AZC English Teaching, Leiden, The Netherlands

Teaching Evaluation...

2009-08-17T07:25:00.000-07:00

Teaching evaluation

This two month teaching experience has added immensely to my life.

History:
If I wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity to teach English at the Asylum Seeker Centre (AZC) in Middelburg last year, I could never have come up with the idea of initiating English classes at the AZC in Leiden. Therefore, I must say I am much obliged to Vincent, who came up with the idea of starting the SARA committee at Roosevelt Academy, and to Djeyhoun, for coming up with this brilliant idea of teaching English at the AZC in Middelburg. Last year I realised for the first time in my life that I could teach and I loved the experience of doing something for the people. The best reward for a teacher is the appreciation his/her students show for his/her efforts and work. I come short of words if I try to describe the delight I get from teaching. Perhaps it was this infinite amount of positive energy that I got from teaching, that gave me the push to start this project in Leiden.

Teaching at Leiden:
First I’d like to thank Mr. Peter for believing in my motives and intentions and giving me permission to start this project at the AZC in Leiden. I’d also like to thank him, Mr. Jac and all staff members (including the security/reception staff) for their help and support at all times. : )

Teaching English at Leiden was somewhat different than in Middelburg. In Middelburg I was part of a group and therefore, I only taught 1-3 times every 2 weeks, depending on the number of teachers available in a certain week. In Leiden I was on my own and I taught twice a week for a period of two months. Initially I had to combine it with the last module of this university year, but soon the summer holidays started and I was a free bird.

Error Analysis:
In these two months, I have learned immensely from my mistakes, planning and the pressure of my responsibilities. Since I was teaching more frequently I could track my own progress by means of these evaluations. I started to improve my teaching methods e.g.
- I started putting the website links on top of the handouts, so that the students could trace the exercises and perhaps find more exercises related to the topic.
- When I first began with teaching, the first few weeks were a disaster what concerns the duration of the lessons. However, with some practice I mastered (well, kinda) the art of having each lesson from 16:00 and 17:30.
- I also became less chaotic when compared to the first few lessons. This point would need some thorough explanation I suppose :). My English class consisted of students with various levels of English. Actually I divided the class in three main levels, namely beginners, general and advanced. It was the difference in levels that resulted in a chaos initially. By chaos I mean to say that I was running from one end of the classroom to the other explaining things. However, after a few weeks matters became quite stable. I not only got a better idea as to how many handouts were needed for a lesson, but I also knew how to divide the lesson and my attention between these three groups.

I hope to have learned from my mistakes. It is after all practice what makes a man perfect! : P

My teaching at the AZC Leiden has come to an end since the Asylum Seeker Centre is closing. I’m not entirely sure about my future plans in connection to teaching (English). I’ll try to begin a teaching activity soon as teaching keeps my soul alive, happy and active. :)

For questions, remarks and/or suggestions, please feel free to comment on this post... :)

Once again my thanks to everyone who helped me with this wonderful project :flowers:

Lesson no. 16

2009-08-07T05:50:00.003-07:00

Lesson no. 16
5 Augustus 2009 / Wednesday
(16:00 – 17:30)

No. of students present = 1

The following link was given to the student: www.learn4good.com/languages/index.htm . This is a very useful website. Both explanations and exercises about various topics can be found on this website.

Topics of today:
Articles
Prepositions

An explanation was given to the student about the use of articles (definite and indefinite).
Explanation - articles: http://www.learn4good.com/languages/evrd_grammar/articles.htm
Exercise 1 - articles: http://www.learn4good.com/languages/evrd_grammar/article_ex.htm
Exercise 2 - articles: http://www.learn4good.com/languages/evrd_grammar/article_ex2.htm

The explanation with the preposition exercise was explanatory in itself but it was still discussed. After each exercise I checked the exercise with the student and explained him why a certain answer was wrong.
Explanation & handout: http://www.learn4good.com/languages/evrd_grammar/adjectives_prepos.htm
.
P.S: On 7 August 2009 I planned to repeat this lesson once more since there was just one student last time, therefore before the lesson began I put the following explanation on the green board: (On 5 August 2009, the articles were explained in the same manner)

Lesson no. 15

2009-08-07T05:50:00.001-07:00

Lesson no. 15
31 July 2009 / Friday
(16:00 – 17:30)

Total number of students present = 3

Beginners:

The following vocabulary (in alphabetical order) was present on the handout:
busy / cold / cute / dangerous / famous / fast / fat / handsome / heavy / hungry / noisy / poor / rich / scary / sick / sleepy / strong / warm

The teaching method used this time was the same as during lesson 14.

General:
I found a reading comprehension exercise on http://www.learnenglish.de/vocabulary/jobs.htm#dialogue . I edited the text of the reading comprehension in the following way: I erased prepositions from a few places in the text, and put blanks there instead. I asked the students to fill in the right prepositions. Once this exercise was done, we used the complete text to answer MCQ’s related to the text: http://www.learnenglish.de/Games/Reading/ReadInterview.htm . The MCQ’s were of an average level but the preposition exercise was considered a bit difficult by the students.

I also had a conjunction exercise http://www.esoeonline.org/main-index/index-exercises/grammarexs/elem/elemconjunctions.htm
about the use of ‘so’, ‘but’ and ‘because’. This exercise was found relatively easy.

Since prepositions are always found difficult by the students, I plan to search for or assemble an explanatory handout for the next time.

One student also attempted a preposition exercise from one of the previous lessons.

Extra note

2009-08-07T05:49:00.006-07:00

1. Recently I started putting links on the handouts so that the students can see the source of the exercise and thus practice more exercises on that website if they like.
2. I plan to make a list of useful websites for learning English.

Lesson no. 14

2009-08-07T05:49:00.005-07:00

Lesson no. 14

29 July 2009 / Wednesday

(16:00 – 17:30)

No. of students present = 4 (2 beginners, 2 advanced)

Beginners:
I used http://iteslj.org/v/ei/verbs.html to prepare a handout. Before the lesson began I wrote down all the words present on the handout on the green board in alphabetical order. I handed out the exercise and explained each word. Most words were a repetition from previous lessons, however there were a few new words. Once all words were explained, I asked the students to attempt the exercise and choose the words that represented the pictures. This way of teaching was more successful than last time because when I was explaining the words written on the board, I asked the students to guess their meanings first. In this way I knew whether they were acquainted with the meaning of a word or not.
Once the exercise was finished I asked them to make sentences. Afterwards I asked both students to write 5 sentences each on the green board.
In constructing the sentences, different forms of the verb ‘to be’ were used:
I ‘am’, You ‘are’, He/She ‘is’, We ‘are’ and They ‘are’.
The following vocabulary was discussed today:
Bloom / Cook / Cough / Clean / Climb / Cry / Dance / Drink / Fight / Get married / Look / Paint / Pull / Shout / Sit / Ski / Sleep / Smile / Smoke / Swim / Think / Wait / Wake up / Walk / Write

The handout can be found below:

Advanced:
For the advanced (and general) group I had written explanations of the handouts on the green board beforehand. The advanced students were taught the following topics:
- comparative/superlative (2 handouts: 1 from last time, 1 for this time)
- prepositions (only one student attempted this exercise)

The explanation of the comparatives as written on the green board can be found below:

I wasn’t well-acquainted about the rules when to double the consonant in a words when converting it to the comparative or superlative form. Therefore, for Friday I’ll check the rules and explain them.
Another difficulty was guessing whether a word ended in ‘–er’ (‘-est’) or whether ‘more’ (‘most’) was added in front of the word. Using the right form of the comparative and/or superlative can be learned by practice.

Link for this time: http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=1140
Link 1 from last time: http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=2065
Link 2 from last time: http://www.myenglishgrammar.com/english/exercise-3-adjectives.html

One student who wasn’t present last time, found today’s exercise a bit difficult, therefore I gave him the exercise from last time first. After finishing it, he managed well with today’s exercise.

The second topics dealt with the use of conjunctions ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘so’ and ‘or’.
Link: http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/coconj1.htm
Their explanation as written on the board can be found below:

This exercise wasn’t marked as difficult by the students.

Only one student attempted the exercise about the third topic ‘prepositions’ - use of ‘at, about, on, etc’.
Link: http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/structures/gerund_prepositions.htm

The student found the exercise quite difficult. It was a very informative exercise in the sense that it taught the use of prepositions in combination with other words --> there are certain expression that need to be learned. The following expressions were used in this exercise:
- good ‘at’ playing volleyball
- complains ‘about’ bullying
- afraid ‘of’ losing
- feel ‘like’ working
- looking forward ‘to’ going out
- dreams ‘of’ living on a small island
- apologized ‘for’ being late
- agree ‘with’ staying in a foreign country
- insisted ‘on’ going out
- thinks ‘of’ climbing trees

Lesson no. 13

2009-08-07T05:49:00.003-07:00

Lesson no. 13
24 July 2009 / Friday
(16:00 – 17:30)

Topics of the day:
Beginners: common nouns
General (and Advanced): Comparatives/Superlatives

Beginners:
I used http://iteslj.org/v/ei/nouns.html to assemble a handout about common nouns, which referred to objects and animals. The handout can be found below:

The following vocabulary was present on the handout (in alphabetical order):
Baseball / Beaver / Bicycle / Bowling / Bus / Cake / Car / Carrot / Cat / Cheese / Coffee / Computer / Dog / Egg / Elephant / Face / Fruit / Gorilla / Guitar / Hamburger / Hospital / House / Ice-cream / Laundry / Love / Music / Orange / Penguin / Person / Pizza / Salad / Snake / Strawberry / T-shirt / Umbrella / Vegetables / Wine

General:
Today comparatives and superlatives were explained to the students. After the explanation an exercise was given to the students: http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=2065. Once a student was done with this exercise, I checked it and discussed it with him/her and handed him/her the second exercise: http://www.myenglishgrammar.com/english/exercise-3-adjectives.html.
This was a new topic for most students and the students didn’t entirely consider it to be an easy one. Initially I had three exercises but since we didn’t have so much time during the lesson, I will use the last exercise (which is two pages long) for next time.

Lesson no. 12

2009-08-07T05:49:00.001-07:00

Lesson no. 12

22 July 2009 / Wednesday

(16:00 – 17:30)

Today it wasn’t very busy in the class: 4 students in total.

PART 1:
I briefly explained the general students what question words were (who, when, why, what, where, how, etc) and gave them a written explanation and two exercises to work on.
Link of explanation: http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/grammar/question_words.htm
Link of Exercise 1: http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/questions/question_words.htm
Link of Exercise 2: http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/exercises/questions/question_words2.htm

Overall it was an easy-to-do exercise for the students.
.
PART 2:
In the mean time I was busy with the beginners. I used the following website (http://iteslj.org/v/ei/furniture.html) to assemble the pictures and their respective options, as present in the quiz, on one page. Below you can find how the handout turned out to be:

I explained the students all the words that were present on the handout. Since the topic was ‘furniture’, I could show most of the objects mentioned in the handout also in the class room. Once we were done with the exercise i.e. encircling the word that described the picture, I asked the students to choose ten words they liked and make sentences with them. I needed the help of another students to convey this message to them though.
.
PART 3:
For the general group I also had an exercise about four conjunctions namely ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘or’ and ‘so/therefore’. I explained them what conjunctions were and when each of these four conjunctions was used. The students could then work on the exercise. This exercise can be found on: http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/coconj1.htm
.
PART 4:
After a while Ì asked the beginner students one by one to read out a sentence they had written. And we practiced different types of sentences together. It was a good exercise because the students could practice their conversational skills and think about words to use in the their sentences. Once the board was full the students were given the chance to write down the sentences.
.
PART 5:
After checking the exercise about conjunctions (which was done by only one student), I wanted to explain a few things about the simple present. Last time we did some practice with the simple present and some mistakes were made quite often by students, therefore before the lesson started I had written an explanation of all the things, which you can find below:

Lesson no. 11

2009-08-07T05:48:00.000-07:00

Lesson no. 11
17 July 2009 / Friday
(16:05 – 17:40)

Topics of the day:
Beginners: Weather (mainly adjectives)
General: Simple Present
Advanced: Synonyms

Beginners:
A repetition of the weather was done with the help of the following handouts:
http://www.eslkidslab.com/worksheets/set2/weatherworksheets/weatherwordsearch.pdf
http://www.eslkidslab.com/worksheets/set2/weatherworksheets/weathercross.pdf

The following vocabulary was discussed during he lesson:
Cloudy – Sunny / Cold – Hot / Dry – Wet / Rainy / Snowy / Windy

General class:

I found a very useful exercise about the simple present on the website of englisch-hilfen.de. I’m not entirely sure what the url of the website is from which I took the exercise, but I have it on my laptop in an adobe document. I’ve added this handout below:

Advanced:

I found a very interesting exercise on http://wwwedu.ge.ch/cptic/prospective/projets/anglais/exercises/pv1.htm. In this exercise a sentence was given and a part of the sentence was written in capital letters. The students were asked to rephrase the part in capital letters. This was a very helpful exercise for vocabulary building as the students looked for synonyms or expressions with a similar meaning in order to say the same thing some what differently.
This exercise also contained some difficult words (e.g. abolish, surrender, yield) which needed some explanation.
What concerns vocabulary building, this was a very useful exercise.

Class of 15 July 2009/Wednesday...

2009-07-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

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

Lesson no. 10

2009-07-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-08T10:23:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-08T03:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-01T16:50:00.000-07:00

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. :)

Lesson no. 6

2009-06-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

Lesson no. 6

26 June 2009 / Friday

(16:05 – 17:50)

Topics of the day:
General class: (Part 1 and Part 4)
- Questions
- Articles: A/An
- At/In
- For/Since?

Beginners: (Part 2)
- Days of the week

Advanced: (Part 3)
- More practice with ‘For or Since’ (along with the handouts for the general class --> Part 1)

PART 1:
Today many students showed up for the English class. :) I had an exam till 12:00, therefore I had planned to prepare today’s lesson after my exam. I used the lesson evaluations from last year to choose a handout I had made then. After some struggle I decided to choose a handout about ‘Questions and answers’.

There are certain words we use in order to ask questions e.g. what, when, where, which, who, why, how. One by one these words were written on the board and the students were asked to make a sentence (a question) with these words. Once the question was written on the board, an answer to the question was given by a fellow student and written on the board as well. I found it a useful and interactive exercise.

The following handouts linked to this explanation were distributed in the class:
Handout:

PART 2:
Once I was done with the general class, I decided to explain the days of the week to the beginners. Initially I found it a bit difficult to explain certain things because of the language barrier. I asked some other students to translate a few things for me, and for the rest I relied on my body language and gestures. The handout can be found below:
Days of the Week: http://english-zone.com/grammar/calendar2.html
(and for the ‘Days of the Week’ study chart, see: http://english-zone.com/grammar/days.html)

PART 3:
One student from last time was present today as well, and as promised I gave him a few more exercises about the use of ‘For and Since’. Once he was done, he was given an answer sheet to check his answers. Afterwards I also went to him to clear any doubts about the mistakes he had made. The handout can be found below:
http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-m_for-since.htm --> explanation about ‘For or Since’
http://www.eclecticenglish.com/grammar/PresentPerfect1D.html --> for the first two exercises
http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs-m_for-since_quiz.htm --> for the third exercise

PART 4:
Since there were many students with different levels of English in the class today, some were very fast with the first handout while others struggled a little bit with it. It was a little chaotic in the class today because I was going from one side of the classroom to the other, giving students new handouts and explaining them things that were unclear. The handouts from the previous lesson about ‘A/An’, ‘At/In’ and ‘For or Since?’ were given to the students. (For these handouts see the lesson evaluation of lesson no. 5: http://azcleidenenglishteaching.blogspot.com/2009/06/lesson-no-5.html )
.
P.S: I will make an attendance list of the students after finishing my lesson evaluation and I will mail it to Mr. Peter.

Lesson no. 5

2009-06-23T10:08:00.000-07:00

Lesson no. 5

23 June 2009 / Tuesday

(16:05 – 17:45)

Topics of the day:
- Adjectives and Infinitives
- Articles: A/An
- For/Since?
- At/In

Today there were only three students in the class. I think that the change in the timetable wasn’t seen and understood by the others; or there might be another reason for their absence.

Initially I had two handouts for the beginners, 3 handouts for the non-beginners (general and advanced) and 1 handout for the advanced students. This might sound a bit complicated, but I had decided to explain one general handout to the whole class and once they were busy with the exercise, I wanted to carry on with the beginners and explain them their handout.

Since there were only three students today, who belonged to the advanced group, I did the 3 handouts for non-beginners and 1 handout for advanced students with them.

Part 1: Adjectives and Infinitives

The exercise about adjectives and infinitives was done first. The exercise was handed out and the students were asked to choose the best option.

The following points were discussed in connection to this exercise:
Sentence 7.
The students aren’t prepared ____ the exam. (a. to take, b. to listen, c. to work)
The students aren’t prepared to take the exam. (this is correct!)
The students aren’t prepared to listen to the exam. (‘listen to’ isn’t an option here!)
The students aren’t prepared to work on the exam. (‘work on’ isn’t an option here!)

Sentence 11.
The form of the verb ‘to be’.
He is
Your brother = He, therefore we use: Your brother is

Sentence 17.
Women = plural
They are --> Women = They à therefore, Women are
(Also: 1 Woman --> 2 Women)
For the handout of Part 1, see: http://www.english-zone.com/teach/adj-inf1.html

Part 2: Articles: A/An

The explanation on top of the handout was explained and then the students were asked to answer the questions.

Explanation:
Vowels = a, e, i, o, u
Consonants = all the other letters in the alphabet except the vowels: b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z.

You use an: If a word begins with a vowel sound!!!
You use a: if a word begins with a consonant sound!!!

A few exceptions were discussed in connection to the use of a/an e.g. Hour
The word ‘Hour’ begins with the letter ‘h’ (a consonant), but the word ‘hour’ begins with an ‘o’ sound (vowel sound!!!), therefore we say an hour, instead of 'a hour'.

For the handout of Part 2, see: http://english-zone.com/grammar/a-an.html

Part 3: For/Since?

This was a very difficult part. It was more difficult for the students than I had expected. When the three students were busy with this exercise, I realized that it would have been a very difficult topic to be given in a general class if more people were present.

I used the explanation on top of the handout to explain the difference between for and since.

For = used for general periods of time
Since = used for a specific time

The first sentence from the handout was used to explain the difference between these two words. Some other sentences were also used.

I wrote the following on the green board, which was quite clear I think, if one wants to understand when to use which of both words:
When you know when something happened--> it is specific --> use since

Initially the exercise appeared to be difficult for the students, therefore I decided to look at each sentence. E.g. I have studied English for/Since two months. I asked the students whether ‘two months’ was specific or general. I asked them whether they knew about which two months we were talking here. Were we talking about the two months a few year ago or at the beginning of this year. Since there was no clear indication of a specific period of time, the students termed the phrase ‘two months’ as ‘general’. And as the rule says, we use ‘for’ if we talk about a ‘general period of time’.

One by one all sentences were studied, and the students were asked to decide whether a phrase referred to a specific or general period of time. It was a nice exercise as students got the chance to explain some things to each other. Sometimes one understands best if he/she explains it to others.

For the handout of Part 3, see: http://english-zone.com/grammar/sincefor.html

Part 4: At/In

Prepositions: e.g. on, in, under, above, below

The explanation on top of the handout was explained:
At: at home, at school, at work
In: in bed, in class, in jail, in prison

I didn’t know the exact rules as to when one should use ‘at’ and when one should use ‘in’, therefore after finding out the exact rules myself, next time I will explain them for sure.

For the handout of Part 4, see: http://www.english-zone.com/grammar/at-in1.html

Plan for next time:
There are a few things from this lesson that either need further elaboration (use of ‘at’ and ‘in’) or need further practice (use of ‘for’ and ‘since’). Therefore, along with preparing the main lesson I will keep in mind to do something about these two topics.

Lesson no. 4

2009-06-19T09:32:00.000-07:00

Lesson no. 4

19 June 2009 / Friday

(16:05 – 17:55)

Topic of today: City Maps & Directions

I started the class with asking the students to imagine if they were in another country for a holiday and they didn’t know the place very well. At such times one needs clear directions to get to a certain place. I first held a brainstorming session about the possible places/buildings that could be present in a city. At a certain point the whole green board was full with words. (In the end I’ll try to write as many words as I can remember from the brainstorming session.) It was a good practice what concerns vocabulary building. Below you’ll find list of some words that were mentioned:

Airport
AZC
Beauty parlour
Butchery
Cinema
Church/Mosque
Dentist
Harbour/Port
Hospital
Laboratory
Library
Museum
Pharmacy
Police Station
Post office
River/Lake/Sea/Ocean (I didn’t know the difference between these :$)
Salon
School
Shopping Mall
Supermarket
Town hall (‘stadhuis’)
Train Station
University

During the brainstorming session any unclear words were explained. Afterwards an imaginary map was drawn on the board, and some words from the green board were chosen and added in the map. The streets were given various names. It was a basic map used in order to explain the concept of giving directions. A blue dot was drawn, and ‘I am here’ was written next to it. Under it a green dot was drawn, and ‘I want to go here’ was written next to it. Then on the map I worked with blue and green dots to let our imaginary person get to the place of his dreams (if I may put it that way :P)

The following words were used in order to give directions:
Left (turn to the left/ turn left)
Right
Straight (go straight)
To cross the road
Next to/ close to/ near to
North/South/East/West
(Some phrases e.g. ‘across the street’, can also be found in the handout)

The handout was distributed and explained to students in small groups. (The handout is pasted below)

Some students were done with this handout quite quickly, therefore I gave them the backup-handout with present continuous and future tense.

Today’s class was really good The students were enthusiastic as always. There were three people who would like to begin with the very basics, as they speak almost no English. I need to think of a plan to do something about that. Further, the rest of the class is doing good. Some people are doing great and I’d try to make more handouts for them.
.
P.S: I mentioned that next week there is going to be a class on Tuesday 16:00 instead of Wednesday.
.
Handout:

Handout removed due to COPYRIGHT... check: http://www.english-zone.com/reading/citymap01.html for the handout I used during the class.

Lesson no. 3

2009-06-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

Lesson no. 3

17 June 2009 / Wednesday

(16:30 – 17:55)

I needed to make some eleventh hour changes to the lesson plan of today. I had made a lesson plan yesterday but when I began to check the exercises from last time I noticed that many people didn’t understand the concept of telling the time entirely. Since the explanation about this topic was still fresh in the minds of the students, I thought it was best to clear all the doubts that remained about this topic first. (The lesson preparation that was meant for today will be used on Friday)

The lesson was started with drawing a clock on the board (just like last time). This time instead of explaining everything myself I asked students to tell the time. The explanation and the questioning were integrated.

This time there were two teachers in the class i.e. me and Ruben. He was a great help. I asked him to take over a few times so that he could continue with the general lesson about telling the time, in which each student was invited to the board to tell the time portrayed at the clock we drew. In the mean time I could explain this topic to new students, latecomers and to students who didn’t understand it completely.
(The handouts consisted of clocks in which the clock needed to be read by the students and they had to write the time in words e.g. twenty past one)

While the general class was taking place, handouts were given to the students so that they could work on them if they wanted.

Although I had prepared some extra and more difficult handouts for students who had asked for them, there were still a few students who were done even with them. So for next time I need multiple and more difficult handouts for some people.
(These handouts consisted of a story with 10 MCQ’s and a grammar handout about simple present and future tense with some exercises)

The months of the year were repeated and this time the students were also invited to come to the board to tell when they were born. It was a good idea of Ruben to ask the students to speak the sentences out loud, once they had written them. I’ve never done that but we all learn new things all the time :) Prepositions (e.g. on) and articles (e.g. the) were missing sometimes in sentences. But writing is a good practice not only for these two things but also for the spelling of the months.

Ruben was a great help today. I don’t know what I would have done without him. Thanks a bunch for your help :)

Error analysis:

- I forgot to tell the students about the timings of the lesson of Friday, as there were quite a few new students. (need to ask the COA to put it on the notice board tomorrow)
- There were a few new people in the class today, and I noticed again that the students have different levels of English. I didn’t have enough variety of handouts so I need to work on that.
- I forgot about the time. At 17:55 I saw the clock, and I was like :o we need to finish right away. I really need to prepare my lesson as if it is an hour lesson or a 45-minute lesson. This will probably give more structure to my lessons, but I really need to work on that.

Teaching proposal...

2009-06-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

Since I'm busy with the basics I think it is better to give the whole class a general lesson and exercises to work on in class and/or at home. There are a few students who could and who would like to do more exercises, therefore I'm going to prepare some handouts in the weekend for those students i.e. when they are done with the class exercise they can work on those exercises... and while the rest of the class is busy with their exercises I can still try to give individual attention and explanation to these students. I think this is the best option once there are students of different levels in a class. I also think that the everyone should know the basics well-enough, therefore according to me it would be useful for everyone to attend the general lesson.

Lesson no. 2

2009-06-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

Lesson no. 2
12 June 2009 / Friday
(15:10 – 17:25)

Intention:

(Also see the handouts at the end of the evaluation... I tried to make them as readable as possible in this blogpost...)

- Repetition of last lesson: this time I plan to make clear which questions should be asked in order to get the basic information about someone. Then I want the students to participate in a class dialogue and ask and answer each other’s questions. Since the introduction is a topic for everyone, I want the whole class to participate in it.

- The numbers 1 till 30 (also for the clock). (use handout from last time with the spelling of the numbers)

BREAK

- Days of the week (working days and weekends) --> What do you do on ___ ?

- Months of the year (Birthdays) & Seasons

BREAK

- Time (:00, :15, :30, :45)

Evaluation:

Part 1:
I started with the first part of the handout about the introduction. I briefly revised the few items we talked about last time with the help of the handout. I asked the first student the first question on the list ‘what is your name’ and he gave me an answer and then he/she asked the person sitting next to him/her the next question on the list (in this case ‘How old are you?’). Like this everyone got a chance to answer and ask a question.

Part 2:
The days of the week were mentioned and divided in the categories of working days and weekend.
Then I asked the first person in the row ‘What do you do on Monday?’. After giving an answer he/she asked the person sitting next to him/her what he/she did on Tuesday, etc.
The main question was written on the board before starting this class activity. Each answer given by the students was written on the board. This was a good activity mainly for both speaking and vocabulary building.
The following answers were mentioned by the students (I am writing the ones that I still remember… I neither got the time or the chance to write them down on a paper). I tried to pay some attention on sentence structure and the use of prepositions.
(note: The use of ‘X’ in the following sentences represents the name of a day of the week)
I watch tv on X.
I go to watch football on X.
I wash my clothes on X.
I like to sleep on X.
I go to the mosque on X.
I go to the football field on X.
I do shopping on X.
I go to the lesson on X.
I go to the church on X.
I go to school on X.

Part 3:
Months of the year: The names of the 12 months were written on the board. Then the main question: ‘When were you born?’, was asked. Each student was invited to come on the board and write their date of birth e.g. ‘I was born on 27 December 1986’. This was a good spelling exercise, because I think one learns best by writing a word. Another alternative to answer the main question was introduced by one of the students, namely ‘I was born on the 27th of December’

Part 4:
The students who began with part 3 were done quite early, and therefore I distributed the handouts about telling the time. These students began with these handouts, and since the rest of the group was still busy writing their date of birth on the board, I had enough time to look at the and also to explain the time to small groups of students. Sometimes it is better to explain difficult topics in small groups, and it helped to quite an extend. The exercises were a great practice. Once everyone was busy or done with the second handout I gave a general class about telling the time. I drew a clock on the board. I used a pink chalk to draw the hour hand (and made it significantly shorter than the long minute hand) and I used green color to make the minute hand. On the right side of the clock I also gave a key as to what color represented minutes and which one represented hours. I also made a big square bracket with one color on the right half of the clock, calling it the ‘past’ half and one on the other half and calling it the ‘to’ half.
‘Minute past/to hour’ was written on the board and I also told them ‘Minute always comes first’. This was a mnemonic to remember that the minute comes first when telling the time, and the hour next. The drawing of the clock with the explanation was very helpful. I explained the clock by drawing the hands of the clock at different times, and asked the students to try to give it a try to guess what time it was. This was an important and difficult topic, therefore I thought to call people to the board to write the time which referred to the drawing on the board. After a student was done, I changed the hands of the clocks for the next student. This was a good practice for writing numbers, because e.g. I asked the students to write ‘twenty past one’ instead of ‘20 past 1’.

Today’s lesson was approximately 2 hours long. That is quite long. There were breaks in between, but I never really said that we were taking a break. Next time I will try my best to keep some breaks in between :$

I really liked today’s lesson. Many people showed up and it was a lot of fun :)

I also mentioned the change in the timings of the Friday lesson and I’ll keep in mind to remind the students of the change during the next lesson too.

P.S:
There were a few things from the first lesson that I wanted to make clear e.g. the use of singular and plural form, and I actually forgot to do that. So that should be done on Wednesday.

Handouts:

Page 1:

Page 2:

Page 3:

Lesson no. 1

2009-06-10T10:28:00.000-07:00

Lesson no. 1

10 June 2009/Wednesday

Intention:

I intend to give an introduction lesson on 10 June 2009. I think it is important for the students and for me to know a little bit about each other. This will also be a great opportunity for all the students to get to know each other a little better.
Right now I am a little uncertain about the content of the lesson because I’m unsure about the level of English of the students. As a backup plan I’d like to think of 1 or 2 other topics which I can integrate in the lesson, if the introduction session finishes before the expected time.

Topics for tomorrow:

- Introduction (Greeting, Name, Country of Origin, Age (numbers), No. of years in NL, Family, Hobbies (verbs), Anything else)
- Introduce: I am, You are (singular And plural), He/She is, We are, They are (once everyone is done with introducing themselves, try to use imaginary (groups of) people to practice the use of the verb ‘to be’ with the correct pronoun.)

Handout:

Greetings:

Good morning / Good afternoon / Good evening.
Goodbye / Bye.

Introduction:

Name: My name is _________________. / I am _________________.
Country of Origin: I am from _________________.
Age: I am _________________ years old.
Stay in The Netherlands: I am living in The Netherlands for the last _________________ years and _______ months. (the months bit was added later!)
Family: I am _________________ (single / married).
I have ____________ brothers and _____________ sisters.
I have _____________ children.
Hobby: I like to _______________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________.

Numbers:

(this image is very vague here, but it was clear on the handouts... I need to learn how to use this blog :P But I suppose the concept is clear...)

Backup:

1. Adjectives: Use of Pronouns, the right form of the verb ‘to be’ and adjectives e.g. He is tall
2. Opposites: opposites of the adjectives used e.g. tall <---> short

Evaluation:

16:30
- I gave a brief introduction about myself.
- The basic things that should be mentioned when meeting a new person were mentioned i.e. name, age, country, family composition (married/single, children?, daughters/sons?), hobbies and work/job. I wrote each item in the right sentence on the board (as written in the handout) and asked the students to fill in the blanks.
- When we had practiced all the main items once, everyone was given a chance to tell something about themselves using the sentences on the board. This was a good practice because it not only added to the knowledge of the whole class about a certain individual but the students were also stimulated to think about possible hobbies and interests (see vocabulary list).

17:00
5 minute BREAK

17:05
- The use of the verb ‘to be’ with the correct pronoun: I am, You are (singular And plural), He/She is, We are, They are was explained. These were further used by students with the help of imaginary characters e.g. I wrote the following on the board: Tom, 32, married, doctor, and I asked the students to convey this information into correct English sentences.
- The handouts were distributed and everyone filled in their information on the handout.
- I asked the students to try to learn the spellings of the numbers from 1 till 20 + the spelling of the number that represented their age
- Before the class ended I took the handouts in order to check them. But just now I realize that the spellings of the numbers are on the handouts! (I suppose I need to be a bit alert next time…)

17:20
From 17:20 till 17:40 nothing much was done. I realized that there were two groups (two levels) and if I used my backup plan then it would have become too much for some people, therefore this time was spend in talking, clearing doubts and giving extra explanations. Some people used this time to copy the rest of the sentences from the board.

I think since I was a bit unsure about the lesson because it was the very first lesson, it was a bit difficult to plan the perfect lesson. I personally think it went kinda OK. There were a few people who found this quite easy, therefore I’m going to try to get some extra handouts or work for them for next time. I still need to invent a strategy to teach a lesson which can fulfil the demands of both groups.

Vocabulary in alphabetical order:

Age
Country
Engineering
Hobby
Iraqi
Laughing
Mechanical engineer
Nationality
Playing games
Reading
Somalian
To drive a car
To travel
Watching football
Watching movies

Problems & Attendance --> Mailed to Mr. Peter

1st Meeting

2009-06-03T14:27:00.001-07:00

2 June 2009/ Tuesday
1st Meeting (13:10 – 13:50)

Today I had the first meeting with Mr. Peter Geerlings. I signed a contract as a volunteer and he showed me around a little bit. It was a brief introduction session.
- Together we came up with a timetable for the English lessons. The classes will start from 10 June 2009. And there would be a class every Wednesday (16:30) and Friday (14:00). Each class would be approximately 1-1.5 hour long. The Wednesday lessons should always finish before 18:00 due to security reasons.
- If it isn’t possible for me to teach on a specific day I should try to seek contact with Mr. Peter via mail and I should also inform the students apart from putting the changes in the timetable on the notice board.
- I also met two teachers who teach Dutch at the AZC, but I forgot their names. :$
- I have been told to provide each student with a notebook (blok) and a pen.
- I have also been advised to preferably use one classroom, because it would be easier for me and the students.