The English Studio

As I begin this blog I am in the final week of my second term at the English Studio. It means saying farewell to my current classes, who have been with me for fifteen hours a week for the past three months, and preparing to begin with a new group of classes on Monday. My new classes will be studying for their FCE (First Certificate in English), which, I think, will require a very different kind of teaching to what I have been used to. I've been filling in for another teacher in his FCE class for a couple of weeks already though so I'm more or less prepared...

This week, for our last couple of days together, my classes and I will be making the last of our temple visits. Throughout this past term we have visited some of the various temples and places of worship in London (see www.londontemplevisits.blogspot.com) including the Thai Buddhist temple in Wimbledon, The London Central Mosque, and the incredible Hindu Mandir near Wembley, among others. It has been an extremely worthwhile project that has proved very educational and fulfilling for me personally. It has also, I believe, fulfilled its intended role of providing a better-than-average opportunity for discussion and debate among my students, thus improving their English skills and confidence in general. I have very much enjoyed being part of this project and am glad of the excellent company I've had along the way.

When I began teaching here in January I was still very unprepared for proper teaching. My experience in Spain hadn't prepared me for teaching adults English at all. In order to work with children, who had little or no previous knowledge of English, I had to adapt to very different methods to what might be employed in a London adult classroom. I had to relearn a lot of what I covered in my CELTA. So, to begin with there was a lot of fun and games. Playing games in class is no bad thing, if it is controlled and limited. Some games are actually very helpful in improving certain language skills, others are useful in helping students to relax and prepare for learning. I did go a little overboard to begin with though. It was a lot of fun, but I think I need to curb the game aspect a little and focus on other methodologies.

That said, there are a couple of good games I stick to  and the students ask for them regularly. One is David's Lucky Special Game. In David's Lucky Special Game, the class is divided into groups of six or seven. Each team is given a Lucky Special Thing. This Lucky Special Thing can be just about anything, but often tends to be a board marker. The Lucky Special Thing is given to a student with a spoken category e.g. animals or car manufacturers or alcoholic drinks or capital cities of South America or English Swear words (for giggle value), up to and including 'adjectives beginning with...(insert letter of choice - S to begin with, upto Q if you're feeling mean). The Lucky Special Thing is then passed from hand to hand in a circle until it gets back to the student who was first given it. In the time it takes for the Lucky Special Thing to go around the circle, the student who received it has to name, say, five items from the category stated (Quick, Quiet, Quintessential, Quadrilateral, Quiescent). If they fail to do so they with be punished with the burden of shame. To up the stakes, at the end of a class, you can offer a reward for achieving a certain number of items in one turn (Ten for example). It a student achieves ten, he/she can leave the class early while the others are kept behind...

to be continued...