838. Getting useful info about my new place



One day teacher of English B said to teacher of English A, “Something a bit hard to me is when I start to teach an adult group and I don’t know if to address them individually in those first classes by asking them practical questions regarding something we’re studying then, like defining words in English. Alike I don’t know whether to ask them about their lives and circumstances.

A while ago I decided to ask them one by one, randomly, also to try to meet each one’s needs and expectations concerning learning English. The thing is working pretty well. I think they expected this way of conducting from myself. At the beginning of the academic year, or even now at the end of it, you can get information about each of them by the following useful activity. I assume it’s better to learn who I have in front of me in my classes, as a teacher.

I learned this activity in one of the grades of Centro de Lenguas Modernas, of Universidad de Granada. First the teacher, and then each one of the students come to the whiteboard. Then he or she writes numbers that have to do with themselves. For example: 1966 – 30 – 4 – 1988 ... Then the rest of the class venture possible information from the numbers, like: the year when he was born, 30? (I have no clue), the number of children, the year when he finished his university degree or the year when he got married. At the end, this student gives the real information about those numbers; so you start to learn who that man is.” / Photo from: 3-ufer com. German students studying abroad

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