November Workshop Summary
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| 03 Nov 2008 - 03:22 | 118 |
| Elizabethanne Kim Posts: 24 | November Workshop Summary Daegu Kotesol Chapter Meeting November 1, 2008 Josette LeBlanc “Reading Circles: Simplifying the Task, Not the Text” After the traditional introductions of first-time visitors, the approximately 20 attendees of the Daegu-Gyeongbuk Chapter’s November meeting took part in a very participatory workshop on reading circles. Josette LeBlanc, currently employed at Youngmoon English School, has taught at private English institutes in Korea for the last four years. Today, she engaged the group in a reading activity she has been applying with middle school students since this summer. While the recent trend in extensive reading has sprouted reading programs around Japan and Korea, teachers are faced with certain challenges. Students want to read “real” books, not just graded readers, but the authentic texts are difficult and students often get discouraged. Furthermore, traditional Western literature discussions often do not work in traditional Asian cultures in which the value of unity of thought often outweighs the benefit of voicing novel thought. Therefore, Ms. LeBlanc employed a method suggested by Harvey Daniels in his book, Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups, in which students are given roles to perform in the class prior to their discussion. While many such roles exist and are detailed places such as pages 6-8 of Mark Furr’s “Why and How to Use EFL Literature Circles” online at http://www.eflliteraturecircles.com/howandwhylit.pdf, Ms. LeBlanc typically uses the following five roles to guide the discussion and promote motivation, learner autonomy, fluency, and accuracy. The following five roles are assigned to the students along with their assigned reading. The Group Discussion Leader guides the discussion by drawing students into the conversation, designating when the other roles will present their materials, and framing the discussion with prepared questions. The Summarizer helps the group refresh their memories and ensures that the group comprehends the reading as a whole. The Word Master brings out five words or phrases crucial to the understanding of the reading, and the Passage Person selects a passage that he or she felt was very powerful or important and explains it to the group. Finally, the Connector frames the reading in terms of the group’s everyday lives and thoughts. The workshop then broke into four groups and employed this reading strategy on an excerpt of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia. After the activity, the group discussed their thoughts. Attendees expressed overall enthusiasm about the structure of the roles and its ability to make the activity student-focused and autonomous but still guided. Strategies were discussed to employ this technique among young or beginning students by giving them the language to use to express themselves or to allow them to play their roles in Korean. Similarly, members discussed the possibility of applying the technique to other types of discussion such as pop song lyrics or reactions to photographs or paintings. Steve Lamb will present “The Role of Dialogues in the English Classroom” at our next meeting on December 6th. |
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