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.

4 point Loop

ET: One of my lessons tonight fit perfectly into the loop in that all four parts of it were very well rounded so there was ample time to spend on each part. First, there as the review of the previous one point. I’d already looked into the student’s file to prepare for the lesson so I was only waiting for the right moment to jog his memory. He’d been talking about a restaurant that he’d gone to over the weekend, an Italian restaurant that he frequently visited. I then took the opportunity to introduce a famous seafood restaurant in Canada to him – Red Lobster. I asked him if he knew of Red Lobster and he replied with a simple ‘no.’ So, I asked him if he knew of any other phrase that he could express ‘no’ with. He thought about it for a second before recalling the one point, “I’ve never heard of it.”

ITEM: On we moved to the item. Today we would be using Comparisons 2 since he’d never done it before. It was fresh and new and he attentively followed the introduction of the examples and took great notes from the board. After giving him the basic format of how to compare A to B, I wrote up some comparisons on the board, leaving blank spaces where he could fill in the appropriate adjectives. For example, “Angelina Jolie isn’t as __________ as Jodie Foster.” He started off by sticking in nouns in the blank spaces until I told him that adjectives were necessary and why. After the third sentence, he’d gotten the hang of it and was coming up with some pretty decent adjectives. To build up his vocabulary, I suggested some alternatives, which he carefully jotted down in his new vocab box in the top corner of his page. Once we’d finished that, we moved onto the agreeing and disagreeing. We flipped over to a page in the text with some interesting statements that he was required to agree or disagree with. Agreeing was easy because it meant repeating the original statement as part of the answer. But we had to work a bit on the disagreeing because he had trouble rearranging the sentence to express his opinions.

ROUTINE: After the item, we reviewed Routine 6. Seeing as how the routine was being used as a review, I stuck to the question portion to fit it into the time frame we were left with. He’d been exposed to these particular questions before so he had a general idea of how to answer them. Still, we went over the questions slowly to make sure that his answers were suitable for the questions. He wasn’t sure how to answer one question because it didn’t pertain to the story that he was telling so I told him that for the purpose of practicing the questions it was okay to make up an answer.

ONE POINT :We’d gone five minutes over by the time the routine was done but I still managed to work in the new one point so that he’d have something to work with for next class. So the next time I see him, he’ll probably have an interesting new sentence to finish off, “Even if…”, with.

Directions

Have you ever gotten lost, especially in another country, and needed to ask for directions in the native tongue but didn’t know how? A lot of students have this complaint when they travel abroad and need to get somewhere but don’t know how to go about asking for directions to get there. That’s why the directions lesson is such a life saver for students who wish to go on vacation or experience a home-stay in countries like America, Australia, or Canada – all countries which would require you to ask for directions in English.

Once the student has settled in, I show him the directions cards which include traffic signs and very important phrases. He needs to match up the phrases with the picture cards but expresses quite a bit of frustration over getting past the first handful of them. He’s unaccustomed to the phrases but is pretty comfortable with explaining them in Japanese. We take it slower and go over the cards together, one by one, until he is confident enough to match them up himself. Now he’s smiling and is eager to move onto the next step, which is moving onto the setup in the text that involves asking for and giving directions. Both acting as the person asking for directions as well as the one giving them prepares the student for two scenarios – one is understanding the directions that they are given later on, and the other is being able to give a foreigner in Japan a bit of assistance if they’re looking a bit on the lost side.

So, we take a look at a simple map that includes intersections, several streets, a post office, school, police station, bakery etc. We then take turns in asking and giving directions. First, I have him pick a location on the map and tell me where he is and then ask for directions to get to another location. He replies confidently with, “I’m at the post office, how do I get to the theater?” Very well done for someone who was worrying about doing well in the beginning of the lesson. I then proceed to give him directions to get to the theater and he follows me step by step by outlining the route with his finger on the map. When it comes to his turn to give directions, he’s a bit shaky at first but does a decent job in mapping out an easy route to get from A to B. But we’re aiming to make his directions perfect so I praise him on a job well done and then give him some suggestions on how he can make his directions clearer and more concise. He takes my suggestions in stride and, when it comes to his turn again, follows them to the letter by perfectly outlining how I can get across the map to my intended destination.

To end this lesson, I asked him a bonus question of how to get to the station from Smith’s School of English, Kyobashi. Once he got his bearings straight, that turned out to be a fun challenge for him that he handled very well.

Let's Talk - Ghosts

A good number of students have been asking me to explain the meaning of Halloween to them during the past couple of days, after having seen all the decorations up in the stores and getting curious. So, figuring that this was a good day to share some tales of spooks and goblins, I chose to use the Let’s Talk – Ghosts directed conversation as the item.

In this class I had two ladies and one gentleman. One of the ladies had been very eager to discuss Halloween and ghosts and the other had plenty of stories to share. The gentleman was also very happy to tell me of the unusual superstitions that surrounded his work environment. We first began by seeing who actually believed in ghosts. All three of them expressed a belief in ‘something’ that existed after death but nobody actually believed in ghost sightings or hauntings. I had them describe what they thought a typical Japanese ghost would look like and they went to great lengths to describe one. They then countered by asking me what I thought a ghost looked like so I gave them the stereotypical description of a transparent person dressed all in white, probably drifting down some hallway moaning and banging chains. They laughed at my imaginary ghost and then asked me if I had ever dressed up for Halloween. It was at this point that they began to muse over having their own Halloween party to experience the ghosty day for themselves.

Every now and then, as we went through the lesson, I would pause briefly to write down new vocabulary on the board or to cast some light on a few common grammar mistakes. One of the ladies had a bit of a habit of forgetting to insert verbs into her sentences so I first explained this to her and then gave her a gentle reminder when she forgot again. Afterwards, she halted in the middle of her sentence and forced herself to stick in a verb before moving on. When I told the students that the profession of parapsychology actually investigated and studied the existence of ghosts they were really amazed and excited to hear this. They also told me that the Buddhist monks did similar things but without the aid of science. That was very interesting to find out indeed.

When asked if they liked to watch ghost movies, all three of them replied positively and started to tell me of recent movies that they had watched. The lady that I regularly see on a Saturday stated that she really enjoys to watch ghost movies because they’re full of suspense and drama. She likes to be shocked and scared, especially in the middle of the night. The gentleman likes to watch ghost movies just for the special effects and to spend time with his friends. The other lady said that while she does have an interest in ghost movies and has watched several, she’s trying to cut back because she feels that the shock value is going to decrease her life span. A very amusing comment that wrapped up this item nicely.

Injuries 1

Having just recovered from a nasty cold, I was feeling in the mood to do Injuries 1 with my next student. The lesson covers everything from injuries to common ailments so it’s fun to go through right before the cold and flu season, right when people will need these useful words and phrases the most.

When my student walked in, I realized just how much she really needed this lesson at the moment. It turns out that she was also suffering from a cold and had many of the accompanying symptoms. Before we even got into the lesson I was writing up vocab on the board that covered a runny nose, headache, sinuses, and sore throat. She’d also been running a fever the day before so I added that to the list. We then moved into the item with the matching of the flash cards. Since we’d done a bit of a warm-up on the vocabulary, it didn’t take her very long to match everything up. Then we went through the individual cards, making sure that she understood the meanings and how to use them in a sentence. For example, while she could say, “I have a cold,” she didn’t know that it was grammatically incorrect to say, “I have a dizzy.” I explained to her that cold was a noun whereas dizzy was an adjective and proceeded to put both into one more example sentence. After understanding the differences between the sentences, she automatically caught onto the pattern for making sentences with the rest of the cards.

Once we’d basically drilled the cards in thoroughly, we moved onto the role-play. Here, we took turns playing the role of doctor and patient in order to give advice. All sorts of injuries and illnesses came up along the way and she found it challenging to give advice for such things as broken legs and hangovers. But she gave it her best shot and has a wonderful imagination so she managed to get through the role of doctor quite well. She did a great job of describing symptoms as well when I took on the part of playing the doctor and asked her to tell me how she felt unwell.

With the item mastered, she was well prepared to move onto the review of Routine 5 – The Japan Sea. For a review, I phrased the questions to her in the future tense so that she was forced to imagine an appointment that she might have the following week. This proved to be a bit difficult because she kept forgetting to add ‘will’ into her sentences to indicate the future but she eventually got up to speed and started to answer with perfect sentences.

Having only the one point remaining, I told her that I hope that my throat will feel better tomorrow because it was still feeling pretty sore at that point. Then I asked her what she hoped for. Her mind was on a similar wavelength so she replied by saying, “I hope that my cold sore goes away tomorrow.” I hope so too!

Post Intermediate - Restaurants 1

Probably one of the most useful lessons that students can benefit from when travelling to a foreign country is Restaurants 1 from the Post Intermediate level. Although one of my regular students at Smith’s School of English, Kyobashi has been abroad several times, he always seems to have difficulty ordering in a restaurant. The menus can be quite an obstacle to get through, especially when the student has no idea what an entrée or appetizer is.

So we started off the item by going through a variety of headings that a menu might list like main course, entrée, side orders, beverages etc. Basically, any word that he might not have been familiar with he was able to jot down into his notebook. After we got the menu all organized we went through a sample menu that was comprised of popular foods and drinks that he was bound to encounter in North America or Europe. Some of the food choices led him to ask questions about steak and kidney pie, sirloin steak, and lamb chops. He wanted to know exactly what part of the lamb the chops came from so I drew him a quick illustration to save looking up the Japanese word up in the dictionary. Now that all of the item choices were familiar to him it was time to start ordering.

We flipped over a page to practice the ordering dialogue that requires the student to order a complete meal from the menu, including desserts and drinks. He really got into this part of the lesson and made notes of the alternate ways that he could pick his desired dish. We switched roles twice so that he had the chance to play the part of both the customer and the waiter. After I was pretty sure that he was confident with the dialogue, I closed the book, leaving only the menu open. He had been expecting this part of the lesson and focused himself on remembering the lines from the dialogue. So we went through the dialogue two more times until he could naturally respond to the waiter’s prompts, changing the lines to suit the situation. To make it a bit more challenging, I threw in extra questions which required him to think of what kind of dressing he wanted on his salad and what kind of topics he preferred on his hamburger or pizza. He handled the bonus questions with very little problem except when it came to inquiring as to what toppings or dressings the restaurant had to offer. I gave him an example question where he could ask the waiter to list what kinds of choices were available.

By the end of the lesson, he had ordering in a restaurant pretty much mastered. He expressed his thanks and told me that he’d be testing those lines out the next time he traveled to the United States on a business trip. He’d grown so used to just pointing at pictures that he was looking forward to ordering something that he really wanted to eat.

News Events - Pet Cockroaches

Smith’s School of English, Kyobashi has a fair number of students that are very interested in the news and either read the newspaper, watch the news on TV, or keep up-to-date on everything in English on the Internet. It’s quite handy to keep a mental note of those students when I’m skimming through their files, trying to choose their next lesson. A lot of these students really like to tackle the articles from the News Event section of the curriculum. One of the articles that has been known to produce a pretty emotional response in students is the one that revolves around pet cockroaches.

My last student the other night is usually so talkative and eager to openly express his opinions on just about anything or fish around for some of mine that I thought the pet cockroaches article would be perfect for sparking up some great conversation. Once we’d gotten through some casual banter and reviewed the one point from the previous lesson, I handed him his copy of the article. Wow! That was his initial reaction at seeing the article title as well as the photo of the massive cockroach in full color. I jokingly asked him if he’d already eaten dinner and if it was okay to proceed with the slightly squeamish topic. He reassured me that although he isn’t a big fan of cockroaches he was really intrigued to figure out why anyone would want to keep one as a pet.

First of all, I had him read the article aloud since it works well to improve the student’s confidence at speaking in English without worrying too much about making mistakes. We paused here and there to correct some pronunciation errors and smooth out his intonations. He repeated some of the words three or four times to himself to drill it in before moving on. After he’d gone through the article the first time, we went through it a second time to take a look at some of the new vocabulary. Next came the comprehension check which took the form of questions relating to the article. I asked him the accompanying questions for the article and he answered most of them with only the occasional glance at the article to see if he remembered accurately. So far, so good! We then began to discuss cockroaches in general and what he thought of them. He went out of his way to keep his room clean to keep the cockroaches out and shared my fear of the flying menaces during the summer. Apparently, cockroaches would never become a pet choice for him regardless of how little space he had in his apartment. We shared a few cockroach tales where we’d perhaps overreacted to their presence and kind of did some anti-insect bonding over them.

At this point, we didn’t have much time left because he’d had too much fun with the item so we reviewed a handful of questions from Routine 1 and then moved onto the new one point. Having successfully done that, off he went to eat dinner and put those pesky roaches out of his mind.