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A CK03 student who is UNABLE to make choices!??

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A CK03 student who is UNABLE to make choices!?? Empty A CK03 student who is UNABLE to make choices!??

Post  Kirkcampbell Sat Mar 17, 2012 6:43 am

I have a bizarre problem; a CK03 girl who really struggles to make even the most basic of choices.

She's a smart girl, is excellently behaved, knows the TL and is great at speaking when no choice is involved. BUT ask her "Which colour do you like?" or when it's S-S, have to come up with a question like "do you want x" or "are you a y", or even just chose which TL another kid throws a ball at, she freaks out, clams up and unless I or the TA makes the decision for her, comes close to tears every time.

I assume she's been great in CP and early CK because it was simple Q - A and you either know the TL or you don't. Now the kids are at the stage in their language learning where the exciting, fun part is creating your own language etc. she's starting to really struggle.

I think she just has a fear of getting something even remotely wrong, however much it's made clear that she CAN'T be wrong! or it's just a CHOICE! or it's FUN to draw some socks on the board!!

This is not a teaching issue as such but does anyone have any advice / experience with this sort of thing? I've tried every motive from being super nice and smiley to giving her a 10 second countdown to letting her go last so there are fewer choices to letting her go first so there's a completely open field.
Kirkcampbell
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Post  Admin Sat Mar 17, 2012 7:23 am

I have experienced students like this before. And it is a challenge to find ways for them to participate as we'd hope and still feel comfortable.

I would make some inquiries via my TA with her family. How is she at expressing her desires/wants/ etc at home?

If mom asks her what she wants at KFC, does the same thing occur? If so, that would go a long way to determining she is just learning how to develop autonomy. And its a matter of maturation, less than English.

Or is she never given opportunities to make choices? Ie: at KFC, mom just tells her what she'll eat. If so, maybe she's not at all used to making choices - and being asked to do so in a foreign language is even more taxing.

In terms of her overcoming this, I would encourage her parents go allow her to vocalize her wants and make choices out loud and in public as often as possible.

If they can find ways at home to 'mirror' tasks she's being asked to do in class, hopefully over time she'll grow more confident and comfortable.

Also before class the TA could review some 'choice' based tasks you did the previous week. Getting her to do it again a few times.

In terms of in class now, make sure to treat her equally, call on her first as often as not first, give her fair chances, but don't let her 'freeze' and wait it out, simply give her a 'feeder' line, see if you can repeat it, and no matter, after a few second, cheerfully say good job and ask her to sit down.

Monitor what activities she does do well with - IE: intrapersonal, passive, literacy, kinesthetic, songs, etc, and make sure that during these types of activities she gets a chance to be a leader. And then try to work in choices into the activities she does well at. IE: If she does well at songs, play snippets from two songs and ask her which one the class will sing.

No matter, some background information will help alot to determine how to move forward.

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Post  Admin Sat Mar 17, 2012 7:24 am

and why does Nancy's saucy picture show up as everyone's avatar????

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Post  Kirkcampbell Sun Mar 18, 2012 6:29 am

Important things first... as a unit we struggled to find a good avatar picture on the computer and after a brief consultation period all settled on Nancy's as the best option moving forward.

Thanks for the feedback on this issue; it's a tough one for the class in general as the other kids are very quick to grow tired of it each time. I'll definitely take the steps you mentioned to see how much energy I should actually pay to worrying about it. She loves songs (unfortunately the 5 boys hate them) and other repetitious elements so I'll go with this next week and get the TA on board with the other stuff.

Any other people have similar experiences and ways of overcoming them?
Kirkcampbell
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Post  Keola Wed Mar 28, 2012 12:43 pm

Communication with the family is a great idea. See if that is a common thing for her in Chinese. I have had this same thing happen with CK students. The thing that helped the most was bringing parents in the class and focusing on things to work on at home. Simple speaking drills or in this case question and answer paring with choices. I'd use it as a chance to teach the parents what they could do at home to help out.

Some other simple things to try just to get her used to making choices. Give her a choice of stickers, something that doesn't have too much stress related to it. Have her come early to class with just the TA and try it out too. Choose which chair to sit in, play a game and have her choose which hammer or ball to use. Give her some more confidence with the small things to build up for class activities.

Best advice is to keep trying. She'll come along, just needs a bit of time and positive reinforcement from you.
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A CK03 student who is UNABLE to make choices!?? Empty MY PICTURE!/ADVICE

Post  chocolatlova Wed May 09, 2012 10:27 am

Hello,

First off,this is not a saucy picture -_-.

Second, I DEMAND financial compensation for infringement of copyrights!No one asked me for

my pic and I am kind of tired of seeing my face everywhere! Evil or Very Mad

Moving on. I have this boy in my CL07(Yes CL07) who would always cry if I asked him a question in front of everyone or if I had an activity where everyone had to speak to each other.He totally changed over the past few months.
I literally had to have a 5 minute talk before each class or at the end of each class to tell him it was ok to make mistakes. I also told him that I wanted to get know him but I couldn't do that if he never spoke. I told him that English class was about having fun and learning together.It took a while and a lot of patience for him to start speaking and stop crying.
I needed to leave him a long time at first to actually say anything. Once he saw I wasn't going to move on to someone else if he didn't speak he kind of felt he needed to say something. Even if he had it wrong I would tell him afterwards that I was very happy because he still spoken English and nothing terribly awful happened when he said the wrong answer. I think he relaxed after that and though it was ok to speak. I also talked to his parents a couple of times but at that age I think he is old enough to understand that speaking another language is not the end of the world especially if 11 other students are doing it as well.

I hope this helps a bit.

I just suggest a lot of patience and talks before class.

peace

chocolatlova
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