I teach a small class at an upper secondary school. The students are attending vocational studies at VG1-level. The school is offering these student to be taught in a small class because they need adapted education.

As a group they are facing some common challenges that entitle them to be taught in a small class: They are not used to producing longer texts in English or to speak solely in English. They also need  to enhance their vocabulary and mastery of grammer in order to speak more fluently.

We need to work with various parts of the language in short and varied sessions. It’s not difficult to see when the students are bored or unconcentrated. This means that working with this class probably represents one of the more efficient ways of learning what works in class and what does not, given that we as teachers can generalise our experiences in this way. Of course, teachers do generalise their teaching experience, a phenomenon that in Norwegian pedagogic literature is referred to as “praktisk yrkesteori”. This term was coined by Handal and Lauvås in 1983 and refers to the sum of both the generalised experiences of a teacher and his or her general values (see Lyngsnes and Rismark 2010).

The competence aims that we’ve mainly been focusing on, are these:

Write formal and informal texts with good writing structure and coherence based on themes that interest him/her and which are important for society.

Present and discuss international news topics and current events.

Discuss social and cultural conditions and values from a number of English-speaking countries.

The students have been reading different sorts of texts and producing different sorts of text. All of the texts, both the ones they have read and the ones they have produced, are shorter types of text.

Sometimes they have answered questions to show that they have understood the text. This works fairly well, as they are used to these kinds of tasks. As they have also expressed their impatience concerning longer pieces of texts, both when it comes to what they are supposed to read and what they are supposed to write.

Although the students do their work, I can’t help but wonder if these kinds of tasks will turn out meaningless in the long run. The question arises: Can I tempt them to do some bigger projects after a while?

At other times, the students have produced informal texts, for instance on themes as:

A presentation of your best friend (imagine that someone from abroad would come to stay with you, and you wanted to tell him/her about your friend in advance)

One of your best holiday experiences – what happened?

The students are all able to communicate and tell a short story, but the texts have some basic grammar mistakes. They swap between different verb tenses, and there are other basic grammar mistakes as well.

As they all seem to loathe traditional grammar lessons, and seem to learn nothing from it, I’ve decided to try to practice on very specific tasks related to grammar – particularly on verb tenses – by introducing station teaching. As the students are easily bored, but still need some basic skills work, I hope this might represent a varied way to do it.

Literature:

Anvik, T. C., Burgess, R., Fuhre, P. and Sørhus, T. B. 2009: Tracks 1, Fellesbok, Engelsk for yrkesfag Vg 1. Oslo: Cappelen Damm

Lyngsnes, K. and Rismark, M., 2010: Didaktisk arbeid. 2nd edition, 4th impression. Oslo: Gyldendal