Bugs & Insects in Luna's garden

As part of English Time 1's Project Time at the end of unit 3, we all went outside to explore the garden and see what bugs and insects we could find. We looked in flower pots, under rocks and between every nook and cranny. Here are some posters of our findings!

Acting out not acting up - working together through role playing

For our next instalment of "Luna's got Talent" I would like to introduce Rui, Kaito, Kotone and Moeka acting out the story of Max and Digger from Review 2 of English Time 1 (written by Susan Rivers and Setsuko Toyama). In this story Max gets a little too greedy and gets a stomach ache!

During rehearsals the boys were much more focused on creating the most extravagant and eccentric foods and drinks from the props they had available, while the girls focused more on learning their lines. As you can see from the performances the boys tended to forget their lines! Luckily for the boys the girls were on hand to prompt them when they did. It was great fun getting the students to play the role of director and calling out stage directions when it came to the performances, it's always fantastic to see your students working together to create something they can all be proud of. A great way to build on conversational language whilst having tons of fun.

Rui (Digger) & Kaito (Max)

Kotone (Digger) & Moeka (Max)

Damian Gowland

Reading young learners, smiles all round

TGIF !!!

 I was really glad that my Friday class have got stuck into their Story Tree graded readers. We skipped the red series and leapt straight into the blue, and Kipper's disastrous Toys' Party. Squeels of protest as our new role model Kipper made a cake with milk (OK, apparently!) & beans, ketchup, corn flakes...of course "Mum is angry!"

As this is our first adventure with the readers, we spent a lesson getting used to the (great) workbook that comes with each title. A number of different activities that without guidance could put the brakes on before we even start. Once the ice broken there, had a hard time stopping them from trying to do everything in one go! (Essentially a 'do at home' extra that we review every now & again in class, act out or otherwise use in some way)

A cool song to incorporate here would be Super Simple Songs' "Broccoli Ice-cream", which was recommended to me last year by Ryan Hagglund during examiner training.

At the same time we also moved up a gear with a new class book (English Time 1, also from OUP) and I am delighted that the switch is 'just right'. I used the board as an in-between step - seeing new words (some, anyway) and knowing what they are (from the pictures), to 'owning them' as in adding them to their picture dictionary at the back of the book (too often never to be seen again). Books at one end of the room, to refer to as often as you like - the points go to the most methodical memory and not the fastest runner!

English Time 1, Unit 1 vocab race

I am not too concerned with lettering on the board (whole medium is awkward) just as long as legible. We did have a vote for neatest, though, just to sow a seed! The other penny dropped when they were then asked to find the pictures in their picture dictionary and to put the matching word next to it - whose writing did they copy :) An activity I like because it passively gets them to realise alphabet order. Next week? Hangman, of course!

What's this/that? A real dialogue!

What's this/that? A good laugh!

Idle iPhone designs

Yuta was the only one to turn up to class today - it's been very hot and the holiday season is looming...

Rather than give him a hard time with the books, I showed him how to draw a simple picture on my iPhone; as you can see, he got the hang of it pretty quickly! We then imported the images to VoiceThread and made the cool slideshow above, adding captions, comments and our little chat. He did most of the work himself, and looked rather chuffed with the result.

Fool on his classmates for not turning up! We had a ball! Thanks Yuta - goo job :)