Bright and early at 7 am I walk up the hill to the Sishane metro on Istiklal to go teach a new private class,
İngilizce kursu, in Gayrettepe. My new student greets me with his red tie undone. As Ramazan just started, I ask my student if he fasts. He says, "oruç tutmuyorum," Turkish for "I do not keep the fast." We drink mugs of black tea and eat simit. He says he calls these sesame bagels gevrek in Izmir, his hometown.
Our first lesson I combine introduction free response tasks from Five-minute Activities for Business English by Paul Emmerson and Nick Hamilton. First, write insightful questons about the nitty gritty details, perks, and drags of a job. Next, answer these questions about yourself for your current job. Develop these answers with follow up questions. This will be the introduction of a presentation. When the student says he brings creativity and enjoyment to his training sessions, I realize this would be a great topic for a presentation. This free response activity takes the full 90 minutes of class.
For homework I assign writing specific examples of his fun, actual tasks in training. This will be the body of the presentation. On Monday we will write a conclusion. On Wednesday we will add signposting, visuals, and body language. On Friday he will give the presentation and assess his progress. Finally, he will decide specific targets for improvement. We can use his own measures to assess his next presentation.