This week has been midterms at the American Home, so it has been a kind of strange week. On Monday and Tuesday, we did oral exams, which entailed the students talking about question prompts. At such a low level, of course, it is hard to have a real conversation, but actually things went quite well. Lots of good questions and funny comments, although grammar and syntax suffered greatly. The goal of our program here, however, is an active, conversational knowledge of English, so I would much rather have students who talk a lot and botch all the grammar than students who quietly sit and formulate a few perfect sentences. After all, we Americans will understand the poor foreigner who asks, "Where yours sister is works?" a lot better than someone who stutters around and takes five minutes to say that sentence perfectly.
Thursday and Friday have been for the written exam. I used the stock exam for my level and changed a few details and created three different versions (gotta try to keep ahead of the cheaters). I even gave an almost identical exam to my students as take-home practice last week. Alas, I have four failures already, and I haven't graded my worst class yet. It's very obvious who is putting in effort and who isn't, but it makes me feel bad to see kids leave whole sections of the test blank because they don't know how to pose a question with the present simple or make a comparison (I get a lot of sentences like, "Black coat more gooder white coat."). On the other hand, quite a few of my students have done really well on the exam, and more than five have over 100%.
Anyway, tomorrow is the Halloween Party at the American Home. This is usually the most popular event of the year, so we're really preparing for this party. Imagine 80 Russians crammed into a small house, dressed in costumes, learning to carve pumpkins, going through a haunted basement, and learning all sorts of Halloween stories and dances. Oh ya--it's gonna be quite a day. We teachers will of course be in costume too, but I won't say mine yet--maybe some pictures will get posted in a day or two.
Thursday and Friday have been for the written exam. I used the stock exam for my level and changed a few details and created three different versions (gotta try to keep ahead of the cheaters). I even gave an almost identical exam to my students as take-home practice last week. Alas, I have four failures already, and I haven't graded my worst class yet. It's very obvious who is putting in effort and who isn't, but it makes me feel bad to see kids leave whole sections of the test blank because they don't know how to pose a question with the present simple or make a comparison (I get a lot of sentences like, "Black coat more gooder white coat."). On the other hand, quite a few of my students have done really well on the exam, and more than five have over 100%.
Anyway, tomorrow is the Halloween Party at the American Home. This is usually the most popular event of the year, so we're really preparing for this party. Imagine 80 Russians crammed into a small house, dressed in costumes, learning to carve pumpkins, going through a haunted basement, and learning all sorts of Halloween stories and dances. Oh ya--it's gonna be quite a day. We teachers will of course be in costume too, but I won't say mine yet--maybe some pictures will get posted in a day or two.
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