I redeemed myself today. I had to teach a 40 minute lesson, doing practice of the past simple, regular and irregular. I started out with “stand up if you ___ yesterday.” Everyone is sitting, except one person, who has to say the sentence, using their own verb. Then the people who stand up have to try to sit down in someone else’s chair. This exercise is guaranteed to work, and the students will have fun.

Next I had them do a picture story jigsaw, where they had to work with a partner to put pictures in order to tell a story, then write a story. It worked will, but I should have told them not to write, so they could get speaking practice. It turned out that they spent a lot of time writing, and when I had them read, the other groups didn’t pay attention. This was pretty much the only criticism my instructor had.

For the final exercise I had them all write something down that happened to them in the past. I wanted to have them freely discuss their sentences in groups then, but it took them a lot longer to come up with and write things than I expected. They are, after all, elementary level. So I only had about two minutes for speaking. I made sure everyone got a turn talking. I’m always worried about having extra time, but the opposite is always true. All three of us who went today were assessed as “Above Standard,” which was encouraging. I only have to teach two more times, but they will be 55 minute lessons.

Homework in the park

After my run in the park, a Thai student asked me if I could answer some questions for him for school. Students sometimes have surveys, so I thought I would give it a go. I looked at his paper, which was a ridiculous argument that Izod clothes, the expensive ones with the little alligators on them, promote the hunting of alligators. I asked him if he believed that, but he didn’t understand me. I looked at the questions, and quickly realized that the were the kind of questions we learn to write in the CELTA course to get students to skim a text. I told him I wasn’t going to do his homework for him, but he didn’t understand.