Monday – new week, different students and an interesting homeless man

Monday. Again. They come ’round so quickly don’t they? My usual 7:30am student has postponed classes until April due to the fact she is in Miami and New York for vacation. This is bad for me as I lose money (the downside of tefl teaching, the lack of security) but when I woke up late this morning feeling fresh and awake, I thanked my lucky stars that her holiday had started today. With a late night last night after drinks and chatting with friends, I was grateful for this much needed lie in. So, I have been spending my morning preparing classes. This is a photo of myself and Louise, my future business partner who I was out with last night.

 

 

 

 

 

I have found a great website for anyone who needs Business English videos. http://ecorner.stanford.edu/popularVideos.html You have to become a member which is free, you can select videos based on themes and download for free. I’m using the short ones for general comprehension and the long ones to tie in with current topics that I have been discussing with my students recently. Another great website for Business English, which includes vocabulary, exercises and videos is http://www.businessenglishsite.com/index.html. I’m using the videos again in this one to do in class, using the exercises that they provide. The topics are great and easy to stimulate a discussuion before and after the video. The vocabulary tests are really suited for homework to allow the student some self-study time at home, allowing you to create a follow up class for the next time based ont their new vocabulary. I’m loving these two new sites.

Today I have just one class in the evening. This is with Paulo, one of my regular students. He is back after one month off where he has been celebrating his honey moon in Mexico. Very lucky guy. This will be a great topic to begin discussion just to warm up his English and get him in the thought process of language learning. He is a Macro-economist and so our classes are very vocabulary related to enhance specific, relevant terminology and we practice a lot of real-life telephone calls as he needs this for when he gives the weekly economic report via phone to a client based in Argentina. The practice is very simple. I’m waiting in one room of the company, he goes into his office and calls me, then proceeds to give me the economic report. I write down plenty of notes on good use of vocabulary, any errors and any strengths/weakness. Afterwards, we discuss them. The advantage of this is we really stimulate a proper call and he has to answer my questions without the aid of reading my body language. The improvement in his speaking has been striking and so quick. This exercise really has worked with him.

Just a general observation now, totally irrevelant to teaching. From my kitchen window, I can see a t-junction for a main road, just one block away from my apartment. For the past week, a rather crazy, potentially drug fuelled, homeless man has been standing there, day and night blowing a whistle repeatedly for the cars to go through the cross roads.  He seems to think he is doing a very noble job and is contributing greatly to society and allowing people to proceed with their day-to-day life with upmost simplicity. I guess he hasn’t noticed the traffic lights that are the true dictators of the flow of traffic. It’s interesting because I can hear him every day and all night, except when I’m sleeping. He either must have exactly the same sleeping pattern as me or he just rarely sleeps. It has been precisely one week now. I have seen policemen notice him, proceed to walk over, hesitate and then decide they have seen something in the opposite direction which is far more interesting and worthy of checking. They walk away, leaving the man to go about his daily traffic control. And so he remains. I will be seeing how long his new found occupation goes on for. A while I would think as he seems very commited to his position.

Tuesday

Normally, Tuesday is one of my busiest days but due to Carnival, today I just have one class. Someone once told me that here in Brazil, the year doesn’t truly start until after Carnival and I can now see the honest truth in this statement. A lot of people save their years holidays and take a full month off around February time; many travelling abroad, many visiting family and friends around Brazil, some just simply relaxing at home. In my case, almost 50% of my students fall into this category so the last few weeks have been quiet for me. However, this will all change as of next week so for now, I need to make the most of this relaxed blessing!

I still have some classes to teach though, so today has been a day of preparation for the upcoming week. This evening I have a class with Mary, one of my most dedicated and self-motivated students. We have recently been enjoying games and listening to songs in class (I love these kind of classes, without a doubt my absolute favourites) so today, we’ll revert back to the textbook for some vocabulary exercises, reading and business discussions. I use the Market Leader with my business students; in Mary’s case, the Upper Intermediate. It’s a great textbook although by itself, it could become repetitive and boring, partciularly with a 1-1 class so I always supplement it with additional materials including videos, newspapers and articles. I find www.breakingnewsenglish.com great for a last minute, interesting worksheet and the students enjoy the difference too.

As well as many other classes, the one class I have put a lot of focus on preparing for today is a class I teach with two woman on Wednesday’s, both very lively and talkative and more than happy to completely digress from the topic. They just want mostly conversational classes, which, I feel, still requires a lot of preparation to ensure the class is using an interesting topic and thus, filling it with lively and dynamic discussion. This is important for both the student and me, in my opinion. If I’m bored by the topic, within 30 seconds the students will be too. The get-me-out-of-here-NOW atmosphere is the kind that brings nightmares to teachers and needs to be avoided at all costs.

So, for this lesson, I have selected a video from www.ted.com. This website is a must for all teachers of adult esl learners as it provides short, topical videos that students want to know about and, most importantly, talk about. You can select a video based on themes or speakers and you can pick different lengths too. The sub-categorisation of the videos really helps select the video of relevance for you.

I have picked this particular video: http://www.ted.com/talks/ric_elias.html.

Before watching the video, my students will make predictions as to what they think the speaker will be talking about and why the think this. Also, do they have any initial opinions of the video? After we have watched it, they can look back and compare their pre- and post- expectations.

During the video, they will write down ten words each that they find interesting or they don’t know and after, we’ll discuss these particular words. Why do they find these words interesting? As well as exploring new words and concepts based on unknown vocabulary.

After this, we’ll discuss the content itself and comparing their own thoughts and feelings towards the subject.

This exercise will easily fill the whole hour class and like I said, these ladies love to talk so I’m confident a lively discussion will seed from this! I love these kinds of classes as they are interesting, inspiring and you never know what kind of opinions and ideas will be bounced around the room! It’s educational for me as well as my esl students!