A particularly enthusiastic student decided to book in a second lesson this week. She had something particular in mind that she wanted to learn, and so came in earlier than usual with this goal in mind. She works at an izakaya in the evenings, and a few days ago an English-speaking customer came in. The manager felt particularly worried about the time this customer would take of the staff, because he thought that none of them spoke English. My student today said she felt bad for the person, and told her manager that her and her co-worker both spoke a little English, and that next time she’d like to serve English-speaking customers.
This was the prelude that the student came with to the lesson. As a man to man student it’s a little easier to tailor the student’s lesson to fit their exact personal needs, so we worked on just this theme. I quickly scanned the Smith’s School of English curriculum in my head, and came up with two items that would be perfect for this lesson that I decided to do a combination of. First we went through some questions and vocabulary generally restaurant related, with a few role plays. I then got her to practice explaining and describing various typical foods found at an izakaya, something that was alleviated by the new terms she learnt to distinguish of “fried”, “grilled” and “deep fried”. We finished off by working on specific phrases, for example “we’re closing – last drinks!” and other things directly relevant to her work.
Sometimes it can be pretty fun when a lesson is directly influenced by real-life, and the result of it is something directly applicable to day to day situations. I just hope my student studies hard and is able to remember all the things she learnt today when she meets her English-speaking customer at work!
-Ria
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