Monday, September 13, 2010

20 Questions

I need some new ideas for class. In pretty much every semester Ive done 20 questions with my class. In my more advanced classes I just basically explained the game to them quickly then broke them up into groups to play. In some of my less advanced classes it took longer, some times a lot longer to get the idea across and we did most of the game as a class with first me then them thinking up ideas. But in every class I was eventually able to explain it. The first time I did it was a little tough but after a while I learned how to explain each individual part of the game and expand out starting with easy things then getting more advanced. But in class today I was totally defeated. I spent about 35 minutes, that's pretty much half the class after taking role for about 10, trying to explain the game, and most people didn't really get it when I was done. It was tough, and it was hard not to get frustrated with them. I have essentially four classes. One class I have for two different subject, listening and oral English, and three oral English classes. Two of my oral English classes are regular English majors, while the other two are what's called minority classes. These are just so much harder than I'm used to. I've always gotten by just by getting the students to talk since I have no real idea how to actually teach English, but now I feel out of my league. The class that couldn't get 20 questions isn't even my weakest, the one I have for oral and listening is much worse. I'm really not sure what I'm going to do with all this.

2 comments:

bob davis said...

how about hang man? Or is there a student who can understand it and explain it to the others?

Deb Bruno said...

That is tough. Maybe you shouldn't be using the Davis family version with the "man-made substance" part.