EY Y02 L01 My English Lessons

  1. How often do you attend Express Yourself! lessons? Which day or days do you attend? Does this suit your schedule? Why?
  2. How many classmates do you normally have? Who are your classmates today? Who have you known the longest? How long have you known them?
  3. Choose one classmate. Tell us at least 3 things you know about this person.
  4. Tell us at least 3 things you know about your instructor.
  5. When you do English-Please! Express Yourself lessons, there are many stages in the weekly or fortnightly cycle; reading the questions, reading model answers, composing your responses, expressing yourself in class, receiving teacher feedback. Which part do you find the most useful, enjoyable or interesting? Why?
  6. Which part do you find the most cumbersome, annoying or frustrating? Why?

Question 1

I attend Express Yourself lessons as often as I am scheduled to teach them! I have three regularly-scheduled EY lessons a week in addition to any cover lessons I may have to do.

Question 2

My classes are all private lessons. That means either one or two students per class plus me, the teacher. So I don't really have any classmates per se.

Question 3

Yeah, I don't think I should answer this one. Given the above, that I don't have any classmates, I'd have to answer by talking about one of my students. And although of course I'd only have good things to say, I don't know if they'd want me talking about them here!

Question 4

As I am the instructor, I'll tell you three things about myself. Okay, here goes:
    1. I am a huge gaming fan. I love games of all kinds – video games, board games, card games, jigsaw puzzles, brain teasers, interactive fiction – there isn't a game out there that I wouldn't enjoy trying;
    2. I have been to many places around Japan but, at the time of this writing, I haven't been to Kyushu or Okinawa – they are both on my to-do list; and
    3. I am Australian but I am the only member of my family line who is – my mother and father are both from England, as is my sister, while my wife is Japanese and our daughter was born here in Japan.

Question 5

Depending on the topic of the week, I find the conversation to be the most enjoyable part of an EY lesson. As to which part I think is most useful, I'd have to say the corrective feedback at the end of the lesson. I hope that my students think so too!

Question 6

Writing these compositions. I wouldn't choose the words "cumbersome", "annoying" or "frustrating" to describe how I feel about this task. In all honesty, I kind of enjoy it. I do find it diffcult to make time to submit my compositions though. I have a lot going on during my non-teaching hours!

Tough Vocabulary

- English - - Japanese -
regularly-scheduled 定期的にスケジュールされた
cover lessons カバーレッスン
per se それ自体
given the above 上記を考えると
here goes ここに行く
brain teasers 頭の体操
on my to-do list 私のやることリストに
family line 家系
in all honesty 正直に言うと
have a lot going on たくさん起こっている