Week 2: Looking back on the first class

Bruno: Hi Stephen, how was the start of school for you?

Stephen: Well, I've just finished my first week of classes, and it was tiring to be back in the classroom after a few months. But the first class of every year is all about explaining how the class will work, and running students through a few important basics like the progress sheet and the first of the Golden Rules, so I find that I do more talking in front of the class in the first class than any other. From next week we'll be starting lots of intensive pair practice and weekly conversation tests, and after a few weeks students get the hang of how the class works and I will find myself speaking less and less, as the natural dynamics of the class take over.

Still, this year's students seem quite bright and ready, and once I showed them the Immediate Method video and explained the simple rules of the class (bring your Progress Sheet to every class, don't remain silent when you are asked a question, etc) they were keen to do some conversation practice. Unfortunately, I ran out of time to do anything more than 10-15 minutes of pair practice in most classes, and in some we didn't manage to do any. Something to look forward to next week, I suppose.

Bruno: How big are your classes?
Stephen: They are on average a lot larger than last year. I still have six classes of first-years, but while last year I had between 20 and 30 in each class (average of about 25) , this year every single class has either 30 or 31 students. It's a full house every single period, which means I'll see about 180 students per week. But I'm not really daunted by this anymore. The IM was designed to allow every student in large classes like this to practice and use English every single class. However, in order for every student to get the most out of the class, things have to run smoothly. This is why I find 'setting the scene' in the first class is so important. They have to know that the class will be a) quite different to anything they have done before, b) challenging and c) a lot of fun. But they also have to know what is required of them, and that is where showing the video and explaining the points of the method comes in.

In four out of the six classes I'm using the CiC textbook, but in the other two I'm trialling new material, which will be used in the new edition of CiC, coming out later this year. The most dramatic change in the new material is trying to integrate some of the basic metacommunication skills (asking for repetition, asking what a word or phrase means, or showing that you don't understand the question) into conversation practice.

It's difficult for students to do focused practice using these skills unless there is a concrete topic, so we used the topic of names: What is your (first, family, nick)name? and What does that mean? Students don't always know how to 'translate' their names into English, so they can practice using, immediately and without embarrassment, the phrases I don't know/I'm not sure and I don't understand (the question).

Bruno: How did it go?
Stephen: It went pretty well. Most students saw that by using these phrases, the conversation keeps flowing, and they can get on with what they wanted to say, rather than sitting in silence sheepishly looking at each other or reverting to Japanese.

Bruno: I also spent the first class speaking more than usual, to explain the Progress Sheet, how to do pair practice, and survival ”metacommunication” strategies. I am using “Conversation et Grammaire”, our most recent French conversation IM textbook. The first lessons are centered on What does YYY mean? and How do you say ZZZ in English / French?, without any “speak about each other” content. So I asked students to practice these two phrases in quiz style, stressing that they are the two most important elements of this whole year, and that I expect students to be able to use them in a real conversation setting (without having to think) from now on. They were doing this oral practice pretty seriously, maybe I am finding better and better words to tell them how important it is.

Any other practical tips?

Stephen: I came up with an idea to help organise testing. I gave half of the class Progress Sheets printed on yellow cardboard, while the other half received green Progress Sheets. Now we had two groups, (which I jokingly named 'himari-gumi' and 'konbu-gumi') and every student understood clearly which group was theirs. Each week, either the green or yellow group will be tested. The aim is to make it easier to give all students an equal number of possible tests, not counting the weeks they are absent. I think it will work well, because all the way through their schooling (from kindergarten up), Japanese students are familiar with the idea of groups (kumi).

Bruno: that's a good idea, I'll try it. Personally, I didn't prepare anything special as far as Progress Sheets are concerned. During the beginning of class 2, I am planning to circulate a test registration paper for that day and the following week (see last week's post: “Lesson plan for Week 1”). I will start testing half of each class every week, regardless of class size. Apart from smaller classes, I have 4 classes with over 30 students, culminating at 39.

For me, the challenges of week 2 are:
- to give students some content they will be able to use in their first conversation with me; I want that first conversation to bring them a feeling of accomplishment, even if it's very short (4 min. for two students is quite short);
- to get testing started without delay. I know I will have to start circulating the test registration paper about 10 minutes after the beginning of class, and go around urging students to decide quickly (they tend to agonize over big questions such as “Today or next week?” and “At the beginning, in the middle or at the end?”). To encourage enough of them to choose sitting for a test during week 2, I just tell them that since the program of tests is cumulative (“What we have studied until now”), today's test will naturally be easier than next week's.

A few things to keep in mind:
(1) whatever your method for organizing tests is, get started on that early in the class; (2) stop “teaching” early enough in the class to get to testing. If you have calculated that to test half of your class you need 40 minutes, then stop the first part of the class 45 minutes before the end time and get into testing, otherwise you will inevitably get late;
(3) Stick to the length you have decided. If it's 4 minutes per pair, be ready to tell students “OK, thank you, I'll see you next time” after 3'50”. Keep an eye on your watch. If you don't use a registration paper like me (on which precise times can be written in advance), then write down the start and finish times on a piece of paper as students are sitting down (for example, “10:17 – 10: 21”)
(4) Tell the whole class beforehand: “Time is short, so please be ready to come quickly when I call you”. You want to keep the “dead time” between tests to a minimum. This is one of the reasons why I usually use the “pre-registration system”: even if I don't write beforehand the times for each test (10:00 – 10:04, 10:05 – 10:09, etc.) on the registration paper, students know in what order they will be tested, so they get to the testing area faster after I called their names. I actually call two pairs at a time (“Yumi Kumamoto and Kenji Kitamura ,AND AFTER THAT Emiko Taniguchi and Yohei Tanaka”).