Week 15 - ICC - MT reflection

Tone has been a cultural/language focus for me for some years now, for example, trying to get the students to believe that "Can you pass the book" is as polite as "Could you pass the book" if the tone was soft and non-demanding. For that reason, this lesson seemed like a natural extension of that, but with the What/How/Why/Myself 4-steps in there to expand this point.

In all honesty, I struggled to make what I would consider a 'regular' language-focused lesson that had ICC elements that wouldn't be a two-hour epic. I'd previously put cultural elements into my classes but never with the four steps of what-why-how-myself too. As far as I know, I understand the pieces and I understand what to do with them, but the actual practice of slipping it into a regular class is not so easy. In the presentation section, the original idea was to have the students read the dialogue and then consider a) who was the superior in the situation b) how did the subordinate disagree with the boss and c) do they disagree with their boss and how. Then to get them to think about how that would've sounded. As one of the two TLO of the class was the TONE of disagreeing as much as the words, I wanted them to practice how it is done.

In the presentation MT, at 4:30 I get them thinking about who is the superior in the dialogue, as it's never explicitly said. The aim was for them to think about the language and who is disagreeing with whom. The Intercultural aim was for the students to consider the Western culture of disagreeing with a superior. In the MT I should've pushed that concept a bit more than I did. However, in a group class with real Korean company workers, this could be more of a talking point, but I need to make it more of one.

As for the what stage of the 4-part ICC structure, the students thought about the words Mike uses to disagree. This was intended to have them NOTICE the language. In the lesson plan I had a part where I did an exaggerated "NO" to break the ice on intonation, which I condensed in the MT to 6:53 and 7:40., but I think the same result is achieved even in this truncated state.

The how stage was a bit of a risk, MT-wise, as I wanted the students to consider how they should say the disagreement phrases - tone/intonation. As there was no audio file, I was hoping that they would negotiate their sound with their partner. With no direction from me, this could be a wasted activity as every student could just give the same monotonous response. As part of the warm-up I could introduce a topic, ask a student, and just disagree in a nice way with everything they say. Just as a not-so-obvious demonstration. Hopefully it will rub off on them, consciously or otherwise, and they will find the how part easier.

I used some decent MIC techniques for getting full sentences (arms outstretched), demonstrating 'face down' with the sheets, and physically showing 'superior' with my hands. For upper intermediates, I think my pacing and language was appropriate.

My usual "so" verbal tick seems to be even more pronounced in this MT, possibly as a result of not being as confident with the material as I would be in a 'regular' class. I think the uncertainty comes out in adding "so" to every sentence every time we move onto the next part.

Evaluative feedback - it's a bad habit that I'm really struggling to shake. Before the course, I did it with impunity, but since starting the SMU-TESOL, I've been making an effort to try and restrain it. but it's so ingrained that it just slips out. You can hear at 2:15 and 4:00.  I catch myself doing it. At 3:50 I managed to avoid it with "Very true" rather than 'good'.

One reason is that most of my classes have a fill-in-the-blanks section, which requires me to confirm whether an answer is correct. Because this chimes with my previous carefree evaluation, it does little to stop me doing it elsewhere in class.

My board work was all over the place. (One advantage of using the iPad as I do in the 'real world' is that I can have the questions pre-written and just turn to the page they're on when the time is right). For some reason, I'd started with key words and then decided to fill in the full sentence but had these Tetris sentences littering the board. Certainly not my usual style, but for some reason in the MT I did it repeatedly. If one of the prime aims of a class is to Make Input Comprehensible then this is a bad way to go about it.

So, with a focus on ICC for future lessons, I think I need to 'lay it on a bit thicker'. The big/small Cs need to be a bit more noticeable. Also, for the LP, I had missed a section on "why" it's ok to disagree with a superior in the West (as long as it's done in the right manner in the right situation). Other TESOL teachers used Corinne's Hongi demonstration as the template for their MTs and I think it may have been a mis-step on my part to put ICC in a regular class, rather than add language elements to an ICC class.