Adult Class Level 2: Recent review – once in a blue moon

28th June 2020

Coffee ~ ologist | Jun ji hyun, Korean actresses, Asian beauty — How often do you drink coffee with a beautiful Korean actress ?

To review recent expressions

once in a blue moon / not as much as I use to / not as much as I’d like to / from time to time / now and then / occasionally / only in my dreams !

How often do you:

Watch foreign films ?

movie 2003] Lover's Concerto 연애소설 - k-dramas & movies - Soompi ...

See your boss smile ?

Play badminton ?

Rent Badminton Game in Lagos Nigeria - Fontt Enterprises

Hang out with friends ?

Cheerful asian young women sitting in cafe drinking coffee with ...

Go to the movies ?

Movie Theaters for Kids in the San Francisco Bay Area

Get a pay rise ?

On the Job by Anita Bruzzese: 6 Tips to Help You Get a Pay Raise

Linking words:

and / as well as / and also / along with

These link positives or negatives:

I like tea as well as coffee He plays football and also badminton

Big C is quite cheap and also has a great choice

but / however / having said that / on the other hand

These link positives to negatives / negatives to positives:

Jet Mart is convenient. Having said that, it is (it’s) extremely expensive.

Czech beer is not easy to find in Sai Gon, however it’s fantastic quality.

‘therefore’ is a conclusion word:

Bài Ca Thịt Nướng King BBQ Hari Won - YouTube

King BBQ is outstanding and has a magnificent salad bar. Mr Park is reasonable (so-so) quality, but more expensive. Therefore, we will eat at King BBQ in future.

Theme: coffee in Sai Gon

Beautiful young asian woman drinking coffee in the terrace of a ...

People Drink Coffee On Street At Old Quarter In Hanoi, Vietnam ...

There are so many choices in Sai Gon. Tran Nguyen has the best quality but is very expensive. On the other hand, Milano is incredibly cheap and very convenient however, many people smoke there. Highlands is really popular. Having said that, it is not cheap. Street coffee is extremely cheap but terrible quality !

Listening exercise:

http://esol.britishcouncil.org/content/learners/skills/listening/having-meal-restaurant

Mamma Mia - Italian Restaurant & Bar ở Quận Hoàn Kiếm, Hà Nội ...

Last Friday, I went out for dinner with Claire and Helen. Helen’s got a new job so we went out to celebrate. Claire booked a table for 7.30pm at her favourite Italian restaurant in town. When we arrived, the waiter showed us to our table, gave us some menus and took our drinks order. We were really hungry so we decided to have a starter and a main. We placed our order and chatted for a while. Our garlic bread soon arrived. We were hungry, so it disappeared very quickly! Next, the waiter brought our mains. He said, “Buon Appetito!”, which is Italian for ‘Enjoy your meal!’. Claire and Helen chose pasta and I had pizza. The food was delicious, but I couldn’t manage a dessert! Claire and Helen had some ice cream, but I just had a coffee. I can’t wait to go again!

Adult Class, Level 3: The Times They Are A-Changing

2nd December for 3rd December 2019 AEF Listening p. 72 & Review p. 103

This block of lessons is something of a mixed bag; there’s a long listening piece, a review with a chunk of text, and a printed scenario for speaking practice. Listening is perhaps the hardest. Consequently, the students can be less than engaged with the lesson, faces fall and participation plummets. Although my hands are tied – I have to teach this assigned lesson – I can endeavour to bring it alive, take it off the page and into context.

To kick off – let’s go over the highlighted text and focus on ‘less than’.

In plain English, I would say, “The students will be bored.” This is rather hard and sets a negative tone so, using British politeness, I soften the language. We practised a similar technique in a previous lesson. To recap, how would you describe this gentleman:

We can all see that the gentleman could benefit from going to the gym and maybe reducing his intake of unhealthy food, but we want to be polite and not blunt (or indeed, rude). Consequently, we would say:

“He’s not the thinnest man in the world.”

Here’s how it works – we take the negative adjective (here, and excuse the impolite word, it would be ‘fat’, maybe even ‘obese‘), then apply the opposite (‘thin’) and use it in the superlative form (thin, thinner, thinnest). We simply form the sentence by saying that the subject IS NOT the opposite superlative form – he IS NOT the thinnest man … Try these two for practice – there may be more than one negative adjective you could use:

Now, today’s expression (and expressions are vital for boosting students’ English up to the next level) – ‘less than’ – what sentences could you make here ? The subject could be the man, the film or, more generally, cinema today.

Examples: The man is less than excited by the film // The man is less than engrossed with the movie // The film is less than thrilling // Films today are less than intelligent.

This item comes from China:

Products from China are less than perfect // less than top quality // less than well-made. Finally:

Image result for Terrible karaoke singer

Movin’ on; Tonight’s listening is about a ‘boys’ night out’. What do you think that means ? If they had a friend visit Sai Gon and he asks for a ‘boys’ night out’, where would they take him ?

Image result for Food shopping — Shopping in a supermarket ?

Related image — Bui Vien backpacker street ?

Image result for saigon opera — Sai Gon Opera House ?

Image result for visiting relatives in hospital — Visting elderly people in hospital ?

Image result for clubbing in Asia — Going to a club and meeting new people ?

Image result for library — Late night at the library ?

How do you think this man spent his boys’ night out ?

And now for something completely different; what do you think of this man ?

What’s My Line. I will pretend to be this man answering questions truthfully, and the class have to guess what this man does.

Firstly, are the following true or false ?

This man is said to be worth $180 million.

He is married to the Queen’s grand-daughter

He was arrested in 2009 because the police thought he was a homeless person.

He travels a lot for work, around the world.

In 2016, he tried to become President of the USA

He has a Noble Prize for Literature in 2017 although he has only published two books.

Class must now ask open questions and from my responses, have to guess why I am famous.

He is, of course, a singer-songwriter, an icon of the 1960s, and still releasing music to this day.

Here’s one of Dylan’s early songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90WD_ats6eE

Now the students chance. In small groups, they can select a famous person and the other team(s) have to guess who they are. We can limit the guessing to a certain number of questions, or fix a time limit.

A variation on this game is to have a student sit in front of the board and write a name behind them. The student has to ask question and the rest of the class can only answer ‘Yes,’ or ‘No.’ For example, I could write HARI WON and the student could ask:

Am I a man ? // Am I alive // Am I famous ? // Am I old ? // Am I on TV ? // Do I play sports professionally ? // Do I act ? // Am I in the news a lot ? // etc

Adult Class, Level 3 (class 2): She said, she said.

7th October for 8th October 2019. AEF 8A (1, 5 & 6), pp. 74-75, 77

Sentence building – becoming fluent and coherent

Use

adverbs
adjectives
opinion phrases
linking words and discourse markers
new vocabulary

Vietnam is famous for coffee; coffee shops are ubiquitous. In fact, there are so many, it’s hard to see (difficult to understand) how they stay in business let alone turn a profit.

Be that as it may, let’s use this as a learning opportunity. To practice making longer sentences, and as a warm up exercise, the students can ask each other, “Where do you go for coffee ?”

Tips:

Don’t answer the question directly and immediately; Begin with a short introduction:

Sai Gon has so many coffee shops, some are cheap while others can be quite expensive although they have a wide range of delicious coffee. Personally, I like going to …

Then

Ask

How MUCH do you like it (adverbs) ?
What kind of coffee (adjectives) ?
What do you think about this ? (opinions)
WHY do you like it (give reasons)
Interesting words, phrases, idioms

Personally, I like Tap Coffee which is an independent shop where I live. I enjoy going there so much because the owner is very friendly and tries to speak English with me. There isn’t a lot of choice, so I order cappuccino with hot, fresh milk. In my opinion, it is good value and tastes delicious. What I like about the shop is the free wifi, the comfortable chairs and the atmosphere. Furthermore, it is usually very quiet and it therefore a good place to read. I love to put my feet up, kick back and sip my damn fine coffee.

Before the exercise, elicit and board as many relevant words and phrases as required. The students have a discourse marker list, so I could insist that they use certain words (moreover, therefore, consequently etc). Additionally, I’ll need to explain vernacular phrases such as ‘kick back’ and ‘put my feet up’.

IF a student doesn’t like coffee, then they can say where they go and what they drink. IF they don’t go anywhere or like anything (yes, I have had that in a class), then they can explain WHY NOT!

Key vocabulary: ambience // aroma //atmosphere

Now, their turn; after this model, they must tell me about their favourite app on their phone. Give them five minutes to write a short piece.

After, the students can read to each other, and we can incorporate their answers into tonight’s grammar: reported speech.

For example, Ms Jane is speaking with Mr Tony:

Jane, “I really love the iTunes app.”

Tony, “Oh, for me, I prefer YouTube because I can watch music videos. I will send you a link to The Beatles.”

This is called direct speech. If I want to repeat what they said, I use indirect or reported speech. Look what happens to the subject and the verb:

Jane said that she really loved the iTunes app. (or She said she really loved …)

The subject changes from 1st person (I) to third person (she), while the verb alters from simple present to simple past.

What happens with Tony ? Look for the verb(s) then put them into simple past. Change pronouns to the 3rd person.

Now – changing reported speech back to direct speech.

He said the egg was perfect

(Change the past simple verb to simple present)

Now, here’s the actual quote (around the 2:28 mark):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crPVJ3CXs1g

This is one of my favourite clips about Sai Gon: Mark Weins eating a fairly typical Viet breakfast … but enjoying it SO MUCH !

Student Survey

Student must ask three people, what they usually eat for breakfast, and drink, as well as where they eat; do they go out, or cook at home ? Following that, they have to report to the class on their findings, using reported speech e.g.

She said (that) she usually cooked at home, but occasionally ate out when she felt too tired.

Then we have the book work and grammar practice. To end, we can have an eyewitness game. Students work in pairs, one having their backs to the board. On the screen, I show a man or lady. The first student has to describe, in as much detail, what is happening and how the person looks. Give them a minute or two. Then, the second student must report to me what they have learnt. Finally, they are allowed to see the picture, to compare the reported speech with the actuality. Photos could include:

Image result for boy eating chocolate cake

IELTS 4/5: Speaking Class

7th January 2019

The class will focus on speaking, pronunciation and present simple/continuous grammar. I aim to get the students speaking as much as possible with as many different people as possible. I intend to kick off with a warm-up exercise, something light while late students arrive.

I’ll show some new compound nouns to do with shopping

window

binge

bulk

impulse

dumpster diving

After defining, and demonstrating the pronunciation, I will ask the students to match with the following photos:

Did the lady go out to buy this top or did she decide only when she was in the store ?

And after some binge or impulse shopping, this could be the reaction:

To encourage students to speak, I’ll ask them what they think is happening in the photos, then elicit more and more information. Describe how people look, what they are doing (to link with the present continuous grammar), why they are doing it and how they feel about the types of shopping.

This can be an activity for the whole class to join in, relax the students and let them feel confident to shout out answers. We’ll then turn to working in pairs. I’ll show four slides and ask the pairs to tell me the story:

**DISCLAIMER:** THIS IS A STOCK PHOTO FROM GOOGLE IMAGES (NOT ONE OF MY STUDENTS !)

I’ll ask two or three pairs, but the basic story is quite straightforward. To make it more relevant to IELTS, we’ll see how we can develop a basic sentence into a more elaborate, interesting one, using adjectives and adverbs.

Many students, when describing a photo, will use pronouns – “She is asleep.” This should be replaced by naming the subject, (a girl) then giving more information (age, clothes, surroundings, appearance etc) and by employing discourse markers to link the ideas into longer, IELTS-friendly sentences.

An example would be: A young girl with long, brown hair is sleeping at her school desk. She appears to be a public school student due to her uniform of white blouse and blue skirt. Furthermore, she sits in an old chair with a thin wooden desk, typical of schools. Additionally, she has a black ribbon in her hair but her face is covered by her arms. It can clearly be seen that other students are also finding it hard to stay awake.

After this activity, we’ll move onto an IELTS-style speaking test. In pairs, preferably new couples, they can act out a Part One test. Here, the examiner will spend four to five minutes asking basic questions of the student, subjects such as where are you from, interests, job, studies, family etc. However, these are just leading questions, there is no interaction.

The examiner will be looking for answers that are relevant, neither too short nor too long, use correct grammar, employ good vocabulary and are given in well-structured sentences.

After this, it’ll be a case of ‘hitting the books‘. Students need to realise that in many cases, a teacher’s hands are tied – we have to teach certain pages or subjects and it can’t always be entertaining or wildly interesting … but we can try. One reason why teaching is so exhausting is that the class depends on the energy radiating from the teacher (who may well feel under par) even when we are confronted by bored faces, unmotivated students, loud yawns, mournful sighs and obsessive, repetitive, pleading looks at the clock … which never seems to move.

To end, I may try a ‘Family Fortunes’ (FF) game or eyewitness. I’ll show two slides of faces, give them two minutes then ask them to describe what they have seen, as if giving a report to the police. It’s interesting to see what students find as important. It can also be fun to use a famous person in the ‘line up’; in Vietnam, I use the singer / TV personality Hari Won.

At the end of the lesson, the students should have learnt: new vocabulary, which words are stressed in normal conversation, should feel comfortable using present simple or continuous … and have spent most of the lesson speaking and listening to each other.

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