Updates

I have been so busy with my lessons that I simply haven’t had time to post the lesson plans. However, I have collected all the lesson notes and took photos of the whiteboard as well, and this week I will have some time to write the posts.

The lessons were great and I learn more about pair work in 4 weeks than during the 5 years at university. I had to teach a group of 6 with beginner, elementary and pre-intermediate level students and it was great. Thanks to the students, too.

What I am really glad about is that I managed to understand what strengths and weaknesses each of them had and focused on these points. One of them just simply had to repeat example sentences at least 10 times very slowly and then she was able to create her own ones. This one seems to be a typical elementary level student difficulty. They understand a lot, they know basic phrases, but no accuracy, no conscious communication. The moment they understand simple structures and start speaking more slowly, they can become more efficient speakers of the language.

Think and learn. Think and speak. Think and write. My new method. And repeat, repeat and repeat new words and sentences aloud.

To be continued tomorrow.

One more thing. Do I need to mention that I just could not use a book with this group and I had to collect and write our own course material for each lesson? I enjoyed doing it, and I am not saying that there aren’t any great books on the market. You just had to find them (at least five different levels and types for a course) and then write your own lessons, own examples. That’s the way I like it!

Lesson no. 2

Before: LL Units 1.1 and 1.2, there is, there are, to be, singular-plural forms. Vocabulary: cities and places in a city. Describe a city – pairwork.

After:

1. Practised ‘How are you’ and anwers.

2. Revised vowels from the chart with numbers: one, two, three, four, six, seven, ten, eleven

3. A diphthong a day: /ai/. ‘I’ and ‘eye’

4. Sentence formation with ‘to be’ and ‘have’. WB.: I have green eyes. – I have big green eyes. I am tired. I am not tired. I am happy. I am a happy girl. She is pretty. She has red hair.  She has blue eyes. He has small brown eyes. He is not fat.

The ‘he’ and ‘she’ sentences were from the students. Here they have to understand the difference between ‘to have’ and ‘to be’. Good for adjectives.

big-small, fat-slim-thin, pretty, nice-ugly, clever-stupid, happy-sad, nervous-calm, the colours

Pairwork: 2-2-3

They choose another S from another group. Describe the person. Min. 6-9 sentences.

Verbs here: describe, choose, find, discuss, guess

5. Places

T tells a ‘story’. Ss just listen. First fast read, then more slowly. Repeats the description 3 times. 7 sentences about my town. ‘I live in a town. I live in a pretty town. There is a small cinema in this town. There are a lot of shops and a swimming pool. The town is very clean. It is peaceful and popular with tourists. There are some interesting museums.’

Ss have to remember places and adjectives. T writes the words on the WB. Ss try to retell sentences.

Structures: There is, There are, It is, The town is…

Pairwork: pair 1. choose a European city, 2. choose an Italian city, beginners: recreate the same description.

T does not correct at this point.

After the task: they all made the same mistake: ‘There is five supermarket.’

WB: Correct it together, plural -s and ‘there are’. Do some more practice on it.

6. And we have arrived to the book!!! Last 20 minutes.

Practise vocabulary: pp 6-7 pictures, What can you see in the picture? Which cities?

ex. 1 opposite adjectives.

7. What’s the adjective? ‘It is 45 degrees outside.’ ‘This phone costs 200 euros.’ etc.

Homework:

Reading exercise ‘Sao Paolo’ p. 6

Lesson no. 1

Group: 7 students

Levels: 3 beginners, 2 false beginners, 2 elementary

Course book: Language Leader Elementary (LL)

I think we all know that a 2-month-old baby is very different from its 5-month-old little friend. We are facing a similar problem in the classroom. What can we do about it? We think  that elementary level students know the basics, to be, have, there is, there are, basic vocabulary, question forms, present tenses and the past simple. But do they really know all these things and can they use them?

I guess we can get a lot out of a mixed-level group. First of all you have to slow down and use simple language. What else?

Lots of pairwork. I tend to put the elementary level students in one pair and give them a more difficult task. In the meantime I help the beginners some more.

What I have understood that no matter what their level is, students need lots of pronunciation, vocabulary  and sentence formation practice.

Let’s see the first lesson.

Before: I thought that we would do some ‘getting to know you’ and follow the first unit of LL to keep everything simple. I wanted to clarify their objectives, talk about their jobs and families and do some basic question forms. I forgot how boring it all can be. I wasn’t sure about Adrian Underhill’s Pronunciation lesson at this point.
After: What I actually did is the following:

1. ‘Good afternoon’ and ‘How are you’ and possible answers to it. Ss love this short activity. T walks around, shakes hands, introduces himself/herself, ask ‘How are you?’, ‘How do you do?’ etc. They easily get it and like learning the difference between the phrases.

2. PHONETIC CHART and the lesson.

I arrived 40 minutes early, so I had time to put the chart on the board. I usually draw pictures around it, as after pronunciation game I like introducing some words as well.

They loved the lesson, also got very tired, they actually had to use their facial muscles! Better than a botox…

The words, word pairs that came up during this part of the lesson.

ship-sheep, sh*t-sheet, lick-leek, bad-bed, pan-pen (Peter Pan!), ‘a fat man sat on a black cat’, bird-shirt, above, cup-love, ball-short, clock, boot, book (n., v.)-look (look at me)

I keep the chart next to the main board all the time for reference. We actually use it every ten minutes.

3. Talk about your job. T has to guess what the job is. First T talks about herself. ‘I work in schools and companies. I help people communicate. I have a lot of books.’ Keep it simple. Ss talk about themselves. In the meantime we collect verbs and useful pharses. The main idea here is just the S-V-O word order and some vocabulary.

Words they used: serve, cook, look after, am responsible for, manage, I work …, I am a …, sell, buy

False friends: factory, farm, country, countryside, town, village, city, magazine, warehouse

4. I also tried the QUESTION WHEEL exercise just to see how much the know about question.

Was good to revise some simple verbs. Questions are still difficult for them.

Main idea was to introduce pronunciation activities, talk and revise vocabulary they had already known.

New course – intro

I am starting a new course tomorrow afternoon in a hotel nearby. On this page you can follow the course, my ideas, the lesson plans, the results, reactions, etc.

Information I have before the first lesson:

Number of students: 4-6

Level: Beginner-false beginner-elementary

Objective: communication with guests

Course type: Intensive course, 2 hours a day

Course material: I will have to decide. Right now I have two books in mind. I will have to give them a thorough look tomorrow morning and choose.

Language Leader Elementary (Pearson Longman)  vs. Move Elementary (Macmillan)

Needless to say that the book will be there to give directions and most of the work will be done on the whiteboard, and in conversation. That is the most exciting part. When you have a clear idea of the course, you know which language areas you are going to cover, which phrases they will have to learn, the basic vocabulary they need to get to a good elementary level, the grammar that will be practised. You also know the most effective ways of teaching the necessary vocabulary and grammar, you have already made plans about the language games you are going to play.

Still, there is something that makes you feel enthusiastic about the course. What you cannot predict is the students’ personalities, the group dynamics, relationships… Jokes , difficulties, different backgrounds… So many things you cannot predict, and you will have to solve situations during the lesson. That is the bit I love. The unexpected that can always be solved, that creates energies, makes a lesson real and live…

What I have in mind is the following.

I would like to give very good grammar basics to them, as I believe that if you know and are able to use the basic rules of the  English language, you can manage in all situations.

I think that a good A2 level vocabulary can be our objective regarding lexis, with phrases they need for their work.

I am going to use: pairwork, role-plays, listening extracts from films (Fawlty Towers, Gordon Ramsay videos, etc…), lots of language games, drills, pictures… (I am just brainstorming right now.)

I would like to use as little book as possible and as much speaking as we can. I would also like to focus on accuracy and they will be asked to take notes of the lessons and do homework every day.

They will live with English for a few weeks…

The game starts tomorrow at 3 p.m.

I am going to write about my ideas before the lessons (plans, materials, hopes, etc.) and experieces after the lessons (results, difficulties, things to change, questions, homework) in the blog.

Enjoy!

The Business DVD – Macmillan

They say that The Business series was created for university students studying economics, and it is not the best to use for in-company teaching.

(The Business. Pre-Intermediate-Intermediate-Upper-Intermediate levels. Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2007.)

I totally agree with the idea, as I would never use the book itself for in-company teaching. I have used some pages with some students, who work in management, and they said the book could not say anything new to them.

But the DVD ROM! You can use it with adult groups, business groups, one-to-one courses.

First of all, it is planned in a stunning way. From vocabulary to listening comprehension tasks, you find everything you need for an enjoyable and successful lesson.  It is funny, real language usage, various accents and dialects.

I must warn you, though. Watch the videos first to check the level of English, as you might need to work on the vocabulary with your students.

What they might find very difficult is the pronunciation. Do not worry about it, just be patient and listen to the extracts several times. Even if you need to listen four or five times, it is worth it. The steady approach.

”Tabula rasa” teaching – computer-based version

You need a computer. If you are lucky enough, you will also have a projector. During this lesson you can follow a course book or be book-less.

What I do is the following.

Open two document sheets before the lesson, or make different headings on one page. I take notes whenever they make mistakes, ask questions, we use new vocabulary.

You can organize the notes during the lesson, but you might not have time to do so. After the lesson organize the notes into different sections.

Why do I like it?

• You can have a detailed digital register of your lessons.
• You will always be able to check what you have already covered with your group. You can send a document to your students and they can save it in a folder.
• You can guarantee that everyone will have the same lesson notes, no spelling mistakes, no misunderstanding.
• And another good thing is that using a computer can also means having the possibility to use a digital dictionary during the lesson.

You might say that this way they are not going to do any writing. You are right in thinking that. However, there are a lot more benefits, and you can find many other ways to make them write. You can also ask them to copy at least the new vocabulary into a notebook.

“Tabula rasa” teaching – one-to-one/conversational lessons

Choose a topic. Think of its vocabulary, and loads of synonyms.

Start talking about the topic by asking a question.

Ask another question your student wouldn’t understand.

Choose some idioms. (no more than three) Impress your students with them.

Pick on a mistake they make.

You have the paper and the pen. Do not let your student hold a pen. They might start writing.

Divide the paper into four sections (you might want to experiment to find what suits you).

Student’s name – Date
Vocabulary	Grammar
Use of English	Pronunciation

Take notes during the conversation. Work on one grammar point at once, stop and practise.

You should spend the last 10 minutes revising what you have written on the paper.

Ask your student to have a folder for the notes. It is more important than you would ever think. They tend to lose everything.

I also ask them to copy the notes into their own notebook. Don’t forget to remind them to do so, and check on it at the beginning of the next lesson – spelling mistakes, etc. – also good way to make them study at home.

Keep track of these lessons! You can easily forget what you have already talked about. Nothing can be more embarrassing.
Not using a course book doesn’t mean you can escape lesson preparation.

Comics in the classroom

The “Paperinik” Cartoon Exhibition in Rapallo reminded me how much I like using comic strips in the language classroom.

It might happen that you have no ideas, no time, no motivation, but your students want to have fun, something different from the course book, and still want to learn something.

Students can be really disappointed if they have to leave the classroom knowing that they haven’t actually learnt anything new that day.

Everybody has favourite comic books, and I am sure you have one, too. All you need to do before a lesson:  grab one of these comics, make a photocopy of a few pages, eliminate the text from the speech bubbles, and make some more photocopies of these “empty” pages.

If you have, let’s say, twenty students, you need 10 copies, as you can give one to a pair.

What’s next?

You walk in the classroom and write ’Cartoon heroes’ on the board. At this point you can decide if you want to limit the discussion to Superheroes, Donald Duck and his friends, Cartoon Network stars, or kiddy cartoons…

I would say that my favourite cartoon and comic character was Nils Holgersson. Now, I am sure that today’s kids don’t know much about him. Why don’t you give them question words to ask about your character? Or you could give clues, and the students can guess the sentences.

You can also ask them to tell you about their favourite characters, first by suggesting names. Then they can vote and choose the four or five heroes, depending on the number of your students and the groups you would like them to form.

Then they can work in groups or pairs, after having chosen a hero for themselves. Ask them to draw an image or describe the character (the other group can guess which one they have chosen.)

Then you can give them your copies. You can ask them to cut them up and change the set of frames with another group.

There are various things you can do then. 1) Put the frames in the correct order. 2) Write the lines in the speech bubbles. 3) Tell the story. 4) Perform the story. 5) Guess the lines and compare them with the original ones.

What about adults? There are several ”grown-up” comic books as well.

You can do the same exercises, but on a higher level. You always have the chance to brainstorm vocabulary, teach new words and phrases with the pictures.

You can also use a comics written in other languages. Simply eliminate the text and then you and your students are free to create your own story.

It is super for exam preparation.

In the speaking session of the Hungarian “Euroexam” the candidate has to tell a story based on a series of pictures. Is there  way to teach and test the use of past tenses and linking words?

Other ideas:

1)     Matching activities: match the picture to the text, choosing the key words that relate to the image.

2)     Put the frames in the correct order.

3)     Use the present continuous to describe what is happening in the pictures.

4)     Use the past continuous, past simple, past perfect to tell a narrative.

5)     Recycle vocabulary: verbs, prepositions, emotions…

I would use the Hungarian ”Rejtő” series, as they are funny, narrative, full of details and entertaining characters.

You can find other useful ideas about using comics and cartoons on the web.

“Comics: A Multi-Dimensional Teaching Aid”

Activities for Comic Strips

And a book I would like to read as it looks really interesting:

Teaching Visual Literacy

‘I don’t understand…’ – Because you don’t know what I am saying…

Just an idea I keep telling everyone.

We should all ‘teach’ and practise pronunciation if we want to improve our students’ listening comprehension.

Present Perfect bridge and Past Simple wall

Teaching these two tenses seems to be a burning issue in Italy. My students tend to think that it is exretmely difficult to understand the difference between the two tenses.

One common aspect of the Present Perfect can be easily visualized with the image of a bridge. (Several articles point out this aspect and encourage teachers to use this image.)

What can we do with the Past Simple then? I have been using the image of a wall to illustrate that the past action is completed. You just simply bang your head in a wall  if you try to go back to the past. Rather philosophical, but it seems to work.

I had a pre-intermediate level  student who simply identifed situations as “wall” and “bridge”. It works. It is easy to remember these images and you can just show them with a simple movement when you are doing a speaking exercise and your student is asking for help.