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Man Proposes.....
Yes, I was ready for the third post of mine in the DUKASUMMER fun! Not just ready, instead I was really excited about the task- 'Prepare a list of books for the summer and read them'. Literally on a high because 'collecting books and reading them 'at a go' most of the times by forgoing everything else-even the meals were consigned to the oblivion till I really starved -to devour my dear possession cover to cover. Oh! I just got carried away by the mention of the task, but this is for another day since now I have to share with you something very much linked to yesterday's task.
But......
In the previous post I have talked about a rumpus in one of my classes (8B) as a result of my Dukasummer task performance. I had almost forgotten about it and during the break hour went to the library to collect a few important books I needed to prepare the list of books for today's intended task. One of my Grade 8A students was there near the computer lab talking with his friends,and before getting into the library, I asked him whether he had pasted the slip of paper I had distributed to all the students towards the end of the previous class. He gave a shout, Yes,sir!' and scampered towards his classroom.
On a Second thought....
Let me do a brief flashback. The topic for the previous lesson was practising 'note taking' and at the end of the class I had distributed these pieces of papers and had asked them to paste them in their note books as a preparation for today' class for which the topic is practising summery writing. These students are first generation learners of the language, hence we have opted for Cambridge International Examinations' syllabus (ESL). It is obvious in this scenario, that my students need a lot of processing activities to make them confident to deal with English language exercises. As a part of these process, I had prepared this list of the 11 notes we had prepared during the previous two periods while practising note taking. In reality we will have separate scenarios for note making and summery writing. But for today's class I only needed the content points without a passage. So I had collected the passages from students and distributed these tiny strips with the brief notes as content points for today's summary lesson. (Looks like a detailed ESL lesson plan! Right?)
HE himself disposes....
Yes, now in the classroom, we had our routines and before the task I asked the whole class whether they had pasted the list of eleven points and as expected the chorus replied 'yes sir'. They would not have missed it because I had told them that the notes were essential for the day's class. and I had a swift glance over the front liners and I saw they had pasted it neatly below the day's topic. We had an engaging session as the students tried hard to find meaningful conjunctions and connectives to join the notes to make a summary of 100- 120 words.
For a (Pleasant) Surprise!
As usual, I went around for a random marking of the day's task and when I went near the desk of Mohamed Evan (the boy I met near the library- is a bit of an over doer, usually!) he had a blank space at the top of his summary!
Me- 'So', Evan, You have not done it?
Evan- "Yes, sir.'
Me- ' Is there anyone else in the class who managed to write the summary without even the content points?
Three more hands shot up!
The four boys have told a lie, and Evan had done it twice.
Me- Students,you could have avoided telling a lie.
Evan took the initiative, as usual.
Evan- "But Sir, we four had decided before the class that we would be very positive in today's English class and only respond with 'yeses.'
Is this a boomerang
! or
May be four of my students have taken the challenge with me to go all the
way to Dukasummer contest!
Thank you And A "Plenty of Dukats" Summer to You All!