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Reviewing My Semester with the FUN WITH ENGLISH 7A & 8A Textbooks

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Mr. Danoff's FWE Lessons

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Topic:TESOL

and
School:Education
School:Linguistics
Topic:English Language

Currently I am working on making my old lesson plans into a usable resource for others at Teaching EFL Listening via FUN WITH ENGLISH Books . For now this research is on hold. --Charles Jeffrey Danoff 00:32, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

The objective of this project is to follow an American instructor in China week by week from September 2009 to June 2010, and analyze how the dynamics between him and his class, as well as his approach to teaching, evolved. The instructor, User:Charles Jeffrey Danoff, taught English to seventh and eighth grade Chinese students using the FUN WITH ENGLISH 7A/7B & 8A/8B Listening Textbooks. The project is being conducted within the framework of Wikiversity's original research guidelines.

The goal is to have something ready to send to Pediapress by the end of February 17th, USA CT.

The exploration begun with this research indirectly led to the instructor's speech on Collaborative Lesson Planning at Wikimania 2010.

Guide

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Semester 1 Fall 2009

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Usually classes were only held from Monday to Friday.
Week Dates Grade 7 Grade 8
1 2 - 8 Sep Lesson 1 Ibid.
2 9 - 15 Sep Lesson 2 Lesson 2
3 16 - 22 Sep Lesson 3 Lesson 3
4 23 - 25 Sep Lesson 4 Lesson 4
5 c. early Oct Lesson 5 Lesson 5
6 c. mid-Oct Lesson 6 Lesson 6
7 c. mid-Oct Halloween 1 Lesson 7
8 c. late-Oct Halloween 2 Lesson 8
9 c. early-Nov Lesson 7 Lesson 9
10 c. mid-Nov Lesson 8 Lesson 10
11 c. late-Nov Lesson 9 Lesson 11
12 c. early-Dec Lesson 10 Lesson 12
13 c. early-Dec Lesson 11 Lesson 13
14 c. mid-Dec Lesson 12 Lesson 14
15 c. late-Dec X-Mas Ibid.
16 c. early-Jan Lesson 13 Lesson 15
17 c. early Jan Lesson 14 Lesson 16
18 c. mid-Jan Lesson 17
19 c. late-Jan Final Ibid.
  • Halloween lessons were taught with Mr. Brown.

Semester 2 Spring 2010

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Semester 2 Week by Week
Week Dates Grade 7 Grade 8
1 1 - 5 Mar Lesson 1 Same as G7
2 8 - 12 Mar Lesson 2 Lesson 2
3 15 - 19 Mar Lesson 3 Same as G7
4 23 - 27 Mar Hawaii
5 26 Mar - 1 Apr Lesson 5 Lesson 5
6 3 Apr - 7 Apr Lesson 6 Lesson 6
7 12 - 16 Apr Lesson 7 Lesson 7
8 19 - 23 Apr Lesson 8 Lesson 8
9 26 - 30 Apr Lesson 9 Lesson 9
10 3 - 7 May Lesson 10 Lesson 10
11 10 - 14 May Lesson 11 Lesson 11
12 Lesson 12
13 4 - 28 May Lesson 13 Lesson 13
14 31 May - 4 June Lesson 14 Same as G7
15 9 - 12 June Lesson 15 Same as G7
16 Lesson 16 Same as G7

Background Information

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Answers to questions taken from Wikiversity's research process.

By publishing and critiquing all of my lessons from last term, I seek wisdom and hope to learn from my previous mistakes and successes which will hopefully be useful to me in improving as a teacher and improving my future classes. Ideally this will be useful for others as well. I wish to share what I learn with others to use in their own classrooms. The collaborative nature of Wikiversity's international community and structure makes it ideal for this research. As I progress I can get feedback and corrections from others which will improve my research, in a way that would be impossible in a vacuum. Additionally, Wikiversity is currently exploring how to conduct original research, and this project can serve as lab rat to see what does and does not work. Also, perhaps this research can serve as a model for other instructors to review their work in a similar manner. Finally, it can inform English Language teachers, or any teachers seeking to share new cultures, working at home abroad about what methods do and do not work.

I hope to start February 28th, 2010 and finish by June 1st, 2010. By publishing my old lessons slowly and consistently, I will have time to review them thoroughly while still working. User:AFriedman, a more experienced Wikiversity participant, is providing me with guidance and feedback. Anyone can help with this research project, though I ask that you please suggest your changes on the talk pages, before directly editing.

I hope to answer:

  1. How can teachers effectively archive and review old works to learn from past mistakes and successes?
  2. What is the best way to use these textbooks to teach students English listening?
  3. as suggested by Harkey
    • For the sake of an international readership. How old are 7th & 8th Grade students in China?
    • How many years schooling have they had?
    • What is the socio-economic background of the students? (Parental occupations, rural or urban location, etc.)
    • What is their previous experience of learning English?
    • How often and for what duration are the English lessons?
    • Is the curriculum compulsory?
    • Are the textbooks compulsory?
    • How are pupils seated?
    • How many pupils in the class?
    • Do students have a textbook each?
    • Are the accompanying tapes (mentioned in the publishers blurb) available?
    • Does the teacher speak Chinese?
  4. suggested by  darklama 
    • What is/are FUN WITH ENGLISH Listening textbooks?
    • Who is/are FUN WITH ENGLISH Listening textbooks suppose to teach?
    • Why is/are FUN WITH ENGLISH Listening textbooks used in your classroom?
    • How is/are FUN WITH ENGLISH Listening textbooks used in your classroom?
    • When is/are FUN WITH ENGLISH Listening textbooks used in your classroom?
  5. Implement this idea from Dr. King somehow "But you don’t say anywhere that you thank the students for coming to class or ask them about the content of the class material. Also do you start class on time? and end on time? Always atart and end your class on time."

To - Do

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  1. Add these categories to all associated research material and anything else you might think would be helpful, surprise me as suggested by User:Juan de Vojníkov

    [[Category:Research projects]] [[Category:Mr. Danoff's FWE Lessons]] [[Category:TESOL]] [[Category:TESOL Materials]]

  2. Scan in missing lesson plans from my hand-written notes.
  3. Connect up with Aural English class organizational style as well, maybe make a separate PDF handout.
  4. create a standard lesson plan template for all lessons, a la this or this or this one I made.
  5. get students from my P2PU class involved, experiment in paragogy.

Done

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  1. 7 November 2010 Import all the old lesson plans from grade 8 and grade 7 my le dive, and organize it into the semester 2 table below now further down the page - to many of which have been infested by wiki spammers.

Ideas

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  • incorporate harkey's research log and worksheet within the framework of his "How to Write an A+ Research Paper"?
  • make table of contents for each of the various teaching notebooks I used throughout the year and make reference within the lesson plan or lesson review sections

Bibliography

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  • FUN WITH ENGLISH 7A Textbook
  • FUN WITH ENGLISH 8A Textbook
  • Paine, L., & Liping, M. Teachers Working Together: A Dialogue on Organizational and Cultural Perspectives of Chinese Teacher, 1034-1048.
    • This chapter gives a nice overview of how Chinese teachers work together which is helpful for exposing people to how Chinese teachers work and for getting ideas on how teacher around the world can work together well.

Can you help?

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  • Do you [as in, you, the reader] have any more suggestions of people who've done this kind of work?
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