it was English conversation today; we’ve started a new way of organizing things. Because our students come at varying times because they may have to travel across town, or they may have children to take to school, or they may have chores to do… for whatever reason, starting time has always been a flexible affair. This has meant that it’s difficult to start at a particular time because people might have been early and sitting around waiting, or late because of transport or the weather or other reasons.We used to start with a short topic, then a grammar point then various exercises leading up to coffee break and then after coffee it would be group work.
I have to say I did get a little fed up because it was all so muddly. Anyway… now i get to the hall at 8:30, put out the tables and chairs and put an activity on the table for students when they arrive – a puzzle maybe or a wordsearch, or little vocabulary game.,make sure the white boards are clean, get the coffee on, the cups out, the biscuits ready, the jugs out for milk and water, the teapot at the alert. I get the register out and then the students begin to drift in from 9 onwards; there is now time for me to chat, and something for them to do while they wait for it all to begin. The other volunteers arrive and there is more general conversation.
The programme for the rest of the morning is pretty much the same, except, now we can start when most people are here. We usually begin with looking at the puzzle/wordsearch/word game and just fairly quickly go over itand then we proceed as before.
Sometimes we have a game… speed chatting is popular, two rows of chairs facing each other and students and volunteers chat for three minutes before moving on to the next person. Today each person was given a card with something like “I am an apple, find another piece of fruit”, “I am a car, find something else with wheels”; they had to go round and find the other piece of fruit, the other thing with wheels, or any of the other fourteen things I’d set them. It was great fun, and they all got chatting… which is the whole point of the lesson!
Lois Elsden 