Today's first lesson was enjoyable. This student and I have quite a long history so we were happy to see eachother again. We dispensed with the one point rather quickly since he demonstrated understanding easily and he had some things he wanted to tell me. I was happy to listen as a friend and at the sime time keep an ear out for possible mistakes or confusion on his part that i could help him out with later on. I always make a point to let students finish their thoughts completely in a natural flow. Then, once they have finished, put some example sentences up on the board for them to fix themselves. This way I can be sure I' ve drawn their attention to weak points in which they need to improve and at the same time I have given them a chance to express themselves in natural conversation without making them self conscious. Its all about building confidence.
While he told me about recent events in his life I made sure to toss out some questions from the Smith's School of English curriculum routines. He responded well.
After that I went through a "Let's Talk" article with him about relationships. It spurred some interesting extended conversation and questions on his part. We continued to go through the questions until there was no time left in the lesson. I introduced a new one point and asked him to prepare some examples for the next lesson. See you next week!
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Newbie
My 8pm on Thursday was a basic level student who had only been here with Smith's School of English Kyobashi for 2 weeks. Before the class, I had chatted with the previous teacher and was told that the new student was a bit shy. I decided not to do anything too challenging and try to keep the atmosphere nice and friendly to him.
After greeting him in the lobby and offered him a nice cup of hot tea, I showed him to the classroom. I spent a few minutes introducing myself and getting him to talk about himself a bit, which I knew shouldn't be hard as he had done it with the other teacher in the very first trial lesson. As expected, he was relived and happy to use the sentence patterns and some new vocabulary he learned earlier to introduce himself. I gave him a big thumb-up after his introduction since the kid really did a great job applying what he learned from his trial here.
We then went over his previous one-point, and proceeded to the Routine part of the class. Since he had done routine 1 once, I thought it would be a good idea to review and consolidate. I also prepared some picture cards from Time 1 for him to string together "John's Day" using the stretching skill taught in routine 1.
I then introduced him to the item of the day, "ordinal numbers". This lesson is always good for basic level students because it provides a lot of activities and students get a lot of chances to practice. Once I wrote down some ordinal numbers on the board and listed the 3 major usages, it was time to put the knowledge in use. I pulled out the curriculum activity book and basically followed the practice and development part of the lesson plan.
By the end of the 45 minute-lesson, the shy new student was no where to be found, instead I found myself giving a one-point to this smiley chatty university boy! It surely felt good to be the teacher who improved the confidence of your students!
After greeting him in the lobby and offered him a nice cup of hot tea, I showed him to the classroom. I spent a few minutes introducing myself and getting him to talk about himself a bit, which I knew shouldn't be hard as he had done it with the other teacher in the very first trial lesson. As expected, he was relived and happy to use the sentence patterns and some new vocabulary he learned earlier to introduce himself. I gave him a big thumb-up after his introduction since the kid really did a great job applying what he learned from his trial here.
We then went over his previous one-point, and proceeded to the Routine part of the class. Since he had done routine 1 once, I thought it would be a good idea to review and consolidate. I also prepared some picture cards from Time 1 for him to string together "John's Day" using the stretching skill taught in routine 1.
I then introduced him to the item of the day, "ordinal numbers". This lesson is always good for basic level students because it provides a lot of activities and students get a lot of chances to practice. Once I wrote down some ordinal numbers on the board and listed the 3 major usages, it was time to put the knowledge in use. I pulled out the curriculum activity book and basically followed the practice and development part of the lesson plan.
By the end of the 45 minute-lesson, the shy new student was no where to be found, instead I found myself giving a one-point to this smiley chatty university boy! It surely felt good to be the teacher who improved the confidence of your students!
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Question, question, who's got the question?
Today's second lesson was with a slightly higher level set of students. Three students in the lesson means there is basically unlimited chances for student to student interaction. I always make sure to take advantage of this to ensure a high student talk time and a low teacher talk time. Two of the three students share the same one point so I had 2 one point's to contend with total. By having each student come up with their own example for each of the one points we ended up with 6 nice example sentences that led to some additional questions by the students, and some nice opportunities for student to student questioning.
After that we moved on to a lesson on questions. This encouraged the students to ask questions of each other and of me as well. I made sure to keep my answers succinct so as to reduce teacher talk time. If hey wanted to know more about my answer they were welcome to ask further expansive questions all they wanted, but I wasn't going to give it away for free. They had to ask for it. I encouraged the students to give at least two statements in answer to any question asked of them. This pushed them beyond their normal safety zone of the short simple answer and into some new material. That's where the learning can occur.
The students had many questions for me about how to give the answers they wanted to. I encouraged them to try on their own, and then supported with board work when necessary. After that we reviewed some questions from from a Smith's School of English Routine and finished off with a new one point. Asking questions is hard to to so i was glad the students got so much practice with that skill today!
After that we moved on to a lesson on questions. This encouraged the students to ask questions of each other and of me as well. I made sure to keep my answers succinct so as to reduce teacher talk time. If hey wanted to know more about my answer they were welcome to ask further expansive questions all they wanted, but I wasn't going to give it away for free. They had to ask for it. I encouraged the students to give at least two statements in answer to any question asked of them. This pushed them beyond their normal safety zone of the short simple answer and into some new material. That's where the learning can occur.
The students had many questions for me about how to give the answers they wanted to. I encouraged them to try on their own, and then supported with board work when necessary. After that we reviewed some questions from from a Smith's School of English Routine and finished off with a new one point. Asking questions is hard to to so i was glad the students got so much practice with that skill today!
Hard core review.
Today's first lesson was with 2 very low level students. After going over the one points from the previous lesson and having each student practice the other's examples i asked them to practice some very basic, natural conversation about what they did last weekend. This exercise was a join review of the Past 1 Item and of the basic routine 1 questions. They used vocabulary that they had previously learned and I was able to guide them with questions that they were familiar with. It was a pretty strict exercise, I wanted to make sure they really understood what was being asked of them and how one would answer naturally. In the end we had a board full of nice example sentences that the students were able to then use in turn to describe not only the activity that brought up the example in the first place, but a myriad of other things they had done last weekend as well.
After a rigorous review I moved them into some new material. I don't normally recommend doing review before introducing new material, but the class just flowed that way today. I made sure to keep he introduction of the new item light in comparison to the previous activity. Always good to leave the lesson feeling light and unburdened. This portion was highly structured so the rules were very easy to follow. After showing a few examples the students caught right on and we had a blast.
We finished up with a new one point. Today I used "I have a lot/nothing in common with (A). For example, (B). I gave a few examples and asked the students to demonstrate understanding. Once I was satisfied that they understood I asked them to prepare some examples of their own for the next lesson and sent them on their merry way.
After a rigorous review I moved them into some new material. I don't normally recommend doing review before introducing new material, but the class just flowed that way today. I made sure to keep he introduction of the new item light in comparison to the previous activity. Always good to leave the lesson feeling light and unburdened. This portion was highly structured so the rules were very easy to follow. After showing a few examples the students caught right on and we had a blast.
We finished up with a new one point. Today I used "I have a lot/nothing in common with (A). For example, (B). I gave a few examples and asked the students to demonstrate understanding. Once I was satisfied that they understood I asked them to prepare some examples of their own for the next lesson and sent them on their merry way.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Long time no see.
Today I'm cover for another teacher who requested the day off so I'm here earlier than usual. The best news there is that I get to meet up with some students that I haven't seen in a long time. 2 students actually. They expressed that they were really surprised and happy to see me after such a long time. I felt good about that. After getting reacquainted a bit and calming down we did a review of last weeks one points. I like have each student take a shot at making an example sentence from the other students one point, even if they haven't seen it before. They usually get a pretty good idea from the example provided by the student who learned it in class last week. If not, I lend a hand.
After that went continued on to an Item which was perfect for pair work. They asked and answered each others questions while I listened to pronunciation or grammar errors. Once they seemed to have the hang of it, I added a few expansive questions so they could be more open ended in their answers. We also did some practice with the questions from routine 1 in order to give them a review.
This was a fun lesson and the time went by rather quickly since every one was in such high spirits. Before we knew it, it was already time for the one point! They came up with some examples on the spot which I was pleased about. I asked them to also come up with a new sentence for next week and bid them farewell. Hope to see them again soon!
After that went continued on to an Item which was perfect for pair work. They asked and answered each others questions while I listened to pronunciation or grammar errors. Once they seemed to have the hang of it, I added a few expansive questions so they could be more open ended in their answers. We also did some practice with the questions from routine 1 in order to give them a review.
This was a fun lesson and the time went by rather quickly since every one was in such high spirits. Before we knew it, it was already time for the one point! They came up with some examples on the spot which I was pleased about. I asked them to also come up with a new sentence for next week and bid them farewell. Hope to see them again soon!
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Have a nice weekend!
My 5pm student today was probably one of the best English speakers here at Smith's School of English Kyobashi. He had double lessons scheduled today, since I knew his 6pm would be with 2 other students, I thought it might be a good idea to give him as much attention as possible for his one-to-one lesson with me.
As he walked in my classroom, I greeted him cheerfully and asked if he had any plans for the long weekend. His face lit up and happily told me that he would be going out with his girlfriend to Kyoto. Since I myself was planning on visiting Kyoto on Monday, I was eager to get some recommendations from a local. He was more than happy to share his previous trips in Kyoto and started telling me all the best spots for different seasons as well as his personal top 10 list of Kyoto shrines and gardens. From there we also had a great conversation about the similarities and differences in Chinese and Japanese temples, gardens and cultures.
It was fantastic to have such a enlightening conversation with a student and find out interesting information about Japan and Japanese culture, while at the same time, I did not forget that I was in the middle of an English lesson. He was almost fluent in English, but like many, he still made small grammatical mistakes. I jotted down 4 mistakes that he made during our conversation and pointed them out at the end of our class, which I thought he appreciated very much.
Well, I am going to take my student's advice and check out the Kyoto Botanical Gardens for the weekend then!
As he walked in my classroom, I greeted him cheerfully and asked if he had any plans for the long weekend. His face lit up and happily told me that he would be going out with his girlfriend to Kyoto. Since I myself was planning on visiting Kyoto on Monday, I was eager to get some recommendations from a local. He was more than happy to share his previous trips in Kyoto and started telling me all the best spots for different seasons as well as his personal top 10 list of Kyoto shrines and gardens. From there we also had a great conversation about the similarities and differences in Chinese and Japanese temples, gardens and cultures.
It was fantastic to have such a enlightening conversation with a student and find out interesting information about Japan and Japanese culture, while at the same time, I did not forget that I was in the middle of an English lesson. He was almost fluent in English, but like many, he still made small grammatical mistakes. I jotted down 4 mistakes that he made during our conversation and pointed them out at the end of our class, which I thought he appreciated very much.
Well, I am going to take my student's advice and check out the Kyoto Botanical Gardens for the weekend then!
Recovery!
Today's first lesson was a huge relief to me. Why? Simply because the student showed up for his lesson. This student has been having an alarming amount of heart complications recently. When he doesn't show up for a lesson I know it's one of two things: He is in the hospital getting some sort of proceedure done or... I don't want to think about it. But, as I said he showed up to the lesson today and I was glad to see he was alright.
After checking his one point I decided to use some Smith's Routine questions to find out about his condition. As it turns out as of Monday this past week the treatment he had been undergoing finally resulted in a successful recovery! I was really glad to hear it. He had been going to the hospital nearly every day for emergencies but he told me it's been almost a week since he's needed to go. What a relief!
After the question and answer review we moved on to an item where we discussed bad habits using Gerunds and Infinitives. The mood of the lesson was extremely light and carefree. We had a lot of laughs. We finished off with a new one point and I bid him farewell. At the end of the lesson I said, "See you next week." He responded "Yup, see you then." I was glad that for the first time in weeks i could believe with out worry that he really will be here.
After checking his one point I decided to use some Smith's Routine questions to find out about his condition. As it turns out as of Monday this past week the treatment he had been undergoing finally resulted in a successful recovery! I was really glad to hear it. He had been going to the hospital nearly every day for emergencies but he told me it's been almost a week since he's needed to go. What a relief!
After the question and answer review we moved on to an item where we discussed bad habits using Gerunds and Infinitives. The mood of the lesson was extremely light and carefree. We had a lot of laughs. We finished off with a new one point and I bid him farewell. At the end of the lesson I said, "See you next week." He responded "Yup, see you then." I was glad that for the first time in weeks i could believe with out worry that he really will be here.
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