Hey all!
Begin Part 2 of the Interac Seminar!!! The much dreaded video demo. Once this part is over, you are officially allowed to breathe again! Yay! (Miss Part 1? Read it here!)
TASK 1
The intro should just be short and sweet. Introduce yourself, where you’re from, any experience that would be relevant, hobbies, interests, special skills, etc. Don’t get carried away!
TASK 2
Easy as pie. Don’t be super-enunciation-man/woman, just speak normally and clearly with projection.
TASK 3
Now here’s where I had an interesting time of it. So third year primary students in Japan know very very little English. I was neglecting to think about this too much and so the chant with actions I had prepared (“We’re Going On A Bear Hunt”) I felt was going to be too advanced for them.
So, BAM! I changed my plan in the middle of participating in everyone else’s demos…. STUPID STUPID STUPID!!! I suppose it could have been worse, but I decided to do a rendition of Simon Says with actions. Only it was the “Please Game.” You only did the actions if I said “please.” Please stand, sit, wave, jump, spin. Only thing is, I was the only one speaking… Kind of NOT the point of a warm-up activity.
A warm-up is a song, game, etc. that allows students to be engaged and actually use the language. They had to listen to what I was saying, but they weren’t using English themselves. Live and learn I guess. I also had no idea of the timing with this game and my rather lengthy Task 4 so I rushed through Task 4 even though it apparently wasn’t necessary. Richelle said it’s always better to go with your original plans, even if they may seem too advanced/low. They’ll follow and eventually figure stuff out. Learn from my boo-boo!
TASK 4
The high school lesson can be one of three options. A few people used shopping, a few more than that used giving directions, and one person used irregular verbs. Interac gives you an example video for each option, and a lot of people do the same thing that’s in the video. Not a bad thing, but creativity scores you more points. I made mine into a battleship game. Pairs of students put different places (supermarket, hospital, school, etc.) on different blocks in their town and then had to guess where the other team put their places by giving directions to the different blocks.
Because of my Task 3 I rushed through this and so it wasn’t as good a lesson explanation as I had practiced and I gave the "students" less talking and interaction time than I had planned, but they still got the idea. My board was very colourful and apparently they liked that! They also liked that it was creative and was made into a game!
My favorite lesson for directions (given by one of my fellow interviewees) was the “Where’s Pikachu?” game! He hid Pikachu on one of the blocks and gave you directions to him. You had to follow and guess where Pikachu was, a really really good idea!!! Basically, just have fun with it, interact with the students, and have good visuals. Not too much explanation, elicit answers from students! Good luck!
All in all, for the demo you really just need to relax as much as you can, smile, interact, and have fun with it! Enthusiasm wins the day! You've got this!
Stay tuned for Part 3 of the Interac Seminar Grand Experience. Read Part 3-The In-Person Interview here!
Watch my YouTube videos about the seminar here!