I’ve been meaning to do some clean up of the last few weeks, but I’m still recovering from all the travel that I’ve been doing.
However, I just want to point out a website that I searched and found while doing some research into EFL Literature Circles (there are others, but I used the role handouts presented in this one). I had only heard the name of this and hadn’t done any reading into it. Of course, I did this after the boredom set in on my Literature classes and eyes were glazing over. After spending the whole class session last week distributing and explaining the roles and procedures of Literature Circles, the students jumped right in. And what a change it was. Everyone was talking. The students were connecting the short stories to their own lives and keeping the exchanges going. My first literature class this week was superb, the second one has a marginally lower level of English so they needed a little help with extra questions. All in all, the students were very excited with literature circles, and I get to listen more than I talk.