The Heart of England II

Fanano

Back in the classroom, with the facilities of Sheffield Hallam University at my fingertips, I made full use of the classroom projector screen to discuss various points of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation – with resources that I had adapted from my best lessons during my period of teacher training, as well as others that I produced for this project.

As a photographer, I record all of the field trips that I go on and these always form an integral part of my classroom lessons for the day after, and everyone has the opportunity to laugh and joke at the various people that are seen in these photos. It also provides an opportunity for the students to reflect on the language that had been taught on the previous day, especially the vocabulary and other relevant resources that I had prepared for them. 

Many of the schools in Spain concentrate on grammar and many students that I have known say that they have great problems when trying to have a conversation in English, so I always try to develop their speaking and listening skills in my classroom.

At the start of my lessons, I often make good use of tongue twisters to get everyone laughing and, at the end of a long morning session, I like to let the students choose from a selection of comedies on DVD that I have brought with me. So far, The Simpsons, Friends, the Big Bang Theory, Laurel and Hardy and even an extract from Kes – with subtitles of course – have been very popular.