Daily notes about classes and procedures to follow with the different levels.

Class at 9am: Pre-intermediate level

Wednesday 22nd January

This was an introduction class where teachers asked several questions to the students, wrote the questions on the
whiteboard: what's your name, how old are you, what do you study, what is your favourite subject, do you have
any hobby, ask any question to the teachers. Each student had to go to the whiteboard, wrote the answers for
everybody to see them and also said them out loud. Afterwards, we took a picture of each student with one or the
two teachers (they loved this idea and laughed a lot with every photo).

With this class, our goal has been to increase their speaking skills and level of comprehension of reading.
On the end of the very first day, we asked them to look for one news each on the BBC website, and prepare an
explanation for us.

Thursday 23rd January

Each student either read directly from the phone or wrote the same sentences on their notebook. We realised
that nobody was using their own words (something we assumed they were going to do) and that they were not
understanding many words of their texts or news.

Then, to help them to develop a process of understanding a reading we established a method with the following
steps:

1. Read slowly the text

2. Identify the words that you don't understand and look for the definitions.
3. Read again the news and try to understand the full content.
4. Identify the keywords of the text (the main ideas).
5. Built simple sentences using the keywords to explain the news.

Friday 24th January

The students were following the steps above but we realised they were not highlighting keywords and therefore
they were not able to explain with simple sentences in an easy way what was the news about.
So, we created another process to identify the essential information: look for the keywords which represent what
happened, where, when, who and why it happened.

Monday 27th to Thursday 30th January

We have been working on analysing very different news, highlighting the keywords, adding vocabulary about
the topics and mainly developing a clear procedure for them to understand the news and be able to talk about
them and explain them without the support of the writing.

We consider they have really improved their approach to news. We have seen an improvement day by day. They
are now able to read news looking for the general content, looking for words they don’t understand and
providing keywords, although most of the time we identified the essential keywords together in class after
analysing the news together Hi
Also, we always write the keywords on the whiteboard and ask them to make full sentences using those
keywords in a way that they can provide a clear explanation about the news with their own words.
Notes
We have realised from the very first class that these students are not used to follow a study process, that they
don't organise the ideas in order of importance. So we have tried to give them tools to read, understand and keep
a conversation about a topic.

Apart from the process of understanding and talking about the news, we also liked to increase their vocabulary
about the different topics. We also ask them all the time why they chose this news, how does it make them feel,
if they consider it is good or bad, fair or unfair.

Sometimes the news they chose are a bit complicated to understand, but we have never discard any news and we
have always followed the process to identify the meaning and essential pieces of information.

Procedure to follow with pre-intermediate level:

We consider this could be a key activity to have 2 or 3 times a week as the improvement in only 2 weeks has
been notable. We think they are going to keep developing reading, writing and speaking skills if they continue
with this activity.

Class at 2pm: Elementary level

Tuesday 21st January

This was an introduction class where teachers asked several questions to the students, wrote the questions on the
whiteboard: what's your name, how old are you, what do you study, what is your favourite subject, do you have
any hobby, ask any question to the teachers. Each student had to go to the whiteboard, wrote the answers for
everybody to see them and also said them out loud. Afterwards, we took a picture of each student with one or the
two teachers (they loved this idea and laughed a lot with every photo).

In our opinion, it was a very good way to start knowing each other, as they not only answered our questions, but
they also had the chance to ask us anything that they wanted.

Finally, we asked them to prepare two adjectives which describe themselves for the next day class.

Wednesday 22nd January

As a continuation of the previous class, the students started making sentences with the 2 adjectives prepared. We
wrote them all on the whiteboard, and asked them "Why do you think you are friendly?" for them to explain with
more sentences the way they are. We also asked them to give us synonyms and antonyms that we also wrote.
Afterwards, we played a game or group dynamic consisted of asking each student "can you please tell me who
was the person describing herself as honest? ". That way they had fun and learnt about other people's adjectives
and their meanings.

For the following day class, we asked them to prepare a riddle about animals, by using full sentences with
adjectives.

Thursday 23rd January

We didn't have the class as the students had leadership course.

Friday 24th January

We didn't have class as the students were going to their hometowns due to the Chinese New Year holiday.
Monday 27th January
We started the class with the animal riddles to practise the use of adjectives, colours, body parts, verbs in the
correct tense.
Then we started with the study book "Interchange", page 22. Before they could read the page, we asked to stand
out to do another group dynamic: to describe the clothes they were wearing and their classmates were wearing
(one student describing the clothes of another standing near the whiteboard). We put special attention to the use
of the present continuous "I am / he is wearing" as they tended to only mention the clothes straight away.
Later, we read the clothes vocabulary on page 22 and asked them for those words whose meaning they didn't
understand.

Tuesday 28th January

We finished with the animal riddle for those students who didn't have them ready on Monday. Then, we
continued learning the clothes vocabulary on page 22 of the book Interchange and doing the exercises of the
book.
As the book is in black and white and there was an exercise to practice colours, we showed them pictures of
cartoons wearing different types of clothing took from Google, so that they could describe them. We finally
asked them to prepare another picture from Google to describe both colours and clothes.
We asked them to

Wednesday 29th January

Students described their online pictures (most of them of models wearing different types of clothing).
Then, we covered page 23: conversation and pronunciation of the letters s and sh.
We explained the possessives (on page 24) with our own words and writing on the whiteboard so that they paid
attention (we have found out that it is normally better to keep their attention away from the book as they may be
only staring at it, without understanding the content). We also like to make them participate on the explanation
by asking them other examples (this way we can check if they understand the concepts).

Finally, they did the exercise on page 24 and we ended with the group dynamic showed on the same page
(exercise B). We added more questions for them to practise the different possessives and we repeated them until
they got it right.

Notes
The hardest thing for us was to know which level of English they have.
Generally speaking they can follow the explanation, however they never tell you if they don’t understand
something. It is worthy to ask them repeatedly if they aren't understanding anything or highlight the words that
you consider difficult for them.
As described above they tend to give short answers avoiding the subject and verbs probably to do the exercise as
fast as possible and pass to the next student. Please set up as a general rule to give long answers with full
sentences.
Most of them have problems with clear pronunciation. So please repeat yourself the word mispronounced and
ask them to repeat it themselves.

Procedure to follow with the elementary level:

1. Read the book in advance so that you can prepare the class with time.
2. Prepare the concepts and lesson of the unit. Explain the lesson in class without opening the book. Use the
whiteboard and your own words to explain the ideas. This way you will catch their attention more easily. Try to
involve them on the explanation by asking them to give you examples.
3. Support your explanation by opening the book and go through the concepts again, but this time using the way
the book explains them.
4. Prepare a game related to the day lesson. This can be a group dynamic for the students to practise what they
have recently learnt. Usually, the book will provide you with some of these activities, but if not try to create one
yourself. This dynamic has the goal to help the students consolidate the lesson at the same time that you relax the
atmosphere so that they can also laugh and have a good time.
5. Ask them to do a bit of homework for next day. You will correct it the following day and cover doubts if any.
6. As Dennis recommended, try to cover 2-4 pages each day so that little by little students get to finish the text
book.

Class at 5.30pm: Beginner level

Tuesday 21st January

This was an introduction class where teachers asked several questions to the students, wrote the questions on the
whiteboard: what's your name, how old are you, what do you study, what is your favourite subject, do you have
any hobby, ask any question to the teachers. Each student had to go to the whiteboard, wrote the answers for
everybody to see them and also said them out loud. Afterwards, we took a picture of each student with one or the
two teachers.

Wednesday 22nd January

We started with the text “let’s go” on page 40. We studied some occupations and ask the students to tell us what
they want to do when they are older. We specifically wrote down the sentence for them to read and answered
with more words than only the occupation: “When I am older, I want to be a ____”. We have tended to write this
kind of examples so that they start making full sentences. We followed the class making the related workbook
exercises.

Thursday 23rd January

We didn't have class as the students had leadership course.

Friday 24th January

We didn't have class as the students were going to their hometowns due to the Chinese New Year holiday.

From Monday 27th January to Friday 31st January

We have been covering units 5 and 6 of the text book “Let’s go”. Our last page covered was page 55 so new
volunteers can start on page 56, unit 7. It may be a good idea to revise both occupations (unit 5) and locations
(unit 6).

Specific notes about each student

- Reaksa is by far the student who understands the most and the braver to answer anything and to be the
first doing any activity (she tends to continue doing extra exercise pages once she finishes doing the
commanded pages). She is probably getting a bit bored in class so on the first class she was talking a
bit too much. To change her attitude and to bring her over to our side, on the second class we told her
that we were really happy that her English is that good, and asked her to support us when other
students didn’t understand something. Since then she has been very collaborative and kind to us, trying
to help us in any occasion that she could.

- The level of Bee, Seang and Lei is really similar. They understand some pieces of the information we
provide, but normally they stare at Reaksa for her to translate and make sure they understand. On the
workbook exercises, Seang and Bee are quicker than Lei, who often is the last of the class to finish. The
 use of correct tenses (present simple, present continuous) is occasional. They have told us some details
which prove they have received these lessons, but we don’t think they know how to apply them
correctly. A reminder of the use of “s, es, ies” on the third person of singular, or the use of present
continuous would be very useful.

- Ratana is the new student we got on the last class with Harjit on Monday 20th January. She is more or
less in the same level of Bee, Seang and Lei, but she does the exercises of the workbook correct most of
the times which means that she has basic knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. She didn’t have any
book when she first arrived, and from the second day she had the workbook, but no the “Let’s go” text
(she still doesn’t have the study text so we have been providing her with photocopies). Her confidence
has been improving day by day.

- Phada and Sana are quiet and they tend not to talk at all unless we ask them specifically to answer one
question or do one exercise. However, they do the exercises on time and mostly correct.

- Nana has only been in our very first class. We found that all students were more or less able to answer
the simple questions, but Nana (11 years old) didn’t want to go to the whiteboard, although she was
finally encouraged to write down the very first 3 answers (name, age, studies). We are not sure if she
was not understanding anything at all or she was simply embarrassed.

- Danet is very confident and really sharp, but she is normally distracted doing funny moves or faces,
probably because either she doesn’t make the effort to pay attention or doesn’t understand our words or
accent. However, she does normally all the exercises correctly and she reads with confidence and a very
good pronunciation.

General Notes: Some of the outsider students, mainly the recently added to the classes, don’t have the books
(study text “Let’s go” and the workbook) so we have been providing them with photocopies.
When new students appear without notice, it is a bit confusing what to do with them as you don’t know their
level or if they understand the lesson, or if they have been already taught the topic.
The last added students, Prana (Danet’s brother) and Kithsya, have assisted just a couple of classes but their level
is higher than the rest of students, probably similar level to Reaksa’s.

Procedure to follow with the beginner level:

This is a general method that have followed in all our classes.

1. Student book. New theory or vocabulary. Always writing down on the whiteboard, trying to engage
them with some questions or examples. (e.g. who knows another occupation?)
2. Group dynamic, where we make them some questions for them to use the new vocabulary or theory.
For example as explain above, we asked them for letting us know what they want to do when they are
older)
3. Homework book. We ask to do the homework exercises related to the student book.
(We make them read the homework answers in order to consolidate the new knowledge. Generally one
answer per student as minimum.)