ET: When it rains, I~
This first student today is very adamant over learning English. Despite the fact that her Golden Week was non-existent due to overtime, she still manages to come in every Saturday afternoon with a smile. So when I ask her about the previous [One Point] she eagerly recites the sentence that she has prepared in advance. “When it rains, I like to study English,” she admits with a bit of a nervous laugh. I congratulate her on her efforts and move onto the routine.
Routine: R8 – Shopping
She is in top form today, going through the routine the second time flawlessly. When we reach the questions, she quickly jots them down into her notebook. At this point in time, the second student pops in, having overslept, and I bring her up to speed. She also rushes to catch up on the questions, looking to her classmate for assistance in Japanese when she falls short. Eventually both of them are getting into the routine, trading questions and answers back and forth and the routine finishes neatly. I go into a bit more detail on past tense, something which was a bit fuzzy in the beginning with the questions versus the answers.
Item: Pre-Intermediate – If Will
I shuffle the If Will flashcards and display them randomly on the tabletop, asking the students to match them up. They take turns finding pairs and explaining the scenario of the two cards using the [If Will] model. This takes a while as they need to go over a few grammar difficulties and remember to insert the verbs in the proper locations. After the flashcards are done with, we open up the book and start asking questions requiring the use of the imagination, such as “What will you do if you win the lottery?” In this case the students do their best to be honest with the answers or to use their imagination to its full extent. In the end, these two ladies learn a lot of useful new words and phrases that they will be able to use in any normal conversation.
One Point – C24 – You won’t believe this but ~
I write up the one point on the board and give a simple explanation for two possible ways to use it. The first one indicates something that is difficult to believe, “You won’t believe this but I just one the lottery”. How often does this really happen? Or bracing someone – for example, your parents – for bad news. “You won’t believe this (Dad) but I just destroyed your car.” After having a laugh over this example, the students make up their own examples. The first lady offers, “You won’t believe this but I just passed the exam!” as an example. The second one jokes, “You won’t believe this but I lost your credit card”.
At this point, we chatted a bit about the nice weather and then they escaped to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.
-SJ
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