Gateway

Family dinners

Speaking lesson

Anapa, Jan, 12th, 2023

It has been a year since I started giving Taya proper lessons. I mean properly planned lessons, with a course book (Go Getter 3 -the course is great! Want to get back to it soon). It worked well for a couple of months, then we declined for summer vacations and just enjoyed lisening to a nice audiobook “Gladys" by Bertie (Storynory.com) 😍 an absolutely enjoyable book for early teens!) 

Today I am restarting proper teaching - and I try a new coursebook: Gateway B1

Goal: speaking

Topic: Family dinner

Student's age: 11

Level: B1

Stages:

1) Warm up.

comparing two pics (exam skill: 

▪ point out the common thing in both pics - food, having a meal

▫ tell the difference - all together / alone

➡ elicit the idea: which situation is nicer, better scenario and why ➡

the importance of eating together

I got Taya speaking! ⛵

I was happy with what I got - a good balance of teacher's talking time and Student's talking time ☺

There is a room for improvement however. If we stick to the exam skills algorythm it'll work best.

2) Lead in.

People call to the radiostation to tell about their situation: whether they eat together or not, whether they have a small talk or not. 

What can you tell of your own dinner habits? Are you happy with wat we've got? What can be done to improve it?

⭐ Together we stated the problem: we don't have proper conversations around the table. Normally we, parents, discuss some adult issues like politics and kids have to mind their own business. 

⭐ I like Taya's ideas, her speculating ability. However I made he feel uneasy by asking of the solutions to our family problem. I tried to give a positive mindset, we could work it out together. She didn't seem to be ready to offer anything at all. - it is okay, I guess we just have to go on with the listening activity which could give you more ideas and we can get back to our question later.

 

3) Pre-listening

How many speakers are there? - 6.

How many statements to match - 8.

So, two versions are are there to distract your attention.

Here's the strategy: put down the names and be ready to take some notes for each speaker ( age, occupation, whethe he/she is happy or not with their dinner habits)

4) Listening to audio 4. 

Gist listening (Match the speaker and the ideas)

1 Mike - D

2 Chris - G

3 Sally - E

4 Alice - A

5 Jennifer - F

6 Daniel - B

5) After-listening 

Evaluation of the situations: which is the best, which doesn't sound right, which resembles yours? Which speaker do you think reminds you anyof your friends? What do you know about your friend's family dinners?

⭐ I enjoyed working with Taya, she can concentrate allright. Her listening skills are quite strong. It  can be challenging yet - which is good, the B1 level coursebook is just right.

⭐ Together we tried to work out some suitable topics for family dinners. We speculated about how life could change when we move to the new flat with a big telly in the kitchen. It'll never be the same. And what could be done about it not to end up in having zombie family dinners. We even discussed a layout of ouf future kitchen.

⭐ What I liked most in this lesson is the level of her engagement. It was not a hypothetical situation, but things that really matter, something real to focus on. I tried my best to show Taya the positive mindset and a problem solving approach. She was not as excited as I was. And I feel uneasy about switching between two roles: a mother and a teacher.

6) Follow up. 

special questions ex 3

(didn't get to that stage - Taya got already tired)

Abrau-Durso, Nov, 24th 2022

farewell to 2022

Is your memory jar filled with ligts?

Nevermore 2022

ZOZZ ☄ seemed to be the darkest year of all. However I managed to recover from the fear, pain and depression, somewhere in October. And I believe in better future for my family and for this country.

The last event - getting the keys of the appartment - gives even more joy and hope 🎈

I sum it up because it has become a tradition to look back and summarise achievements, improvements, best cases to put into a "memory jar".

I haven't got any memory jars of course. Social media used to play this role for me. Still haven't recovered completely so sign up again.

I remember last year publication where I compared Rus/Eng traditions. English people seem to have a tradition of writing New Year resolutions (or promises and future plans) whereas Russians tryto look back and recall the positive moments of the year. Since the year was black (I wanted to erase everything, the memories, the hopes, my identity and my relations) -  today I will not look back any more, I'll choose the English scenario instead and look into the future.

NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

English goals

❄I just want to learn English, to grow as a speaker and a communicator

❄I also want to give more English to my children. I have a daughter who is my best student ever and I have a son who is still reluctant to learn English.

❄I want to teach English, to have more students and to enjoy the process of giving English to someone else, of growing professionally too.

Parenting goals

❄ I want to give more freedom to my daughter to let her become more independent: starting from stereet crossing experience and making coices to giving her some pocket money and ending with listening to what kind of person she wants to be and to teach her to speak for herself.

❄ I want to teach my son to play by the rules, to communicate with people. He is clever and very creative (if not genious 😅) in some ways, especially when playing on his own, but is he a good teamplyer? What's the right age to begin to worry about it? He is only five and he wants to posess me completely when we are on the football pitch and there should be no more players, no sister 😓. He only wants to be a goalkeeper and meet my attack. 

Moving into our new flat

❄ I want to manage our interior fitout project and not to break up while moving in the new apartment. It includes the idea of finding out what I really need in my house, the way it should be done but at the same time it would require a lot of compromise with the way my husband sees it, and with our limited budget too.

travelling lesson #1

Lesson breakdown

Aim: Lexic + geography: Greece

Coursebook: Go Getter 3, Unit 3 p.34

Travel

Stage: warming up, eliciting some lexic

Look at the picture and describe what they have on their minds.

Tasya went on, she could describe every picture in those bubbles using her language - surprisingly she managed to put it in her own words - using not a single word from the book! Wow! It was an utterly different language. 

I stopped for a moment. Do I even have to teach her anything? She can express her ideas no problem. Is it a big deal if she says this:

"to spend a night in a tent" - instead of "to go camping"

or "to eat in a restaurant" instead of "to try some local food", 

or: "to ride a bike" instead of "to go cycling" 

or : "to listen to a guide" instead of "to go on a guidd tour" etc.

(Eliciting the target language)

However I listened to her carefully and took the notes. And then I said: There are so many ways to put ideas into the words, let's see if you can make the word combinations for the following verbs:

Stay - Where do people stayon holidays?

stay in the hotel

Visit - What do they visit?

Visit museums, galleries, places of interest

Do - What do people do on holidays? 

do watersports, new kinds of sports like horse riding, surfing, paragliding..

Go - Where do they go?

go sightseeing, hiking, swimming

Read - What do they read?

read books and magazines, guidebooks

Compound nouns: watersports, sightseeing, guidebook (mark the roots)

Stage: Practicing

Role-play a dialogue as if we've just met at the swimming pool area. I asked these questions:

What's your name? Where are you from?

The weather is nice, isn't it? 

How long have you been staying here? Where are you staying? Have you already seen anything special/ visited any places? Have you tried something new? What would you recommend to do?

Stage: Geography

Find Grece, Crete on Google maps.

Let's read a page from a guidebook:

What does this island look like?

What is its shape? Let's say it's like a long fish, shall we?

Does it sretche out from North to South? - No.

Then which way does it stretch?

From the left to the right? Let's say "from East to West". 

What country does it belong? (immediate testing :) - Greece! Right. What is the flag of Greece? - Blue and white, stripy, with a little cross on the top left corner.

Stage: Practicing target language

Take a look at the pictures and describe what you see:

To go on a boat trip, sightseeing, watersports

try local food

Would you like to try some of these octopuses?

no? They are deliscious! I love sea food.

to go on a guided tour, to explore the city

Stage: having fun :)

Let's imagine you are on the skype with your granny but your microphone is dead, you probably dropped it ito the water, so your gran can not hear you and you gonna mime, show what activities you've already had.

(I did my best not to give the right answer right away, just for fun, just to make her play more, show better, more carefully)

Ex 4. (not matching - GUESSing! Open-ended task! Your version. I've covered the part of the exercise with the picture of the castle - in order to make the ex. OPEN-ENDED (freer practice).

Homework

Write to your friend about Anapa. How it is a good place for a holiday?

This is how she performed her writing task (with lots of spelling mistakes - but she is never short of words - which is good! It took her not more than 5 minutes to compose this, isn't she good?

Shopping #2

You're so HOTS I want to role-play with you. 

The more I teach Tasya the more I think what a bright student I am dealing with. I would love to be wise enough to always encourage her frolics and sence of humour and not to push hard enough to perform well in close ended tests.

Recently I've discovered that she may somehow fail to find opposites to simple words (such as heavy/light, strong/weak, etc.) which worrield me for a wile. But at the same day she showed herself as a pretty good communicator and a story teller. Testing is tricky. Don't fall into its trap. I've analysed that Tasya prefers the  tasks that engage Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) more than those of the Lower ones (LOTS) (according to Bloom's taxonomy, check it out).

Taya can be very creative and comes up with very nice ideas for another word of the day comic strip. She loves to role-play any life situations very emotionally applying all her artistry and charm. She is my dream student! 

And on top of that she has just become an independent reader. She has her bed time stories in English and I think I should do some research on how to provide her with more authentic literature. (Today she read Pippi Longstockings on her own, I could hardly believe it, my dear).

LESSON BREAKDOWN

Duration: 60 min.

Course book: Go Getter 3rd, SB  P. 23, Audio 35, 36, 37

Topic: Shopping 

Aim: Lexic

Stage: Warm up

Roleplay game. We used our toy shop set 'A vegetable stall' with some plastic goods, basket, scales, cash desk and money. Taya loved this game because now she knew how to say this everyday language:

How can I help you?

It is our special offer.

Here is your change and the receipt.

Would you like to pay in cash or by card?

*In terms of common usage it's often shortened to just "cash or card", so you'll probably most often hear "You can pay with cash or card" in shops. Sometimes a cashier will just look at a customer and ask "cash or card?" as the whole sentence.

Stage: new lexic with a focus on spelling 

Guess what's the phrase:

* to stand in a queue (the word 'queue' sounds the same with the letter 'Q')

Taya's got sense of humour! See what the word 'queue' should look like - written in red letters below the picture:

it says: Qyghery

She must have known the word ought to be tricky: it takes more letters to write it than sounds to pronunce! And since those letters are silent why should she care what those letters are? There might be silent friends "ght" whatever! :D

3 words to memorize: queue, receipt, cashier

Focus on pronunciation and spelling, silent letters.

We role-played the situation:

A husband is in a que, calling her wife on the phone, who is still roaming around the store:

- What might be keeping you, honey?

- I've been looking for my favourite squash caviar, darling. Now I've got it, but where can I find you?

- I am standing in a queue, catch up soon!

- Sure!

- I don't want to keep the cashier waiting too long.

- I'm coming! Which queue are you in?

- The cashier number 5.

- Right, I can see you now.

Audio 1_35

(A litlle of TPR) Listen and jump up when you hear the new words:

• Queue, 

• cashier, 

• special offer, 

• receipt, 

• change

Picture p.22

Ex. 2,3,4

ex. 6 and 7

Stage: home task - make the word of the day comic strip

Isn't it adorable? ❤

Shopping #1

Lesson plan. 

Duration: 60 min.

Course book: Go Getter 3rd, SB  P. 24, Audio 38, 39, 40

Topic: Shopping 

Aim: Lexic

Stage: Warm up

Snow ball game:

In my shopping bag there is a carton of cream.

In my shopping bag there is a carton of cream and a can of corn.

In my shopping bag there isa carton of cream, a can of corn and a jar of jam. 

(I used beautiful alliteration here! Can you make the list longer by adding up one item at a time and starting over each time?)

Stage: Lead-in

Word map for shopping:

• Shopping bag, basket, list, trolley, center…

• To do shopping, to go shopping

• Who usually does shopping in your family?

What is shopping?

Tasya believed shopping was about buying some clothes. I explained that we do everyday shopping when we want to bring some milk and bread home.

Stage: Pre-listening - pics

Tasya performed this task amazingly! She said: There must be something with her bag, that made her worry, because she frowned her face. And on the second picture I can see the boys are surprized. There must be something wrong with the delivery, it is not what they had expected.

Listening.

The audio story about Harry and George was funny. 

Stage: post-listening ex.2, reading the prices, matching

Lexic: 

Remember the opposites:

Size: (Big/small) 

Weight: (light/heavy)

Price: (cheap/expensive)

Design: (nice/beautiful/ugly)

I've noticed how hard she gets through this type of task: words don't come easy. She can not say what's the opposite to 'hard'. It took a while till she said 'easy', and I accepted that. But she tried to think of another meaning of 'hard' (as hard as stone) and then she could not come up with any ideas at all, till I said: "is it the word 'soft' that you are trying to call to mind?"

It keeps me thinking - was the sask tiresome? How can she fail with this "Lower Order Thinking Skills" and perform brilliantly with "Higher Order Thinking Skills" anyway?

Comparatives: 

Big-bigger-the biggest

Bad-worse-the worst

Expensive-more expesive-the most expensive

I reminded her the episode from "Frozen" where two sisters see each other for the first time on the ceremony of coronation.

Elsa: You're beautiful!

Anna: You're beautifullER. Oh, no! sorry, I didn't mean 'FOOLER' but 'more beautiful'.

Tasya knew it quite well, the comparatives for short and long words okay, still I believe it was worth paying attention to. Done ✔

****

But Tasya fell off her chair because she could not sit still without putting her feet above her head and prop them against the wall. She pushed the wall too hard so it made her chair topple over LOL :D

 Shall I set the rules for her to remember how to sit, how to behave and show respect - or probably add some TPR activities...

However, we went on with the task and listened to the second part of the audio (it made her relax a bit and forget the chair accident)

****

The boys ordered a toy bag by mistake. 

Inferred meaning:

Granny: Do you like my new bag?

Boys: Yes, it's a good, big bag.

New listening episode: 

https://www.esl-lab.com/easy/shopping-centers/

The story is so sweet! It is about a 6-7 year old girl trying to buy a present for her daddy using some money from her piggy bank.

Target words: wallet, purse, piggy bank

Did you like the dialogue?

What title would you give to it?

Did you hear the jingling coins? What does it say? (money from a piggy bank) isn't it sweet?

She has been collecting it for days and days by helping her mom around the house.

What would you do if you were a shop assistant?

Stage: Post-listening

Do the quiz (on the same webpage)

Done ✔

Tasya learned to read the prices, numerals like $34.99

Target phrase: Let's say it went on sale.

****

60 min Lesson is over.

Tasya gets the "Hometask" which she goes on doing immediately ♥ My girl!

Production Task: Make a dialogue.

She did! A cartoon! Good job! I made a video of her reading it. Watch here

Diary of a wimpy blogger

The Diary Of A Wimpy Mom

I know how everyone loves these fiction book series 'Diary Of A Wimpy Kid" by Jeff Kinney. Inspired by these hilarious stories I tried to put some words together into a 'Diary Of A Wimpy Mom' and my daughter helped to illustrate it. But the last two pictures are mine. My English is not perfect and sometimes I get back to editing :)

July, 3rd

Bee accident

It was the first half of July and I was doing my laundry. I was standing there in the garden, putting the washing on the line to dry when suddenly I felt something, or rather someone, moving in my pants. I patted myself on the butt without thinking. Oh my God! It felt like a bee. It was a bee, 'cause it stung me! 

-"Ouch!" - I let out a shriek and started to unzip my trousers. These were the wide leg trousers, loose enough for a bee to crawl up my leg all the way up to my bum. Which it did! 

I put down my trousers only halfway to let the bee fly away. But it did not work. I felt it at once when I zipped up again. 

- "Ouch! Ouch!" - I let out a shriek again because now it stung me twice in my knee. 

Oh good, now it is even deeper to reach out for. I had to take my trousers off and turn them inside out to shake the bee out of them. And then I realised that all this shrieking and dancing attracted too much attention to my personality while I had no trousers on. So awkward.

- "No, thanks, thanks, neighbours, I need no help." - I mumbled and put my trousers on again.

July, 12th

Just a swim

We had a very rainy July this year. In fact the water in the river was high and muddy over and over again, and once the river even swallowed the bridge. But when the sun shone down again and the water level was getting lower, I started longing for a swim. It felt so right to take a dip so I did not hesitate to grab my swimming suit and took my daughter with me. I knew the water was still high, so I made Tasya put her arm-bands on. We went down to the river where we met a fisherman with his daughter. The fisherman was really surprised to see us heading to the river.

And we were determined to take a dip. Only I hadn't realised at once that it was almost impossible to struggle that current especially with a kid in the arm bands by my side. Tasya was floating away quickly and I had to follow her. We could not climb up the bank where we had plunged into the water. I thought like this: if I could not help it I'd better relax and enjoy this journey. I guess someone ashore almost started to panic. But we didn't care. I kept saying to Tasya: "let's enjoy it as much as we can, babe, let this new experience happen to you and me"

The river carried us away and we watched its banks at a new angle. I've never ventured into such a long swim before. I am afraid of unknown waters. And I was grateful to Tasya for being by my side. I guess sometimes courage comes when there is someone you have to take care of. It works both ways: you may feel better if there is someone stronger or if there is someone weaker by your side. This was the moment when I knew I got the guts. It felt amazing!

Meanwhile my husband must have come to the river bank, found our slippers and towel and made the most terrible conclusion.

We drifted past several paths, we did not hurry to climb ashore at all. We were taking our time to choose the best place, of course our destination was so-called 'Kids beach'. There was no beach, and the only landmark there was a tall tree with a bench which was just few inches above the water. We walked up the flooded path. Splash! Splosh! We did it! When we walked all the way up to the spot where we had started, I sent Tasya to collect our slippers and the towel. And I turned my way straight home to meet my younger kid.

My husband was worried, just as I had thought. He said I was insane to take Tasya to such a trip. I said I did not take her, but the waters took us. But it was not as risky as you might think, actually you could climb ashore anywhere you would like to. No extreme. And if you had been really worried, then why wasn't you happy to see me safe and sound? Was it this teach and preach thing? - Stop it. We had fun and it was worth it. It was amazing! Go and try it yourself.

Eventually Tasya came back with no slippers and no towel but with a confused face. She said the man on the river assured that our belongings were taken by some grandpa… And she had no clues who it might have been. It made me laugh!

Okay, we had one more case when people took your dad for your grandpa. No wonder: he was forty-three when you were born, and forty-nine when Boris was born. He is not a young parent, let's face it.

Tasya said she would like to have this story in her diary, if she had one. But she is way too young to write all these words, so she made the pictures instead. 

August, 5th

Scavenger hunt

Okay we've gone through the rise and fall of the Moscow river this summer. Now I have a story to tell about having really shallow waters in it. It was when even our youngest could walk in it safely exploring new islands. Finally he had some sand to play with! We built a sand castle! 

To my greatest surprisewe saw a canoe passing by. I was sure it was going to get stuck for a couple of times on its way. There were just not enough water for such sport.

- I hope, your canoe has got some wheels... - I said.

- Like a skate? - said my daughter, - Wow! A skate-boat - sounds cool!

We went on to explore the river and we found lots of stuff.

But the most important trophy was a relic bottle of french perfume wich said "Pinaud" with the letters that you could still feel with your fingers.