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.


So, we were split into pairs to plan our lesson. First, we had to choose our subject from a list helpfully provided to us by Sue. We had a choice of shopping, ordering in a restaurant, talking about future plans, some and any and countable and uncountable nouns. I think if we hadn't have been given a list, I might still be there trying to decide what to teach! Anwar, my teaching partner, and I chose 'ordering food in a restaurant' as it seemed straightforward and the time limit for our first foray into the teaching world was to be a scant ten minutes. We put our heads together and concocted a lesson plan that involved lots of flashcards of various meals, projecting a picture of a restaurant on the wall to get everyone in the mood, discussions of people's favourite foods and roleplaying restaurant experiences. I then spent about a week on youtube looking for an example of a restaurant experience that was set in Britain (and so had English accents). I say about a week as it took me that long to realise that I wasn't just looking for a needle in a haystack, I was searching for something that doesn't exist. Surely, I thought in my naivety, there must be hundreds of British English teachers that have uploaded restaurant scenarios for their students? Well, sadly, no, there isn't. Luckily, I'd also been working on a lesson for the A+ Online Course so had recorded a restaurant scenario using the amazing vocal talents of some of our teachers. This turned out to be my saving grace as I'm stealing it for my own teaching!