One lady that I taught today had taken an extra long vacation for the New Year’s and confessed that she hadn’t studied any English at all over the holidays. In fact, she hadn’t even reviewed her notes and was extremely nervous about her lesson. She came into the lesson speaking in only Japanese and was fidgeting quite a bit. I’d prepared a new lesson for her along with a review of Routine 1. However, when I noticed how she was totally lacking in confidence, I decided to change my lesson plans at the last minute.
The lesson that she had seemed to be the most comfortable with was Past 1 so I switched to a review of that lesson. She was accustomed to hearing questions asking about the past so it only took a bit of a review to get her back on track. We used the past tense to ask and answer questions about her New Year’s holidays. She told me what she had done during the holidays and how she had enjoyed the time spent with her family. She was very happy and relieved to have been able to do a review instead of start new material because she was still in holiday mode and liked to study at a moderate pace.
I tied the routine in with the item by reviewing all of Routine 1’s questions in past tense. And from there, I also did a review of one of her previous one points, which she had since forgotten. By the end of the lesson, she was all excited for learning English again and told me that she was looking forward to her next lesson. Having the student leave the classroom in such an upbeat, positive mood definitely brightens my day as well.
Leave a Reply