Monday, March 18, 2013

I wish...

The other day I had an adult class and the grammar structure they were going to learn were wishes. I thought to myself ,"Ok, today they will form the rules for me" I did not have enough time to search for a video to show them and make a super duper lesson but I thought that it would be a good idea to write my own text and include wishes. My learners were all women and in relationships, which gave me the idea to write about a woman who made a lot of wishes regarding her current husband, her looks, her life in general. It was like a Brigdet Jones situation. The text although not a nobel prize winning novel made my learners laugh and they actually got the differences between the different types of wishes which were the focus of the lesson. After we read and laughed, they told me which structures we should use in order to make a wish. We then moved on to make our own wishes about our lives and the whole task was fun as the students ended up writing about their lives too. Was this the most innovative lesson on earth? No. Did I manage to get the message accross? Yes.
The grammar lesson was close to home and the theme was something my students could relate to. They giggled while reading which made them associate the target language with something fun and they produced sentences about their lives. I think that when presenting grammar in a text, the text needs to be engaging- fun. Bottom line: the more smiles you put on your learners' faces- the greater the possibility they will actually learn something.