Having introduced the rather vague details on my Tuesday-Thursday classes, It is now the turn of the Monday-Wednesday lot. Just one class from last year going into their second (hopefully final) year of preparing for FCE. A rather boisterous, noisy and immature group of 15 year olds, it will take some doing to get them that far so quickly. I am hoping that the introduction of homework via the internet will get them to study more at home. I will keep you posted.
The other two are young learners - the first a brand new class of 8-9 year olds who have never been to the academy before. They should have been learning English at school for at least a couple of years though, so there shouldn't be any complete beginners. The objective (possibly unrealistic, until I meet them I won't know) is for them to do the Cambridge Starters exam in June. I plan to use a bit of theatrical humour on the first day, hopefully that will put them at ease and not just think that their teacher is a wierdo!
The other group are very young - 4/5 year olds, two of whom started learning English last year.
I will be starting phonics with them as soon as they have a bit more vocabulary. We have a puppet called Bobby which one of the children will take home after each lesson. I'm hoping that Bobby will be a fantastic source of vocabulary and really, more importantly at this stage, that the children will enjoy coming to English class and continue for years to come. (My boss will be happy about this!)
These, for the time being, are my classes for the coming school year. I shall be meeting them tomorrow and Wednesday and may have to scrap all my ideas and come up with some new ones, but hey, always looking for a challenge!
