A+ English: My experience so far

Hi, my name’s Christine and I’m a placement student here at A-plus.  I’m an English and Education studies student at Sheffield Hallam University currently in my third year. Part of my degree requires me to take undertake a placement in an educational environment for seven weeks each year. This time I decided to self organise and was lucky enough for the people at A-plus to offer me the opportunity to do my placement here! I have a special interest in English as a foreign language and I am doing my third year research project on second language acquisition so this is the perfect place for me to find out everything I need to know!

I’m on my fourth week here and

so far it’s been a great experience: the staff have all been very friendly and accommodating and I’ve had the chance to observe classes (including an online one to one lesson), interact with the students and even take part in a Farsi lesson as part of the Tesol Cert that A-plus offer (needless to say it was an interesting experience, however I must admit Farsi is definitely not my strong point!)

I decided to focus my final year dissertation on the social aspect of learning language and my experience here has provided me with some really good insights into this subject area. One of the things I have found especially interesting about being here is the positive environment and the sense of community within the school. A-plus offer social activities for the students outside the classroom: such as visits to different cities and restaurant trips. During lunch time, conversation club allows the students to chat amongst each other and practise their English. One of my favourite experiences so far has been taking a trip with one of the classes to a local restaurant for lunch. In the first lesson we all voted on where everyone would like to eat and in the second lesson off we went! Aside from enjoying the local cuisine, I got a chance to chat with the students outside of the classroom about a little bit of everything: from their background and interests, to favourite foods and how they’ve found their experience in England so far. I think this was a great opportunity for the students to practise their English in a relaxed environment, and it just goes to show learning doesn’t always take place in the classroom! I think this school provides the students with more than just learning English; it gives them a slice of English culture and a social community. I was overwhelmed by how positive the students and teachers were and also how friendly everyone was. The students definitely seem at home here at A-plus. 

Overall, it’s been great so far. I particularly enjoy getting involved in the classes, the energy from the students is fantastic and I think this is due to the teachers’ enthusiasm in and out of the classroom. I will finish by saying I look forward to my time left here and carrying out my research at A-plus next semester, everyone has been lovely and it has really helped with my research and experience in my third year.