20th September

20th September

“I am terror” Dustan, aged 10

There was a small fire at school last weekend, the fuse box for the whole school caught fire, and it has meant no electricity and therefore no internet. So sorry about that.

Today’s quote is a break from the current Dune themed ones, so I hope you appreciate it. It was from a student yesterday, who didn’t quite manage to say what he intended. The lesson was based around the structure, “How are you?” “I am...” and he meant “I am terrible”. He is an energetic child, and always eager to please and receive praise, but as a child of a vice-principle here, he is basically ‘untouchable’ and he is always pushing the boundaries of what he can get away with. So my goal for the two years is to focus his energies on English, in the hope that his statement can be kept as a comical error, and not a prophecy.

I had a thought today, while teaching a class, and it is something that I don’t readily have an answer for.

In the lesson planning sessions, I have been actively pushing a simplification of lessons, with more time spent on practicing structures and group work, and homework that is based on the lesson, not simply translating text or remembering lists of words. However, my 8th class today really worried me. They not only didn’t know what a Verb was, but when they were told in Russian, they could only give me 4 English examples (and 2 nouns). This is their 4th year of learning English.

The system that was in place clearly didn’t work, and that is why I have opted for the big change in how lessons are planned and taught. But is simplification the answer? Should I in fact be giving the kids MORE information and lists?

Something isn’t working, but I am not sure how to fix it. After 3 years of German at school, I was able to converse on simple topics. Here, I find myself teaching 11th class students (they are 17 years old, and have had 7 years of English classes) the days of the week and ordinal numbers. What was different about language at school in England? I am pretty sure we also only had 2 x 45min lessons. I guess the fact that all of us had text books, and they were the same edition as the teachers was a big help, but that’s another issue here!