Language School - week 1

Thursday 21st July 2011

10-12 a.m.

"like" and "do" to describe food preferences

Lesson plan went well for all class, except at worksheet stage where T (8yrs vs others X: 10, Ti: 12, M: 12, G: 12) did not participate.

"What are you like?" Appearance and personality.

I did not have flashcards prepared for the board because I couldn't blow up pictures (or didn't know how to) on the photocopier. I focused on the personality words and the students practised the words amongst themselves. I paired up with T.

I finished by getting students to describe themselves and each other and introduced "Who are you like?" "Because?" to elicit response. Also "What do...?" vs. "What are you like?"

Good class.

6-8

I gave the same class as in the morning this time with three young adult Thai students. For the pair work I got them to work as a three:

A: Do you like mango? B: I like mango

A: Do you like mango? B: I do not like mango.

A: What's he like? B: He's helpful

A: What's he like? C: She's kind

As an extra activity, I got the students to draw up on the board some more fruit. A lot of standing up for students, particularly for production stage. Perhaps unnecessary but helped to change the dynamic of the class which was only small and I hate being the only one standing!

Friday 22nd July 2011

10-12

prepositions of location and shops

Felt like the class were bored. T now always seems bored. I got him and X to separate but they sat next to each other again after the break.

Past continuous

Began at 11:10 with the intention of teaching present continuous to describe an action. When Ti pointed out that they knew this, I changed the activity to past continuous.

When T tried (and succeeded) to get attention by putting a coin in his mouth, I encouraged him to speak by saying "What were you doing yesterday?" He seemed to laugh at this and so I left him and 5 seconds later he had taken the coin out of his mouth. I then sat X in a different row explaining that it wasn't something he'd done but that if he didn't want T to annoy him then he shouldn't sit next to him.

I explained the timeline incorrectly but I did introduce some additional vocab which helped challenge Ti. I ran out of time at the end and the students only had about a minute for production of vocabulary.

Challenging class but still went well overall I think.

3-5

Everything I had!

T is a private student with strong English vocab and grammar knowledge which I didn't know until I tried him out on all my elementary lessons. When, at the end of the lesson, I tried him on the present passive, I found that this was something he hadn't done yet. I decided to look up drank vs. drunk after lesson as I failed to explain why the past form of drink was not drank in this case (it was because drunk is a past participle: used in present perfect "I have broken the window", adjectives "the broken window", and the passive "The window was broken by the boy."

Saturday 23rd July

10-12

I was teacher assistant to F, in a "bonus class" for I, X, T, Ti, M, and G, as well as 8 Thai students who had been studying at the school that week.

Activities:

1. people say their names then someone throws the ball to another person who he/she has to name (we allowed people to ask "What's your name?", mainly because everyone name was hard to remember)
2. ask 6 questions copied from the board of 3 students of a different nationality
3. Point to a country named by me on the world map (2 groups - selected by 1, 2)
4. Last letter, first letter (e.g. letter, read, desk, knit, etc.) played in 2 small groups of 3
5. London bridge song and game

3-5

Phonetics

This took up the first hour. When I returned from getting some water for us both, T asked if we could "chat". I got out two newspaper articles I had printed before the lesson (1. Rupert Murdoch 2. global warming). I asked T to read and asked him questions. Then I offered a few possible options for what we could do the next day including 'Chiang Mai', comic strip dialogues (e.g. Bob is walking his dog, Jane is running and they meet in the park - how does their conversation go?) [I still haven't done this yet perhaps for today - 26/07]. Eve suggested that I might try tongue twisters.

Sunday 24th

10-12

T and I talked about Harry Potter and its plot, the type of story it was, its setting, heroes, villains, etc. then wrote a story together of T's own. It followed a simple happy, sad, happy plot and was science fiction. We picked a name and a gender for the hero.

1-3

I subbed for a class of students who ordinarily learn grammar, teaching conversation instead in this one off lesson

I once again used "like" and "do not like" materials but then got the children to categorise foods into healthy and favourite foods. Then I sat with the students since my whiteboard markers had stopped working and used paper instead.

We wrote a story together making use of many of the words from the first part of the lesson.

Eve suggested getting them to come up with dialogue and act it out next time. Also tongue twisters still to do.

Monday 25^th July 2011

10-12

X, Ti, M, and G (T absent)

Started off by testing the class on their Past simple, sneakily, by asking them what they did at the weekend. Said that I went to the cinema and that I saw Harry Potter. Checked to see how many had watched the film and think in the end no one had but plugged on anyway – perhaps a mistake. Said Harry Potter was a hero and Voldemort was the villain. Pens were pretty dead by this stage which didn’t help. Then described with actions/ pictures what each of Fantasy, horror, drama, science fiction, comedy and romantic films/books were. Then started on story (happy beginning, sad middle, happy ending). Got the children to come up with names for the heroes/villains which were all animals 2 of each. And to say where the story was set. In 4 countries: USA, UK, China, and Africa. Then the story started off at the zoo in the USA – happy. M had the idea that the zoo blew up, Ti that everyone died. So I took this on the chin and said that everyone but the heroes and villains died. They all landed in one of the separate countries. Blue whale created a tidal wave off the coast of America, gorilla threw sticks at people in Africa, elephant and the other animal landed in China and the UK and got along fine. The End! Yes, I figured that only half the class were engaged so went out at this stage to get some water and keep my nerve. When I came back we did tongue twisters. Ti was still doing bored face but everyone was a bit more involved this time as it was a funny activity. After this I got the students to share the copies of newspaper articles about living at home and global warming and questioned them about both topics – the article and what they could tell me extra. This seemed to go ok. I finished with a variation of Animal, vegetable, mineral saying they must each choose an animal and ask each other questions about it to guess its identity. X and Ti did not pick up on activity very well until M explained it to them in Chinese. Next time give a demonstration as with the production activities.

General thoughts about the lesson. I moved firmly into speaking only today with no worksheets or writing at all, however I feel that I could have brought in some pair work and got the students to begin questioning each other about the second issue, perhaps with what, where, when and why words.

1-3

H&K

H&K are 7 and 8. They started with me today and are scheduled for 13 2-hour lessons over the next 3 weeks. I think they’re willing to learn and picked up on the modelling and drilling well. I got them to question each other and me too. We practised I like and I do not like but not the full lesson. Perhaps it was a bit unstructured but I got them to model and drill a lot of different sentences. I could have checked for understanding a bit more often. All in all though, a good class which I ended with the last letter/ first letter game: eat, train, near, red, etc. K stronger as promised, but H good learner and involved.

3-5

Went straight into class with T. We started with tongue twisters

1. She sells sea shells by the seashore;

2. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. How many pecks of pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?;

3. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? About as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

4. 4 is 4 (see-or see-or see-or), 10 is 10 (shee-or see-or shee-or), 14 is 14 (shee-or see-or see-or shee-or see-or)!

I then broke down how the tongue twister worked – all used similar initial sounds and in the case of Peter piper similar vowel sounds and consonant sounds within the words too. We both did a tongue twister along the same format as She (n.) sells (v.) seashells (n.) by the seashore (n.). Mine used v and w initial sounds and S’s r and l initial sounds.

1. White vans vary weight by the very week.

2. Robot lost last rent leaving room.

We then made a valiant attempt to imitate the more complex pattern of Peter Piper. I came up with a slightly disturbing and also fairly nonsensical one:

Teacher Torture torches toasted tasties.

T and I decided to move on to something new then as we were both struggling but I think he enjoyed the activity.

The new topic was food. The discussion started with good and bad food and what was meant by these adjectives: taste, freshness, healthiness. We listed which foods are good (fruits, vegetables, meat, and carbohydrates) and which bad (snacks such as ice cream or chocolate). We covered recommended portions of fruit and I explained what a portion looked like. We moved on to fast food and how it led to obesity. T told me that in China there is something called MFC which doesn’t taste as nice as KFC so that even in the countryside children have access to fast food. He also told me about a chain of healthy fast food restaurants named after a Kung Fu actor called Michel Lo. I went on to talk about the USA (#1 most obese country in the world) and UK (#1 most obese country in Europe) and told S that those children diagnosed by a doctor as clinically obese could die as young as 20 and that this made obesity a serious health problem. I asked why this was the case in USA – fast food originated there. I asked what we could do about this problem – couldn’t close the fast food chains down. T said we needed to decide not to eat ourselves. I suggested perhaps teaching our children and parents, schools and other adults how to cook cheaply and healthily was one way to help change the obesity problem. I talked a bit about how schools in USA were sponsored by fast food and soda companies in exchange for putting advertising billboards up on and in their buildings and that sometimes cheap food/drink was provided too. I mentioned how Jamie Oliver was in the USA trying to teach parents how what their children were eating at school was bad for them and that if they wanted their children to live beyond 20 then this would have to change. I told T how Jamie Oliver had done this in the UK already and that some stupid/silly parents had gone to schools which were making healthy school dinners for their students and giving children fast food takeaways through the fence because they couldn’t say no to their children. We talked about stereotypes (men/women; black/white; upper class/lower class). T asked about the phrase “to be a gentleman” which I explained meant to be polite or to have good manners.

Good class and when I got to the desk S said that T had asked for another 10 hours which I’m taking as a thumbs up.

Week Four Kindergarten Demo

Week 4 of my search for work as a TEFL teacher in Thai school.

Times asked to interview and demonstrate a lesson: 4

Today was my second chance to give a demonstration lesson at a kindergarten since my TEFL course ended.

Once I got to the school, I sat in on a lesson given by the outgoing teacher, where the kindergarten teacher performed brilliantly to a class who gave every indication of being very capable and well-behaved.

The topic given for my half hour lesson was transport. I chose six vehicles (car, plane, bicycle, boat, train, and bus), I gave each vehicle one of six colours (black, red, green, yellow, blue, and orange) and gave each vehicle a size (big or small).

Then I put them into a story called, "A Little Transport Story". After my warm-up song, I then sat down in front of the class and began to read. The story went along these lines: "What's this? It's a car. What colour is it? It's black. Black. It's a black car. How big is it? Is it big or small? It's small. Small. It's a small car. It's a small black car. What noise does it make? Brm, brm! Brm, brm! It goes brm, brm! It's a small black car which goes, 'Brm, brm!' The small black car which goes 'Brm, brm!' is friends with...What's this? It's a boat. Etc." Then at the very end of each vehicle bit I would say "The small black car which goes 'Brm, brm!' is friends with the big yellow boat which goes 'Honk, honk!' who's friends with the big blue train which goes 'Woo, woo!' etc." My only props were a piece of future board with the six colours on it, and the book which contained two vehicles on each page and no writing on the side visible to the children.

Unfortunately, I think I lost the rhythm of the story and instead of building up momentum and excitement as I went, I kept going back on myself to reinforce what the children had already learnt but not with any consistency.

What the teacher who was observing me suggested was that when one of the children gave the correct answer to a question in the story I could have got up and given that child a high five and said "Well done!" This would have encouraged the other children to give responses in turn. Another possibility would be to encourage the children to all have a go at making the vehicle noise and see who was loudest and then praise them with a high five or a "Well done!". The story in itself must have taken 20 minutes which was too long. The teacher suggested that this story was something I could have got the children to work towards over a 2 week period.

The second part of my lesson which was a song based on the story was again too long and I did not get a chance to finish it as my half hour was nearly up. Again the teacher suggested that this might have caught on given a longer period of time.

I finished the lesson with a warm-down song to the same tune as the warm-up song with hand waving the first time through and clapping the second time through. These songs were received positively by the teacher in my feedback and he said again this is something that the children with grow to enjoy and participate in more if I was here for a longer period of time.

In my feedback, the general response from the teacher was that I had good ideas but had included too much for one lesson. As for personality, I was told I had good presence, but needed to engage with the children more when I sensed they were getting bored; we discussed the need to keep the class having fun without tipping their energy over into hyperactivity where nothing of value would be learned.