Hi everyone,
Our lessons just flew by yesterday! In the Basic A course, especially, I was busier than usual. A group of students missed Monday's brainstorming session, so I basically have to teach two lessons at the same time. Now I know how public school teachers feel in Canada with split grades!
In our Basic courses, we completed a cluster diagram (=a type of graphic organizer used to organize ideas). Students had to use the information they collected about their partners in their interviews and organize their information into supporting ideas and supporting details. The students basically ran this activity themselves with very little support from me. They were extremely interactive with their partners when it came to adding additional information for each of their supporting ideas.
We then moved on to a review of paragraph structure. I elicited the different parts and their functions, and most of the students were able to recall the information from last week's lessons. I've noticed in my own teaching practices that I make much more use of "elicitation techniques" in Cambodia than I do in Japan because the students seem to love volunteering in class. It's not just one student volunteering, but several at the same time. It often seems like they compete with each other to answers. I absolutely love this type of atmosphere.
Students then got a model paragraph, which was used to reinforce paragraph structure. As usual, we had a vocabulary check after the reading activity. I've been getting better at predicting problem vocabulary areas, and am more prepared for vocabulary explanations in our lessons. However, I've noticed that we definitely need to include more on word forms in our speaking and listening program. For example, in yesterday's class, many students asked for the meaning of "helpful" as in "My teacher is helpful." When I elicited the verb form "help" as in "My teacher helps me", student knew the verb form, but were not aware of the adjective form. This has not been an isolated incident, but such questions come up in almost every lesson. This is especially useful to help me revise next year's curriculum.
In the Pre-intermediate course, we focused on the structure of cover letters. In the first part of our lesson, students had to read a model cover letter. As in the basic classes, students had difficulty in identifying different words forms. For example, they were aware of the verb form of "prepare", but not the noun form "preparation". I was also asked the meaning of "thorough" and was caught off guard. However, I think the students got the general meaning of the word with my spur of the moment explanation.
Student were then given a kinesthetic activity (=a learning activity where students use physical activity). Each group had to arrange cards with the different parts of a cover letter into a coherent structure. They then had to use these cards to identify the different parts on their model cover letter. Afterwards, we had some time to go through some of the expressions used for writing cover letters, but we'll spend today's class on those expressions.
For homework, all classes had to complete their outlines.
Back to the books,
Nicole
The Bayon English Academy (BEA) is an NGO school that provides underprivileged youth with quality English language education in a safe, clean environment in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Our lessons just flew by yesterday! In the Basic A course, especially, I was busier than usual. A group of students missed Monday's brainstorming session, so I basically have to teach two lessons at the same time. Now I know how public school teachers feel in Canada with split grades!
In our Basic courses, we completed a cluster diagram (=a type of graphic organizer used to organize ideas). Students had to use the information they collected about their partners in their interviews and organize their information into supporting ideas and supporting details. The students basically ran this activity themselves with very little support from me. They were extremely interactive with their partners when it came to adding additional information for each of their supporting ideas.
We then moved on to a review of paragraph structure. I elicited the different parts and their functions, and most of the students were able to recall the information from last week's lessons. I've noticed in my own teaching practices that I make much more use of "elicitation techniques" in Cambodia than I do in Japan because the students seem to love volunteering in class. It's not just one student volunteering, but several at the same time. It often seems like they compete with each other to answers. I absolutely love this type of atmosphere.
Students then got a model paragraph, which was used to reinforce paragraph structure. As usual, we had a vocabulary check after the reading activity. I've been getting better at predicting problem vocabulary areas, and am more prepared for vocabulary explanations in our lessons. However, I've noticed that we definitely need to include more on word forms in our speaking and listening program. For example, in yesterday's class, many students asked for the meaning of "helpful" as in "My teacher is helpful." When I elicited the verb form "help" as in "My teacher helps me", student knew the verb form, but were not aware of the adjective form. This has not been an isolated incident, but such questions come up in almost every lesson. This is especially useful to help me revise next year's curriculum.
In the Pre-intermediate course, we focused on the structure of cover letters. In the first part of our lesson, students had to read a model cover letter. As in the basic classes, students had difficulty in identifying different words forms. For example, they were aware of the verb form of "prepare", but not the noun form "preparation". I was also asked the meaning of "thorough" and was caught off guard. However, I think the students got the general meaning of the word with my spur of the moment explanation.
Student were then given a kinesthetic activity (=a learning activity where students use physical activity). Each group had to arrange cards with the different parts of a cover letter into a coherent structure. They then had to use these cards to identify the different parts on their model cover letter. Afterwards, we had some time to go through some of the expressions used for writing cover letters, but we'll spend today's class on those expressions.
For homework, all classes had to complete their outlines.
Back to the books,
Nicole
The Bayon English Academy (BEA) is an NGO school that provides underprivileged youth with quality English language education in a safe, clean environment in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
RSS Feed
