A lesson about A memorable moment in your life

Introduction

March 2013 marked the start of a new academic school year and this post is about my second lesson with my students. My co-teacher this year is Mrs Kang and we are teaching second grade students who are preparing to enter universities across South Korea. Our English classes this year have to include both a speaking and writing element but since they are having a class with a native English speaker, they will predominantly focus on speaking.

Lesson outline

The students spent the first three days of the week at an elderly care home as part of their annual voluntary service programme. Prior to this, we had asked the students to bring a photograph of a memorable moment in their lives to their next class. The main goal of the lesson was to focus on the usage of the past tense and the time spent at the elderly care home provided us with a good opportunity to make the students recall accounts of their time there.

1. We began the lesson with a simple Q&A session about their time at the elderly care home.

2. Students were then asked to explain their photographs to their partner (pair work) and the listener had to ask at least two follow-up questions in the correct tense.

3. Students rotated partners and continued to talk about their pictures. We walked around listening to the students and correcting any incorrect usages of tense.

4.  One or two students were then chosen to come to the front of the class with their photograph. The rest of the students then had to ask questions, using the correct tense, in order to find out more about the photograph in question. We would monitor their questions and correct them where necessary - every time!

5. Finally, students were presented on-screen with an account of my memorable moment. In my description, I had blanked out words which were written in the past tense and asked the students to shout out the correct answers as I read it aloud to them. This was then to serve as a good visual tool for their writing task which was soon to follow.

6. Writing task: Students were given the task of writing about their photograph using the past tense. Students were to highlight any usages of the past tense in order to make the marking of their work easier.

That's all for now folks!