Cebu International EFL Conference

Abstract of paper

Author
Mrs. Jovita Corrigan
Instructor : English Language Teaching Unit
Chinese University of Hong Kong
HONG KONG

Title
Instead of “Good morning, class. My name is…”

Abstract
How do ESL teachers open their first day of class? All too often the teachers greet their students, briefly introduce themselves and waste no time announcing the assessable tasks in the course. Students, on the other hand, remain passive, mostly listening attentively as that may very well be the deciding factor whether or not to drop the course. Some teachers may also make a conscious attempt to get students to interact with one another in the target language. Here, students are given a list of personal traits and are asked to move around the classroom to identify classmates with the same traits. Although both of these styles may lead to greater student understanding and awareness of the course, very often they do not excite a lot of interest.

This session will give the participants a chance to open their first day of classes using two very effective methods to get their students “fired up” about meeting their teachers and grasping the salient points of the course. The first method challenges the students to discover who their teachers are through critical reading and thinking and through argument and refutation with one another. The second method involves students identifying their own weaknesses, especially in writing, and then appreciating the value of reading as a salient point of the course. This session will show how students can further examine, on their own, the other key features of the course on their first meeting with their teachers.

Biodata
Jovita Corrigan has been teaching English to University students in Hong Kong for 15 years. She has also taught English in The Philippines, Macau, Japan, Canada and the United States. She holds a B.A. from the College of the Holy Spirit in Manila and an M.Ed. from the University of Kansas, which she completed on a Fulbright Grant.