Day1 : The Lesson

Hi Eve,

The morning portion wasn't too bad as it was mostly activities and registration matters. I took pictures of them so that you will know what your future students look like. Their ages range from mid 20s to over-40. After the picture taking, their first exercise is to circulate the room and interview each other in English. They were given three guide questions:

1. What's your occupation?
2. What's your hobby?
3. Where's the farthest that you've ever travelled?

That takes us up to about 0930hrs. There is usually a break for tea at around 0930 or 1000hrs. Today the CSTC staff informed me that the tea-break is ready. But in the afternoon, they didn't inform me. So it looks like you will have to check the time and set your tea break. Just make sure you have a peep to see if the refreshment are there first.

Back from the break, I gave them a de-brief on the first activity. Got them to share on how they felt etc... Most said that they felt awkward and stifled but it seemed to get easier as they spoke to more classmates in English. Told them that's the essence of this course is to really force them to speak in English so they will get more used to it...

Next assignment was a written assignment where the students describe themselves on paper. That is something I have to go through tonight.

Afternoon didn't go as well. Used the Macmillan book and it seemed a bit too simple for some of the participants. In fact, I thought that I lost some of them. I will keep you posted on how this book perform. If it doesn't shape up to be challenging for them then maybe you might want to consider alternatives. Strange, most of them didn't do too well in the screening test but it seems that there are a few who are quite confident. There are those who couldn't do the book's exercises of course.

Anyways, that's all for today.