Luckily I am writing this after having just returned from a solid morning of good classes. Even though I’ve been doing this for over two months now, each class session can really just be hit or miss. And it’s a little difficult because I work with really different types of students: one class only has only 2 students; another has about 12 who are pretty advanced at English; group of about 20 guys who are anywhere from 19-22 years old & are studying mechanical engineering/electronics; group of psychologically challenged students at a medical/rehab center; oh, yes, and I also work with a calculus class in English … that’s a fun one! Here’s a quick overview of some failed attempts and success stories:
1) The Harry Potter overview lesson was a miserable failure. The teacher recommended I do it to tie in with their previous lesson on Roald Dahl short stories. But unfortunately only a few of the students had actually read HP, and the others were totally lost. My HP vocab matching-exercise was pretty bad, as well!
2) Several teachers have asked me to talk about after-school jobs in the US. It is very uncommon for teenagers to have part-time jobs here since most of them stay at school until 6pm everyday, so they think the American schedule is pretty interesting. So I put together a worksheet with common teenage jobs, pictures, and useful vocab words … and even though I’ve done this lesson with a few different groups, it has been kinda boring each time. I’m still trying to think of ways to spice it up a bit.
3) I did a lesson on the retail industry in the US … specifically focused on Target, obviously! I brought a few circulars from the US paper and emphasized the contrast between US promotions (how we advertise different prices weekly, always have sales & clearance, etc) and those of France (there are only two official “sale periods” per year, regulated by the government). I’m not sure if they understood too much, but it was kinda fun to do.
4) I have a group of just 2 students who I work with individually each week. Since they chose to take this in addition to their normal English classes, they are pretty advanced & motivated; so I can choose some pretty interesting topics to discuss with them. Usually I find an article related to a current event or debate and then discuss it with them; for example, we discussed the entry of Starbucks to France three years ago, how the company had to adapt to the culture, the status of American brands abroad, etc. If you’re interested … after 3 years Starbucks has close to 50 locations in the Paris area, beating their initial projections … J
5) My lesson on all of the different American holidays has gone over pretty well. Groundhog’s Day consistently gets a good reaction from the students, naturally!
6) I’ve also used a few different songs and lyrics with some classes … just Elton John and Bob Dylan so far, but I’ve had a few requests for Christmas carols, so I can’t wait to whip out Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You! Oh, if I can get the students to sing that, I will pretty much be the happiest assistant in the world, haha!
7) GAMES ALWAYS WORK! Playing Jeopardy after we’ve discussed a certain topic always goes over well, but I’m not sure how many times I can re-create Jeopardy on different topics without losing their interest! I’ve also played Scrabble, the 20 Question electronic game, and am thinking about doing Catchphrase as well.
8) I think I’ve played “Two Truths and a Lie” about 10 times already. I can obviously only play it once with each different group of students, but it has consistently been a lifesaver when I have 15 minutes left in class and nothing left to do. My example usually goes:
a. I was born in California (False)
b. I have run a marathon (True)
c. I have traveled to India (True)
Can’t wait until I make them play “Never Have I Ever” … pg version, of course!
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