WEEK 1 AT EOI ELX

Hello, my readers!

This post will be a summary of my very first day at EOI as a language assistant. I decided to start the day after the Welcome session, February 2nd, and get to know my Rogelio's groups. His schedule planned for Thursdays is going to be the following:

Room 17

1ST YEAR A2 LEVEL (Group 9B) - From 9 am to 10:53 am

1ST YEAR B2 LEVEL (Group 11B) - From 11:10 am to 1 pm

Materials:
All the English students use the textbook by Oxford University Press (OUP) NEW ENGLISH FILE, graded according to their level (beginner, elementary, etc.). Apart from the book, students (ss. from now on) also bought a workbook for extra practice and a small booklet containing the answer key. 

A big poster with a highly visual phonemic chart (International Phonemic Alphabet) mixed with pictures was attached next to the whiteboard because from the very starting day at EOI, ss. are introduced to and aimed at using and recognising how sounds are pronounced.

Classroom management:

Ss. seat freely in tables of 6 people. 

Group 9B:

The teacher introduced me an some of my fellows who were also in the classroom to the ss. Then, the first 10' were dedicated to review some doubts from the previous units (1-6) they had studied (e.g. how to tell the time, auxiliary verbs such as do and to be, or phonics). 

Afterwards, they started Lesson 7 whose topic is "Free Time". I have to say, that even though my tutor is a very enthusiastic professional, I was surprised by and do not totalle agree with the traditional types of activities contained in the textbook, such as matching, fill in the gaps, etc.

Group 11B:

I liked the way ss. in this group introduced themselves to me, they love talking and practising, not worried at all about making mistakes or passing official exams for getting certifications and so, made them feel more free and relax during the lessons.

To start with, all the class checked together some errors on mini-writings they had uploaded to an online platform called "Today's meet", which was totally new for me. The theme was sharing how each of them gets relaxed. In order to fulfill this assignment, they had a few examples you can read on the right.

Also, they had a dialogue as homework but as they had not done it, the teacher decided to ask hem for something new on spot. The task was planned for small teams in which ss. discussed about "Do's and Don'ts of being an English teacher"  for 5 minutes, and then me their pieces of advice. 

The teacher ended the session with 3 different listening activities to reinforce their aural comprehension abilities focused on the linking consonants in short phrases. The first and the second exercises were from the text book (for instance, recognising pick it up, not at all, first of all, in an hour, on our own). The last one was a real First Certificate in English (FCE) sample that I will show you in the photo below:

Roge read carefully the instructions and tips before playing the recording. There were 7 multiple-choice questions (choose A, B, or C). And for next Thursday, they will have to hand in a book review.

Have a nice weekend :)

Miss Bacaicoa