Thursday night Smith’s School of English lesson by MW
ET:
I started this lesson with 3 pink students by asking each of them what gifts they gave their mothers on mother’s day this past Sunday. 2 gave their mothers popular flower gifts and I was surprised to hear the third student didn’t give his mother anything. But I could sympathize with this high school aged student because I didn’t give my mother a mother’s day present every year when I was his age either. I then took out some of the play Japanese Yen money I use occasionally to introduce last week’s A3.9 one point- “it’s on me”.
Routine:
I noticed that these 3 pink students had been doing some basic level items recently. So I decided to challenge them a bit with the pre intermediate Lawson’s routine 4. One of the pink students was quite a low level so I introduced the routine with some basic questions including 1) What is your favorite convenience store? 2) How often do you go there? 3) What do you buy? Because each of the students visits convenience stores often I was happy to see that this created a comfortable and enjoyable lesson atmosphere. Then after the listen and repeat session I had each of the 3 students write the routine 4 questions in their notebooks. At first, as I had suspected with this pre intermediate curriculum, they struggled a bit with the basic questions and answers. But as with all learning challenges I encouraged them through their progress. They caught on and I was happy to see their comprehension quickly improve. By the end of 40 minutes they were answering the questions quickly and comfortably compared to their beginning struggling efforts. I was even able to try a little stretching at the end which I originally thought would be too difficult for them.
One Point:
During the routine there were some questions about the vocabulary and about what some specific things were. So I introduced today’s A1.3 one point- “exactly” as a define and understand follow-up. The students understood this clearly and I was happy to see this result as the conclusion to this successful lesson. The students seemed happy and cheerful by the end of this lesson. I am always pleased to see this learning process result. Achieving this is the most rewarding aspect of being a Smith’s School of English coach.
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