The English Pub - A task based English learning project

the clips are now live

2009-09-25T21:18:00.004+01:00

The clips are now uploaded on Youtube:

pik, sevcan, alejandra:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWz0D2Z2M1c

badi, jack, nabil:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I29Pq1isXaA

pui, james, denise:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhyZQ5vHwtc

Hopefully the students will share them and insert them on their own pages.
The group has now fragmented with 5 of the 4 involved leaving, so this project has come to an end.
I think we achieved a lot in a couple of weeks. I hope the individuals involved build on what they learnt from the process..

making a film

2009-09-21T15:23:00.001+01:00

Friday 18 Sept, 2009
Regency College
Present: Andy, Badhi, Denise, Nabil, Sevcan, Pui, Alejandra, Peek, James, Jack

Students used a framework to write a guided narrative based on their experiences and interviews in the pub. They rehearsed reading this, then had 3 takes to record it into imovie. I collected their photos into folders in iphoto. Unfortunately the photos on the whole were not very good quality in terms of content and technique. I suggested that students took some more pictures to illustrate their narrations, but they were reluctant to do so.

Over the weekend I assembled their photos as an animated slide show, and laid this down over their audio recording. This was extremely time-consuming, principally due to the lack of useful images.

I have output the finished pieces as video clips, ready to be written to DVD or uploaded to Facebook or Youtube.

the survey and feedback

2009-09-15T17:35:00.009+01:00

Monday 14 Sept, 2009
Regency College
Present: Andy, Badhi, Denise, Nabil, Sevcan, Pui, Alejandra, Peek, James, Jack

Badhi's group went to the Brunswick, Sevcan's to the Freemason's, Denise's to the Wick.

Each group spent around 90 minutes there, and interviewed staff, customers, as well as taking pictures.

Each conversation took around 5 minutes, people in the pub did not want to see the letter of introduction from the school, or want to follow up the project.

Students returned to school full of energy and excitement and exchanged their experiences of new drinks, people, and places.

I have asked them to complete a feedback questionnaire: these are the results:

Debriefing

Feeling

1. How did you feel when you went in the pub?
shy, excited, good, afraid, embarrassed, worried

2. How did you feel when you spoke with people there?
great, good, ok, relaxed, worried about my english, not nervous, good

3. How did you feel at the end of the visit?
interested, good experience, good, happy, surprised, good cos we understood

What happened?

4. Who did you speak to first?
barman/barwoman

5. Did they understand who you were and why you were there?
yes

6. Was the barman helpful?
yes, really helpful

7. Was he busy when you wanted to talk to him?
no

8. How many customers did you speak to?
1, 2

9. Were they friendly?
yes, yes absolutely, they smiled

10. Did you work alone or with the others in your group?
together

11. Did anybody ask you any questions about you and your life?
yes, no

Communication

12. Did you understand them?
yes 90%, yes, yes but not every word, yes very difficult

13. Did they understand you?
yes100%, yes i think so, yes

Research

14. Did you get answers to all your questions?
yes

15. Were you surprised by any of the answers?
yes, no, yes jack was

16. Did you find out about things that you didn’t intend to research?
yes, no

17. What did you take photos of?
everywhere in pub, staff, rooms, customer, building, toilets

Feedback

18. What do you think you learnt today? About the pub, about people, about yourself...
It's possible to make friends, it's possible to talk to other people, about the pub, that the pub is good, that some people are friendly, some unfriendly, i felt relaxed, good that it's not the same as in class, nice place, friendly people, i want to go to the pub someday, we can learn something else from in class

19. What did you practise?
speaking and listening, understanding, made me brave for speaking with others, grammar, pronunciation

20. Was it a useful activity? Why?
yes, yes for meeting people, made me more confident, yes because i feel good, yes because you can use everything, we can talk and enjoy, yes because speak with others

21. Would you like to do more projects like this?
yes, yes but once per month, id love to

22. Did you enjoy it?
yes, enjoyable, yes i loved it

phrase book and questionnaire

2009-09-14T19:33:00.002+01:00

Monday 14 Sept, 2009
Regency College
Present: Andy, Badhi, Denise, Nabil, Sevcan, Pui, Alejandra

Today we created a phrase book for the students to use to engage with and facilitate conversations with native speakers:

Useful Phrases for talking to a native speaker

Looking for a particular person

Excuse me. Can you help me. my name is...... I'm looking for John.

You don't understand:

Repeating

Could/can you repeat that please?

Could you say that again?

Too fast

Can you speak more slowly, please?

Write it

Can you write it down, please?

Your English isn't good

Sorry but my English is quite bad.

Checking

So........is that right?

Changing subject

Sorry I can't really understand, shall we move on?

Showing interest

Wow

Really

Cool

Right

That's interesting

Oh dear!

Taking photo

Excuse me. Would you mind if I took your photo?

Would it be OK to take a photo of.....?

Thanking

Thank you very much for your help/your time?

Introducing yourself

Excuse me. Have you got a few minutes? My name is X and im studying English at Regency College and I'm from .........we are doing a project about British culture and pubs. Would it be possible to ask you a few questions?

Showing interest

wow

that's interesting

cool

amazing

right

really?

oh dear!

Students have now printed out their questionnaires and are now ready for the interviews on Tuesday

Group update: Alejandra has joined Sevcan and Peek's group

working towards the interview

2009-09-13T18:57:00.000+01:00

Friday 11 Sept, 2009
Regency College
Present: Andy, Jack, Badhi, Peek, Denise, King, James, Nabil, Sevcan

The 3 groups looked together at their questions and reduced a combined 30 to 10: 5 to ask a barman, 5 to ask a customer.

The questions have been checked for grammar errors, and have been reworded to make them less direct.

The interviews will go ahead on Tuesday 15 Sept. King will be on holiday: the revised teams are
1, Badhi, Jack, Nabil
2, Sevcan, Peek
3, Denise, James, Pui

Lay of the Land

2009-09-11T16:47:00.000+01:00

I went out Thursday pm to see how the pubs landlords and staff felt about the proposed student visit. First stop was the Farm - which is shut until 5pm - off the list and glad I checked it out.
I spoke to Paul at the Freemasons, Jonathon at the Wick and Andy and Lauren at the Brunswick. They were all really positive and said the students would be more than welcome to come in. What suprised me was the level of interest in the project, understanding of the difficulties foreign students may have in interfacing with British pub culture. Jonathon had had a relationship with the Deaf school in a previous pub and offered to arrange a presentation! He's also going to drop in a bunch of flyers to the school!
In conclusion - all aok, good to go!

research groups

2009-09-09T21:19:00.000+01:00

Wednesday 9 Sept, 2009
Regency College
Present: Andy, Jack, Badhi, Huseyn, Peek, Pui, Denise, King, James, Nabil, Sevcan

This week the class has worked on:

Monday rehearsing and scripting generic conversations, and reading them clearly with natural intonation. We have also looked at writing follow-up questions and using reaction words such as; really?, cool, wow, oh dear. we discussed body language and raised cultural awareness, emphasising mis-understandings between nationalities.

Tuesday: rules, customs, advice using must, should etc. Homework was a piece of writing describing customs in students' own countries. Reading on festivals around the world.

Wednesday: student research (internet) and presentation using photos on a festival from their country.

Preparation for research project on pubs
We have discussed areas to be researched and split the class into 3 work groups.

Research will be carried out on location in a pub by interviews, observation, photography, personal experiences.
Group 1 (Jack, Badhi, Nabil) will research: special evenings, rules, decoration, typical customer, behaviour in the pub.
Group 2 (King, Sevcan, Peek) will research: drinks, rules, location, typical customer, behaviour in the pub.
Group 3 (Pui, James, Huseyn) will research: drinks, rules, entertainment, opening times, location.

Denise will join group 3 and Alejandra 1 or 2

Students have been asked to each draft 5 questions to ask a pub customer and 5 to ask a bar-person. the group members will select 10 questions from a pool of 30 to use as a basis for an interview on location in a pub.

Establishing the task

2009-09-04T19:57:00.000+01:00

Thursday Sept 3 2009
Regency College, Pre-Intermediate class, pm.
Present: Andy, King, Jack, Pui, Badhi, Nabil, Sevcan, Denise

We discussed student needs and wants for future lessons:

What are my problems?
What do I want to do more of?
What do I need more of?
what isn't important for me?

Feedback shows that students feel the following are important for them, and that they would like to focus on these:

Speaking
Pronunciation
Being understood
Understanding others
Communicating with native speakers
Using vocab in context
Using audio-visual resources
Writing

and that the following are not so commonly mentioned as important

reading
grammar

King made the interesting comment that he got a thrill and felt proud when he managed to communicate in a real situation with a native speaker.

We discussed the possibility of doing a group project outside of the confines of the classroom, where language could be used in a real situation.

Friday Sept 4 2009
Wick Inn, Pre-Intermediate class, pm.
Present: Andy, King, Jack, Pui, Badhi, Nabil, Sevcan.

In the pub the group sat together and discussed the English Pub, using the following document:

Introductory questionnaire
Have you been in a pub before?
Where? When?
What was the atmosphere like?
What kind of people were there?
Did you like it?
Why/Why not?
What did you drink?
What do you think makes a typical English pub?
How are English pubs different from pubs/bars/cafes in your country?

The feedback showed a lot of misconceptions and ignorance about what happens in a pub and why people go there. the students' experience of pubs was at best limited.
Nabil had never been in a pub before, Pui said she thought pubs were immoral places, King found them boring in comparison with Chinese pubs. Jack talked about a drink consisting of coffee and beer. Badhi and all of the others talked about beer, but were unaware of different types or genres. Sevcan had more awareness than the others and spoke about shandy. Overall it seemed that the group had little perception of what happens in a pub and that there are different types of pubs.

The students then discussed these follow-up questions:

Do you think most students know what to do when they enter a pub?
Do you think students like going into an English pub?
Why do you think the English pub is an important place?
How can you find out more information about a pub?
What can you do with the information you have found out?

Feedback revealed that on the whole students are unsure what to do. Nabil talked about cultural differences. Some of the class though students like going in pubs. Others were unsuure and thought that ignorance and preconceptions prevented them from going to pubs. They were generally unaware of the community aspect of pubs and the idea of a local. With some further focussing Nabil suggested that information, ie research could be done by talking to pub customers, King suggested talking to staff. Jack mentioned real experience as a way to collect information. Pui and Badhi suggested internet-based research. The students need a lot of prompting to understand what the final question entailed: what they could do with the research. Fimally Jack came up with the idea of creating information/instructional notices for students around school. He also talked about putting it on the school website. Other ideas included creating an advertisement for a particular pub, writing a report. Jack then mentioned using You-Tube. He suggested incorporating written language through making a video with titles. Other ideas for media content were pictures, cartoons, short stories.

The discussion seemed to generate some excitement around making a film. The meeting ended with the announcement that as a group we would make a film. Process, content, timeframe yet to be discussed.