I met my first class yesterday, at The Banyan Center. The students are the oldest group, aged 12 to 14. Yesterday there were three boys and three girls in the class, and all of them were very polite and eager to chat.
Since class started late, we did a simple introductory art making activity with some English conversation tied in.
I had the students use coloured pencils to draw one thing about themselves, or one thing that they liked.
After drawing, the students introduced themselves and explained their drawings. It was a really nice simple way to start getting to know the students and sharing interests.
Following this, each student was told to ask me one question in English, and I would ask them the same question back. This was a fun way to encourage conversation and to build background about each other.
One student in particular was a strong character. Instead of drawing on his paper, he spent the ten minutes fake drawing in the back of the room. When it was his turn to present, he showed his blank paper and said " Hi! My name is ... And I like Paper, because you can do anything with it, like draw, and write". Very clever, yeah?
And when it was his turn to ask a question he was the last student so all of the easy "where are you from?" "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" questions were all gone, so he was at a loss. He kept on asking "how are you?", but we wouldn't let him off that easily so my coteacher let me ask him five of my own questions, which he did very well at answering. Apparently he has "many" girlfriends and his favourite colour is black because its dark. :)
Here are the photos of their drawings of things they like and their explanations
1. " I like trees!"
2. " I like computers and playing video games"
3. " I like birds" (picture of him with his bird in a cage)
4. "I like cars and fixing cars. I want to be a mechanic when I grow up" ( picture of her in the car shop)
5. " I like listening to music"
6. " I like paper..
7. My coteacher: she likes her baby!
8.Me: I like being outside!
