As a private English teacher, özel İngilizce öğretmeni, I encounter many students who focus on English speaking practice, İngilizce konuşma. I teach most private English lessons, İngilizce özel ders, at cafés in İstanbul. This gives us many sensory experiences to inspire conversation. I feel aware of the colors, smells, and touch of the objects and places at my fingertips. Why confine lessons to worksheets when we can walk into real practice scenarios?
At our Thursday afternoon lesson at a café on Istiklal, I invite my student R. to window shop. I instruct him to describe what he likes without using any hand gestures. What do you like? I like the spinning dervish figure that has a gold and black skirt. I like the sunglasses that are black with a row of brown beads on the top. I like the acoustic guitar that is below the white electric guitar.
This activity highlights the practical importance of relative clauses because it requires the speaker to answer the question, "which one?" When I can identify the object based on the specific details of the description, then I know he can use relative clauses. That's a creative assessment, right?
We discover a new café in a historic brick building in Galata.Which café did we go to? We went to the one where we can relax in a good atmosphere. That's the joy of creative, guided discovery language lessons. Be aware of sensory experiences and speak out loud.