A last minute change

The lesson plans at Smith’s School of English, Kyobashi, is organized in such a way that there are various activities to do throughout. This is mainly thanks to the 4-point loop which incorporates various parts of the curriculum into the lesson. It makes for a well-rounded segment of learning that the students really enjoy and look forward to. But sometimes a student will show up with a request or a different lesson plan in mind. When that happens, I feel confident in being able to alter the lesson to the student’s needs.

One of my lessons just happened to need such altering the other day. I had already gone through the ET and was halfway through the item when the student asked me if it was true that I was from Canada. I confirmed that I was indeed Canadian and she went on to tell me that she was looking into a homestay experience in Canada and wanted to know more about my home country. Seeing as how there weren’t any other students in the class, I took the liberty of changing the lesson at the last minute. If she was preparing for homestay, I’d be only too happy to help her. However, her level was not high enough to switch over to directed conversation from the Let’s Talk folder on hometowns and I wanted to keep the lesson structured for her so I quickly pulled up the Questions lesson plan instead. I figured that she wouldn’t mind improving her grammar and ability to ask appropriate questions so I wrote the questions words list up on the board and let her go at it.

She was very eager to ask me many questions about Canada but had to take it slowly in order to find the correct question word to start off her sentence with. I gave her a few examples by asking about her hometown, the weather and such, before prompting her to ask similar questions. She continued by using one of her previous one point questions, “Which do you prefer?” She asked me, “Which do you prefer, Toronto or Vancouver?” I’ve never been past the Vancouver airport so I told her that I wouldn’t be able to give her an honest answer. She switched the question to, “What is famous in Toronto and Vancouver?” I asked her to be a little more specific and she clarified by explaining that she wanted to know good sightseeing spots so I told her about the CN Tower and Roger’s Center in Toronto and the not-so-far off Niagara Falls. Having heard a bit about Vancouver from my brother, I told her about the beautiful mountains and lakes, as well as some famous ice cream parlor.

Now it was my turn to ask her questions. I asked her why she wanted to go to Canada and inquired as to how long she intended to stay. She responded excitedly by saying that her friend had already been to Canada and really loved it. She intended to stay for a year by getting a working holiday visa. By the end of the lesson, she’d gotten answers for all of her questions and was very happy to tell me that she’d decided to spend half her time in Vancouver and the other half in Toronto.