the back up plan...

My last teaching session reminded me of the importance of having a back up plan in a teaching session. Despite it working where I teach for numerous weeks in a row, technology that I needed failed me in the shape of speakers not playing out audio. As the audio I had intended to use did not have a transcript I could not read this out myself, instead I changed to a completely different dialogue but still keeping the listening exercise. I feel that in the circumstances I rectified the situation as best I could (even if it did mean the learners listening to more of my voice!). However, it brought home to me how much I and others rely on this kind of technology and especially in language teaching where it is so important to listening exercises in particular. I am also reminded of how many times I have faced or witnessed this. Sometimes I feel it would be better to revert to old style media such as a CD or cassette but even then I have have been faced with a player not being available, skipping/damaged discs or other such difficulties. So where do we draw the line with contingencies? I personally feel sometimes like I have gone to the extreme of thinking that 'everything will not work' rather than 'something will work' which is perhaps over the top. I am by no means denying that an alternative task shouldn't be nicely tucked away to whip out when an intended one is finished or doesn't work as intended- that's just good sense. I suppose experience teaches you to be prepared for the worst.

Memory

No, I'm not going to sing Barbara Streisand at you... but rather share some reflections on the influence this has on teaching and learning My students have made comments such as ‘oh that’s one of the first things I learnt’ when I give them a phrase or item of vocabulary accompanied by ‘why couldn’t I remember it?’ frustration. I have been told previously that it takes 20 exposures to a word to have a high probability of it being learnt. I have certainly noticed this in my own experience and even recall of words that I could previously use, therefore practice is an issue. I remember being taught certain patterns such as numbers and months of the year in other languages as a rhythm or chant. This was very successful in raining this long term. I can recall finding dates and the associated historical events for exams particularly difficult. I seem to overall have a greater capacity for left brain thinking- for example I am better with remembering language and do ok with things like chemical formulae. This probably explains why I use what D Child refers to as a verbal symbolic process to ensure information is transferred to the LTM. Perhaps a visual process would be better in this case. I found his comment about meaning being linked to long term memory very interesting. In relation to language learning and teaching I have found this to be more complex than this. There is a need for absolute clarity in semantic meaning when introducing or clarifying a word or phrase. One important method for discerning whether this has been achieved is concept checking. As teachers will often not share a native language with their students, this checking is often done in the language being taught. It is thought that students being asked to think about and question the language themselves and to ‘discover’ their way to the solution aids longer term retention. Recently however I have come question this. I do agree that self-discovery can aid retention; I personally find it very effective. However there is no denying the fact the when teaching there is an immediate visible penny-drop when a native language translation is mentioned. For me the bigger question is whether my own and my students’ frustration is to do with information not being stored and going out of the short term memory or not transferring to the long term memory. I guess I just have to find more effective ways of maintain the information short term and therefore give it more opportunity to be accessible long term.