TGIF song

 The Cure - Friday I'm in Love

-Fill in the gaps with the days of the week.

-How does he feel every day? And you?
On Monday he _____. I _____.

 

The black sheep or the third person singular

This is the way I teach the Present Simple - or at least I try - to my fresh(wo)men.  'The Black Sheep' is a mnemonic device. This is a digital board screenshot.

November 25: International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

Level: B1?

http://www.eslholidaylessons.com/11/day_for_the_elimination_of_violence_against_women.html

Will I?

Last Wednesday they started learning how to use 'can' correctly. Even on Friday they saw 'could' in a conversation, 'Ordering Coffee', and it turned out they used it quite well too. 

The thing is that next Wednesday's topic is Present Simple, and I can foresee that once we see it they will produce sentences such as 'He can sings'. It is always the same. I know that giving them lots of controlled practice of the new grammar point will help, but I will not be able to avoid their confusion or... will I?! (with flat o falling intonation)

Possible misunderstandings

Consciously or subconsciously we, teachers, tend to play down the importance of making mistakes that do not convey a lot of information, that is, our students can make that mistake and still be understood, still communicate. Thus we move on from the Present Simple to giving them the vocabulary they will need to reach the unit's goals and so on.

When doing this, though, we are missing one thing which could be important in error correction: possible misunderstandings. For instance, "what do you do?" vs. "what are you doing?" or "sheet" vs. "shit", etc.

Last two weeks

Let's have a look at the last two weeks...

We've seen the following contents: 

- revision of unit 1: classroom language, greetings, the alphabet, and cardinal numbers; 

- verb 'to be': present simple;

- nationalities and countries;

- telling the time;

- main difference between 'excuse me' and 'sorry';

- getting to know the world: checking in and shops conversations;
- culture: Halloween.

• One of the most complicated contents to assimilate for some of them has been the difference between the subject pronoun 'you' and the possessive adjective 'your'. Even they mispronounce them.

• Last week they first saw 'excuse me' and 'sorry' in unit 2. Seemingly they understood their uses, but when carrying out a cloze exercise, they didn't get it right. Therefore I drew two stick figures on the board, Peter and Molly, and mimicking at the same time I told them as follows: "These are Peter and Molly. Let's pretend Peter wants to get past. He would say "excuse me, can I get past?", so we use 'excuse me' BEFORE asking for permission. Then, suddenly, Peter treads on Molly's foot... what would he say?! (Students said 'sorry'). "Sorry!", so we use 'sorry' AFTER the action we want to apologise for." I think they got it.

• Last day they had a test about shops vocabulary. It was not a disaster, but for some of them the failure reason was bad memory and lack of concentration. Maybe it was their first test ever! I should teach them some memo strategies...

Moral?

Breaking news

One of my students call me 'Bones'... No comment, no moral. I am puzzled. I really am.