Last year the lowest ability class that I taught was 1/6 and so me teaching 1/7-1/10 was a game of trial and error at first as I assessed their English level. Of course, the situation was similar with my higher ability classes as well. The classes that I had taught last year had already been learning English at school for a few months whereas the kids I teach now have just come up from primary school.
So, my first few lessons with the M1's have been mainly about introducing themselves. I got the classes to design namecards for themselves and write about themselves inside. With the higher levels I got them to write whatever they wanted so I could see how much English they knew. With my other classes I gave guidelines on what they could write. My 1/10 class just wrote their name and nickname inside on the first lesson. In our second lesson I taught them numbers 1-10 and got them to write their phone number. As I learnt last year, each class has to be tailored depending on their strengths and weaknesses - even if they're only one class apart.
I've also started using different words for hello. With my classes we wrote down lots of different words instead of hello and had to shout them and come up with different actions for each word. It was so much fun and the kids found it hilarious!
With my 3/1's I've been focusing on pronunciation. I've played movie trailers in class and they had to try and understand all the words ( we went through them afterwards). I also spent a lesson teaching them common mispronunciations such as the difference between sh and ch, th, and favourite. Thai's usually pronounce 'favourite' with 3 syllables instead of 2. I them taught them some tongue twisters which totally freaked them out and was a source of great bemusement when I got individuals to stand up and say them. 3/1 are such a great class and I always have a laugh with them, whether its because they end up teaching me Thai tongue twisters of because of their funny magic tricks!
This year I've also started running English club last lesson on a Tuesday which is really cute. So far Hayden, Alex and I have read out facts about ourselves and the kids had to run to whoever they thought the fact belonged to. In the next class we wrote a funny story. I started off with the line ' A cat did something naughty'. I then asked the class what the cat did and we wrote it down. I kept asking questions and we eventually came up with a story that involved the cat stealing a fish from the mouth of a crocodile because the fish was beautiful. Eventually the cat and the fish ran away to a farm together and got married :)
In the following class the kids presented their own stories and we had to come up with actions for each sentence and
act out the entire story. There were some hilarious moments!
Alex and I also participated in an English club run at our school by an outise company for the new 1/3's and 4/3's. This was so much fun. The kids had to design monsters, talk about themselves, win stickers and play games!
 |
| 'Hand to waist, hand to neck' |
 |
| 'Man and princess |
