Explore the world
Past two years SSE Katsura travel loving students have been putting their travel plans on hold due to the lack of opportunities to go abroad. However, as members of our English conversation school they continue having fun exploring the world. “How?” you may ask. Simply by coming to the classroom and talking to each other about travel experiences. Often discussing their future journey plans.
Many students like to show their travel photos from abroad and also Japan. We love talking about interesting places in Japan. Student to student talking time during these lessons has become all time high. Lots of stimulating talk and questions. The best way to practice conversation skills while focusing on real life experiences. Talking about hotels, restaurants, weather and various holiday activities.
One student went even further and started translating his vast travel journal into English. His dedication to this project is truly inspiring. As a result, with each new travelogue his English is quickly improving. Marvelous! You can enjoy his wonderful photos and travelogue from South America here.
Enjoy the adventure
During the lesson I give students space to talk to each other. I’m only assisting with finding accurate English words and helping with long sentences. Recently, I was asked by a student about the English word ‘adventure’. To elicit some useful vocabulary I used my experience and photos from a trip to Egypt. We talked about ‘camel riding’, ‘coral snorkeling’ and ‘sand dune quad bikes’. This was also big fun for me because I had the opportunity use my own travels as a part of the conversation.
Exploring the world from SSE Katsura classroom
Let’s talk
Conversation lessons based on useful experiences in our lives is the best way to learn English language. Therefore we like to use travel as a positive conversation topic and we continue enjoying this way of learning. So let’s talk English!
Tom, SSE Katsura.
Excellent Tom, thank you for the nice read.
Thank you for reading, Martin. Very nice.
Wow Tom! I went to the link that you suggested here. She did a great job putting up that page in English! Give her a pat on the back from me.
Thank you Les. I will pass your message to HIM. You should check his other travelogues on that site. Just amazing.
Tomas, thank you for sharing this English teaching method. What a truly enjoyable, “ life goal “ and, “real life experience” focused method to speak English.
Thank you, Mark. Yes, the best way to practice language is to use our ‘real life situations’.
I enjoyed reading that, and the student photos are great. Smith’s School of English Katsura looks like a fun and relaxing classroom to practice English conversation!
Thank you for reading, Jim. I try to make the classroom and our conversations as relaxing as possible.
I like your teaching style Tom. Your students use real-life experiences as topics for conversation and the student talking time is high. Well done!
Great article Tom. You have given me great ideas for the next few lessons of getting students chatting together about the past few trips.
That big World Map will definitely encourage everyone to think about their next trip abroad, especially with travel restrictions starting to ease.
Great point Martin, Tomas’ world map and classroom open discussion must lead to students thinking about traveling. Great idea.
Yes, we are all looking forward to traveling abroad again. Big map on the classroom wall with students’ travel photos is a big inspiration.
Thank you, that’s the idea and it often does lead to travel discussions.
Thank you, Derek. Student talking time is the key. Interesting rel-life topics help to achieve that.
Thank you Michael. That’s great, go for it!