I’ve finally split the class, as 14 plus was just too crowded. The upper level students came today (two were missing, so that left 6) and the others will come tomorrow morning (I hope - I delivered letters to them all during the week telling them of the change).
It was a much quieter class, and the subject matter was, I felt, harder, but there were no major issues with it, except that I think I now need to pick the pace up a bit, and have less handouts.
I noticed on the work that was done on homophones and sentence creation last week that these were areas of weakness, so I thought we could do some work on writing today - starting with spelling, then word order in sentences, leading up to paragraphs and how they are split and the use of linking words.
I was up till after midnight last night preparing my lesson plan, and went in to work to print and photocopy - but it was one of those days when the photocopier insists on using A3 paper instead of A4. Grr. Anyway the class began with naming 10 jobs where you have to wear a uniform. So far, so good.
Next, a spelling test, using words from previous work that I’d noticed were wrong, plus the words from the spelling strategies video we watched last week. I read out the word, then a sentence with the word in context, then the word again. Afterwards, they checked the spellings with a partner, and took turns in writing them on the whiteboard. The strategies obviously worked, as they got them all right!
Next, in teams of 3, they had to choose 3 words we’ve used in past classes to ask the other team to spell, in the same way I’d done i.e. with a sentence using the word in context, and then they checked with the other team members before writing the word on the whiteboard - there were some interesting spellings of ‘scissors’ and ‘lantern’ so we went through these and thought of other words that sound the same, such as ‘sci fi’, ‘science’.
Onto word order in sentences, which I’d noticed also caused a problem for some. I discovered word jumbles this week, and it was perfect for this i.e. dividing the whiteboard into 4 and writing a jumbled sentence in each quadrant, and when the students had worked out the word order, they had to put the sentences in the correct sequence to form a dialogue. I didn’t check this and took it directly from the source, so that when we came to do it, I could see the dialogue didn’t flow. Anyway, they all managed that, and then, still in their teams, they created a word jumble for the other team. This was a good activity for both, but I should have had something to occupy the team that had set the word jumble whilst the other team were working it out.
After this it fell apart a bit as we moved onto paragraphs, starting with a brief discussion about what a paragraph is, and followed by a simple exercise consisting of three sentences in separate but jumbled paragraphs which they had to put in the right order, and tell me why. The next exercise was a little harder, three tasks with three paragraphs each that had to be rearranged. This was quite easy really as each paragraph contained a date. The next exercise contained several paragraphs with some multiple choice questions about the words that linked the paragraphs, which was, again, fairly easy. In the final exercise they were given some linking words and had to decide where to put them at the start of each paragraph in a gap fill exercise. Again, not too difficult, with the addition of some new vocabulary, such as ‘kiln’, ‘porous’.
Finally, coming back to the starting point of words, there was a quick true or false exercise to do about root words, which was perhaps the hardest exercise of the class - or perhaps by then they were just tired. Still, something to pick up on next time.
Pace. Confidence. Less paper.
