Last week I had the chance to observe Ms. Kim's class for the second time. It was good to see them again because at this point I was more familiar with how the classroom goes. This was a listening class.
This class we watched a clip from the movie Father of the Bride with Steve Martin. After watching the clip once the students were expected to fill in the missing blanks on a sheet of dialogue for a second viewing. This clip was particularly useful because it used American phrases and showed English speakers speaking fast and casually. The narration of Steve Martin's character really helped the students understand exactly what this character was thinking.
In this clip, Steve Martin's character used the phrase "brown nose". This was a perfect learning expirience for the class to earn a new phrase. It was clear that the understood the color "brown" and the noun "nose", but they were unable to get what the character was implying. After explaining it a little it seemed as though the students understood the phrase. "brown nose" might not be a phrase they'll hear every day but it is a useful phrase to know because they are sure to come across it some time again.
After doing the worksheet and watching the clip again a class discussion started and the students were able to talk about what they thought was going through the mind of the main character. We even had a discussion about the stereotype that in-laws are annoying and saw a trend of this cross-culturally. The movie was a good tool to get the students listening to dialogue as well as to touch on cultural trends and phrases.
Hi Lauren,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your descriptive blog about Ms. Kim's class. It is such a good learning experience to observe a professional realize the things that we are studying here as TEFL students! The in-law comment is amusing. I am sure that motivated a lot of students to participate in the discussion.