Wanted: English trainers in Eilenburg

[Scott Graham]

Torsten

Thanks for the vote of confidence, yes things are going along swimmingly!

Scott
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Leipzig Englisch Sprachschule- a little London in Leipzig
http://www.leipzigenglisch.de

[Torsten]

Hi Scott,

I take it you are aware of the upcoming BMW plan tour? It's on September 15 at 9 am.

Thanks,
Torsten

TOEIC listening, photographs: The cafe

[Scott Graham]

Hi Torsten, Markus and other interested parties

Firstly, in answer to your last post, we are aware of the BMW factory tour. I would like to mention that on the first day when the jobcentre agent informed the group of the trip the response was not entirely positive. I'm going to check on Friday, as it's important as the group has to pay a fixed group price and if only 50% turn up it could be quite expensive for the others. I would like to suggest maybe we do a city tour instead?

Now for Sam's report for last 2 days:

Tuesday

Hi,
Thankfully we were in the IT room again today so we could make use of the internet and keep the windows open.
We started the day by doing a little revision of countries and nationalities with pictures of famous people. Next we went over important vocab from yesterday that we needed to give our company presentation. In pairs the students told us important information about the companies they had researched similar to that about Nokia in the text. This took to the end of the second period.
In the third period we did page 10 and 11 of business basics finishing with the roleplay. Also we went over how to say large numbers. Before lunch we played hangman using the words that had been written on the board up to that point.
In the last period we took a break and did a worksheet about idioms, followed by the worksheet 'What's my job?'.
Jenny got the job that she interviewed for yesterday, but she doesn't start until the course is finished.

Wednesday
Today went well. We started by revising the numbers 100 and higher using a game about New Zealand. We then did a 60 second speaking exercise the participants had to speak about themselves for 60 seconds, then swap partners and repeat. After the break we did Business Basics page 12, numbers 1, 2 and 3. Next we did pages 14 and 15. The listening exercise took longer than I expected but their comprehension was good enough that they could answer the questions adequately. We did a lot of pre and post work on the target vocab with various games. Finally we used Essential Grammar to introduce 'there is/are' and finished off with a free speaking activity using 'there is/are' to describe our hometown/ country. Unit 2 starts by covering 'there is/are' so they should be ready to tackle that tomorrow. Have a nice evening and enjoy tomorrow's class Markus. Regards, Sam.

I hope it helps

Markus I'll be going Friday, so please could you post your report tomorrow to allow me to put something together. Could you also ask if we have the option to use the computer room on Friday please?

Regards
Scott
_________________
Leipzig Englisch Sprachschule- a little London in Leipzig
http://www.leipzigenglisch.de

[Markus0912]

Hi Scott, hi Sam,

so this is my short comment on what we did in class today. First of all, we had the opportunity to use the computer room again which got us another day of benefits already explained by Sam.

We were starting today's lesson with yesterday's evening activities again. Every student had to write a short report according to his/ her own spare time activities at the previous afternoon. After everyone finished writing the students had to swap their sheets with another learner. Now the students had to read out and correct the text of somebody else. Afterwards we were guessing who wrote the text originally. You probably can imagine that this meant fun to us. Although this exercise took a while, I really think that this was a good task for improving the participants English by listening, speaking and also writing.

We then revised the 'there is/ there are' topic by translating German sentences, given on the white board, into correct English sentences. We were also practicing this while doing the hotel dialog of unit 2 by Business Basics.

Thereafter I was introducing english-test.net to the group, so that we could move on with some internet based activities. I pointed out the TOEIC listening exercises as well as the question responses. I also mentioned the forum. Everybody then did some stuff on the internet on his/ her own.

After a certain while we stopped working on the internet and I explained how to compare and to construct different degrees of adjectives. We practiced this straight away by again translating German expressions into English sentences using '...as fast as...', '...the quickest', '...much better than...', ... .

We then continued with working on the employment worksheet #4 taken of the ESL handouts.
At the end of today, we were listening to Milow's - "You don't know" and translated the song.
Again, I am very astonished about the groups motivation and working speed. This folks are making progress very fast!

Scott: The computer room is yours tomorrow! So, I hope you'll enjoy this room atmosphere as much as we did! Have fun and thanks again for taking the course tomorrow!

Regards

Markus

[Et-admin]

Hello Scott, Sam and Markus,

Thank you very much for your splendid work. Have a great weekend and a good start next week.

Cheerio,
Torsten

[Scott Graham]

Good evening one and all

Over the last few days we've been making great progress with the group.

Unfortunately one lady has dropped out due to personal reasons

Please find below what we (Sam and I) have done since Friday:

Friday
We began with a bit of small talk, discussing what we had all been up to since we last met. Next was a session of 'hot seat', which meant the participants took turns to sit on a chair at the front of the class. While they were there, the other students through random words at them and they were to try and translate, once they made a mistake they had to give up the chair for the next person.

We then revised the difference between the present forms (simple#continuous), I gave them a worksheet called 'But what are they doing now'. It was an exercise which had diagrams of 15 people, it showed the people in their jobs and in an activity labelled now. They wrote sentences for each picture using the correct time form.

The final part of the day was taken up by a board game which was based on the simple past.

Monday

We started, as usual, with some small talk; discussing what we all did over the weekend. Followed by a round of 'hot seat', but this time the students were to call out verbs in their infinitive form and the person sitting on the chair had to say what the simple past form was..

I then spent a little time introducing the past continuous in all its uses.
Once they seemed to get the gist of it, I gave them a worksheet with exercises using the past continuous in the positive, negative and question forms.

To continue on with this we played a memory game, I wrote on the board what 3 people were doing at 3 different specific times in the past. Then I rubbed them off then asked questions such as:

What was Scott doing at 3pm?
What was Mary doing while Scott was running?

As always the participants find this a very strange time form but managed to use it quite well-

Tuesday

After our small talk we played a memory game called 'I went to the supermarket and bought....'. The game is great for practising the alphabet as well as vocabulary based on everyday products.

After breakfast I introduced the present perfect simple, which we highlighted by translating some typical sentences. I then gave them a picture of a bedroom, they had to suggest to me what they thought the person 'has done'.

Next was a worksheet to practise the the question 'have you ever.....', after which the students wrote 5 of their own questions to ask each other.

To finish the day we played a mix of all their games.

Wednesday

We were given another 10 copies of Business Basics today, which should be enough for the class.
We started the day with a brief revision of the simple present perfect. The first exercise we did was to write 6 sentences- 3 true and 3 false for the students partners to guess.
This was followed by a mingling activity called 'Have you seen the pyramids?', in which the students had to ask various questions to as many other students as possible. After this we played a game called 'Experiences' where, while one student had to leave the room, the others chose a student for the absent student to guess by asking questions in the simple present perfect.
Following some modelling the students played irregular verb table tennis. Following on from that we went over the Essential Grammar unit 18 called How long have you....? doing the accompanying exercises.
Next we played a simple present perfect board game. Lastly we did a worksheet called 'Townscapes' using the simple present perfect to talk about changes.
This led into a group discussion about the changes to Leipzig's cityscape over the last 25 years.

Have a great day tomorrow.

Regards,

Sam and Scott[/u]
_________________
Leipzig Englisch Sprachschule- a little London in Leipzig
http://www.leipzigenglisch.de

[Torsten]

Dear Sam, Scott and Markus,

I'm really amazed at the level of professionalism you have been working so far. Please do keep up the great work.

Best regards,
Torsten

TOEIC listening, photographs: Refuse collection

[Markus0912]

Hello to everybody,

here is my (short) report about what we were doing for the last two days:

thursday:

- started off with hot seat, this time the student on the hot chair had to compare adjectives up to the superlative

- we moved on then with a text about 'Loch Ness' regarding a revision of simple present perfect

- we then revised the simple past/ past continuous/ present continuous/ simple present and the simple present perfect by translating all in all mixed up sentences and clozes given on the board

- after that we started to read the first chapter of our business thriller ('dying for love') --> but didn't get trough all of it!

- afterwards the group was working on business basics, page 31/32 (Finding your way), therefor I handed out a list of useful vocabulary according to 'giving directions and describing a way'

- participants ended the day by reading and translating as well as listening a song

friday:

- we started the day with continuing our business thriller which we didn't manage to finish on thursday

- subsequently every student had to write a short comment regarding her/ his favourite holiday by using a form of past every student could decide on her/ his own

- I then introduced the simple past perfect to the group, we were also practicing it by creating positive and negative sentences as well as questions

- As the group was finding it very challenging on thursday, we again did some clozes and translations of sentences in every tense.

Again this were fantastic two days! This group is very susceptive to English, they are still highly motivated which makes working fun. Beware of the change in rooms next week! We are moving to the room opposite to the room we are used to. All in all I wish you a good start into the next week.

Regards

Markus

[Et-admin]

Hello Markus,

Thank you very much for your great work. Have a sunny and relaxed weekend.
Torsten

[Scott Graham]

Hi Markus, Torsten and any other viewers of this thread

Here's an update of this week:
So Monday we had a successful start to the week. As always we started off with some chit-chat about the weekend. I asked lots of questions using all of the past forms the group has learnt so far. We then revised the past perfect simple by doing a gap-fill exercise, this went very well. 

I them went on and introduced the 4 most important future forms ( will/be going to/present continuous/present simple) and their different uses. Today I concentrated more on the present continuous for the future; we started with a worksheet which looked at positive, negative and questions. To check the participants understanding I gave them 5 future time points eg Halloween, Xmas day, next birthday) their task was to create 5 questions using different verbs for each question. With these questions they went around the room asking different people, then reported back to the group.

The penultimate task of the day was to go through the vocab sheets that created for our city tour on Thursday. We checked pronunciation, and with the verbs, we looked at their past forms.

To finish we had a session of hangman using only words from the city tour list.

Wednesday

We started Wednesday morning with a game of 'I packed my suitcase and I put in...' this is a great way to practice articles as well as super brain-training.

After breakfast we used a work sheet which tested the group with mixed past forms. We then turned to business basics and did the chapter 'making arrangements' which focused on present continuous in the future, saying and writing dates and also discussing important dates. I also showed the group the layout and contents of a formal business letter. To end the day the group revised their vocab for our city tour.

Today the group came to me in Leipzig and took part in an English city tour, followed by afternoon tea at Leipzig Englisch Sprachschule. I would like te group to explain more....

Have fun tomorrow Markus, and just to let you know a couple of participants requested you continue with the thriller

Laters

Scott
I hope you all have a great week

Catch ya later

Best wishes Scott
_________________
Leipzig Englisch Sprachschule- a little London in Leipzig
http://www.leipzigenglisch.de

[Markus0912]

Hi everybody,

on Friday we started off with a crossword regarding business English vocab. After that we listened to the BBC World News and in addition discussed them. We then continued with the 'explain-a-word' game. After that we went on with our business thriller, chapter 3. We worked with Business Basics, page 34 and also listened to a song.

Markus

[Torsten]

Hi Scott, Sam and Markus,

Just so you know David Rinderknecht is working with the group next Tuesday (October 4).

Best regards,
Torsten

TOEFL listening discussions: A conversation between two university students (1)

[Torsten]

Dear Scott, Sam and Markus,

Thank you very much for your great work. Please find AFI's assessment below:

Hallo Herr Därr,

die Dozenten sind sehr gut angekommen. Es gab kein negatives Feedback. Sehr gut fand ich die praktischen Übungen (Skypen mit den Eltern eines Dozenten in Neuseeland, Telefonanrufe in England und Irland, englische Stadtführung).

Das kam auch bei den Schülern bestens an. Problematisch war teilweise der pünktliche Unterrichtsbeginn und das Ende. Wir sind sonst sehr zufrieden Herr Därr und danken für die professionelle Realisierung dieser Maßnahme.

Wenn alles glatt geht haben wir nächstes Jahr ab 06.02.12 wieder eine solche Maßnahme.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Ulrike Folta

TOEIC short conversations: A customer wants to cancel her newspaper subscription
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary