Yesterday, I listened to an interesting radiolab podcast about numbers. It talked about a mathematician who used to get so bothered upon delivering a complex lecture and then being asked "What's your favorite number?" that he finally spit the question back at the asker and got the answer, "Why 8 of course, because it's the month when I was born." He was so surprised that people attached emotional explanations to something he considered so rational (his daily tools) that he conducted a study and found that the most popular number all around the world is 7.
Why 7? Well, it's the only number between 1 and 10 that cannot be divided by or multiplied by a number in the same range to output a number between 1 and 10. It's also the only number from 1-10 that has two syllables and it sounds nice to say in any language (go ahead and say it out loud in Spanish). There are 7 days of the week, 7 visible celestial objects (aka planets) in the night sky, 7 colors in the rainbow, 7 is the most common sum when playing dice, and the average person can visualize 7 objects, digits, etc. but not 8 (which is perhaps why the U.S. phone system is based on 7 numbers?).
I realized that I actually don't have a favorite number either but I, too, am fascinated by the ways in which people justify their answers. So today, on the first day of summer school, I decided to ask every one of my students if they had a favorite number and why. Surprisingly, more than half of them said it was 7 and had a different reason for why. One of them said that she liked writing it the most compared to other numbers. Another student said her favorite number was 3 because 3 is the number of points necessary to compose a perfect triangle. Another student said she liked even numbers because they represent the female and odd numbers represent the masculine.
Here is a picture of some numbers.
I've taught "the first day of class" so many times that I finally decided to type up a template to save myself the trouble. It might not be the most intelligible, but I hope it can be of use to someone out there.
Level: B1 and above
Objective: For students to get to know each other through icebreaker activities and games, for students to be introduced to communicative and learner-centered teaching
approaches, for the teacher to gather information about individual learning style/preference, error sets, strengths, and personality.
Why 7? Well, it's the only number between 1 and 10 that cannot be divided by or multiplied by a number in the same range to output a number between 1 and 10. It's also the only number from 1-10 that has two syllables and it sounds nice to say in any language (go ahead and say it out loud in Spanish). There are 7 days of the week, 7 visible celestial objects (aka planets) in the night sky, 7 colors in the rainbow, 7 is the most common sum when playing dice, and the average person can visualize 7 objects, digits, etc. but not 8 (which is perhaps why the U.S. phone system is based on 7 numbers?).
I realized that I actually don't have a favorite number either but I, too, am fascinated by the ways in which people justify their answers. So today, on the first day of summer school, I decided to ask every one of my students if they had a favorite number and why. Surprisingly, more than half of them said it was 7 and had a different reason for why. One of them said that she liked writing it the most compared to other numbers. Another student said her favorite number was 3 because 3 is the number of points necessary to compose a perfect triangle. Another student said she liked even numbers because they represent the female and odd numbers represent the masculine.
Here is a picture of some numbers.
I've taught "the first day of class" so many times that I finally decided to type up a template to save myself the trouble. It might not be the most intelligible, but I hope it can be of use to someone out there.
Level: B1 and above
Objective: For students to get to know each other through icebreaker activities and games, for students to be introduced to communicative and learner-centered teaching
approaches, for the teacher to gather information about individual learning style/preference, error sets, strengths, and personality.
Stage
|
Aim/procedure
|
Interaction pattern
|
Time
|
Intros/
icebreakers
|
|
s-s
|
30”
|
Review what to bring to class
|
Elicit what should students bring to class? Give students time to brainstorm together.
|
s-s
t-s
|
2-3”
|
Curriculum overview
|
(If exam class, exam overview or introduction. If not, a brief description of the course and its aims.)
|
t-s-s
|
10”
|
Discussion – needs analysis
|
(Study outside of class, watch series/movies, listen to podcasts/the radio, read books/newspapers/blogs, language exchange or practice speaking/writing with a penpal/friend)
|
t-s
s-s
|
5-10”
|
Error Correction
|
|
t-s
s-s
|
5-8”
|
Needs analysis
|
|
t-s
s-s
|
10-15”
|
End games/start course material
|
|
s-s
|
15-20”
|
No comments:
Post a Comment