Here are the competence aims I will use as bases for my choice of activities and material that I hope will assist the pupils in achieving the competence required after year 10:

Language Learning:

• utilize various situations, methods and strategies for learning English.
• use various aids critically and independently
• describe and evaluate their own efforts to learn English

Communication:

• master a vocabulary that covers a variety of topics
• use of basic grammar and text structures orally and in writing
• understand spoken and written texts on a variety of topics
• express themselves in writing and orally with some precision, fluency and coherence

Culture, Society and Literature:

• communicate through digital media
• present and discuss current and interdisciplinary topics
• read and understand texts of varying lengths and genres
• choose different listening, speaking, reading and writing strategies appropriate to purpose and situation
• write texts that narrate, describe, argue or present information, with appropriate basic structure and appropriate use of paragraphs
• use content from various sources independently and critically

In order to assess the pupils’ progress, and decide whether or not they’ve achieved some of the aims, I make them «brainstorm» at the end of the lesson, and each pupil has to say a different word or phrase to sum up what they have learned. In addition I have chosen to give them an oral task that includes ICT. I give the pupils about ten days to work with a Power Point or a PhotoStory presentation, about either South Africa or Jamaica. They choose from a range of topics, and work individually with the presentation. While working with their presentation they will have a one-hour writing session at school where the task is to write an interview with either Nelson Mandela, Bob Marley or Mahatma Gandhi. These activities will help me assess their skills in oral, reading, writing, ICT, and listening. I give them a set of guidelines on how to make a good oral presentation, what I expect of them, how to use the internet, avoid plagiarism and what internet-sites that have images licensed for use in the public domain, e.g. Wikimedia Commons and FlickR.

Before initiating the work with the presentations I spend three hours on preparing the pupils for the task: I give a quick introduction to Jamaica and South Africa. The pupils listen to a song by Bob Marley and discuss the lyrics. I give them a small grammar-test where they describe images in a slide show, writing sentences with “it is” or “there is/there are”, and some tasks related to concord. Instead of vocabulary tests I make them play a game similar to “Alias” where they describe the words in English and guess the words instead of write them. I robbed the idea from Marianne, who told me that she played «Alias» with her pupils. Apart from the writing session, most of the activities are either oral or a combination of written and oral work.

I give the same tasks and activities to two different classes, both in year 10. Although the pupils are more polite and obedient than I ever imagined, one of my major challenges is that there is a huge gap between the very competent pupils and the emerging pupils. Another challenge is how to make them speak English instead of Norwegian. After two weeks I realize that the lay-out of the lesson and how I organize the activities influences very much the pupils’ productivity. If I start the lesson by putting them straight to work with a demanding task, they become demotivated. But if I start with a game, a clip from youtube or something «fun», they would be a lot more productive.

During my first practice period I’ve been at Grim Ungdomsskole which is located in western part of Kristiansand. The English class I’ve been given is a rather small class which only consist of 16 pupils. Of these 16 pupils only 12 are attending my English class. The reason is that 3 pupils are attending a class for those who need extra help at learning English. The fourth pupil is a hearing impaired pupil who do not know enough English to attend either classes. One would think that since they are so few the threshold for speaking English would be rather low. Unfortunately this is not the case. The pupils seems to be too embarrassed over their pronounciation to speak English out loud in class. Since most of them don’t even dare to speak at all during any class, let alone in English, I’ve decided to focus on the competence aims which are aimed at oral activities.

The first competence aim I decided to focus on was “express himself/herself in writing and orally with some precision, fluency and coherence”. During a phase of trial and error that took place during the first week, I realized the pupils were more active during class if they didn’t have to speak in front of the whole class. Knowing this, I decided to make a game which took advantage of this fact. As homework for the class, the students practiced the glossary written in the textbook for a particular text. Then, during class, I split the class in two equal parts and gave them each a note. One group got a note with a Norwegian word written on it, and the other group got a note with an English word written on it. The point of the game was that, without saying the english word written on the note, they should find the equivalent word to the word written on their note. So say you had a note that said ‘bil’, then you would have to walk around the classroom and find the person who had a note saying ‘car’. Then in order to fulfill the competence aim, which claims they should “express themselves in writing” as well as orally, they had to write the English word on the whiteboard. If they spelled it correctly they both got a point. Now I should mention that I wrote all their names on the whiteboard, and they could always keep their eye on who was in the lead at the moment. I have to be honest, I was kind of expecting them to cheat and speak Norwegian during the game, but I’m glad to say I was wrong. All of them spoke English, and no one seemed embarrassed.

The second competence aim I decided to focus on was “master a vocabulary that covers a range of topics”. For this competence aim, we talked about the interrogative pronouns, what they meant, and how you would use them. We started of by writing them all on the whiteboard, and the pupils wrote them in their notebooks. Since this class took place the day Barack Obama got re-elected for President of the United States, the students were given the task of writing seven questions they would like to ask Barack Obama. These seven questions corresponded to the seven different interrogative pronouns; who, what, which, why, when, where, and how. Afterwards the other student from uia who also happened to participate during the class, got up in front of the class and pretended to be Barack Obama. The pupils then asked him their questions and we all got some laughs from his answers. I made sure everyone got to ask him at least one question before the class ended.

I am teaching English in the 9th grade in a class of 21 quite homogenous pupils.  As I arrived, their teacher shared with me that the pupils are quite quiet and not easily engaged in talking or interaction. This seemed to be true both in English and other subjects as well.

This blog will focus on how I tried to improve their speaking skills and boldness to speak up by helping them to engage in the classroom setting. I wanted to help them to increase their level of speaking and using the English language as well as helping them mature in taking part in interaction in school settings overall.

COMPETENCE AIMS as articulated after the 10^th grade in the English subject curriculum;

• use various situations, work methods and strategies to learn English
• master vocabulary that covers a range of topics
• express himself/herself in writing and orally with some precision, fluency and coherence

ACTIVITIES:

1.       THE GAME ‘ALIAS JUNIOR’

• Draw a card
• Explain without using the words on the card
• The class tries to guess the word
• Use an hourglass of two minutes
• Manage as many cards as possible before the time runs out

• I tried to use the competitive element in such a way that they focus less on themselves and feel free to play the game. The boys competed against the girls as a group and we kept the scores during the whole period. I picked out three-four pupils each time.
• As the cards present a big variety of words – both nouns and verbs alike – it may improve the ability to master a wider vocabulary.
• As the cards have both pictures and written words it is not needed to know the exact word in English to be able to explain it.
• If they don’t know what to say, they are free to skip to the next card in the pile
• At first I ended the session with this. Then they were more warmed up and easier to get going. Because it is a game, they didn’t view it the same way as another task I might had given them.
• Later I started the session with it. This made it easier for some to talk more in the session after the game, too.
• It was harder in the first class in the morning than in the sessions later in the day. They are quieter to start with – just as if they haven’t really woken up yet.

2.       READING IN PAIRS

• Makes everyone talk.
•  I walked around listening as they read and translated each other.
• Not as scary as they are not reading or talking in front of the class.
•  Keeps everyone working – no one is just watching the others.

3.       TALKING WITH THE PERSON NEXT TO YOU ABOUT A GIVEN TOPIC

• Makes everyone involved.
•  I asked them loud afterwards what the other person said. Then they are not to come up with something new themselves but rather repeat what the other person said.
• At first some were uncertain about what to say, but by using this method on a regular basis, it developed and trained them in paying attention to what other pupils actually say.

4.       ORAL PRESENTATION

• Have the pupils prepare and present an oral presentation for the class on a topic of their own choice. Makes them talk about something they find interesting that might engage them more.
• By giving them time to prepare in advance this helped them to think through which words they needed and what vocabulary to use.
• Encouraged them not to read from their notes, but to write down some main points that they should talk about.
• We agreed to focus on content, vocabulary, voice and body language, and when the presentations were finished, four pupils and I gave positive feedback.
• I could see how the presentations improved as the weeks went by because they learned from watching each other as well as the feedback we gave to each pupil afterwards.

Does anyone know how to comment? I can’t seem to figure it out at all! I’ve compared blogsettings with Anne Helen and even though they are the same they are able to comment on blogposts while I’m not.

I am teaching English in the 9th grade in a class of 21 quite homogenous pupils.  As I arrived, their teacher shared with me that the pupils are quite quiet and not easily engaged in talking or interaction. This seemed to be true both in English and other subjects as well.

This blog will focus on how I tried to improve their speaking skills and boldness to speak up by helping them to engage in the classroom setting. I wanted to help them to increase their level of speaking and using the English language as well as helping them mature in taking part in interaction in school settings overall.

COMPETENCE AIMS as articulated after the 10^th grade in the English subject curriculum;

• use various situations, work methods and strategies to learn English
• master vocabulary that covers a range of topics
• express himself/herself in writing and orally with some precision, fluency and coherence

ACTIVITIES:

1.       THE GAME ‘ALIAS JUNIOR’

• Draw a card
• Explain without using the words on the card
• The class tries to guess the word
• Use an hourglass of two minutes
• Manage as many cards as possible before the time runs out

• I tried to use the competitive element in such a way that they focus less on themselves and feel free to play the game. The boys competed against the girls as a group and we kept the scores during the whole period. I picked out three-four pupils each time.
• As the cards present a big variety of words – both nouns and verbs alike – it may improve the ability to master a wider vocabulary.
• As the cards have both pictures and written words it is not needed to know the exact word in English to be able to explain it.
• If they don’t know what to say, they are free to skip to the next card in the pile
• At first I ended the session with this. Then they were more warmed up and easier to get going. Because it is a game, they didn’t view it the same way as another task I might had given them.
• Later I started the session with it. This made it easier for some to talk more in the session after the game, too.
• It was harder in the first class in the morning than in the sessions later in the day. They are quieter to start with – just as if they haven’t really woken up yet.

2.       READING IN PAIRS

• Makes everyone talk.
•  I walked around listening as they read and translated each other.
• Not as scary as they are not reading or talking in front of the class.
•  Keeps everyone working – no one is just watching the others.

3.       TALKING WITH THE PERSON NEXT TO YOU ABOUT A GIVEN TOPIC

• Makes everyone involved.
•  I asked them loud afterwards what the other person said. Then they are not to come up with something new themselves but rather repeat what the other person said.
• At first some were uncertain about what to say, but by using this method on a regular basis, it developed and trained them in paying attention to what other pupils actually say.

4.       ORAL PRESENTATION

• Have the pupils prepare and present an oral presentation for the class on a topic of their own choice. Makes them talk about something they find interesting that might engage them more.
• By giving them time to prepare in advance this helped them to think through which words they needed and what vocabulary to use.
• Encouraged them not to read from their notes, but to write down some main points that they should talk about.
• We agreed to focus on content, vocabulary, voice and body language, and when the presentations were finished, four pupils and I gave positive feedback.
• I could see how the presentations improved as the weeks went by because they learned from watching each other as well as the feedback we gave to each pupil afterwards.

During my first practice period I’ve been at Grim Ungdomsskole which is located in western part of Kristiansand. The English class I’ve been given is a rather small class which only consist of 16 pupils. Of these 16 pupils only 12 are attending my English class. The reason is that 3 pupils are attending a class for those who need extra help at learning English. The fourth pupil is a hearing impaired pupil who do not know enough English to attend either classes. One would think that since they are so few the threshold for speaking English would be rather low. Unfortunately this is not the case. The pupils seems to be too embarrassed over their pronounciation to speak English out loud in class. Since most of them don’t even dare to speak at all during any class, let alone in English, I’ve decided to focus on the competence aims which are aimed at oral activities.

The first competence aim I decided to focus on was “express himself/herself in writing and orally with some precision, fluency and coherence”. During a phase of trial and error that took place during the first week, I realized the pupils were more active during class if they didn’t have to speak in front of the whole class. Knowing this, I decided to make a game which took advantage of this fact. As homework for the class, the students practiced the glossary written in the textbook for a particular text. Then, during class, I split the class in two equal parts and gave them each a note. One group got a note with a Norwegian word written on it, and the other group got a note with an English word written on it. The point of the game was that, without saying the english word written on the note, they should find the equivalent word to the word written on their note. So say you had a note that said ‘bil’, then you would have to walk around the classroom and find the person who had a note saying ‘car’. Then in order to fulfill the competence aim, which claims they should “express themselves in writing” as well as orally, they had to write the English word on the whiteboard. If they spelled it correctly they both got a point. Now I should mention that I wrote all their names on the whiteboard, and they could always keep their eye on who was in the lead at the moment. I have to be honest, I was kind of expecting them to cheat and speak Norwegian during the game, but I’m glad to say I was wrong. All of them spoke English, and no one seemed embarrassed.

The second competence aim I decided to focus on was “master a vocabulary that covers a range of topics”. For this competence aim, we talked about the interrogative pronouns, what they meant, and how you would use them. We started of by writing them all on the whiteboard, and the pupils wrote them in their notebooks. Since this class took place the day Barack Obama got re-elected for President of the United States, the students were given the task of writing seven questions they would like to ask Barack Obama. These seven questions corresponded to the seven different interrogative pronouns; who, what, which, why, when, where, and how. Afterwards the other student from uia who also happened to participate during the class, got up in front of the class and pretended to be Barack Obama. The pupils then asked him their questions and we all got some laughs from his answers. I made sure everyone got to ask him at least one question before the class ended.

Yes, I think that’s the way to do it. The email from James and Agnes clarified things, too. Good luck with finishing the race! You’re almost there now:)

Here are the competence aims I will use as bases for my choice of activities and material that I hope will assist the pupils in achieving the competence required after year 10:

Language Learning:

• utilize various situations, methods and strategies for learning English.
• use various aids critically and independently
• describe and evaluate their own efforts to learn English

Communication:

• master a vocabulary that covers a variety of topics
• use of basic grammar and text structures orally and in writing
• understand spoken and written texts on a variety of topics
• express themselves in writing and orally with some precision, fluency and coherence

Culture, Society and Literature:

• communicate through digital media
• present and discuss current and interdisciplinary topics
• read and understand texts of varying lengths and genres
• choose different listening, speaking, reading and writing strategies appropriate to purpose and situation
• write texts that narrate, describe, argue or present information, with appropriate basic structure and appropriate use of paragraphs
• use content from various sources independently and critically

In order to assess the pupils’ progress, and decide whether or not they’ve achieved some of the aims, I make them «brainstorm» at the end of the lesson, and each pupil has to say a different word or phrase to sum up what they have learned. In addition I have chosen to give them an oral task that includes ICT. I give the pupils about ten days to work with a Power Point or a PhotoStory presentation, about either South Africa or Jamaica. They choose from a range of topics, and work individually with the presentation. While working with their presentation they will have a one-hour writing session at school where the task is to write an interview with either Nelson Mandela, Bob Marley or Mahatma Gandhi. These activities will help me assess their skills in oral, reading, writing, ICT, and listening. I give them a set of guidelines on how to make a good oral presentation, what I expect of them, how to use the internet, avoid plagiarism and what internet-sites that have images licensed for use in the public domain, e.g. Wikimedia Commons and FlickR.

Before initiating the work with the presentations I spend three hours on preparing the pupils for the task: I give a quick introduction to Jamaica and South Africa. The pupils listen to a song by Bob Marley and discuss the lyrics. I give them a small grammar-test where they describe images in a slide show, writing sentences with “it is” or “there is/there are”, and some tasks related to concord. Instead of vocabulary tests I make them play a game similar to “Alias” where they describe the words in English and guess the words instead of write them. I robbed the idea from Marianne, who told me that she played «Alias» with her pupils. Apart from the writing session, most of the activities are either oral or a combination of written and oral work.

I give the same tasks and activities to two different classes, both in year 10. Although the pupils are more polite and obedient than I ever imagined, one of my major challenges is that there is a huge gap between the very competent pupils and the emerging pupils. Another challenge is how to make them speak English instead of Norwegian. After two weeks I realize that the lay-out of the lesson and how I organize the activities influences very much the pupils’ productivity. If I start the lesson by putting them straight to work with a demanding task, they become demotivated. But if I start with a game, a clip from youtube or something «fun», they would be a lot more productive.