Teaching Journal

Class: 40 students of 1-1 in HSHS
Date: November 25, 2005
Textbook: Brushup your English grammar p/b CHART INSTITUTE
Allotment: Relative (3)

Lesson objectives

1. To introduce relative adverbs, clarifying the difference between relative pronouns and adverbs.
2. To check the answers for the exercises on page 73.

Teaching objectives

1. To focus on the pose in my talk that is suitable for ss to think of the meaning of sample sentences such as:

This is the house ( ) I live.
This is the house ( ) I want to visit.

2. To visually use the blackboard to clarify the usage of four relative pronouns: when, where, how, why.

Post-class reflections

The previous lesson was a fiasco due to the lack of preparation. In this sense, this lesson was much better. I set the theme of this lesson on the difference between relative pronouns and adverbs. In order to show ss the difference, I repeated the following process again and again;

This is the house. + I live in this house.
> This is the house WHICH I live IN.
> This is the house IN WHICH I live.
> This is the house WHERE I live.

I even changed the pattern of composition exercises into the above kind of ones. For each exercise, I used the blackboard, and make ss draw the underline for bold parts above, in order to keep their concentration on my explanation. I waited for ss taking their note. I put enough pose during my speech. I believe that this difference is quite confusing to ss, which make it all the more significant.
This must have sounded like a monotonous grammatical explanation, but ss seemed to listen to me eagerly. At least no student slept or looked bored with my explanation. I somehow felt strange, but glad.
For the last 10min of the lesson, I asked ss if they could guess the answers and their reason for the following questions. More than half of them can answer correctly and understand why for the first question.

Today is the day ( ) we have the first date.
Today is the day ( ) I will never forget.

Then I added one more question. This time, all the ss raised their hand, which meant that they can understand the difference of relative pronouns and adverbs.

This is the house ( ) I live.
This is the house ( ) I want to visit.

From this lesson, I have realized that setting the goals of the lesson is indispensable for the success.