On Mondays, I am always energetic and super-ready to do lessons. So today, everything went perfectly well but the grammar point in this unit was very difficult for my A level students.
In the morning, I had four hours with my main class, who i like more than the other class. I planned to go through the first two pages of the unit (p.48-49) in the four hours and do some extra work in case my students cannot understand the difference between uncountables& countables. I started the class usingout an interesting powerpoint instead of asking questions only. In the powerpoint, there were pictures of Garfield (about monday syndrome, weekend activities), and we had a class discussion about this issues. Then I showed my students the pictures of some famous restaurants and cafes in Eskişehir, we continued discussing on what they ate out at the weekend. Then, I gave each of them a picture of an empty fridge and they drew their favorite food. Using such visuals were very helpful to motivate them. They were all engaged and into our topic. Then we continued with the fridges in coursebook, and after my warm-up session it was very easy to make transition to the activity in the book. My students really enjoy using cards, pictures, colorful pencils and I let them use such materials in the warm up session. I believe such materials are really helpful to wake them up in morning classes and get them into the topic quickly and effectively.
Then, I explained them the difference between countables& uncountables, again using some visuals. They easily understood, and we had several controlled practice acitivities : we categorized the food in photobank. They talked about the food in their own fridges. However, I had difficulty in explaining all the points in English. I had to switch to Turkish for a few minutes to explain the difference. So far, I always explained grammar in English, and they were quite successful to learn. However, this time the topic was very difficult for them and wasn't present in their native language. That was my weakness today. I should have worked on it before the class, and I should have brought more helpful materials : more pictures, realia etc. The case was the same when I was explaining a/an , some, any. I provided them with good sentences on the board, and I tried to explain by underlining and categorizing the nouns. Most of them got what I was trying to say, but a few students were looking were Turkish explanation. I have to learn how to make them understand it in English, and I have to be ready with extra materials to provide further explanation.
In the afternoon, I had two hours with the other class. The subject was very interesting : I taught them the contaiers ( bar, bag, cup etc.),, I exploited the visuals as much as possible and they easily figured out the usages. I believe using visuals and conducting English-medium classes is very funny in low- level classes. They are quite successful, but there are always students who are not as quick as others. As a teacher, what I should improve is to anticipate problems and have solution in my mind beforehand.
To sum up, today was a great and tiring day for my students. I felt as I achieved my goals, but it was also good to see my weaknesses while explaining the grammar points.
Thank you for reading, have a nice class tomorrow!
Merve.
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