Anna Chang’s Reflection Paper
Subjects: 6th graders in elementary schoolTeaching: Short short story, Tounge twister, Improvisational language games
Inspired in Dr. Phillips’ wonderful oral communication class, I’d like to share some of my ideas of applying useful teaching techniques in my class.
Short short story
Motivation:
Storytelling is always full of surprises. I’m so facinated by stories, especially scinence fictions that I love to tell stories to my students in class. In the wonderland of stories, our imaginations can infinitely be extended and broadened. Imaginations sometimes withdraw us from the reality and help us relieve for a while from pressured life. Facinating stories not only delight but also teach. They teach us the way of seeing and doing things right or of being well with others in the society or the way we should be….I still keep a deep memory of doing “The Paring Knife” activity. Questioned by some tricky questions, I came to understand that I had so many presumptions when reading people. (And my presumptions sometimes cause mistakes or misunderstandings in my daily life.) Actually, those tricky questions do remind me of my poor logical sense towards people and furthermore teach me how to critically and logically differentiate what the truth is and what my presumption is when seeing things. Some of my presumptions may be correct due to logical inference, sometimes they are not. Therefore, I ‘d like my students not only learn English from such activity but also develop themselves a logical mind and sharpened eyes when dealing with daily life matters.
Application:
1. Read students stories by using big books, on-line storybooks, or pair-work short reading assignments.
(Selection of story levels is based on students’ ability)
2. Firstly, read the story with avarage speed and unique tone which the story is supposed to be presented in order to get students fully invloved. Though not every word the teacher said would be understood, the teacher should leave time for students to figure out themselves and try to refrain from explaining new words.
3. Secondly, have students re-tell the story again and help students solve new word problems by guiding them to guess word meaning from former or latter texts.
4. After making sure students understand what the story is going on, designed questions could be elicited which are to train students’ comprehesive ability and logical sense.
5. Questions can be designed by grading them from basic to advanced level. If the story level is basic, have the whole class discuss together; if more advanced, pair students up and do the
Expected results:
Students’ logic awareness can be developed when reading. From reading, themselves the ability to both objectively and logically understand and
