Self Introductions

For today's lesson, I had a student who I was just meeting for the first time. So, naturally, it was a good opportunity to practice self-introductions. After we got the student's one point from last time out of the way, we went through self-introductions. I was very happy to find that this student was very enthusiastic and was eager to practice speaking especially. Following brief self-introductions, it was like she was interviewing me! She would continually ask me follow-up questions after I would answer her questions about my school life back home.

She then wanted to guess which country I was from, upon eliciting some clues from me. She first guessed England, then Germany, but then when I finally gave the easy clue (Maple) she realized I was from Canada. Normally this brings about a "Ohhh, Canada is nice!" kind of response from students. However, this student got quite excited as she has plans to go to Toronto, Canada in a few months to study English.

She asked me more and more questions about Canada and about Toronto. And I would ask her questions about why she chose Canada and Toronto, in particular. She would struggle to ask these questions, so I would help her along by writing the questions on the board as she went, and she would eventually be able to properly ask the question to me.

Also, as we continued through this conversation, we would go through certain vocabulary that she would like to learn, and she asked many questions related to how to say things as well. Overall, we went through a lot, Sse took a lot of notes, and she still seemed genuinely excited to keep learning English by the end of the lesson. Since we were covering so much ground and so quickly, I hadn't had the chance to look at the clock, and when I did I noticed we were over time already. So I quickly put up the new one point, and with little help she was able to give a very relevant example. "I'm looking forward to going to Canada because I have never been to another country before."

A 25-day pickle...

Today for my first lesson, I had a single student who, I had found out just before the lesson, writes comedy. By the end of the lesson, I realized how funny he was (in the good way). We began with his one point from last time: I have to work 10 days in a row. Following my prompt, the student was able to quickly catch on and say it. I asked him if he had ever had to work 10 days in a row before. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had. But I was surprised to hear him say that he worked 25 days in a row before, and 14/15 hour days at that. He then went on to explain the reason for this, and it was quite interesting to hear about. This also lead to the explanation of a few vocabulary questions and common word choice ones which were related to his story. It was great that he was so eager to get across his story without me having to ask him too many questions.

Following this we went onto a discussion about food and drink. He told me about how he likes most foods, except Japanese pickles, because he thinks they smell bad. I asked him more questions, and later he told me about how his father's good was as a pickle-maker! That just might explain the dislike of pickles. We went over some more explanations of related vocabulary and phrases that arose during our conversation. I then segued into the Restaurant routine with him and finished off with another one point. By the end of the lesson he had written down a lot of notes and he seemed to be happy about it. Me too!

Basics, basics, basics...

This last week I've been using the present continuous lesson from the Smith's School of English curriculum with as many of my students as their study plans will allow. The interesting thing about this particular lesson is that it contains a staggering amount of vocabulary for the sake of practicing the central grammar point. I find this to actually be the most rewarding part of the lesson. The task of switching a verb from standard present tense to present continuous is rather mechanical with few exceptions. As such, most students can master it in a controlled environment after seeing only a few examples. The sheer volume of vocabulary however gives even a higher level student a run for their money.

As usual I start out with a review of the one point from the students previous lesson. This helps to break the ice as usual and establishes a link of trust between the student and I. After that I can transition right into the present continuous lesson plan. Each step of the lesson is tiered with a well paced learning curve for students who are new to the material. For students who are more familiar with the material I can easily skip intermediary steps right into the more complex activities.

This lesson has plenty of logical stopping points so no what pace the student moves through the material it's pretty easy to transition into a routine review when I see we are nearing the end of the lesson. I always pick a routine that the student has practiced before and go through either the hint bar or the questions depending on their level. With a few minutes left in the lesson I move into the new one point and practice it a bit before bidding the student farewell. I had fun exploring this lesson and I'm looking forward to exploring another as deeply next time.