What's in Your Pencil Case, Clare?
This article is part of a series of interviews with selected teachers in which I explore the relationship between last-minute relief teaching and the principle of teaching with minimal resources. I wanted to find out more about their approaches to teaching unexpectedly and with limited class preparation time.
#26. Clare McGrath, Sydney, Australia.
Clare McGrath's favourite word is 'curiosity'. She is continually learning as a teacher trainer, designing and delivering pre-service training and prof dev courses or workshops in Australia and overseas, including observations and developmental feedback for experienced teachers. She likes to think how to use one thing in different ways. Getting creative with materials is one of the best things about planning, which helps her support teachers - especially those working in remote areas with minimal resources. Otherwise, you’ll often find her taking photos, doing pottery (aka clay therapy!), and on bushwalks with #16 (in this series!) and other teachers and friends in Sydney.
Question 1: You have been asked to deliver a mid- to higher- level General English (or academic) class that starts in 20 minutes' time. What’s on your desk or in your bag or pencil case that you can grab to use in class?
I have some ordinary playing cards, or some jumbo-sized ones.
Question 2: What will you do with this item?
First, I provide some language prompts on the board or screen for the students, with the card value next to them such as Queen, Ace, or Two. The prompts can be topics to discuss, or questions to answer, or statements to agree or disagree with. Students work in groups, with a shuffled suit of cards placed face down in front of each group.
For example, if in the lesson I’m planning to do a reading about marketing and advertising, then the prompts can relate to marketing strategies, branding, etc.. Students take it in turns to choose a card, check the corresponding prompt on the board or screen, and respond to their group. Others in the group can then comment or ask further questions. This activity initiates discussion among the students and can be adapted to a broad range of contexts, including personal topics or aspects of living in Australia, not just course-related ones. They can be focused on one narrow topic or be all different. Plus, everyone gets a turn.
The basic idea of this is whatever topic the prompts cover, you have a strategy to get the students to be active quickly, which when you’re meeting them for the first time enables you to tune into their language level, personalities, and backgrounds. Using the playing cards as talking cards, you can activate the students’ existing knowledge about the topics which will arise further in the lesson. I like the cards for the fact that they’re incredibly versatile. Plus, I don’t have to have any paper or anything pre-prepared for the class. I just need to have some topics in mind to use in class. Or the students can provide these!
Question 3: How important are tools/resources in delivering a last-minute class? Can having minimal resources make a class better?
I think they can often make a class better because it stops the teacher from being boxed-in by the course books or the tasks that you’ve got to supplement the coursework with. You are more open to seeing where the students take it. I think you’re more likely to see where the lesson goes and explore more avenues, and then work with the language needs that come up. Using minimal resources is a great idea. I think that being put in a position of having to work this way is a really good opportunity to develop creativity and flexibility – you can see what can happen without using too many resources.
Dictation I think is another under-utilised resource – particularly if you’re doing relief teaching where you may not have had that much time to get your head around what you meant to be doing or to print something out, and it’s something you can adapt to any level or type of course. What you dictate might be the instructions, it might be a task to respond to, it might be questions they then discuss or write answers to – whatever that you want the students to be working with.
Read Clare’s full interview here.
