Business English Sept. 30 class

Today I showed them the PPP on verb tenses... They weren't really paying attention so I didn't finish the PPP.  I showed them how to conjugate the verbs for the different tenses, then we talked about present simple.  Did some present simple sentences.  Then I gave them a job description sheet and we talked a little about what a job description is.  I asked them to write three sentences describing the tasks that this person does.  It was a network administrator and as these students are studying computer science, I thought they could relate to this job.  They really didn't seem interested in this class at all.  I'm thinking next week, we might continue with the job description "project".. put the students in groups and ask them to do a job description of a job. First have them tell me different jobs,and then have them, in groups do a job description of one job.  Maybe next week do some present continuous tenses.   I'll have to try to think of a way to present it that they can relate to it.  

Classes sept 27th

One of the methods of teaching a language is through translation.  The students are given a text and asked to translate into the language to be learned.  This has a few advantages in that students can learn sentence structure and patterns.  However, there are a few problems with direct translation when there is no corresponding word or structure in the learned language.  I gave the economics class a business article in Ukrainian and asked them to translate it into English.  Obviously, there were problems with sentence structure, but also major problems with the usage and placement of the articles, and prepositions.  I'll not go further here, until I finish categorizing my "test results".  One problem I noticed in direct translation was an error in using "too".  In Ukrainian a person uses "теж"  meaning "too" for negative and positive sentences.  Thus, I discovered them saying, "I don't want to be a teacher, too".  So I decided a few lessons on "either, neither and too" were in order.  I wrote up a sheet identifying some of the rules of either/ neither and then we did some examples of this with the students.  For example... " I can take either bus number 16 or bus number 22"  Or " I don't have a watch and neither does she".  In the first class I had today we covered the rules, and a worksheet of sentences, matching verb tenses to the subject.  We also looked at a sheet of pictures of 4 men and made sentences using "too", " neither /either". 
The second class today we just covered the rules and worked on some examples that they could think of.  We did not do any sentences we ran out of time.  The second class was Julia's class - physics students.  Next week I plan to continue to do more on either/neither/ too with them. The teacher said this class is not familiar with verb tenses.  They are only learning them now. 

Economics Class2

Not a whole lot to relate.  I explained a little about my research project based on problems encountered by students who are studying Business English.  I am still checking the first translations the students gave me, and still trying to calculate where the most problematic areas are.  So far, I can easily see problems with, verb tenses, verb agreements, pronoun usage, conjunction usage, possessive pronoun misuse,  preposition problems, article problems.  So a lot of scope to work with.  Today I asked them to do another small translation so I could have a little more data to work with.  This took them quite a long time.  Then I briefly introduced the verb tenses.  Explained briefly how the verbs agree with the pronouns, then I gave them a few cartoons and we worked on making sentences - mostly present continuous with them. I told them we would work on verbs again next week.   One other thing I noticed in this class today was the mix up of the words.. " study/ learn" and "tell/ talk"

Teaching for dummies!!

Yeah!  that's the heading , the dummy is me!!!  Just thought I'd better record how today went and what we covered.  Class no 1 was a group of 9 students studying handicrafts.  Some of them want to be teachers, some don't.  I thought I would introduce the determiners "either/or, neither/nor,  too"because  when I talked to the physics group the previous week, they told me " I don't want to be teacher too"... so my ear picked up right away, that there was a problem with the determiner and the article.   I thought I would have this physics group today, but guess that will be next week.
Well, back to the first  class today who are studying handcrafts.  Their English level is on the low side.  So first off, we just talked about what they were studying, and  a little about themselves.  By listening to them I picked up verb conjugation problems. Problems with the words " don't have, haven't and didn't".  They sometimes said things like " I haven't go there", meaning " I didn't go there.".  also the lack of using the infinitive verb.  They would say " I want be teacher"  or 'I like read books, I like play games, I like dance".
Pronunciation: we worked on the "th"sound, and a little on the ending sounds .."s" at the end of plurals, and " ed" at the end of verbs.  Interesting group.  They were receptive to corrections, and seemed eager to want to speak English.. some were a little more shy than others.  I did a few sentences of verb agreement with them, but discovered it was too advanced for them, without first having gone over verb tenses with them. Then I showed them a picture of a woman with her leopard, which I took from a Reader's Digest article.  I asked the students to tell me what they saw, and got them to make sentences that way, then we read a short story about her. Each student took turns reading parts of the story...we worked on pronunciation of problem words, like " thorny bush" and went over words they didn't know.

The second group is a group of Irena's students.  There were 7 of them.  They are studying physical education I think.  They all said they want to be teachers.  I also did the same lesson with them.  They looked at the picture of the woman and her leopard made a description of what they saw. We, then, read the story together and worked on the "th"  pronunciation.  I also noticed the "v/ w" pronunciation problem as well, but we didn't work on that today.  I didn't do any verb agreement sentences today with this group.  With both groups I also noticed the article problem. Forgetting to use "a" or using "a" when "an" should have been used. well. guess that's for today.

phrasal verbs

Verb tenses charts

View more presentations from Angelaparsons.

Worked on phrasal verbs again.. but first I thought I would a review of verb tenses... so worked on a power point presentation of  the verb tenses.... This needs more work yet, but as very brief review it worked ok in yesterday's class.

Count Nouns

Count Nouns seem pretty easy to me, so how to teach them?

This video gives me a few good ideas....

Hallowed Halls

well... back to the black board again... or in my case, ( no not those 6 Ukrainian cases), back to the computer!  Today I had a different class again - 2nd year students.  I taped an interview on JK Rowlings and played it for them, then they filled in the blanks.  Listening to the tape and writing what they heard.  They did real well with this.  We then discussed the material in the interview and some interesting comments... like " why were you so dense?" and " hair-raising stories" ... " a chapter in her life".. and so on.  Some they could figure out, some they couldn't.  The teacher introduced himself to me - Volodimir, told me his class was pretty good in English and said they were studying "travel" so I could do something on that.  I thought... Hmm I suppose I could work some travel thoughts into this... but he won't be there so it really doesn't matter!!!   The students did enjoy talking about Harry Potter.  There were only five there and I think they all read some or most of the books, and saw a movie on it too.One fellow, Sasha was real interested and answered a lot of questions... He was even reciting some of the things of Harry Potter.  He even looked a bit like Harry Potter.  Anyway, they listened to the interview answered the questions then I assigned them a task of making up an interview and presenting it... they were in groups of 2 and three.  I gave them a slip of paper saying what their occupation was they would interview - teacher, fireman, writer, or their own occupation choice.  So, they were into this when in comes Mr. Volodimir, and sits in the back of the class... and I thought " great"  how will I fit "travel" into this???  Anyway, I just pretended he wasn't there and went on with what I was teaching... which really wasn't much of anything except giving them practice with speaking and writing English.  I did want to cover some more on English article usage because they have a real problem with it, but have to go back to the basics again... and I didn't have a lesson prepared for that. They finished thier interviews and presented them and I listened and corrected any errors they made while speaking.  Then I had about ten minutes left and I couldn't let the students out early with the teacher there so I pulled out a pamphlet I had helped a girl in Canada do for her school project.  It was in French and was information about Ukraine.  I briefly told the students what it said and then I talked a little about one section... clothing, appearance.  One thing really outstanding here is the importance of shiny, clean boots. First I asked the students... if you were doing this brochure... what would you put in under the heading of clothing, appearance?  They said," girls like to dress up and buy cheap clothes".  So then I talked about the footwear thing and told them in America, shiny footwear is not that important... then the teacher speaks up... " yeah, I was there once, and they even wear sneakers... with a suit.  I was amused... So I agreed, and said  in America, Canada included, people are generally more concerned with comfort than looks.  Told them a story about me one day wearing dirty shoes and a Ukrainian lady offering me a rag to clean them and telling me "If your shoes are dirty it's like going out with a dirty face".. The students found that amusing... class was done then.  The teacher thanked me later for talking about the footwear difference.  So that was the extent of "travel" discussion in that class...
incidentally, I asked them to give me their interviews.. I said I wanted to keep them for reference... it is interesting that they write and say " why did you choose the profession of teacher?"  and " Do you like a children?"  "Do you have a children?"  There was another girl who did real well with the article, maybe, needed a little more work with prepositions and verb tenses... but not bad.  I was impressed with the class.