Let's hear about some of these lessons and discuss them!
-Gavin
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Vocabulary lessons
The vocabulary lesson is another popular lesson format, especially with high level students. Usually focusing on 5 new English vocabulary words, this Smith’s School of English
Let's hear about some of these lessons and discuss them!
-Gavin
Let's hear about some of these lessons and discuss them!
-Gavin
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This morning I had a new student in my class at Smith's School of English Kyobashi. She was a bit shy at first but gradually got into the swing of things thanks to her more confident classmate. We did some introductions and shared a bit of news about the New Year's holidays. After that, I reviewed the older student's previous one point, bringing the new student into the review by explaining it to her. The first student reviewed the one point by saying, "If you go to Greece, I recommend you try the souvlaki because it's delicious."
We got into the item, which was the vocabulary unit #11. We went through all the vocab and had fun providing examples or stories that revolved around the words in question. They both revealed that although they didn't keep diaries (diary was one of the new vocab) they did occasionally use online blogs and journals to keep track of their daily activities. When we got to reputation, they were very eager to speculate about their own reputations. One student said that she had a reputation for collecting Doraemon goods, while the other student showed me the little brown bear that she liked to collect.
Onto Routine 1. I altered the questions to the past tense and adjusted some of them to fit the students' personal lifestyles. There were a few mistakes on past tense but we easily corrected them and made sure that there were notes taken down to serve as reminders.
The new one point today was, "When I was (A) years old, I wanted to be a (B) but couldn't because (C)." The first student filled in the blanks with, "When I was 10 years old, I wanted to be a candy store clerk but couldn't because I was too young." The new student answered, "When I was 17 years old, I wanted to be a patissier but couldn't because I wanted to be a shoe designer more." From there, we spent a few minutes asking questions about her job and getting to know her better.
Today I had the pleasure of meeting a new high level student who was quite talkative and cheerful. He was very curious to know where I was from and why I had come to Japan so we lingered a bit on the introductions because he was new and didn't have a one point to review.
Before we even got to the vocabulary part of the lesson, I had already written several unfamiliar words up on the board as our conversation proceeded. When I told him that we'd be working on even more new vocabulary words, he got very excited. We went over some words like pessimist, relative, snob, and so on. Most of the words were either new to him or he wasn't accustomed to using them in a conversation so I gave him some examples to encourage him to make up his own. Once he got the hang of it, he easily navigated through the vocabulary, expanding with his own ideas and opinions.
While on the topic of relatives, he shared a humorous story with me that triggered some new expressions which he readily copied down into his notes and mimicked with his own reaction to the story.
When it was time to give him his one point, he expressed his surprise at how quickly the time had gone by because he'd been enjoying the lesson. We ended on a very positive note of him saying that he was looking forward to his next lesson and learning even more new vocabulary and expressions.
At Smith's School of English, we're very familiar with all of the students and look forward to seeing them at their regular time slots everyday. But last week, one of my Saturday students was too busy to come in so I was disappointed that I didn't see her for one week. So when she turned up for her lesson today, all smiles and energetic, we did a lot of catching up.
Today we worked on vocabulary unit #4 as the item. A lot of the vocab led to stories which both students were only too eager to share. Quite a lot of the time we ventured a bit off-topic because they were having such a great time revealing interesting tidbits about their character traits and childhoods that I didn't have the heart to stop them. Anyway, the vocabulary lessons are open to interpretation and are great for expansion and eliciting conversation. The students really enjoy having the opportunity to talk about themselves while learning new vocabulary and being able to improve on their grammar.
The word "revenge" stirred up some interesting conversation as the students competed with each other to see who could come up with a more amusing story of revenge from their childhoods.
Two high level students joined me for my second class this afternoon, intent on expanding their existing vocabulary. These two students are very vocal when it comes to expressing their enjoyment of the vocabulary lessons so I do my best to plan a new one for them every Saturday.
Today we set to work on vocabulary unit #2. One of the words that caused a bit of a stir was 'tease'. Both students had amusing stories to share that involved them being teased by either a colleague or family member. The first lady had a recent story to share based on her lack of computer expertise, and involving her son. Apparently, her son had been teasing her because she had no idea on how to program his MP3 player for him. The other gentleman in the class gave the example of how his boss has started to tease him after learning that he was attending an English conversation school. His boss now sets aside English articles and requests that he read them aloud, just to tease him.
Another good word that we got to focus on was 'necessary'. We took turns discussing what we thought some necessary things were in our lives. Everyone had a good laugh when everything including money and vehicles had been listed but family members had been forgotten. A minor oversight I'm sure. I included a bit of information on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and how the students had covered half of the list.
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