Abandoning the lesson plan.

Today's lesson was fun not only in the usual way, but also because the students pushed it in an unexpected direction. We were doing the Smith's School of English Item lesson, Frequency 1 when the students began asking extra questions about the word "almost". It can be a bit difficult to use since it is grammatically different from the Japanese equivalent.

We took turns creating example sentences with the appropriate pair word for almost. For example, almost always, never, anyone, no one, anywhere, nowhere, every time, every day, etc. The students were very interested and after a few examples they understood the concept quite well. They enjoyed making up their own examples and I was happy to see them demonstrate their understanding.

After that we went into a review of a routine and finished with a one point as usual. After the lesson I reflected on how pleasant it was to expect the lesson to go one way, and have it go in a completely different direction. I guess even when you plan the lesson you never can tell quite how it will go so it's go to be ready to flex!