermediate/advanced version.

To play this game, you need a group (4+) and a traditional deck of 52 cards, jokers included.
The deck is passed from player to player and one at a time, they draw a card. Depending on what they draw, they must complete a task (see list below). They earn and lose points depending on how correct their answers are, and the game can be played indefinitely, as long as you can renew the deck and keep them talking. I use this game during a one-hour long talk session.

There are two types of tasks: grammar-related and amusing tasks. That keeps it light and fun. And as always, students of all ages love competition -- they will really enjoy giving and taking points from each other.

I recommend having enough print-outs of this game for every other student so that they can consult the list when they draw their card.

Without further ado, here are the rules for the Circle of Death Grammar Game for adult learners of ESL, upper-intermediate/advanced level:

Circle of Death Grammar Game

Rules:

Sit in a circle, each player draws a card and completes the corresponding action.

Evens – Questions on the right

Odds – Questions on the left

Correct answer = +5 points

Incorrect answer = - 5 points

2's : Ask a question to the person on your right using a superlative.

3's : Ask a question to the person on your left using “ever” .

4's : Ask a question to the person on your right using a regular past tense verb of your choice.

5's : Ask a question to the person on your left using an irregular past tense verb of your choice.

6's : Ask a question to the person on your right using the future tense.

7's : Ask a question to the person on your left using “would”.

8's : Ask a question of your choice to the person of your choice.

(Now for some fun..)

9's : You become the rule master. You can make any rule for the table to follow. Failure to follow the rule results in the loss of 10 points. 

10's : Stand up and mime an animal. The first person to guess correctly gets 10 points.

Jacks : “Categories” – Choose a category and each player must say a word in the category. The first player who can't think of a word in the category loses 10 points.

Queens: “7's” : Going in a circle, each player must count by 7 (7..14..21..etc) and the first player to make a mistake loses 10 points.

Kings: “Truth?” Ask the player of your choice a truthful question. +5 for asking and +5 for answering.

Aces: The teacher makes a rule for all of the players to follow. Failure to follow the rule results in the loss of 10 points. 

Joker: You can choose to add ten points to your score or to subtract ten points from the player of your choice. 

Business Topics: Pitches

One thing I've observed time and time again working with professionals in France is very often they are lacking the tone of voice communicating emotion and passion when giving presentations or speeches. I have sat through more presentations than I can count that droned on and on, with no accentuation or punctuation. Often these are sales presentations, presenting a bid for tender, pre-sales or answering a RFP, and putting myself in the potential client's shoes makes me want to take a long walk off of a short cliff! Alas, it is my job to push on through these presentations, fix the mistakes, and push them out the door -- in the short term, there isn't very much that I can do. Long-term though, we've got a plan of attack that has been in place since just before December that is very nicely progressing, and that plan is "perfecting the pitch".

The first step: we talked about the "bones" of a pitch -- what is is? I think the first thing you need to do when working on presentations in a foreign language (okay... and maybe in your native language too...) is to ask yourself why? Why am I taking the time to give this presentation or speech? What is my objective? So with a pitch, we always identify that the objective is to be convincing.

The second step: We brainstorm our jobs and our teams. While brainstorming, we look to answer these questions:

-- Who are we?
-- Why are we important?
-- How will we be successful?

The third step: We give three or four arguments supporting any of the strong, positive adjectives we have thrown around when answering the questions. If a student says that their team is amazing, I make them follow it up: because...?

We practice linking with "because", "thanks to", and regular relative pronouns like "which", "that", and "who" to show a direct path between their statement and the example supporting it.

The first lesson was spent talking about pitches, brainstorming and presenting their ideas.

The second lesson was more interactive and less "business-y" :
Students wrote everyday nouns (mostly objects but concepts/ideas are OK depending on how advanced the group was) on little pieces of paper. We mixed all the papers up and students each chose one piece of paper. They took 5-10 minutes to plan a pitch to convince the others in the group of the value of their object.
The audience played the role of an uninformed audience, as if they were hearing about the product for the first time in their lives.

This was a lot of fun and the exercise could be repeated multiple times over the hour. I like for the students to come up with the nouns on their own because it allows them to use vocabulary that they have learned in class or outside class, to learn words from each other that they might not know before, and to be creative with their ideas.

The third lesson steered back towards business. I prompted the students to present a new "best practice" to their company, and the other students in the group took the role of a hostile/uninterested or even aggressive audience. This was a lot of fun.

Here are the prompts I gave:

--You want a new desk.

--You need a new chair.

--You want to recruit an assistant for your department.

--You want to start a “nap time” policy from 2 to 4 pm.

--You think you deserve a raise.

--You think the work day should begin later in the morning.

--You think lunch time should be shorter.

--You think the bosses need to share more of the “wealth”.

--You think it’s more efficient to work from home.

--You think men and women should have separate open spaces.

--You want the company to open a child care center in the building. 

--You want the company to open a canteen in the building.

--You think the company should move to a “no email” policy. 

Again, they had about 5-10 minutes to prepare their argument and present to the class. After their pitches, they had to face their difficult audience. As a group we discussed with points in each pitch were strong and valid, and which ones needed to be more expressive, better linked to the argument, etc. I asked each student if they were convinced and if so, by which point? It made for an interesting debrief.

The fourth lesson on this theme was still about general business topics but dealt more with presenting in general rather than concentrating on a short pitch. Working in pairs, students were faced with a challenging business problem and had to brainstorm solutions. After finding a solution to the difficult subject, they had to practice presenting these by putting forward the most positive aspects possible and speaking optimistically. They were also asked to lead a discussion at the end of their presentation to gauge the degree to which their audience was following.

Here are the prompts from this lesson:

1) Your company has just merged with a company of equal size. All new employees from the merger will be transferred to your site. You have to present a plan to the existing staff to tell them how you are going to fit all the new workers in.

Things to think about:

What can you say to make this sound more positive?

What can you say to motivate people to get “on board” with your idea?

2) The current system for filtering incoming CVs is not working. Qualified potential employees are going unnoticed and the staff turnover is very high. Anybody can receive a CV and do with it as they please. Some departments make appointments to meet with applicants when they have no need to hire somebody. All departments are over budget.

Things to think about:

How can you stay positive?

What solutions can you pitch?

3) Your company currently has offices in New York City that manage administrative operations and not production. The Board of Directors has decided that they will be relocated to your country. There are 30 staff members and only 10 can be relocated. The ten that are relocated will require training and assistance in their new country and the other 20 staff members will need an unemployment (severance) package. The Board wants you to present a report on this idea.

Things to think about: 

How can you stay positive?

What solutions can you pitch? 

The fifth lesson hasn't taken place yet but I'm going to test it out next week and see how it goes. The objective of the lesson will be how to put forward a feature of a product. First we will practice the "five-second" pitch where I will give them words, concepts, ideas, places, and they will give me a one-sentence explanation that highlights the value of the given word. For example: Pizza: It's a delicious Italian meal that will fill the whole family's stomachs. Done. We'll do a few rounds of this exercise as a warm up and then move on.

Next, students will be given every day nouns (this time proposed by me, and not by their peers for simplicity's sake) where they will have to add a feature of their choice and pitch the advantages of their add-on to the group. I will also use a sand timer to make sure that their presentations are short and sweet, focusing on the timing of a pitch and the impact of each word they choose. As always, the goal is to speak positively and simply which isn't always easy when working with groups of experts!

The final lesson hasn't been outlined yet but it will more than likely be up to the students to pitch a professional subject of their choice to the audience of their choosing. They will have the time that it takes for an elevator to climb the building and the possibility of using whatever they have on them to make their pitch. We will incorporate all aspects of the lessons leading up to this moment and I'm really looking forward to seeing how they'll do.

My next unit will be about spontaneity and improvisation so stay tuned for more useful speaking exercises!

Why I Quit the BTS Job

I think the title says it all. Yesterday, I didn't go back to the difficult job that I've been complaining about for two weeks. I stewed over it all week and all weekend and finally made my decision late Sunday night. I sent out my email on Monday morning announcing my resignation.

Yesterday when the time came around for me to be "in class" (if we can even call it that), I didn't even feel a hint of regret. There would have only been two reasons to continue: 1) Really, really hard up for cash, or 2) Desperate to work on classroom management.

I will admit that I have reached a level in my life where I can "pick & choose" the kind of people that I want to work with, but also the kinds of jobs where I can teach in my way. This job was neither one or the other, which is why my resignation included two key points:

1) I firmly believe in pedagogy -- giving students texts and asking them to memorize vocabulary is not, in any way, shape, or form, a good exercise in pedagogy for language learning. They can read texts at home until they are blue in the face. They shouldn't use class time for reading, translating, and memorization without context or student-perceived of value (finding their own meaning, understanding and importance for what is being instructed). If I can't teach them in my way, in a way that encourages them experiment and assimilate the language, then all (in my opinion), is lost. We are both wasting our time.

2) I am not a babysitter, nor am I the police. Oh good god, I am so far from my babysitting and policing years that it is not even funny. I now enjoy the luxury of teaching real adults -- people who have personal motivation and investment in what I am teaching. People who respect my work. People who listen. People who try. I do not need to go back to the teenager who hates me just because he hates English. To all of that, I say a big, resounding "bye bye"!

Onward and upward.

So what will I do instead? You know I get bored easily -- I've already got other projects.
I will work with some new adult clients AND I will go back to real university. I will teach students who have received a B1 on their BULATS exam and as a reward are put in a "fun class". That's even what the administration has been calling it. When meeting the head of the languages department, he asked me if I thought I would be able to produce a TV show with them and I replied fervently that nothing would make me happier. I'm full of ideas, of creativity, of energy... it should be a positive experience unlike the soul-sucking 3 hours of class I subjected myself to.

I feel bad for the students who wanted to be there and wanted to work, but at the same time those are the kinds of learners who will go out and do the work on their own. Having me there shouting at their classmates won't help them at all.

I'm looking forward to talking about my creative endeavors with my new students and my new professionals at the beginning of January. Here's to hoping 2013 will be another positive year of teaching.

Adults and Second Conditional

Getting back into the swing of my normal life after my stressful Monday afternoons is always nice. This morning I had a group of my professional students that started out as "true beginners" who are now well on their way to being pre-intermediate learners. Because we had already talked about the simple past, the future, and modal verbs for giving advice/making suggestions, I thought it would be a good idea to head into the conditionals. We talked about the first conditional a few weeks ago and last week we started the second conditional by having the students ask each other what they would do in a variety of student-generated ridiculous situations.

To bring it back around to professional themes today, I created an exercise where they would have to use both first and second conditional structures for giving each other advice (and refusing advice) to deal with troublesome office situations.

Here are the scenarios I put together this morning. We only made it through discussing three of them before time was already up! They gave each other good advice and did a good job using the first conditional to reply with a "yes but if I do that, then...will happen" reply.

Without further ado, a professionals-oriented mash-up of 1st and 2nd conditional tenses for ESL learners in the Western world:

1)     My boss is blackmailing my colleague.  What would you do?
(But if I do that, then he will … )

      2)  I’m working with a client who is completely racist. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then he will …)

3) My client said he preferred to work with me “under the table”. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then he will …)

 4) Two co-workers are having an affair. His wife is a friend of mine. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then he will …)

 5) I suspect my deskmate is an alcoholic. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then he will …)

6)   I discovered bad business practices at my company. I should have a promotion next month. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then will …)

7) I haven’t had a raise (an increase in my salary) in three years but I have a lot of new responsibilities. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then…)

 8) My colleague is late to work every morning. He should have a promotion next month. Maybe if I tell my boss, I will have the promotion instead. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then …)

 9)  My manager and I don’t get along. I love my job and my team but it is very difficult to work with him. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then …)

 10) I think my colleague is secretly working for the competition. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then…) 

The Difficult Class: My (failed) Plan, la suite

I made it through nearly six slides of the presentation I prepared. It started off well until I got to the group speaking bits. They would turn and talk to each other, but when it came time to share what was said, no such luck and for a variety of different reasons.

1) "No".

Why? I asked. Why wouldn't you want to answer an easy question where the answers are written on the board just behind me? A number of replies: This is stupid and it's too easy (so then why aren't you doing it?) I don't feel like it. Yeah, I know how to conjugate that verb, but I can't think of anything. (please remember that the verb in question was "to be" and they had a minute to think about it before I started calling on people).

2) "I hate English". Well that's not an answer to my question either. Why? "Because I don't understand".

The students had decided before they had ever even seen my presentation that it was too difficult just because it was in English. My point was that even if everything was only in English, they could still understand because after studying English since 6th grade, they should all have a pretty good understanding of the present simple. They do, they are just painfully argumentative and uninterested in listening to me. Sigh.

3) "You insult me and I don't like you". Well tough shit, Girl-Who-Has-Never-Been-On-Time. I am the teacher. An answer to the question "why don't you have an example?" after having been given the time to come up with one is not as seen above. Don't blame me for your lack of will to participate.

After sending out my third offender, I myself decided it was time to leave. I found the director, told him I was through, and that was that. Done.
We had a "heart-to-heart" with the class where everybody aired their grievances.
A number of students (not the trouble-makers, of course) came to apologize to me.
Others came to make their point. "We want this". And I said, "Yes, but if you don't give me XYZ, how can you expect me to think you are capable of doing ABC?" to which they replied, "Okay so we have some soul-searching to do." To which I replied, "Yes, you do. I can't do this alone."

It's true. The teacher plays a role and the student plays a role. If one person in the equation decides to stop playing their role, then the lesson won't work. A teacher cannot do a student's job and vice versa. It takes two to do the "Learning Tango".

I'm more or less convinced to keep going with them. I figure we have already come so far and failed so hard that it can't possibly get much worse or more exhausting. There's just a few problems that remain:

The director wants me to "teach the test" just to "get through this"... meaning, do texts, translate them, look at the vocabulary and call it a day. I told him that was against my teaching principles. I told him there was no pedagogy or practical application of that exercise and that I'd rather give it a go my way. He told me to take the easy route and just do texts.

I reckon if I continue, I'll try to do a mix. How can we do texts but no speaking exercises? How can we learn vocabulary without learning how to use it?

So we'll see where this goes. For the moment, I have no inspiration, motivation or desire to carry on with these kids but just like last time, maybe a stroke of something will hit me and we can find a way to work together (and maybe it will be less of a fail). I don't know. I'm trying to rebuild the foundation of a building that is in ruin. I've done it before, but I was a different person... not entirely sure I can do it again.

Ever dealt with a really difficult class?
Was it cultural or just situational?
What did you do to meet the challenge?

The Difficult Class: My Plan (Part 1)

During my son's nap time today, I was struck with an idea: What if I did give the difficult class a second chance? And what if I did it on my terms? I started thinking about other advice I've given my "Padawan": assume they know nothing. When in doubt, teach it anyway. If I were to take my own advice, how would I start? 

First off, I'd start with the fact that they didn't give me anything to go off of last week. Nothing I saw was impressive, lacking effort and motivation. Therefore, if they want to pretend like they haven't been learning English for the last 13 years of their lives and hide behind the excuse "I don't like it" or "I can't", then fine. I'll remove any opportunity for excuses possible, and I'll do it by starting at square one: sentence structure. 

I decided that because they are chatty, I need to give them something to concentrate on. Although powerpoint presentations don't fit into the Direct Method, I figured it was a necessary evil and that there was a lot that could be done with one. I decided to open with an introduction about how to build a sentence, then moved into the verb "to be" in the present simple (affirmative/negative) and continued onward with regular verbs in the present simple. I decided it would be necessary to tell a little story and to give myself plenty of room to quiz the students, checking to see if they are listening or not. 

On one particular slide I set up something like 16 different animations, starting with "I" and the little man, moving on to "you", then "he/she/it" appear at the same time, then "we", and finally "they". This is the typical order that French people are used to learning things in except they tend to see "you" twice to understand that "you" serves as "tu" and as "vous". I figured that since they have been studying English for the last 13 years of their lives, they ought to know by now that "you" is the only 2nd person subject pronoun in the English language (unless somebody is up for bringing back "thou"? Any takers??)

On another one of my slides that I added really silly, exaggerated animation to get their attention. First a dog appears, and then the "it" sentences. Next, the woman appears, and the "she" sentences. Finally, the little man appears followed by the "he" sentences. I chose to highlight and underline the "s" at the end of each verb conjugated in the third person present simple because French speakers often drop this letter when speaking. If I emphasize it, I can maybe hope to correct a mistake that has been reinforced in their language since they were little kids. Aie aie aie!

Another slide lead up to  their "practical classroom work" -- a slide describing a man named "Bob" who lives a pretty simple life.
The animation on this slide starts with the title and the main character. Then, step by step, his schedule appears. His mother (a secondary character meant to keep their attention) appears with the text about "call mom" followed by Bob's reaction. Then his schedule carries on, task by task, before the slide is complete.

The slide that immediately follows this one asks the students to write sentences (affirmative/negative) about Bob's schedule and Bob's day using the present simple and reinforcing the third person.

So that's that. I spent all afternoon completing the powerpoint (roughly 16 slides with three exercises integrated + homework). And so now the question that all teachers should ask when lesson planning: So what? What is the point of this lesson? 

It's simple, really. This lesson is designed for the students to say "well,...duh!" Of course they already know this stuff. So why am I presenting it like this and going it over in such an obvious way?

A few reasons.

1) I'm hoping it will motivate them to make more effort -- to show me that they are better than that so that we can do things that are more interesting. (this is a long shot but stranger things have happened in my teaching experiences..)

2) I'm hoping to correct some of the silly little mistakes they make from the get-go without having to go back and do that later.

3) I'm hoping that this will show them that I mean business. I'm coming back and bringing an arsenal. I'm not going to accept students who chit chat or text all through class. I'm not going to simply "pass them on". They are going to have to work and we'll do it on my terms in a structured environment. If they choose to continue acting like babies, then I will teach them like babies. If they decide that we can do things that are more interesting and challenging, then I will give them that. I'll teach them just outside of the zone that they choose to show me. This is the zone that I have identified for the moment, so it's the perfect place to start building.

and finally 4) when you work on a powerpoint, you can simply stop on a slide to get the class back under control. You know how much time you have left if you need to draw an exercise out or skip over something a bit simpler (in the interest of time). You know exactly where to pick back up the next lesson if you don't make it through the entire presentation.

So there you have it. My plans for how to tackle the behavior problems and strategically address the language level issue at the same time.

Wish me luck -- we'll see how this goes!

(and in French, if you want to wish somebody luck, you say "merde", which literally meanst "shit"!)