Class of 15 July 2009/Wednesday...

NO English Class on 15 July 2009 (Wednesday) due to my exams...

Lesson no. 10

Lesson no. 10
10 July 2009 / Friday
(16:05 – 17:40)

Topics of the day:
- Beginners - Actions revision... spelling and pronunciation...(5)
- A/An exercise with general (3)

- Verb/Noun/Adjective Exercise with advanced (3)


Beginners: (5 students present)
I gave the students the handout with pictures again. I asked them to write down what was happening in the pictures. They had done this exercise previously but I think it is essential to revise things especially when it concerns beginners. By writing words and sentences again, the spelling of the words and the vocabulary both improve a lot. This time I also focussed on pronunciation. The handout can be found below:

General class: (3 students present)
A revision with the use of 'a' and 'an' was done with the general group. I had an old exercise that most students had already attempted in one of the previous lessons, and I also had a new exercise which can be found below:

Articles explanation: http://www.english-zone.com/grammar/a-anlessn.html

Articles exercise: http://www.english-zone.com/grammar/a-an.html

Exercise from lesson 9: http://www.rhlschool.com/eng2n26.htm

Advanced: (3 students present)
For the advanced group I has an exercise about verb/noun/adjective. In this exercise a verb was given and the students had to deduce a noun and an adjective from it e.g. the verb = to analyse, the noun = analyst (person) or analysis (thing) and the adjective = analytic. I didn’t know initially that it would be such a difficult exercise but together we all managed to do quite well. I thought it was an important exercise, as it not only increased the vocabulary of the students but it also stimulated them to think of new words. Overall the students thought it to be one of the most difficult exercise so far.

Exercise: http://www.smic.be/smic5022/wordformation1.html

Answers: http://www.smic.be/smic5022/wordformation1solutions.html (can also be found below)

Lesson no. 9

Lesson no. 9
8 July 2009 / Wednesday
(16:05 – 17:50)

Topics of the day:

General/Advanced class: 1 student
Synonyms
They/Their/They’re
A/An

Beginners: 3 students
Parts of the face + Questions + Your face/my face – here/there – is/are
Parts of the day
Weather

- Only four students showed up for class today. Three of them were beginners and one of them was an advanced student.

- I gave the advanced student the ‘synonyms’ handout (http://www.rhlschool.com/eng8n2.htm
) and briefly explained it to him.
- While he was busy with the handout I went to the beginners group and went through the ‘parts of the face’ handout (http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/people_animals/face.htm) with them. Since they didn’t know any part of the face, I explained part 0 till 9 to them. I wrote the number 0 till 9 on the board and gradually mentioned the name of each part, showed it on my own face and wrote it on the blackboard. Then I asked them to write down the names of the parts on the handout and try to learn each part.

- I checked the exercise of synonyms with the advanced student. I explained words that were not understood e.g. rude.
- I gave the handout about ‘they/their/they’re’ to this student and explained him the difference between these three. (http://www.rhlschool.com/eng2n27.htm)
- To add to the vocabulary I thought it was a good idea to draw pictures and ask the students what they thought it was. I drew the sun and told them what it was. Then I made a sentence with it ‘it is sunny’. I did the same with clouds, rain and wind. The wind was a bit difficult to demonstrate for me, but once the students understood it they were very good at demonstrating it :P :)
- A student said that it was cloudy in the evening, therefore I revised the various times of the day i.e. morning, afternoon, evening and night.

- While the students copied this in their notebooks, I checked the exercise about they/there/they’re of the other student. I saw that the correct use of these words was also dependant on the understanding of the words used in the sentences. Sometimes when a specific word or the sentence in its totality wasn’t understood, mistakes were made in choosing the right word.
With the help of explanation, synonyms (in English and/or Dutch), pictures and my own grand drawings (ahem), I succeeded in explaining words like pigs, curly, wardrobe, poodle and couch/sofa. However I had a lot of difficulty explaining the meaning of ‘unless’. Finally I rephrased sentence number 18. in order to explain the meaning of this word.

- I gave an exercise about the use of a/an to the advanced student. (http://www.rhlschool.com/eng2n26.htm) This exercise was meant as a revision. While he was busy with that I thought of practicing the parts of the face with the beginners. I wrote the following on the green board: Where ___ your ____? Then we practiced with e.g. ‘Where is your nose?’ – My nose is here (pointing towards your nose). Then I also said: My nose is ‘here’ and your nose is ‘there’. The difference between ‘here’ and ‘there’ also became clear.
I explained them the difference between the use of ‘is’ and ‘are’ i.e. ‘is’ is used for singular and ‘are’ is used for plural. We also did a mini practice with singular and plural i.e. 1 ear and 2 ears. Like this they knew whether they were supposed to use ‘is’ or ‘are’. I was very glad with this exercise. Usually I need other people in the class to translate their message to me and vice versa, but today the whole communication was a grand success. Since there were very few students present today, I could give everyone a lot more attention than I normally can.

- I checked the a/an exercise of the advanced student, explained him the concept of the use of ‘a’ and ‘an’ once more and then went through the whole exercise with him.

Lesson no. 8

Lesson no. 8
3 July 2009 / Friday
(16:05 – 17:40)

Topics of the day:

General class:
Opposites (Part 1)

Beginners:
Actions – What is happening in the pictures? (Part 2)

PART 1:
I used a handout from last year about ‘opposites’. I explained the students what was meant by the word ‘opposites’. The students were asked to choose the right opposites from the list and make sentences of the words and their opposites. The handout that was used is as follows:

PART 2:
While the students were busy with the handout I explained another handout to the beginners. It was about actions. I asked the students to look at the pictures and write what was taking place in them e.g. He is cooking. The handout can be found below:

While the beginners were busy with their handout, I went back to the general class. I went through the list of all words and explained each word that wasn’t clear. We also discussed the first part of the exercise i.e. finding the opposites of all the words. The moods were placed in the handout as an extra item and were explained. Any new or confusing words were explained.

Some other words that were explained in connection to this handout are as follows:
- the use of beautiful (for women or things) and handsome (for men)
- narrow-minded vs. broad-minded
- negative vs. positive (can be used for + and -, but also for humans and feeling)

Lesson no. 7

Lesson no. 7

1 July 2009 / Wednesday

(16:05 – 17:50)

Topics of the day:
General:
Actions (Part 1)
Possessive pronouns (Part 4)

Beginner:
Appointments (Part 2)

Advanced:
Make or Do? (Part 3)

PART 1:
I had a handout about actions for the last lesson but since we didn’t work on it then, I used it for this lesson. The task on the top of the handout says it all: What is happening in each picture? The following handout was distributed to the students:

The following vocabulary (including spelling) was written on the green board when a student asked the spelling of a word.
- coming
- going (back)
- singing
- listening to music
- drinking (a glass of) water/milk
- eating food
- writing
- showing a picture/photo
- reading
- running
- crying
- smiling
- standing
- sitting
- laughing
- sleeping
- waking up
- pushing
- pulling

The students used their imagination to make sentences that described the pictures in the best possible way. I was amazingly shocked at the variety of sentences. :)

This was the main class exercise and the students were busy with this for the main part of the lesson.

PART 2:

While the rest of the students were busy with the handouts, I went to the beginner group. I had a handout from lesson 5 for them, which wasn’t discussed then. The handout can be found on: http://www.english-zone.com/grammar/appointments01.html

This handout was a revision for the days of the week. It was a good exercise because of several reasons:
- it contained keywords and not complete sentences --> it was therefore easier to understand for the students
- it taught the students how to read charts
- it was a good practice to try to find useful information from the given data
- it was a good communication practice with the students --> because the chart was simple, it helped me to explain everything in the simplest possible terms to the students.

It was a bit difficult to explain the exercise to the students, but with the help of some lovely students I had no problem in conveying my message; they translated for me. I helped the students with the exercise initially, but once they understood it they carried on with it.

When these students were done with this handout, I gave them the same handout as in PART 1. I asked the students to write a word or phrase that best explained the action in the picture. One student told me that he had difficulty in spelling words. I went through the alphabet with him and another student. Both of them knew the alphabet to a great extend. Then we tried to spell the word ‘Drink’ together with the help of sounds. And to my astonishment one student spelled it completely correctly. I was soooo happy :D

PART 3:
When the advanced students were done with the handout from part 1, I gave them a handout about the use of ‘make’ and ‘do’. The handout can be found on:
http://www.better-english.com/vocabulary/makedo.htm

The students found it a little difficult exercise.
There are certain expressions that most English speaking people would automatically know, but I think it was a good addition to the knowledge of the students. I plan to give one more exercise about this topic to the advanced students next time; it will be a good practice.

PART 4:
Eventually some attention was paid to possessive pronouns. I briefly explained the following:
I --> ‘my’ book
You --> ‘your’ book
He --> ‘his’ book
She --> ‘her’ book
It --> ‘Its’ book
We --> ‘Our’ book
They --> ‘Their’ book

After the explanation the following exercise was handed out:
http://www.english-4u.de/poss_pronouns_ex2.htm

Once everyone was done, everyone was asked to answer when it was their turn. I also wrote the first two sentences on the green board for some extra explanation.

Today was a really good lesson. 11 people were present and everything went well. :)