As summer approaches, it’s time to consider if I will teach a summer course for the fourth year, or if I will take the summer off. It has been a great way to supplement my income during the vacation period and up until now, my son could attend with me. This year, however, he has reached the cut-off age of 13 and although he has volunteered to be an assistant, I think that our time might best be spent in other educational activities.
The first year that I taught English during a 5-week summer course was extremely challenging. I had 22 students that ranged in ages from 5 to 13. All my students were ESL learners with an extremely mixed level of English abilities. Therefore, I had to be creative with my English language teaching approach.
I decided to use a thematic approach. Each day would have a different topic. All activities would be centered on that topic. There would be a variety of activities so that all the students could participate to the best of their abilities. It would be fun because, after all, this was a summer course.
One day our theme was pirates. We sang (I played the piano) some rousing pirate songs. We learned pirate words. We talked about commands in English grammar. We role-played. We made eye patches and hooks. We designed a pirate ship. We made treasure maps. It was great!
Another day our theme was farming. We sang Old MacDonald and played the Farmer in the Dell. We talked about present tense. We planned our gardens and farms. We talked about animal sounds and names. It was great!
Yet another day was about the circus. We talked about conditional tense and imagined “If I were in the circus, I would…. ” We sang The Man on the Flying Trapeze. We drew clowns. We made a construction paper big top. We learned circus words. It was great!
And so on and so forth. I must admit it took an incredible amount of planning for each class, but the result was well worth the effort. The school also offered music, P.E., cooking, art, and computer classes to round out the day. Those students that attended were disappointed when our summer course was finished. And that’s the way a good summer course should make a student feel.
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