Lessons learned:

So I think that I had two of my strongest lessons last week, both on modal verbs (or at least, similar to modals) and both teaching the upper intermediates.  I recently decided that if I cant teach kids, then I’d rather teach the upper-intermediates.  They’re past most of the nitty-gritty grammar, they lovvve to talk, and they’re pretty smart. 

Anyway, lesson one of the week was one modals (can, must, could, may, might, can’t) and I used the theme of ancient ruins.  It was pretty great, I had them all pretend to be explorers—they each had a different picture of a ruin that they “discovered” and they had to guess as to its original function.  They all used the grammar right, they had fun, there was humor, and I got good feedback.  Finally, I wasn’t nervous as I headed up to the front of the class!

Teaching on Friday wasn’t observed (by our teachers that is; they like to sit in the corner and quietly judge/grade us, but it always makes things a little awkward) so that was nice, at least in theory. I did the lesson on look/seem/appear, and since Americans love doctors and cops (according to American TV at least) I did the lesson on cops.

First, I found this cartoon of an old woman with two cops coming in the front door. She was holding a gun and there was an unconscious thief in the background.  I decided the gun thing was a bit violent, (it was a cartoon about gun control) so I went on paint, erased the gun, and drew in a baseball bat instead. It actually looked like it belonged in the original, so I was proud of myself. So then, I found all theses cartoons online and gave one to each student. They were all cops taking a coffee break, and they were discussing their recent cases, of what appeared to have happened, what it looked like occurred, etc.  It was awesome!