Week 3.2 - Meth - Johnston answers

2) This lack of answers was a constant problem teaching university Freshmen here in Korea. Even simple yes/no questions to the group received no answers. While I never (as far as I remember) said "Say anything", I did, like the example, keep repeating "it's ok, there're no wrong answers, don't worry". Luckily, I'd already gotten out of the habit of saying "I don't care" as a Korean friend who persistently said it where "I don't mind" was actually appropriate had brought it to my attention.

In hindsight, I'm sure that my manner and tone was conveying the mixed moral message of "just say anything so we can get on with this bit of the class". Considering Johnston's example, this behaviour really clashed with my regular assertions that my classes were practical and had 'real world' relevance. They were probably inferring that if they would just say anything we could move along to the pair-work quicker and the spotlight would be off them for a while. There was also the clash of "tell me what /you/ think" while, again in hindsight, often resorting to A/B questions because I thought these had the biggest chance of being answered.

The tension that I'd always blamed on the Korean High School passive culture (because it clearly couldn't have been my fault - how hard is it to answer an A/B question?!) now makes more sense. Was it actually my fault? Or, as a minimum, a combination of the two. Perhaps phrasing the questions differently and making each answer seem important could've relieved that tension considerably.

5)Course book is "Advanced Expert Cafe" (Longman). It consists of articles (one or two per chapter) listening and discussion questions. Examples of the chapter topics are "Human Nature" and "A Changing Society". The discussions revolve around familiar topics such as 'what punishments should be given to people who commit the following crimes...". The listening tasks generally have three speakers - one with an extreme view, one at the other extreme, and one in the middle. This means that morally, it is not explicit in forcing any of it's opinions on the student. The follow-up tasks are, generally, open questions,e.g, "What other methods can you suggest?" or "What methods have proved effective in your country?".

There are some odd choices in phrasing, for example, "compare and justify your answers" - implying that a students answer cannot be acceptable without a watertight explanation! Also, several of the discussions give a statement and then ask "How far do you agree with this?". While a native speaker would understand that it's possible to completely disagree with the statement, a non-native speaker may understand this to mean they cannot. They must agree to some extent. In these ways, there is an implication that the book is the authority and the students must fit their own opinions within this framework.

CLASS RANGE:
Class1: Pair (SH-SM).
Speaking -  Intermediate Mid - they are comfortable on familiar, everyday topics, but struggle when we wonder into unfamiliar territories. For example, an activity on "lying" was fine, but on "how to spot a liar" was a step too far, causing both to stop communicating in any meaningful way.
Writing - Unknown - neither have ever successfully completed or displayed any written homework in my classes.
Listening -  Intermediate High - they are quite often able to understand some Advanced-level sentence structures from me, in context, such as "I'd had to get used to it", but are frequently hindered by lack of vocab or a literal interpretation of the words.
Reading -  Advanced Mid - both students reading is surprisingly good. They are able to understand variations on past/present/future tenses (progressive, perfect tenses). They are able to understand reading structures that they can not understand by listening.

Class2: individual (MY)
Speaking -  Novice Mid - she relies on stock/memorised phrases like "I go to ABCD", usually regardless of tense. She frequently echoes the structure of the question in her response. "How will you get there?" "I will get there by car".
Writing -  Novice High - she can write, with some accuracy, on familiar personal topics using stock or well-practiced structures. These are usually in short simple sentences with few conjunctions other than "and".
Listening -  Intermediate Mid - MY can understand simple, single sentence (or at least long pauses between each sentence) when the topics are highly familiar or telegraphed. Work, social situation etc, are relatively well understood, so long as the questions follow expected structures.
Reading -  Intermediate High - short texts on familiar subjects are not a problem for MY although any unexpected vocab can cause a breakdown in understanding. Culture-specific vocab causes confusion, for example, "Jenny and her girlfriends go to the mall" is taken literally as "girlfriends".