Lesson Review: Medical English Conditionals

Whether or not this is just for my own benefit or for others, I really want to talk about my conversation classes that go either really well or ones that leave me unsatisfied. Unfortunately this evening left me with that unsatisfied feeling in my mouth but also provided me with a great learning experience.

The Lesson:

One of my more bold students came up to me last week and told me that she thought some of the discussion questions I came up with were a little bit boring. This might sound like a disparaging remark to receive but I took the recommendation seriously. After mining through Alex Case's TEFLtastic (Yes, I talk about him frequently), I chose to do this excellent conditionals lesson. I see the lesson as a perfect blend of needing out of the box thinking, problem solving, conversation sparking, and etc.

The Students

This evening, I had about 28 students from various levels. The majority of them were Lower Intermediate followed by Beginners, Intermediates, and then one Business Intermediate and a few pre-Beginners. However, the class is targeted towards an Intermediate level. This is one of the challenges I face with each lesson (though I hesitate to use that terminology as this environment is not for teaching but rather facilitating but teacher sounds better than facilitator)

What Went Right

The class ended up evolving into the question of Nature vs Nurture. 4 of the 6 groups were able to provide well thought out arguments to defend their position which is exactly the type of thought I encourage in my class. We started this debate based off the question of cloning a famous dead person. We discussed whether creating another Hitler would mean that another Hitler type scenario would happen. I think this got a lot of people thinking.

What Went Wrong

Absolutely nothing to do with the lesson that's for sure. There were just some extra things I should have provided. I believe that my students were capable of debating between the options (such as choosing a boy, choosing a girl, leaving it up to fate, and choosing after the first child) but coming up with the options for each of the If scenarios was much more difficult for them as they had no experience with this kind of language and situation even in their L1. I believe this was my main flaw in facilitating this activity.

There were 6 groups and I knew there was a problem once I sat with one group and then everyone else in the classroom would be quiet. Even my most outspoken students who complain that my classes are too easy sometimes didn't have much to say. Yikes! This is a moment that I'd like to avoid.

Things to Think About

Does my style work?
Do I need to take the focus away from conversation and move towards a teaching role?

The other teachers in my school have moved in the direction of teaching Idioms, Phrasal Verbs, Proverbs, and Metaphors. I believe these are useful subjects and I would be excellent at teaching them but I'd rather my students be in situations where they can use this new knowledge rather than learn about it.

Action Plan

It may require more work but I really think that providing different level of activities for each level could be useful.

Focus on reactive skills rather than productive skills (nix coming up with the 4 scenarios and provide alternatives for them to discuss instead)

Dig deeper. The questions and scenarios were excellent and I could have provided enough background material to make even just one of the questions a focus of the class. There could have been vocabulary webs for the lower levels and dialogue activities for the higher ones.

Conclusion

I like doing this type of analysis. It's helpful for me and I highly suggest it to other teachers. Overall, an excellent lesson filled with conversation starters that place less emphasis on individual and more on scenario, one of my objectives lately. Next time, more focus and specificity would bring a richer experience to my conversation class.