advantages 有利な点, good things いいこと and problems 問題点

During this week I have been spending part the lesson time introducing or reviewing the following sentence patterns. I thought I would share it with you.

An advantage/disadvantage of V+ing is (that)  . . .

A good/bad thing about V+ing is (that) . . .

The trouble/problem with V+ing is (that) . . . ～の問題点｛もんだいてん｝は〔that以下〕である

After doing the Free Mini English Lesson, we went though the Power Point presentation designed for these sentence patterns. The presentation gave us a chance to quickly practice or review example sentences. Then we moved on to making examples from their own experience. Expanding their examples and doing Q & A as needed. All the while continually doing error correction, typing out their responses and checking the net for translations of words they were not familiar with. Finally we did a quick power point review of a routine.

Here are a few of the topics that we used for discussion depending on the students interests.

~ working at a small company / big corporation ~

~ living in house / apartment ~

~ having a big family / being an only child 一人っ子~

~ growing up in a big city 育ちました / being raised in a small town – に育てられました ~

Here are some of their examples.

An advantage of living in house is that I have a garden.

A bad thing about living on the top floor of my condominium building is that it is really scary when there is an earthquake. (condominium – マンション)

An advantage of working at a municipal hospital is that the facilities are better than at a university hospital. (municipal hospital 市中｛しちゅう｝［都立｛とりつ｝］病院, facilities – 施設)

A problem with working at a small company is that there aren’t any team leaders on projects and since we do things by consensus, sometimes we can’t agree on how to proceed or can’t agree on what to do. (by consensus –

総意｛そうい｝により,  how to proceed 進め方)

A great thing about having many siblings is that I always had someone to play with when I was a child. (siblings – 兄弟姉妹｛きょうだい しまい｝たち)

The trouble with having only sons is that they never remember Mother’s Day.

A disadvantage of being raised in a small town was that there weren’t any movie theaters. (be raised – に育てられました)

I have really enjoyed coaching this lesson and my students and I have had a lot of interesting conversations from it.

All the best!

Mike