Thursday 28 April 2016

New Course Outline (vocabulary notebooks, and attendance policy)

Oral English II
Spring 2016

Instructor:               Chris Elvin
Email:                    chriselvin@gmail.com
Blog:                     www.elvinoe2.blogspot.com

Course Description


Welcome to Oral English. This class is designed to accomplish the following:

1) Discuss stories in the news.
2) Keep a vocabulary notebook.
3) Research a topic, and give a group presentation of it.

Course Assessment and Grading Criteria


a)        20%     Serving as discussion leader
b)        30%     News summary writing
b)        10%     Vocabulary notebook
d)        20%     Group presentations
e)        20%     Vocabulary final test

a) Serving as discussion leader (20)

You should introduce yourself to the others, address the others by name, make eye contact, and use body language to communicate.

Choose a news item from a newspaper, or an online source. Prepare your summary before class. Orally summarize it in class to your group (do not read from notes). Solicit opinions from others about it. Ask follow-up questions. Paraphrase others. Express an opinion in your summary if you wish to do so.

How did you do? Rate yourself using the “assessing discussions” guidelines below.

If you are not group leader, you may still engender a lively talkative group by agreeing, disagreeing, asking opinions, interrupting, clarifying, asking questions, and giving reasons. You are encouraged to do so.

Discussion leader homework:
After you have served as group leader, you should upload three vocabulary items to the class vocabulary database, which you may access from the blog (April 3rd, 2016 entry). For each word, you should give a meaning (in English or Japanese), and use the word in a sentence, that helps learners to understand its meaning.

b) News summary writing (30)

After every lesson you should summarize one of the day’s six discussion topics. (who, what, where, when, why, how). Write about the others’ opinions, too. Conclude with your opinion. Each summary writing exercise should be about 150 words.

c) Vocabulary notebook (10)

Keep a vocabulary notebook of new words that you learned in class. Write their definitions in either English, or Japanese, or both. Use your words in a sentence to demonstrate your active knowledge of them. You should add at least ten words per week to your notebook. If you did not learn as many as ten new words per class, you should use the database words to make up the difference. Write the database words in a sentence to demonstrate you understand of their meaning.

d) Group presentations (20)

There will be a mid-term presentation and a final presentation, both of which will need some preparation time inside and outside of class. Research a topic with your group. Then deliver your presentation. You will be assessed on fluency (not reading), grammar range and accuracy, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

e) Vocabulary final test (20)

At the end of the semester, there will be an online vocabulary test based on all of the words that you uploaded to the database as discussion group leaders. (You may access the database for study from the April 3rd blog entry, or by clicking the green spreadsheet icon on the original Google form).

Attendance Policy

You are expected to attend ALL classes.

A typical lesson plan


If all goes, well, you will have six discussions per class led by the discussion group leaders, who will rotate from group to group. Your group members will be chosen at random by the teacher. After the discussions, there will be time for summary writing, vocabulary notebooks, or studying the words in the database.

If the class needs an extra activity, I will upload something to the blog for you to download. Hopefully, this will not be necessary.

Anything else?

Why not visit the chat room? It is a great way to practice English.


Assessing Discussions

Circle any of the nine pass criteria below. Score one point for each pass mark circled (maximum nine points). How many marks did you award yourself?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Explaining

Pass    a) Described the main points of the article without reading
Pass    b) Explained vocabulary when needed, using only English
Pass    c) Paraphrased partners’ comments accurately

Fail      I read the article aloud. (zero points for this category)
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
          
Questioning

Pass    a) Asked partners questions, used their names, and encouraged their                               participation
Pass    b) Used follow-up questions and rephrased them as necessary
Pass    c) Employed questioning to direct the discussion and to clarify points

Fail      I read the questions aloud. (zero points for this category)
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
          
Non-verbally Communicating

Pass    a) Frequent, natural eye contact
Pass    b) Appropriate, helpful gestures
Pass    c) Good posture and sensitivity to the body language of other group members

Fail      I made no eye contact, nor gestures. (zero points for this category)

Aoyama Gakuin University Attendance Policy

Your absences may affect your final grade. There is a ceiling depending on the absences you have from class.

Between zero and three absences per year: no effect
Four or five absences per year: maximum grade; A
Six or seven absences per year: maximum grade; B
Eight or nine absences per year: maximum grade; C
Ten absences per year: automatic failure.    

Download new course outline  




Thursday 7 April 2016

Course Outline


Dear students,

Here is your course outline:

Oral English II
Spring 2016

Instructor:               Chris Elvin
Email:                    chriselvin@gmail.com
Blog:                     www.elvinoe2.blogspot.com

Course Description


Welcome to Oral English. This class is designed to accomplish the following:

1) Discuss stories in the news.
2) Keep a vocabulary notebook.
3) Research a topic, and give a group presentation of it.

Course Assessment and Grading Criteria


a)        20%     Serving as discussion leader
b)        30%     News summary writing
b)        10%     Vocabulary notebook
d)        20%     Group presentations
e)        20%     Vocabulary final test

a) Serving as discussion leader (20)

You should introduce yourself to the others, address the others by name, make eye contact, and use body language to communicate.

Choose a news item from a newspaper, or an online source. Prepare your summary before class. Orally summarize it in class to your group (do not read from notes). Solicit opinions from others about it. Ask follow-up questions. Paraphrase others. Express an opinion in your summary if you wish to do so.

How did you do? Rate yourself using the “assessing discussions” guidelines below.

If you are not group leader, you may still engender a lively talkative group by agreeing, disagreeing, asking opinions, interrupting, clarifying, asking questions, and giving reasons. You are encouraged to do so.

Discussion leader homework:
After you have served as group leader, you should upload three vocabulary items to the class vocabulary database, which you may access from the blog (April 3rd, 2016 entry). For each word, you should give a meaning (in English or Japanese), and use the word in a sentence, that helps learners to understand its meaning.

b) News summary writing (30)


After every lesson you should summarize one of the day’s six discussion topics. (who, what, where, when, why, how). Write about the others’ opinions, too. Conclude with your opinion. Each summary writing exercise should be about 150 words.

c) Vocabulary notebook (10)

Keep a vocabulary notebook of new words that you learned in class. Write their definitions in either English, or Japanese, or both. Use the word in a sentence to demonstrate your active knowledge.

d) Group presentations (20)

There will be a mid-term presentation and a final presentation, both of which will need some preparation time inside and outside of class. Research a topic with your group. Then deliver your presentation. You will be assessed on fluency (not reading), grammar range and accuracy, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

e) Vocabulary final test (20)

At the end of the semester, there will be an online vocabulary test based on all of the words that you uploaded to the database as discussion group leaders. (You may access the database for study from the April 3rd blog entry, or by clicking the green spreadsheet icon on the original Google form).

Attendance Policy

You are expected to attend ALL classes.

A typical lesson plan


If all goes, well, you will have six discussions per class led by the discussion group leaders, who will rotate from group to group. Your group members will be chosen at random by the teacher. After the discussions, there will be time for summary writing, vocabulary notebooks, or studying the words in the database.

If the class needs an extra activity, I will upload something to the blog for you to download. Hopefully, this will not be necessary.

Anything else?

Why not visit the chat room? It is a great way to practice English.


Assessing Discussions

Circle any of the nine pass criteria below. Score one point for each pass mark circled (maximum nine points). How many marks did you award yourself?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Explaining

Pass    a) Described the main points of the article without reading
Pass    b) Explained vocabulary when needed, using only English
Pass    c) Paraphrased partners’ comments accurately

Fail      I read the article aloud. (zero points for this category)
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
          
Questioning

Pass    a) Asked partners questions, used their names, and encouraged their                               participation
Pass    b) Used follow-up questions and rephrased them as necessary
Pass    c) Employed questioning to direct the discussion and to clarify points

Fail      I read the questions aloud. (zero points for this category)
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
          
Non-verbally Communicating

Pass    a) Frequent, natural eye contact
Pass    b) Appropriate, helpful gestures
Pass    c) Good posture and sensitivity to the body language of other group members

Fail      I made no eye contact, nor gestures. (zero points for this category)



May 21st lesson

Dear students, You have been invited to Google Classroom. Please accept the invitation sent by email. I will probably stop using the blog f...