21st of September 2015 - two wonderful stories on visitors day

It was the last lesson in the morning and the kids had their parents around all day. Unfortunately many parents had left for whatever reason... Maybe they had to go home and cook...? But there were still about 9 people watching the lesson.

This lesson started about the same way the last lesson started: I greeted them with the good morning conversation and all could see the text above the blackboard. Then I put the blackboard up as far as I could to cover the text and held the conversation with this one boy that told me he was ready and he did great. There was one short hesitation before one of the answers but all the rest he said very fluently. I gave him two thumbs up and a huge smile and without having to say anything the class gave him a big applause. Then I explained to the parents (in English of course ;-)) that I had a list where the kids could tick their names when they felt ready to have this conversation with me and that even though he knew that parents would be watching this brave boy told me he was ready to do it today.

Then we sang out two songs. I'm really looking forward to Thursday when we'll learn one or two new songs. This will give us some more variety...

Then I gave the kids another 15 minutes to practise their texts and let it open to them if they wanted to use an MP3-player or just read it through without it. They could also work in pairs or by themselves but actually all of them came to get a MP3 player and read along the audio book.

After those 15 minutes the class gathered in the classroom. One kid was sick last Friday so he didn't know anything about the questions I had put up above the blackboard. I asked if anyone could explain it to him and choose one boy out of those who raised their hand. As usually he started talking in German (as the whole class does all the time) and I asked him to try it in English. He hesitated but then he tried. I could understand what he meant even if it wasn't grammatically correct so I told him that he did good. As I realised that some of the class mate were giggling I asked them not to and told them why it was worth a lot more to say something in English even if it's not correct than just to say it in German...

I made an example with the girl next to him. I said: Imagine you were you and on the street you met a women. She's a tourist from Spain and says to you: "Disculpa, puedes decir me donde esta la iglesia?" (I have no idea if I wrote this correctly but that's not the point...) She looked at me with big eyes because she didn't understand a word... Then I asked her how she would react if this woman said: "WO SEIN KIRCHE?" (WHERE CHURCH?) Then she said that she would show her the right directions. Then I told the class that that was exactly why I wanted them to try it in English, even if it's not 100% correct because if they are in an English speaking country on a holiday I want them to be able to communicate. And just as this girl understood me by speaking incorrect German, those people will understand them when they try it in the foreign language...

I explained again to the whole class and the parents, that I wanted them to read along while the kids who read it out loud and to highlight the words they didn't understand. After having heard the whole story, they could ask questions to clarify vocabulary with the help above the blackboard. Because these guys were the "Pros" since the really knew every single word... (Oh they liked that word "Pro")

And here comes the highlight! 
These four guys read the two stories so beautifully! They read it very fluently and except for one "came" that was pronounced as "come" and for some "askEd" and "whachEd"  where they stressed the "E" they read it perfectly AND with a very proper English accent. The main teacher filmed it but what I will do on Friday is that I'll take each of those six groups to a different room and just record their reading. Then each one of them will get a CD to take home with all six stories read by the whole class.

They all got a big applause from fascinated visitors.

The clarification of the vocabulary was held in English but I allowed the readers to translate those words in German. Next time I'll have them try to explain in different words but they have had enough pressure standing in front of this big audience for today.

Voluntary homework was to practise reading these text until Friday because then, I want the others to read their texts as well.

So to end the lesson and asked my question about the what the boys say and there was a silence... I really don't know it they felt ashamed to say something like this in front of the parents so we had to do it twice. I wonder how they will do on Friday...

After the lesson many parents came and told me that they thought it was a great lesson and a grand-father told me that he had actually learnt a lot in this lesson.

One mother pointed out how much her son liked this way of language learning a lot and that he feels very comfortable having the help of these audio books of recorded texts and I have to say that exactly this boy is struggling a lot in school. And last Friday the class had a French lesson where he didn't have to participate so I took him to a separate room to practise his English text. I was amazed how well he did. But then in the next lesson he was supposed to practice it with the main teacher in the classroom and hardly said a word. I think that he's scared saying something when other kids are around and I really thinking about taking him to this different room and having him read his part of the text to me only and to the dictating machine. And when he hears on the CD that he's doing just as good as the others, then maybe this will help him get more self confidence.