End of term tales

Apologies about the space between the last post and this one, but I’ve been busy finishing off the marking, travelling home and then chilling out a bit!

Praise God, I made it through!

I really do believe I had to do a job in the last couple of weeks of term that a teacher of my level and experience shouldn’t have had to do. I tested nearly all of my students (211 of them) on their English speaking ability and five classes on their listening skills too. The listening tests were fine although we (Martin and I) were harsher with the marking this time round. What got me going however was the oral exams. In each test we had to concentrate hard on what each student was saying, listening for good and bad bits and write plenty of notes, because there was no recording equipment at our disposal and no second teacher for a second opinion (and we will have to justify our marks to our supervisor in January). We had already done a set of oral tests with our first year students, but they were role plays which were easier to mark (as it was largely down to guess work!!).

This time I tested the first year students on their spontaneous English which I felt was important because they like to write things down all the time before speaking but they’re at university level now and that’s not how communication happens outside of the classroom. So for the test they came in to the room in pairs and I gave each of them an advert from a British magazine and after a minute or so they had to describe it and give opinions on it. The second part was to have a conversation with their classmate on a randomly chosen topic out of five that were face down before them. I think some of them were surprised with how well they handled the task and others got a wake up call. I was not impressed with those that strolled in saying ‘So what are we supposed to be doing Miss?’ (we had practised it the week before in class!), but there’s always going to be some of those.

This time I had a mark scheme and it was much more time consuming to write out comments on all of them and add up the marks, but I think it was worth it. It did surprise me how hard it was to not have a bias towards students who work hard or have a pleasant manner or have a generally good level of English (or the opposite – a negative bias towards those who wind me up!). Some of them are very enthusiastic students but when you look closer at their English they’re making silly mistakes. For others, you can’t understand some of what they’re saying because of their sentence structure or their accent…then you get stuck as it means you haven’t got much to go off for the marks!

The second and third year students did different kinds of oral exams, which was good as it gave some variety to my fortnight (I won’t bore you with the details!). I celebrated the end of the 14-week craziness by sharing a tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream with some friends J I think it’s fair to say that overall there was good progress made over the semester and I’m pleased with the job I did. I got quite attached to some students over the 12 weeks and some of them got quite attached to me too! I got a few disappointed comments of ‘Is that it?’, and ‘Aren’t you teaching us any more Miss?’ at the end. (I will carry on teaching some, but said goodbye to the majority).

The Spaghetti Challenge

One of the more fun activities I did towards the end with some of my classes was the ‘spaghetti challenge’. In teams the students had to build the tallest free-standing tower possible in 18 minutes, with 20 spaghetti sticks, 2 lengths of tape, and a marshmallow which had to go on top (whole). Here's one of the winning towers pictured. They had to do the task entirely in English and every time I heard a person speaking French, I told them I’d note down -1cm for their team! It worked a treat for most participants and showed them they could put their English to practical use. I was impressed by how well some of them resisted the temptation to speak English.

Fun times

In the last couple of weeks before leaving for home I enjoyed making biscuits and cards at friends’ houses, I wandered around the Rennes Christmas market, went to the cinema and along to our church’s Christmassy family fun afternoon.

Next time I’ll tell you about my Christmas break. I hope you’re all enjoying the festive season!

Fiona
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