Mission Memory Verb Game: Not Quite Accomplished

So I've been neglecting to share much about my experience teaching. Ironic since, after all, it is the principal reason behind my being here. Also strange because it really has been quite entertaining and interesting. I'm learning a lot about Chilean culture, especially the younger generation; the Chilean education system with all its idiosyncracies and frustrations; teaching and pedagogy, specifically teaching English as a foreign language; and a lot about myself: strengths, limitations, things that drive me insane, etc.

First of all, I feel very lucky to be in the teaching position that I am--a lead teacher in my own classroom in a university level institution--given my lack of an education background. DUOC, my school, has placed a lot of trust in me and my fellow North American teachers; after all our students' ability to graduate rests on whether they pass English. I am grateful for this challenge, and especially for the leeway that I have in how I teach my classes. On the other hand, there are times when I feel totally clueless about how to get through to my students, how to get them to participate more in class, how to explain something differently if they aren't getting it, how to evaluate them, and "un monton" (as they say in Chile, "a mountain") of other things.

Our goal, ultimately, is "practical fluency." That's all well and good in theory, but in practice it's infinitely difficult, especially when, along the way to the illusive "practical fluency," our students are expected to master, again, "un monton" of grammatical items. Of course, grammar--subjects, verbs, prepositions, articles, and the list goes on--are the building blocks of language. However, learning how to form a question by discussing the various parts of speech that you need to make up that interrogative sentence is not the way that all of us learned our native language. Things get even more complicated when the students you teach aren't all that familiar, if at all, with grammatical terms and structures, even in their own language.

So yesterday I set out for my day of teaching armed with what I thought was a great, (clever, fun, interractive, hands-on, etc) way to reinforce the conjugation of simple present verbs, which I had introduced in the last class. I had made a 9x6 matrix of subjects (He, I, She, John, We, etc) and verbs (plays guitar, goes to work, etc), and covered each with a post-it for my own spin on the classic "Memory" game. A lot of work for one lesson, but I figured the students would have fun with it and it would be more interesting than just conjugating and repeating.

What I thought would be straightforward confused my students immensely. Not only did they struggle to understand how to play the game (they would pick "I" and "a student" and not understand why that couldn't be a match. I understand what they were thinking, but I had to explain maybe 10 times that those were two subjects, that they needed a verb).  Even the ones that did understand were still making mistakes ("They goes to work. Siii." "No Juan, that is NOT a match. THEY: NO S"). I had even drawn two circles on the board, one for "NEEDS S" (He, She, It, ANY NAME) and one for "NO S" (I, You, We, They). Still, no dice.  To top it off, they almost always refused to read the words, and instead simply looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to read them and tell them whether it was a match or not. That pretty much defeated the purpose of the exercise to get them to read and speak, two fundamental goals of language instruction, duh.

So, halfway through the game I finally accepted that it wasn't working. Time to regroup and revise. We switched over to a less complicated activity, well actually borderline dull in its straightforwardness, but it seemed to work better. I'm still not convinced that come the quiz next Wednesday they won't all write in "Juan go to school," and that makes me feel nervous, guilty, and frustrated. But, I planned my lesson for tomorrow this morning, and I guess I'm a glutton for punishment because I crafted a new activity, construction paper, scissors, markers, and all. We'll see if this one works better or if we'll have to resort, once again to boring book activities and repetition. Call me stupid, but I'm hopeful this one will make this new grammar item crystal clear...I'll let you know.