Amanda's Reflective Diary

Reflective Diary

Tuesday 7th October

I was not in the best of moods when I arrived at Culverhay yesterday, having walked up-hill for 25 minutes in the rain and wind, fighting with my umbrella every step of the way and then finding out that we were supposed to have printed our language stories out. I felt a little disorganised to say the least. Several members of the class complimented me on my language story and I felt bad that I hadn’t read all of their stories, although I am hoping to do so before tomorrow if I have time.

My mood improved drastically when we were told we would be listening to a children’s story read by Stephen. It was so much fun! I love stories that have an element of humour in them and Stephen read it really well. It was a coincidence that Stephen then asked us to re-tell the story to each other because I had been thinking to myself that I need to improve my story-telling skills and had anticipated that we would be asked to do this at some point. I am quite happy reading things out in front of people but I really panic when I have to rely on my lousy memory! I hate the pressure of telling jokes and anecdotes unless it is to family and close friends. I am much more content to sit typing away, editing as I go. I was secretly hoping we would have time to make a few notes but there was no time to spare. I was glad that Lynsey offered to go first in our group and was envious of her confidence and speed in telling the story. Kay went next and she had a slightly different style, speaking more slowly but creating suspense and remembered the story well. I know she has children and a lot of experience in schools so I had expected her to be very good at story-telling. Luckily, I only had a small part at the end but I wasn’t happy with my delivery at all.

The next task we had was to go around the class and record ourselves telling the story again. I was unbelievably nervous about this, as it was a different part of the story to what we had just recalled and I absolutely detest hearing myself on tape. I am sure as we gel as a group I will gain confidence in my weak areas. It was so much fun to hear everyone telling part of the story in their own words and as I was one of the first to speak, I could relax and enjoy listening to everyone. I know I’ll learn a lot from the others in our class and like Venetia said, am in awe of them all!

The next part of the lesson involved looking at lesson plans connected with personal language histories. I had done an exercise on names myself fairly recently and remembered that it worked well as an introductory lesson for EFL students. I have always thought it such an important thing to learn students’ names as quick as possible. It is a way of showing that you want to know them personally as well as in their groups. Using someone’s name is also the most effective way of getting them to listen to you. It is impossible to get someone’s attention or call on them in class if you don’t know their name.

As we have already identified, everyone loves talking about themselves, so a lesson based on this has got to be a good idea. Primary children could paint pictures to express the meanings of their names or for fun they could make up names for themselves and call each other by them for the lesson.

When we discussed ‘language timelines’ in our group, my initial thought was that in a lot of schools, children would all have the same accent and background and therefore, it would probably generate similar feedback for all pupils. Having not worked in UK schools, I realise that I am quite out of touch with what classes are like these days and that many children do not live in the same place throughout their childhood anymore Moreover, the ethnic mix is probably a lot more diverse than it used to be. Children in secondary schools would probably have a lot more experiences to reflect upon and be able to produce some good work on the points dealt with in the ‘language timelines’ section. I think I would feel more comfortable in asking students to choose one or two points to concentrate on. This way, they would be able to decide for themselves whether they want to talk or write about a sensitive issue or not.

I liked the two poems and think using them would be an excellent way to generate some interest and discussion of accents and colloquialisms with secondary school children, especially if audio CDs were available with recordings of these poems as they are quite difficult to understand in written form. You could extend this with other extracts of regional accents, things they would be interested in such as soap operas, films and adverts on the radio and television.

I enjoyed the game we played whereby we had to use a made-up word in place of a real word and try and make the others guess what it was. I have done this type of exercise with foreign students before where they have a word and have to describe it to other students within a certain time limit. It really helps them speak quickly and fluently and is a lot of fun. This idea can be adapted in many ways depending on what you’re trying to teach.

The last part of the lesson was spent learning about language acquisition. This fascinates me as I am interested in learning languages and have a lot of foreign friends with varying levels of English. It is often funny to hear children make errors when learning how to speak and also how foreigners learn English. I clearly remember my younger brother learning to speak English and calling me “Nanda” and seagulls “Tygors” for some strange reason. As the eldest child I was always speaking for him as most of the time I knew what he wanted to ask for. My mum always tells me how independent I was, wanting to do everything for myself. My favourite phrase was “Amanda do it!” As a result, my brother couldn’t speak for ages. Low and behold, the day I started school and my mum was alone with my brother, she was flabbergasted to hear him utter a whole sentence for the first time “I like biscuits”. This just shows how much of an influence siblings can have on each other’s language acquisition.

i agree, its great that even if we feel a tad nervous we're still making points and involving each other

I thought your delivery of the story was really good. It's interesting to hear you say you were worried about it as I have always thought you came across as very confident . If it's any consolation I was a bit nervous too but unfortunately I'm terribly competitive (runs in our family) and always love a challenge! Amazing how a little pressure can turn us all into into red-faced gibbering wrecks! x