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Getting there

 

Thursday, June 16, 2005

 
For some reason my blogger has been in Japanese lately, which always gives me a bit of a turn when I open the editing page...my fine hidey hole from all things Japan has been invaded, probably thanks to the cookie monster or some other such spyware which automatically labels me as Japanese because that's where I post from....

Ah well, not that i haven't been here long enough to be able to cope....

A fine class, I spent time before class photocopying all the rubrics and notetaking plus vocabs for research records, and rushed up with minutes to spare, chatting to one student in the lift about contact lenses (I've never been able to touch my eyeballs) and then bumping into another in the loo. Another student said they'd only slept an hour, oooh I said, have you tried putting each toe to sleep? I modelled, and was promptly told the method was bound to fail....As the chime went I asked for English only and vocab checking please and posted myself at the door to catch latecomers, asking two people to split up and work with two other friends looking for new networking partners. Only three latecomers, I checked the last one and explained collocations again before it was time to start the focal part of the lesson.

Well, passed round my permission to quote sheet after explaining about me being a student too and researching the vocab sheets and the rubrics and the like, recapped the broad sweep of the class to date while praising students for their excellent investment work, and then handed out worksheets. I had revised it a little, adding wikipedia addresse, does anyone know wikipedia? I began, and pointed out that it was free and useful and the address was on the bottom of the handout. Since on Tuesday some students were not clear about the meaning of the vocab to match with the definitions, I began by sketching the meanings of the five terms to be defined, then read each definition twice, gave them a minute to think and compare with friends, and then double checked.
Skipped the matching sentences exercise, pointing out it was an endogenous model, and skimmed over the vicious circle from wikipedia, and moved into the policymaking gapfill which has the meat of the ideas on how to tweak economies...(had skipped this on Tuesday because of time constraints, but it needed to be peeped at to make the idea come full circle) ...work on it in small groups or alone, then we'll check and have a break and look at the economist before the test, I said. I read and orally filled in the first four gaps which were a recap of the first part of the worksheet, and gave them the oomph to fill in the second part.

Ok, I said, answers at yahoo, take a break, as i walked round and encouraged and prompted. During the break I was working with a keen student who is close to an A, delighted at the effort, and then everyone was back....look we've no time to discuss this, but for God's sake don't read the article....start with the title, it says three mistakes, by policy makers, now we know the Economist thinks the Japanese economy is looking up, they've been saying it for a year now, we've read two articles, so they are saying the policymakers, as in government, the tweakers of the economy, are making three mistakes....any ideas what those mistakes might be? No? well, if it says three, we start by skimming for the words one, two and three, or first second and third....of course reading only the first sentence of each paragraph in main...ok got it???ho hum ho hum everyone started skimming until someone went "AHA" ok, read it out please, "One is China" ok? Highlight it, modelling with my pink pen, as people find it...Now you all have a good idea what China and mistake means, and if you want the English to talk about it it's in this paragraph, so study that. OK, now two, or second...yep, move on, no, don't go too far, second is in the middle, right? yes, yes, ok, great, please read it out for everyone! "the second threat to recovery:the Bank of Japan" great.... does anyone know what the bank of Japan is doing now? NO? hmmm, well if you like financial issues, better read on, it's in this paragraph...ok? So now three, any takers??????...yes, yes great, "This is the third threat..." and this is pointing to something coming before (tiny sketch on blackboard) so what comes before? "Raising taxes" oK, so now you KNow the three mistakes and you can read about the ones that interest you most, that's it, real quick, hope it was useful to model how you don't have to read every word, ok? K, let's hit the test, three to a desk please move somewhere else, ok,

and so the day was over, gave an extra hint on what do reputation do Switzerland and Canada share, and what is the main criteria for investment when one student asked for help...

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