On Wednesday nights, I have a class
with two students (around a CEF level B1, I would estimate). The
course they are taking is designed to be communicative, but
text/material driven, and at the end of the course, both students
will be tested on vocabulary, grammar, and ideas directly from the
text. Normally, I incorporate a lot of discussion and vocabulary
building activities into the lessons, but last week, I tried to to be
purposefully more “Unplugged.”
I walked into class, and like every
week, asked the students how they were, etc. One student said that
she went to the dentist last week and that her face was sore. Instead
of saying, “Oh, I'm sorry to hear that,” though, this time, I
tried to run with it. I had her tell me what happened (she had had
her wisdom teeth removed). I asked the other student if she had had
her wisdom teeth pulled also, and she had.
We ended up having a wonderful 20
minute conversation about wisdom teeth, dentists, oral surgery, and
recovery, and we filled up the whole board with new vocabulary. Both
students were able to tell their stories, compare experiences, and
talk about funny situations related to dentists offices. They wrote
down the 10-15 words (out of 50?) that were most relevant to them
(for example, some teeth vocabulary and the difference between 'to
miss' and 'to avoid').
This lesson, and the other lessons I've been trying to unplug lately, have made me wonder how many
other situations students have brought to the classroom in the past
that I haven't noticed or exploited, and it made me more aware of the
teaching possibilities present in daily life.
