Andrew Aigner-MuehlerChapter 15 - What to teach...Lessons 13 to 28
March 25th 2009 12:05
Following on from an earlier chapter where I mentioned what I taught in lessons seven to twelve. I will do the same in this chapter starting from lesson thirteen.
At this point in time, we have just came back from a 5 week holiday which was meant to be a 40 day break which turned into having 50 day break.
Like I mentioned earlier in a previous chapter, the first lesson back was just for the students to get to know the way I talk again, understand my accent and to settle back in. This chapter, I just talked to them about their spring festival/ winter holidays, and my holiday in Australia which included showing them a couple local newspapers from Adelaide which showed the bushfires in Victoria. The students love pictures. Pictures must tell 1000 words to them. They also liked the calendars that I showed them of pictures from Australia.
What I have planned this semester to teach the grade one students is, but firstly, I should mention also that this semester I do not have any grade two classes, I just have the grade ones, which I may be teaching the same students as I taught last semester as all the classes have changed and been mixed up. Getting back to what I have planned for the semester is to teach them again a topic one week which is a day to day activity, something that you do every day or every week and then every second week to play a game which they still learn from.
In planning my topics, I want to pass something on to the students that I have came up against on my years of traveling, especially on my travels to China, as the language barrier, has been a very big barrier to me, something that they will come up against when they travel to a country which does not speak Chinese.
Anyway, lesson fourteen was a topic about what you say and do when you put on house telephone or buying a mobile phone/ sim card. Getting them use to words that are associated with this. I also did a few role plays, and got them to answer certain questions. Towards the end of the lesson, I taught them how to answer a telephone in English, and what a polite way is to answer a business and personal call. I ended the lesson with talking to them about reverse charge calls and collect calls.
Lesson 15, which was the next lesson. I played a game which I stole from a television show in Australia. ‘Good News Week’ being the show. There is a segment on the show where a celebrity contestant from a team of three has to mime out a news article for the other two members of the team, which they have to guess. What I did is. I searched CCTV and Ninemsn website for local and world stories, wrote them down on a notepad neatly. Then I highlighted certain words in yellow, which they had to mime to the class. Just a warning, it is hard to get the first student up, due to the low confidence and shy factor, but once you have one up, students then will be putting up their hand to do it. They will want to do it. They loved this game they had a laugh at themselves and at other people. This game will help them when and if they go to another country who does not speak their language, as I do it now in China, I use my hands to talk, I try to explain and tell things by using my hands. The last ten minutes of the lesson, I had to choose a winner out of the students who mimed, so what I got them to do, is to their name on the board going down, and then explained what I wanted them to do, which was to write a word next to each letter that started with that letter which described them. The first one finish with correct spelling, won. I then gave something small to the winner. If you want to play a game with them, I suggest a miming game is a great way to go.
Lesson 16, was again a topic where I taught them words associated with a post office, what you say and do when you go to a post office, I explained the difference between a post office in China than a post office in another English country. I also asked them some questions which I was saying the answer in the question but I just wanted them to open their mouth, and get English around their tongue. At the end of the lesson, I just finished of the lesson with a quick 5 or 10 minute game to motivate them and put some life into them. I played a word chain link game. Where one student said a word, it may have been teacher and then the next student has to say a word starting with the last letter. I gave them 3 seconds, if they could think of a word they were out. If the word did not start with that letter, they were out. It is a good game to get them thinking quickly.
Lesson 17, was again a game which this time I stole from BBC in the United Kingdom. The show being 'Countdown'. I tried to play the game like the show, but instead, I had teams. The desk going across the room were separate teams, and their team mates were the students directly behind them in that row. I invited each row up, on at a time. I got each student to say any letter from the alphabet, they could repeat letters if they wanted. then I gave them 30 seconds to come up with the biggest word. you need to let them know when a 3 letter word has been written and then a four letter word and so on. You will get students who will write 5 and 6 letter words from 8 letters. In a 45 minute lesson, each row should have two turns each. Then the team which won, I got back up the front and decided the winner by a mathematical equation, just like the real game. I gave them numbers, for example 4,7,6,8,2. I then told them they could only use each number once, and they have to use the ,-,x,/ signs, and they can only use once also. Then I said these numbers equal 41. Like usual it is best to show a example first. The equation for this example was 7 8=15, 15x6=90, 90/2=45 and 45-4=41. The second game seems harder for them than the first game, but watch them and see how fast they do it. They work it out in 2 minutes, some of the classes take it a little longer. With the first game, you may have to be patient, it may take 3 or 4 rows before they pick up on it, it doesnt matter how well you explain and show it, they will not pick it up straight away, which surprised me. If you say before the game, do they know their alphabet, they will look strangely at you, then you write it on the board, still nothing, you then say, the 26 letters, still nothing, but when you start to say the alphabet, they know it. This is a fun game for them, but they do like the mathematicak equation a little more. You may think it is not English, but it is, you still have to explain, and for them to listen.
Lesson 18, was a topic. This week was the last topic on 'what you say and do' when you go somewhere. This week was going to the bank. Starting of with word association. Words that are used on a day to day basis, words that they need to know when they travel or work overseas for example 'deposit' they know as save, 'withdrawal' they know as take out, 'foreign exchange' as they know as change money. Also mention other words like teller, customer, bank manager, (TT) telegraphic transfer, internet banking, logos on the cards, atms and then move onto questions which consist of how to ask where a bank is if lost, how to send money home, where to go change money, asking if you can use your bank card at the banks atm, again just questions that you will ask when you go to a bank, this is too just get the students to open their mouth and practise English. The questions I asked had the answers in the questions, but I just wanted the students to ask a quesion from it.
Lesson 19, was again a game week, the first game that I played was a game that I just thought of on the train from Chengde to Harbin. I name it 'five things' or 'fast words'. I again broke the students into teams. The desks going across the class were separate teams, and then the students directly behind the front row students were their team mates. The students remained seated. When I asked a simple question like "The first student to write 5 of the 6 continents on the board will win a point for their team", then the students from that row raced to the front to quickly write 5 words. Other questions may be 5 stationery items on your desk, 5 things that you see out of the window or 5 things that you are wearing. Go through the class twice and move on to the second game, the final. Like usual when they play games they get over excited, this game actually went down better than I thought. The reason I thought of this game was to get them to listen and understand me and then to think quickly of certain words, and then to spell them correctly. The winning team went into the final which was 'battleships', of which I drew three 5 by 5 squared grids on the blackboard, with the axis going across being 'A to E' and the axis going down '1 to 5'. With the middle grid I explained to them, on the piece of paper that I will give you, plot or place three ships, one by two squared ship, one by three squared ship and a one by four squared ship. I showed them on the board how to place them. Just a bit of warning, you do need to explain quite well. Then to play, you tell the students, in turns you will have the chance to fire or sink the other teams ships or boats, by saying " I want to hit A5" if that is part of the boat, it is hit, mark the grid on the board with a 'H' if it is not part of the boat, mark it with a ''X' for miss. The first one to sink the other teams boat will win.
Now to lesson 20, was a topic week of which I handed each student a handout. This handout was actually picked up from my travels in Taiwan from a learning English store (E.S.L store). This handout was based on history that has happened throughout the world, and also was a multiple choice handout. After talking to each classes after their normal English exams, they tell me, they have trouble with reading and multiple choice, hence why I did this topic.
Lesson 21 was once again a game. This game was taken from the Australian and North American televison show 'Family Feud'. I had five rounds. Each round consisted of needing 10 words to do with the question. The question may have been 10 countries that speak English as a main language, the next one was 8 fruits that are mainly in a fuit salad, the next was 10 things that you see on a table when you go to a English restaurant (make sure you group all the crockery/ glasses as one and then all cutlery as one), the next one was the main 8 items that a student would buy for school and then by that you should be down to two students, and the final one was 8 items of furniture that you would see in a house. Obviously you can change your questions. The way I started this was dividing the class into half at the start, right down the middle. Then I asked the question, the first side to answer a question with one of the answers I had, got the chance to name them all first. When the side got one wrong, I then swapped sides, which that team only had to come up with one correct answer, if they got it right they went through to the next round, if they got it wrong they are out. If they got it right, the other team is out. From there, I then split the second team into two, and repeated it until I got down to two and then the winner. You just keep on splitting the winning team into two. With the English as the main language question, I did give them, a couple chances by saying are you sure, that country is a mainly English spoken country, if I got two sure's, I either said wong or right. It turned out to be a good game to play.
Lesson 22 was a topic that I talked about Australia. The students will keep on asking you to tell them something about the way you live, hence me doing a topic on Australian culture, customes and etiquette. I started off with some stats like location, capital, climate, population, ethnic make up, government, and language but I also asked the student what the equilavent is in China. After that I moved into the history, just mentioning how Australia came around and then moved into etiquette like dining, when you first meet someone and gift giving. Again I asked the students what they do in China so then they know the difference.
Lesson 23 was once again a game which I decided to play the game that i finished off last semester with which they all enjoyed, and that was wheel of fortune.
Lesson 24 was a lesson of two parts, the first part of the lesson was again something that the students asked me to do and that was places to visit in Australia. I drew a map of Australia on the blackboard, and then asked the students, what do they know of in Australia? where do they want to go? what do they want to know? I spent around 20 minutes on this, just mentioning the normal tourist attractions and/or routes that tourist usually take and mentioning a few things about each attraction. The second part of the lesson was a game. The game was the yes/no game which I played the game them (the students) versus me. I started off with asking the students questions where they just answered yes or no too, if they got it right, they get one point, they get it wrong, I get on point, after a dozen or so, I asked them to ask me questions, if I got it right, I get a point, I get it wrong they get a point. I got a good response from this game. They always like to beat the teacher. Just a warning in this, make sure you know what to say or do if they mention anything about the '3-T's', they will test you out.
Lesson 25 I once again played a game. It was the translation game. I played it boys versus girls. I chose the first boy and girl. Got them to the front. The boy stood under where I wrote girl and the girl stood under where i wrote boys on the blackboard.
I then got them to write 5 to 10 words to do with a topic, it may have been fruit or vegetables or family members in Chinese characters on the board. Then they changed over so the girl is under the girls side and the boy is on the boys side. I then got them to write each word in character into Chinese roma and then in English. The first one finished wins a point for their team. Once they have translated I checked for spelling, and got them to make sure my Chinese pronunciation is correct. They will love it.
Lesson 26 was getting them prepared for a oral assessment that I was about to do on them. Like most schools the foreign teachers have to grade them. The schools may not use our results or they will prbably change the results, but atleast I am doing my job. I started off the lesson with a quick warm up in getting them to tell me something about Chinese culture and if not that a Chinese word or phrase and also telling me what it means in English. They could not tell me the wrong thing as I knew a bit of Chinese anyway, but they do not know what I know. After 20 minutes I prepared them for their assesment. I wrote on the board as well as telling them that I need to assess their English and see where they are at, so the next week I will be assessing each of them. I told them they need to prepare a two minute talk on one of two topics. I wanted to make it easy on them, after all, I just needed to hear them talk. The topics that I thought off and gave them were: 1) if there was a person in the world (anyone) who they would like to have dinner with, who would it be? why would it be? and what would you ask them? after writing this on the board and telling them again, I gave an example, I used the Sir Richard Branson example for me, and spoke about what that man has done. The other topic was 2) everyone has a dream, dreams come true, you should follow your dreams. I want you to tell me about a dream of yours. What is it? why is it? where is it? with whom is it? how did it come? again after I wrote it on the board and told them again, I gave the example of what my dream was. I then had 10 minutes left at the end of the lesson which I gave to them to prepare. Just before the end of the lesson, I repeated it again and made sure they knew what was happening next week. It is upto you, but I also told the students how I will be grading them.
Lesson 26 were the oral assessments and I just went through the list of names they gave me at the start of the semester and one by one they came to the front and I assessed them
At this point in time, we have just came back from a 5 week holiday which was meant to be a 40 day break which turned into having 50 day break.
Like I mentioned earlier in a previous chapter, the first lesson back was just for the students to get to know the way I talk again, understand my accent and to settle back in. This chapter, I just talked to them about their spring festival/ winter holidays, and my holiday in Australia which included showing them a couple local newspapers from Adelaide which showed the bushfires in Victoria. The students love pictures. Pictures must tell 1000 words to them. They also liked the calendars that I showed them of pictures from Australia.
In planning my topics, I want to pass something on to the students that I have came up against on my years of traveling, especially on my travels to China, as the language barrier, has been a very big barrier to me, something that they will come up against when they travel to a country which does not speak Chinese.
Anyway, lesson fourteen was a topic about what you say and do when you put on house telephone or buying a mobile phone/ sim card. Getting them use to words that are associated with this. I also did a few role plays, and got them to answer certain questions. Towards the end of the lesson, I taught them how to answer a telephone in English, and what a polite way is to answer a business and personal call. I ended the lesson with talking to them about reverse charge calls and collect calls.
Lesson 16, was again a topic where I taught them words associated with a post office, what you say and do when you go to a post office, I explained the difference between a post office in China than a post office in another English country. I also asked them some questions which I was saying the answer in the question but I just wanted them to open their mouth, and get English around their tongue. At the end of the lesson, I just finished of the lesson with a quick 5 or 10 minute game to motivate them and put some life into them. I played a word chain link game. Where one student said a word, it may have been teacher and then the next student has to say a word starting with the last letter. I gave them 3 seconds, if they could think of a word they were out. If the word did not start with that letter, they were out. It is a good game to get them thinking quickly.
Lesson 17, was again a game which this time I stole from BBC in the United Kingdom. The show being 'Countdown'. I tried to play the game like the show, but instead, I had teams. The desk going across the room were separate teams, and their team mates were the students directly behind them in that row. I invited each row up, on at a time. I got each student to say any letter from the alphabet, they could repeat letters if they wanted. then I gave them 30 seconds to come up with the biggest word. you need to let them know when a 3 letter word has been written and then a four letter word and so on. You will get students who will write 5 and 6 letter words from 8 letters. In a 45 minute lesson, each row should have two turns each. Then the team which won, I got back up the front and decided the winner by a mathematical equation, just like the real game. I gave them numbers, for example 4,7,6,8,2. I then told them they could only use each number once, and they have to use the ,-,x,/ signs, and they can only use once also. Then I said these numbers equal 41. Like usual it is best to show a example first. The equation for this example was 7 8=15, 15x6=90, 90/2=45 and 45-4=41. The second game seems harder for them than the first game, but watch them and see how fast they do it. They work it out in 2 minutes, some of the classes take it a little longer. With the first game, you may have to be patient, it may take 3 or 4 rows before they pick up on it, it doesnt matter how well you explain and show it, they will not pick it up straight away, which surprised me. If you say before the game, do they know their alphabet, they will look strangely at you, then you write it on the board, still nothing, you then say, the 26 letters, still nothing, but when you start to say the alphabet, they know it. This is a fun game for them, but they do like the mathematicak equation a little more. You may think it is not English, but it is, you still have to explain, and for them to listen.
Lesson 18, was a topic. This week was the last topic on 'what you say and do' when you go somewhere. This week was going to the bank. Starting of with word association. Words that are used on a day to day basis, words that they need to know when they travel or work overseas for example 'deposit' they know as save, 'withdrawal' they know as take out, 'foreign exchange' as they know as change money. Also mention other words like teller, customer, bank manager, (TT) telegraphic transfer, internet banking, logos on the cards, atms and then move onto questions which consist of how to ask where a bank is if lost, how to send money home, where to go change money, asking if you can use your bank card at the banks atm, again just questions that you will ask when you go to a bank, this is too just get the students to open their mouth and practise English. The questions I asked had the answers in the questions, but I just wanted the students to ask a quesion from it.
Lesson 19, was again a game week, the first game that I played was a game that I just thought of on the train from Chengde to Harbin. I name it 'five things' or 'fast words'. I again broke the students into teams. The desks going across the class were separate teams, and then the students directly behind the front row students were their team mates. The students remained seated. When I asked a simple question like "The first student to write 5 of the 6 continents on the board will win a point for their team", then the students from that row raced to the front to quickly write 5 words. Other questions may be 5 stationery items on your desk, 5 things that you see out of the window or 5 things that you are wearing. Go through the class twice and move on to the second game, the final. Like usual when they play games they get over excited, this game actually went down better than I thought. The reason I thought of this game was to get them to listen and understand me and then to think quickly of certain words, and then to spell them correctly. The winning team went into the final which was 'battleships', of which I drew three 5 by 5 squared grids on the blackboard, with the axis going across being 'A to E' and the axis going down '1 to 5'. With the middle grid I explained to them, on the piece of paper that I will give you, plot or place three ships, one by two squared ship, one by three squared ship and a one by four squared ship. I showed them on the board how to place them. Just a bit of warning, you do need to explain quite well. Then to play, you tell the students, in turns you will have the chance to fire or sink the other teams ships or boats, by saying " I want to hit A5" if that is part of the boat, it is hit, mark the grid on the board with a 'H' if it is not part of the boat, mark it with a ''X' for miss. The first one to sink the other teams boat will win.
Now to lesson 20, was a topic week of which I handed each student a handout. This handout was actually picked up from my travels in Taiwan from a learning English store (E.S.L store). This handout was based on history that has happened throughout the world, and also was a multiple choice handout. After talking to each classes after their normal English exams, they tell me, they have trouble with reading and multiple choice, hence why I did this topic.
Lesson 21 was once again a game. This game was taken from the Australian and North American televison show 'Family Feud'. I had five rounds. Each round consisted of needing 10 words to do with the question. The question may have been 10 countries that speak English as a main language, the next one was 8 fruits that are mainly in a fuit salad, the next was 10 things that you see on a table when you go to a English restaurant (make sure you group all the crockery/ glasses as one and then all cutlery as one), the next one was the main 8 items that a student would buy for school and then by that you should be down to two students, and the final one was 8 items of furniture that you would see in a house. Obviously you can change your questions. The way I started this was dividing the class into half at the start, right down the middle. Then I asked the question, the first side to answer a question with one of the answers I had, got the chance to name them all first. When the side got one wrong, I then swapped sides, which that team only had to come up with one correct answer, if they got it right they went through to the next round, if they got it wrong they are out. If they got it right, the other team is out. From there, I then split the second team into two, and repeated it until I got down to two and then the winner. You just keep on splitting the winning team into two. With the English as the main language question, I did give them, a couple chances by saying are you sure, that country is a mainly English spoken country, if I got two sure's, I either said wong or right. It turned out to be a good game to play.
Lesson 22 was a topic that I talked about Australia. The students will keep on asking you to tell them something about the way you live, hence me doing a topic on Australian culture, customes and etiquette. I started off with some stats like location, capital, climate, population, ethnic make up, government, and language but I also asked the student what the equilavent is in China. After that I moved into the history, just mentioning how Australia came around and then moved into etiquette like dining, when you first meet someone and gift giving. Again I asked the students what they do in China so then they know the difference.
Lesson 23 was once again a game which I decided to play the game that i finished off last semester with which they all enjoyed, and that was wheel of fortune.
Lesson 24 was a lesson of two parts, the first part of the lesson was again something that the students asked me to do and that was places to visit in Australia. I drew a map of Australia on the blackboard, and then asked the students, what do they know of in Australia? where do they want to go? what do they want to know? I spent around 20 minutes on this, just mentioning the normal tourist attractions and/or routes that tourist usually take and mentioning a few things about each attraction. The second part of the lesson was a game. The game was the yes/no game which I played the game them (the students) versus me. I started off with asking the students questions where they just answered yes or no too, if they got it right, they get one point, they get it wrong, I get on point, after a dozen or so, I asked them to ask me questions, if I got it right, I get a point, I get it wrong they get a point. I got a good response from this game. They always like to beat the teacher. Just a warning in this, make sure you know what to say or do if they mention anything about the '3-T's', they will test you out.
Lesson 25 I once again played a game. It was the translation game. I played it boys versus girls. I chose the first boy and girl. Got them to the front. The boy stood under where I wrote girl and the girl stood under where i wrote boys on the blackboard.
I then got them to write 5 to 10 words to do with a topic, it may have been fruit or vegetables or family members in Chinese characters on the board. Then they changed over so the girl is under the girls side and the boy is on the boys side. I then got them to write each word in character into Chinese roma and then in English. The first one finished wins a point for their team. Once they have translated I checked for spelling, and got them to make sure my Chinese pronunciation is correct. They will love it.
Lesson 26 was getting them prepared for a oral assessment that I was about to do on them. Like most schools the foreign teachers have to grade them. The schools may not use our results or they will prbably change the results, but atleast I am doing my job. I started off the lesson with a quick warm up in getting them to tell me something about Chinese culture and if not that a Chinese word or phrase and also telling me what it means in English. They could not tell me the wrong thing as I knew a bit of Chinese anyway, but they do not know what I know. After 20 minutes I prepared them for their assesment. I wrote on the board as well as telling them that I need to assess their English and see where they are at, so the next week I will be assessing each of them. I told them they need to prepare a two minute talk on one of two topics. I wanted to make it easy on them, after all, I just needed to hear them talk. The topics that I thought off and gave them were: 1) if there was a person in the world (anyone) who they would like to have dinner with, who would it be? why would it be? and what would you ask them? after writing this on the board and telling them again, I gave an example, I used the Sir Richard Branson example for me, and spoke about what that man has done. The other topic was 2) everyone has a dream, dreams come true, you should follow your dreams. I want you to tell me about a dream of yours. What is it? why is it? where is it? with whom is it? how did it come? again after I wrote it on the board and told them again, I gave the example of what my dream was. I then had 10 minutes left at the end of the lesson which I gave to them to prepare. Just before the end of the lesson, I repeated it again and made sure they knew what was happening next week. It is upto you, but I also told the students how I will be grading them.
Lesson 26 were the oral assessments and I just went through the list of names they gave me at the start of the semester and one by one they came to the front and I assessed them
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