Training Week 10

Our final week of training is upon us. Our task this week is to prepare our students to play a board game about Kingston. This is trickier than you might imagine, and our lesson focused on teaching the vocabulary contained within the game instructions and refreshing our students' memories about Kingston's 'hot-spots'! Our students had a lot of fun playing the game. Our course was rounded off with the issuing of Certificates of Achievement to our students, who had worked hard and progressed well with their English over the course of the last ten weeks.

Then we all enjoyed a lovely lunch, for which we each brought a dish, before settling down for our final theory session of the course. This was a very practical session focusing on planning a course of lessons for our students and the resources available to help us do this. We then went on to what monitoring and record keeping was expected for each student. The afternoon was rounded off with the presentation of a Certificate of Achievement to each volunteer tutor. 

Training Week 9

We are back in the classroom today, teaching a group of Entry 1 learners. This is the second to last teaching practice week with the key objective of our students being able to prepare a short piece of work about their own journeys from their homelands to Kingston. 

We start off with some map work. We show our students iconic pictures of several capital cities, the countries and continents they are in and their orientation (north, south, east, west). Then we gave an example of the journey of Cesar Picton had from Senegal to Kingston in the 18th Century, teaching some key vocabulary relating to this, which would help our students when they were describing their own experiences.

Our students then had the opportunity to practice the new vocabulary in pairs. We all learned a lot about where each person had come from, why they came to Kingston and what they enjoy about living here. There was lots of participation from our learners who seemed to really enjoy this session, and they even gave our volunteer tutors a round of applause at the end of it!

After lunch, when our learners had departed, we settled down for a theory lesson focused on error correction. Specifically, what errors should be corrected, when, how and by whom. Once again, our ESOL tutor Emma, taught us a new and important concept using engaging and memorable techniques. 

Training Week 8

This week we have arranged to meet our students and tutors at Kingston Museum. The group splits into two, half going off on a local history tour of Kingston town centre, while the other half stayed for a guided tour of the Museum. I stayed with the group which toured the Museum and found our guide extremely well informed, using lots of props to help explain the exhibits to our students. There really is something for everyone at the Museum, with exhibits ranging from Bronze and Iron Age artefacts, to the Anglo-Saxon Kings who were crowned in Kingston, and showing how Kingston has changed through more modern decades. Our students were asked to pick their favourite exhibit and write a few sentences, with our help, about what it was and why they liked it. 

When we reconvened after lunch for our theory lesson, the focus this week was on the use of authentic materials in teaching. Authentic materials are those not specifically prepared for teaching purposes, for example, information leaflets, forms, newspapers and recipe books. We were split into small groups, each given different authentic materials and we were asked to consider the challenges posed by the language and layouts used. We then were tasked to come up with solutions to overcome these challenges within the context of a plan for a reading lesson. I found this to be a really useful lesson and one which is likely to be well used by us with our students in the future.  

Training Week 7

This week we have been asked to progress our more advanced students to a point where they feel able to write a story about their personal journey to the UK. This presented its own challenges to our teaching group. We were paired up and asked to cover several topics, including a lesson designed to teach vocabulary relating to comparison and emotion; a grammar lesson teaching quantifiers, comparatives and superlatives e.g. many, more, most;  and then our bit, how to bring all this and the information from previous lessons together to create a story. 

My partner and I prepared a piece describing what an autobiography is and the sort of information that might be included in it, as well as a suggested structure that our students might follow. We each took turns to give our students information about our own journeys to Kingston, mine all the way from Glasgow on an rather shabby overnight bus in the '90s and Tatiana's rather more glamorous flight from Brazil earlier this year. This personal touch seemed to engage our students and encourage them to volunteer ideas and to make a positive start on writing their own stories. 

In our feedback session, our tutor Veronica observed that we had all demonstrated good progress in our teaching practice over a short period of time. My feeling is that our confidence has increased with every lesson and that a combination of preparation and learning from this time in front of students is indispensable. 

After lunch, once our students had left, we reconvened in the classroom with our tutor Emma who continued last week's theme of literary skills. This week the main focus moved from reading skills to writing skills. It is important for us to understand this as we are likely to come across students with varied levels of ability and we need to understand how to best develop our lesson plans for each individual.

Training Week 6

Today we are back in the classroom. Last week our tour of Kingston included a stop at Cesar Picton's House and today we have been asked to deliver a lesson, suitable for our group of more advanced students, relating to his journey from Senegal to Kingston in 1761 and his subsequent life in England. 

The focus of our group's lesson was on listening and writing skills. Our students would listen to a video clip about Cesar Picton's life and then work in pairs to write the answers to some questions relating to what they had just heard. Our fellow volunteers had already taught some of the tricky vocabulary the students would need prior to our session. 

This was the first time for us teaching "on our feet" in front of a fairly large group. It was quite a daunting prospect, and once again, I was pleased that our preparation had been thorough. The session went smoothly and our students left with a page of model answers to compare with the work that they had completed.

The afternoon session kicked off with a most interesting challenge to translate a sheet of symbols into English. This was designed to demonstrate to us the many, often subconscious, skills we deploy when reading. Fascinating stuff!

Today it was my first time teaching. I had prepared a lesson with my group to talk about family. It was a 1:1 session, so I was a bit nervous as I knew I would be watched by the rest of my group and Emma, our teacher. But it wasn't as scary as I first thought, it was actually quite fun and I felt that I was not nervous at all. It was a good experience getting to teach about my own family which I think the student also enjoyed. After our teaching practice was over the students went home and we were given feedback. I was quite happy with my feedback and it really encouraged me to consider becoming a teacher in the future which is what I'm aiming for. Especially after experiencing my first time teaching properly with feedback by our teacher, I feel very motivated and I highly recommend anyone of any age to join LEAH.

Training week 5

We met our students outside Kingston Museum this morning. The group splits into two, with the more advanced students going on a local history tour of Kingston, while the beginner level students stayed to explore the Museum.

I joined the group on the tour of Kingston, happy to be out and about in the glorious spring sunshine. It was led very knowledgeably by our tutor / tour guide who took us on a whistle-stop tour of Kingston Market, All Saints Church, Kingston Bridge, the new waterfront development at Charter Quay, Clattering Bridge and past Caesar Picton’s House to the Coronation Stone outside the Guildhall. It was genuinely very interesting, our students were fully engaged and asking lots of questions and I learned a lot myself, despite having lived close by for nearly 20 years!

In our afternoon session, we continued our work on developing coherent lesson plans to teach grammar. We recapped on some of the techniques that had been introduced throughout the course and pulled them altogether to form a solid structure on which we would be able to base our future lessons. Today felt like a milestone, as so many strains of what we had been taught started to bind themselves together and somehow appear to be more digestable. This is a relief, as we are now exactly half way through the LEAH course.

I went with the lower level group on a tour of Kingston Museum. It was a fantastic experience for all, it was thoroughly enjoyed by both volunteers and students. We were told about the history of Kingston, by looking at objects from pre historic times. Everyone learned something new, and students asked many questions to enhance their knowledge too. It was good opportunity to get to know the students better and how to help teach them English. Knowing what they found interesting also allowed us to understand how to structure our next lesson which was based on their tour of the museum. 

Training week 4

Today is our second teaching practice day – and my first experience of teaching. Our groups are the same as last week and we are teaching beginner level students on a one to one basis. Today’s topics are to teach directions and facts about Kingston Museum. I have been asked to focus on Kingston Museum in my 20 minute lesson.

A quick whizz around the Museum after the class gave me lots of ideas for a lesson plan. I could talk about its location, its opening hours and what objects might you find in it. Then I had to think about how I could use creative audio and visual techniques to teach these points to a student who is new to English. After an hour or so at my computer, I had created a short role-play exercise and a couple of visual word games, which I thought would be helpful. I was pleased when the lesson ran smoothly, my student seemed to follow the lesson well and she was keen to visit the Museum herself the following week.

After lunch, once the students had left, we reconvened for a theory lesson with our tutor. Today’s subject is English Grammar and how we can structure a lesson to teach it well. This is an important skill and one that I will have to brush up on before sharing the pearls of my wisdom with students!

Training week 3

The first week of teaching practice is already upon us. There is a frisson of anticipation in the room as the three groups set up their lessons for the students who are beginning to arrive, some with young children (cared for in an on-site crèche), many from South Korea. The students are quickly organized by ability into two large groups, with a small third group teaching one to one.

Lots of different, newly learned techniques were in evidence as thirty or so students were taught how to introduce themselves and then about the many attractions of Kingston Upon Thames. 

After a couple of hours teaching, the students left and we had a helpful feedback session with one of the ESOL tutors who had been observing us. They also briefed us on the subjects for next week’s lesson and gave some pointers on how to best prepare for it. 

We reconvened after a short lunch for a theory lesson. Today’s topic was how to prepare for a spoken English lesson. We considered a range of issues students might face when speaking English, ranging from lack of confidence, to confusion over the order of words, to unfamiliarity with sounds. This was demonstrated as we had a practice lesson based on visiting a doctor’s surgery. 

Training week 2

We are greeted once more by our tutor, Emma. As she writes up the plan for the morning, it is clear that we are going to have another pacy, stimulating day. We start with English vocabulary, its complexities and quirks and soon realize that it is not only difficult for a beginner to learn English, in many aspects it can prove tricky for those of us who speak it as a first language as well!

We moved on to learn how to use different techniques to help teach the meaning of vocabulary, such as pictures, objects, mime and examples. It becomes clear that we must think hard about how we elicit answers from our students. Then we considered how language is different depending on whether you are reading it or listening to it and for example, the importance of punctuation or intonation in defining meaning.

In the afternoon, we prepared our first lesson plan. Examples were given, reading a letter sent from the hospital and calling the emergency services, and then we were split into 3 groups and asked to work together to plan our first lesson. The subject is introducing yourself and the local neighbourhood and we will be teaching this lesson to real students next week. By the time we left at 2.30pm, we had a good idea of how the lesson would be structured and what teaching materials would be at our disposal, but further work would have to be done at home to complete it.

Being allocated groups we were told to get in to pairs and prepare lessons for entry 1 students. These students didn't know much English and so it was a challenge for us to teach them some useful words and sentences. We taught them about directions and how to read maps of Kingston. It was a very challenging yet valuable experience. I think it made me more confident to speak up in front of people that I don't know; and these skills are really good especially if you want to go in to long term teaching like me. The students that we were teaching were very friendly too and so our experience of teaching a group of 8 people was not as scary as we first thought it would be. 

Training week 1

The following week the group meets in central Kingston at 9.30am for our first day of tutor training. Our tutor Emma, greets us and quickly proceeds to give us a Greek lesson, not using one word of English throughout. This was a very revealing process, which put us in a similar situation to our future students and I was delighted to have learned lots of different teaching methods as well as being able to order several items of food and drink in a Greek café by the end of it!

After a short lunch, we reconvened for some theory. The objectives were to be able to understand different learning styles and to assess levels of speaking, listening and literacy. This would enable us to plan lessons that would meet the specific needs of our students. By the time we wrap up at 2.30pm and I realize how quickly the time has gone and how much more I know now than when I walked into the building 5 hours ago.

On the first day of the training course, we were given a icebreaker task to get to know all of the other students. After that we were taught a foreign language which helped us to understand how those who cannot speak English would feel. It was a very enjoyable experience. We also learnt about different learning styles, which would help us in our upcoming training sessions. A variety of tasks were also given to us; working individually and in teams; helped us to develop our interpersonal skills as well as our knowledge for teaching clients.  It was a truly valuable experience in a warm and welcoming environment and I would recommend this course to anyone who is particularly interested in teaching or using their spare time to help others. 

Training to be a volunteer tutor - Introduction

I applied to become a volunteer tutor with LEAH (Learn English at Home) via the UK’s national volunteering database, Do-it.org. I called the LEAH office to find out a bit more and thought this would be a great opportunity which fitted my skills and interests. So, after completing a simple application form and attending a successful interview, here I am at the new volunteers introductory session nervously waiting to hear what the next ten weeks have in store.

The LEAH coordinators have recruited around twenty or so new volunteer tutors, men and women of all ages and from all walks of life. I am impressed by the diversity of people in the room and think that we will learn a lot from each other as well as from the LEAH coordinators and ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) tutors who carry out the formal training. After a quick, straightforward ice-breaker, we receive information relating to LEAH and the course. A quick flick through shows that this is likely to be a focused, well supported course.