Hender English Teaching
Outline
Over the course of four or
five years, we’ve discovered what we think is the best way to conduct a class –
although we are flexible and often change our teaching outline.
Several minutes before the
start of every class we always put on a cartoon. We found that it’s a very good
way to settle students before the class actually begins. We have a large collection of cartoons for children, which usually run for approximately five
minutes. This allows for any stragglers and brings an instant calm to any class.
As soon as the cartoon
finishes, the class begins. We usually start the lesson with a viewing of two
episodes of “The Alphablocks”. We find these are a great way to remind students
of the alphabet and the sounds the letters make. We also keep a note of which
episodes we show to students so as not to repeat ourselves.
We then move on to
vocabulary. We turn to the back of our textbook (Concept New English) and
choose a page. The teacher reads the word aloud twice and each time the
students must repeat the word.
After vocabulary we then
move on the next lesson in the same textbook. Turning to the page which has the
vocabulary for the particular lesson, we again read out each word in turn and
the students repeat the word. Any difficult words or words of interest are repeated
and explained to students.
We then read the lesson
slowly and clearly to students who repeat each word. We try to break up the
sentences so students can easily repeat the words. Once we have read the lesson
twice we then show the video.
The video is shown twice
and sometimes we ask the students to repeat the words from the video. We then
move to the questions section and students are asked specific questions from
the textbook. We sometimes ask the questions twice; once to the class as a
whole and secondly to individual students who would otherwise try to avoid
answering questions.
We end the first half of
the lesson after one hour to allow students to have a twenty minute break. During
the break we usually play a Mr. Bean video or cartoon which students love. Some
students may go outside to play or stay and watch the show. Others like to play
with the three computers we have solely for students’ use.
After the break the class
is resumed. Usually at this point the teacher’s assistant will take the class
instructing students in their own language. This could be grammar, vocabulary,
pronunciation or phonetics. This usually lasts for twenty minutes to half an
hour.
The next part of the two
and a quarter hour lesson is usually taken up with written exercises or
reviewing a theme. There are many videos, PPT’s etc. to choose from.
The last part of the
lesson consists of singing one of the many songs from the Hender Song Book
which contains the lyrics of each song. The videos of the songs can be found in
the Hender English Song Book folder.
The last five minutes of
the class are taken up with some fun. We have a large collection of bloopers
from a show called “You’ve Been Framed” which students love. We always end with
this and it has become something of a tradition as far as our students are
concerned.
Our raison d’être is for kids to have fun
whilst learning. To us, it’s very important. We have found that, where possible,
the moment we detect that students are becoming bored, we move on to something
different. Having fun whilst learning English is what Hender English is all
about. We have seen on numerous occasions a reluctant child being dragged to
one of our classes by its parents, only to see the same child leave at the end
of the lesson, smiling from ear to ear and begging to be allowed to return the
following week.
We have also found that
the most lucrative and most reliable age group is the 10 – 12 year olds. These
students tend to be extremely enthusiastic, dependable and a pleasure to teach.
This age group is the backbone of our business and we deliberately focus on
them. They have the maturity, the enthusiasm and, more importantly, the time.
Older students fall away
as the pressure on them builds at highschool. Younger students have a very
short attention span and are unreliable. Adults, we found, were a total waste
of time, perhaps because of their many commitments.
Apart from business cards, we have never advertised. We found our numbers steadily increasing simply as a result of word of mouth. When children are happy they tell their parents. When parents are happy, they tell their friends and so our numbers steadily increased. We are now almost at full capacity so we must be doing something right.
