T'was the week before Christmas...

...and all through the school (cough, cough) sorry about that, I'll just nip that one in the bud, I think.

We're getting in the Christmas spirit here at A+! Here's a video of our students decorating the tree that was kindly donated by Sue who teaches the TESOL course. The common room now looks very festive and people keep coming into the office and bringing us boxes of chocolates, which is lovely, but we also keep eating them and I've definitely got to go on a diet in the new year! Anyway, there's a lot of eating and drinking and making merry to do before then, so Merry Christmas one and all!

A+ Film and Drama Club

Those of you who attend the school may have noticed a few posters scattered around the common room and classrooms advertising the A+ Film and Drama club. Well, we've been meeting for a couple of weeks now and have produced our first film already! Before we had even started, the students had decided on the characters they wanted to portray and during our first session, we brainstormed ideas for a story we wanted to film using these characters. I then set some homework (yes, homework from an after school club, it just goes to show how dedicated our students are that they actually did it!) to write the script. In our next meeting we read through the script and the students practised their parts. We decided to film it the next day and got most of it done. The students again showed how much they wanted the film to succeed when they volunteered to come in at half past eight the next morning to film the last two scenes. I'm incredibly proud of their performances and the effort they all put in. So here it is, our very first production.

First night nerves

Well, I did it! I taught English for the first time in several years. I'm not going to pretend that it all went well, because that would be a lie. I made mistakes, but the important thing is that I know what they are and will correct them next time.

To recap, we were given our first teaching task to plan a 10 minute lesson in pairs and had to teach it to the rest of the TESOL class. My teaching partner (Anwar) and I had chosen to teach 'how to order food in a restaurant.' We actually planned most of it while we were still at the school - yes, we're clever like that :) - so the next week was spent gathering materials and working out how to deliver the lesson. Anwar found some pictures of food that he forwarded to me and I set about polishing the lesson plan. The level we were aiming at was Elementary so we had to consider the language we used very carefully.

From the Director's Desk

Hello everyone,
Sheffield is very chilly at the moment, it was -1 C this morning and I had to scrape the ice off my car!  It was all worth it though to get to the school and teach the students in the Bronze class.  Thanks to you all for greeting me with a cheerful smile.  I have heard the students practising their new production in the film club and hopefully we should be seeing the fruits of their labour very soon on the blog…  Watch this space….

 I hope everybody has checked out our updated website and our exciting new online courses, learning English from home – wherever that might be!  

Everything here is gearing up for Christmas and we will be closed over the Christmas period from the 22^nd December 2012 to 2^nd January 2013, but before that we will be having our Christmas outing to Sheffield City Hall on 20^th December and our Christmas party for staff and students on 21^st December in the A+ common room.  We’re all looking forward to that.

This just got real!

Those of you who've been following my adventures in TESOL will have seen we've had quite a sedate introduction to the topic; lots of grammar, a few observations of real teachers here and there and some pieces of homework. This week, however, the pace quickened slightly when it was revealed we would be teaching our first lessons! OK, we'd just be teaching them to each other, but I think in some ways that's worse. At least students (well, elementary level students at least) can't understand half of what you're saying, so don't notice too much if you stutter and stumble over your words due to nerves. If you're teaching other trainees who are fluent in English, you have nowhere to hide.

From the Director's Desk

Hello again,

Well, I am so very proud of our trainees on the CertTESOL which was moderated on Friday.  Many thanks to our Trinity College London Moderator who spent the day looking at the trainees work, interviewing them and giving feedback to us about our course.  They all passed with flying colours and the feedback we were given was excellent!!  Really, really well done to all our trainees and and the A+ staff.  Now all they need to do is find their dream job wherever in the world they choose to go.  

All the best to you all.