Sophia Quattrocchi

Dr. Cho

C&T 491

28 June 2019

Instructional Unit Narrative

Growing up in America, I was knowledgeable about speakers of other languages,

however, I knew little about speakers of different English varieties. I was mainly aware of the

inner circle “native-speaking” varieties of English, such as American, British, and Australian

English. I was less exposed to other varieties of English from outer circle and expanding circle

countries. Similar to my lack of exposure to other English varieties, the students at Kyunghwa

have limited exposure to other varieties of English other than American English. The textbook

English they are taught is American English, and the native speaking teachers are from America

and Canada. For many reasons, EFL teachers heavily focus on American English. This is largely

influenced by the political relationships. “Due to geopolitical context between Korea and the

USA, EFL education in Korea has witnessed overwhelming effects of American English on EFL

education and testing,” (Choi 43). As the United States has strong political influence and

influence in pop culture around the world, American English has become the ideal variety to

learn in the Korean high school classroom.

Unfortunately as native-speaking English varieties, especially American English, gain

prevalence in Korean high schools, the association between language and race is worsened. It has

been found that teachers from English-speaking western countries have a privileged and

dominant position in the hiring process. Problems with race and hiring is al Greg, a Thai-

American English teacher at Kyunghwa, had trouble finding a job despite being an American-
English speaker and having a successful teaching past. Though he is qualified and is a native

speaker of English, he was not the typical white American, who are associated with fluent

native-speaking English. Assumptions regarding language ability often arise from race and

ethnicity. These stereotypes are improving slowly as the students are friendly towards teachers of

any background. However, school administration and parents are more inclined to hire white

western English teachers due to the assumption of better English fluency and accuracy. Even as

new ideologies are introduced, individuals “who come from the English-speaking West have a

privileged and dominant position” (Holliday 2).

The hiring of only native-speaking western teachers at Kyunghwa and other Korean high

schools can lead to problems because it limits their exposure to other English varieties. “If

students are exposed to only one variety of English they may have negative attitudes toward

other English varieties” (Jee 241). The focus on native-speaking Western English varieties is

largely due to the focus on prescriptive grammar solely for college entrance exams. There is a

false belief that American and British English have “correct” grammar and therefore Korean

high schools focus on these varieties. However, while Koreans value the college entrance exams,

students and teachers should instead focus on English as a communication tool. Such focus on

prescriptive grammar, leads to washback effects as teachers teach to the test (Choi 39-43). With

washback effects, students only memorize grammar and vocabulary while rarely focusing on

speaking and writing. Research shows that there is “significant discrepancy between the

applicants’ test scores and their English proficiency” (Choi 41). While at Kyunghwa, I have met

students with a wide range of English speaking ability. While they are all intensively taught

prescriptive grammar in English class, these students do not always lead to good speaking skills.

In contrast, communicate very well but do not have perfect grammar. Other than high school
exams, prescriptive grammar has little value and the real focus should be on speaking and

communication.

Section Two:

While teaching at Kyunghwa, we kept in mind that Korean teachers heavily focus on

prescriptive grammar. So instead we tried to focus on speaking and writing skills, skills less

taught, during our lessons. During our lessons we kept in mind the age of our students which

were approximately sixteen and seventeen years old. In order to engage the students we focused

on topics of interest for their age group including Korean and American pop culture references.

We focused on topics that would be of interest to this age group and topics that are not often

taught in more formal Korean English classes. Also, in the classroom there was a wide range of

English language ability. Some students were good at listening but could speak very little. Others

were very interested in learning English or had prior experience studying abroad in English-

speaking countries and were nearly fluent speakers. Several students only had education in their

English classes taught by Korean English teachers and only met with a native-speaking English

teacher once a week. Others attended private English academies in order to get additional

English education. Keeping in mind the age and wide range of English abilities we picked topics

that would be interesting for all students focusing on speaking and listening skills in both our

lessons.

In our first lesson we taught the students common English slang words and focused on

informal communication. Considering the students mainly focus on prescriptive grammar in their

other English high school courses, this lesson was a nice change for the students. Slang and

informal language is important in communication and understanding, especially for this age
group. Realistically, native English speakers do not speak in perfect grammar, so informal

language is important when speaking to other English speakers. In the beginning of our lesson

we played clips of popular YouTube videos, and the students listened and filled in the blank on

their worksheets. The worksheet tested for understanding and most students were able to

successfully fill in the missing words. When the students were listening to the YouTube clips and

examples of informal language they were provided with comprehensible input. The clips

contained both American and Korean pop culture references, many of which the students were

familiar with. This kept them very engaged and they were genuinely interested in learning. We

then had the students repeat the vocabulary and did a charade activity to check for understanding.

Then the students used their creativity while writing skits using the slang words they had learned.

The skits focused on elicit output and also checked for understanding as the students were

challenged to write full sentences of informal dialogue. This lesson was successful because it

focused on descriptive grammar and communication skills, areas less focused on in the students

other English classes. The students were engaged and practiced verbal communication that they

would have with English speakers their own age.

In our second lesson we focused on listening skills and following directions. We also

incorporated pop culture into our second lesson. We taught the students popular dances and they

worked on their listening and pronunciation skills. The students were up and moving which

engaged them throughout the whole lesson. We also practiced following directions with “Simon

Says” and had the students repeat after us as we gave commands. The students were provided

with comprehensible input when playing “Simon Says” and when listening to instructions when

learning dances. We checked for understanding to see if the students followed directions during

“Simon Says” and while learning the “Cha Cha slide”. This lesson was also a nice change away
from the prescriptive grammar taught in the typical Korean English classroom. It incorporated

the students’ interests while also focusing on valuable listening skills.

 References

Canagarajah, S. (2014). In Search of a New Paradigm for Teaching English as an

International Language. TESOL,5(4), 767-785.

Choi, I. (2008). The impact of EFL testing on EFL education in Korea. Language

Testing,25(1), 39-62.

Holliday, A. (2005). The Struggle to Teach English as an International Language. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

Jee, Y. (2016). Critical perspectives of world Englishes on EFL teachers' identity and

employment in Korea: An autoethnography. Multicultural Education Review,8(4), 240-

252.
Sophia Quattrocchi

Dr. Cho

C&T 491

20 June 2019

Lesson 1 Implementation & Reflection

For our lesson we taught the students American slang. When starting our lesson planning,

I was a bit worried about making the lesson both educational and fun for the students. However,

I thought the lesson turned out well and was very enjoyable for the students. Slang ended up

being a good topic because the students were unfamiliar with most of the words, so all of the

material was new for them. Even though they were unfamiliar with the new terms, we were able

to reference both American and Korean pop culture. Even though part of our lesson went poorly

the first day, it ended up being successful after more practice. Overall it was much harder to

make a lesson plan than I expected. It required a lot of planning and even though we carefully

planned the lesson, there was still issues that we didn’t account for. The hardest part of the lesson

was creating an activity that was fun but also easy for the students to learn. And since our topic

was American slang we had to focus on still making the lesson educational for the class. Despite

many problems during our first run through, we were able to improve over time.

The beginning of our lesson always ran very smoothly. We never had a problem getting

the students engaged because we used pop culture references to get their attention. We started the

class by playing Youtube videos of popular American songs and TV shows, and the students had

to fill-in-the-blank with the missing slang word. We also gave examples using the slang words in

order to maximize comprehensible input. The students mainly worked on listening during this

part of the lesson. The students then repeated the slang word in order to practice their
pronunciation and wrote the slang words on their worksheet. The worksheet was beneficial

because the students could refer to the words throughout the lesson. Both quieter and louder

classes were well engaged, so I was really happy with our lecture introduction.

After the fill-in-the-blank activity we went over additional slang words. With the first

lesson we made the mistake of not repeating the vocabulary enough so the students could

practice their pronunciation. After going over all of the slang words, we went over the

instructions for charades. The students weren't familiar with the English word for charades, but

we were able to explain the rules simply and through demonstration. At first it was difficult to

explain the rules clearly for the students to understand. But with practice it was much easier to

explain the directions. Even though the students understood the directions for charades, the

activity was not well executed so the game ended up being very chaotic. We had another student

teacher help us with the activity and she was unclear on what her role was because of

miscommunication. Because of this, the game did not go smoothly and the students were not

playing by the intended rules. The students ended up going through the activity very quickly, so

we had to stop the game and make revisions to the rules. While it did slow down the activity, the

students ended up being more confused with the changed rules. The students eventually caught

on, but there was a lot of confusion and chaos. Following our first lesson, we felt defeated and

knew we needed to make a lot of changes.

The charades activity went much faster than we anticipated so we added another activity.

The students worked in groups of four or five to write skits using five slang words. We created

example skit to give as a demonstration. The skits were a really good activity because it made

them use the slang words in full sentences with correct grammar. With this activity the students

were able to practice language output in realistic situations. Sometimes the students had trouble
brainstorming or had spelling and grammar questions, so throughout the activity we walked

around and helped the students with grammar and vocabulary. This activity went smoothly and

was very entertaining.

The beginning of our lesson was relatively easy for the students because it mainly

focused on vocabulary. However, the end of lesson required writing and speaking so it was a bit

more challenging for the students. Overall I was happy with our ability to engage the students by

including their interests in our lecture material. It was also very rewarding when the students

successfully implemented the slang words in their skits. With our next lesson we will work to

improve on explaining directions simply so the students can easily understand, especially when

explaining an activity. We will also work to carefully manage our time throughout the lesson so

we don’t finish too early.

Sophia Quattrocchi

Dr. Cho

C&T 491

28 June 2019

Lesson Plan 2 Implementation and Reflection

1. What is your overall impression of the lesson? What part of the lesson do you think went
well? What part of the lesson do you wish had gone better?

We taught the students popular American dances in our second lesson. In our lesson we

focused on listening skills and following verbal directions. First we reviewed vocabulary such as

“left”, “right”, “forward”, and “backward”. Then the students played “Simon Says” to practice

listening and also repeated after each command in order to practice speaking. Then we taught the

students popular American dances and ended the class with the “Cha Cha Slide”. While learning

the dances the students practiced listening to verbal directions. We gauged their understanding

throughout the lesson by making sure they were doing the correct actions after each dance

instruction and “Simon Says” command.

Before our first class, I was a bit worried since we had less time to prepare for the second

lesson. However, our lesson ended up running very smoothly because we were more familiar

with the classroom environment. The second week we were much more comfortable teaching

and knew the students better. Our lesson went well because we made sure to include material

that students enjoyed. The students were more engaged because they were up and moving

throughout the whole lesson. Overall, the students were very interested in the lesson and had fun

while working on their listening skills and speaking skills. Our heavily focused on listening

skills, and at the beginning of the week we did not have the students speaking enough throughout
the lesson. We improved this throughout the week by asking the students several questions and

making them repeat after us throughout the lesson. Also, since our lesson had the students

standing and dancing, sometimes it was hard to control the classroom. We ended up using the

microphone which helped a lot with classroom management. And if the students were not

listening we referred to “Simon Says” and had them clap in order to get their attention.

2. Were the lesson objectives met by all students by the end of the lesson? How do you know?

Did some students achieve the objectives more fully than others?

We tested for understanding throughout the lesson through “Simon Says”. If students

did the correct action, we knew they were understanding. While reviewing vocabulary

pertaining to directions, most students were familiar with directions such as “forward” and

“backward”. However, when we added more vocabulary such as “stomp” and “hop”, some

students were confused. If students were confused we demonstrated the word and had them

repeat after us. The students quickly caught on and were very good at the game.

Following the “Simon Says” game we taught the students dances by giving verbal

directions and also demonstrated. We took the dances one step at a time, so even if the student

was familiar with a certain dance we were able to check for understanding one step at a time. At

the end of the lesson we had the students listen and follow along to the “Cha Cha Slide”. This

dance incorporated many of the directions learned at the beginning of the lesson. The “Cha Cha

Slide” checked for their overall understanding of the previously learned vocabulary. With

demonstration and review all of the students were able to successfully follow along.

3. What kinds of errors were they making? How did you treat those errors? Was your treatment

effective in improving their use of that particular language form?

 Since our lesson focused on listening skills, there were few errors made other than

students not following along with the correct command. Some students were unfamiliar with

some of the direction vocabulary such as “hop” and “stomp”, but with demonstration and review

they quickly understood. If students were not understanding we explained and made sure the

students followed along and repeated verbally and with action.

4. What did you hope would take place during the information exchange activity? How did you

decide on this particular activity? Was it interesting for them? Did they use authentic language?

The lesson was very interesting for the students. The lesson was taught the week before

final exams. Since the students were exhausted from long hours of studying, our lesson was

perfect to get them up and moving. Our lesson was a nice change of pace for the students as it

was much different from the prescriptive grammar learned in their other English classes. Overall,

the students were very good at listening and following directions. I had hoped that the students

would practice speaking more throughout the lesson, however, they often got distracted midway

through the “Simon Says” activity and stopped repeating. After reminders the students

successfully practiced their speaking skills. Since the lesson was mainly focused on listening, we

made sure to have the students talk and answer questions throughout the lesson.

5. Was this lesson that you selected easy or difficult for your students? What part of the lesson

was new for them? What part did they already know? How did you attempt to provide them with

i+1?

Throughout the lesson we provided the students with comprehensive input when giving

commands and directions. Most students were familiar with our review vocabulary, but

sometimes struggled with the new, less commonly used vocabulary. The students were did

surprisingly well in the “Simon Says” and following directions. While the students were familiar
with most of the vocab, most of the dances they were unfamiliar with. Since the students were

unfamiliar with the dances they had to listen carefully to us and the music in order to

successfully follow along.

6. In general, what have been your greatest successes in teaching this group? What do you think

you need to know how to do better?

We were very successful in getting the students interested in our lesson. We began with

pop culture references to popular Korean and American dances. And since the students were out

of their seats and dancing made them much more engaged. Though we have improved, I believe

I need more practice giving directions simply so students can easily understand, especially when

explaining more complicated activities.