Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Cookie Cutter Lessons Don't "Cut" It

This new school year has been very interesting for me. Since I am teaching at the same schools and teaching the same classes. My original plan, since I am so busy, was to use the same lessons and materials as last year. For my Juku job, I have made some minor changes mostly due to the fact I have more books and materials and my disposal, but for the most part the lessons remain the same.

As for the high school job, I find this year that students are slightly more mature and capable than last year. The first few lessons last year were very easy, often (after using the textbook) only using one Q and A pattern. After the first few lessons things progressed into more complex patterns and more situational conversations. This was due to lessons in the textbook. Since the first few lessons were very easy, my lessons that corresponded were equally easy. I always try my best to maintain the theme of the lesson, although I found the last few lessons in the textbook impossible to do so. I thought 50 min of gestures, Asian trivia, and American trivia would just be incredibly boring.

One lesson this year that I will make more difficult is the lesson about hobbies. Last year I made a simple survey using "Do you like ". I used the 10 hobbies that were taught in the book. This year I will teach "What do you do in your free time?". After the student's partner answers they will use that answer as an input to ask "How often?" "Who ..with?" "Where?". I will also play Concentration using the 10 hobbies from the textbook just like last year but this year I have made new cards using color, bigger paper, and much bigger text so they are easier to read.

All my lessons went very well last year but it is exciting to see them improve this year. I also completely revamped my special lessons to the students travelling to Australia. Last year's course were very haphazardly put together since I had little time and lacked information to plan good lessons. This year I had almost a whole year to think about it and was able to put together an extremely useful set of lessons. The students in that class were also much better than the previous year so things went smoothly. Good students can make all the difference.

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