This is what we cover in our lessons. Our curriculum spans 11 months to cover the teaching of vocabulary, grammar, comprehension, writing and oral skills.
-We begin all lessons with a vocabulary list of ten words. After 4 lists, the pupils will sit for a test. Before each written test, there is a short game that the pupils play to help them remember the words that they would be tested in the written test.
For the rest of the lesson, the pupils work on different things based on our curriculum.
– We may work on grammar. For example, we will teach the pupils the various tenses and their usage. We also teach the various subject verb agreement rules, use of prepositions, phrasal verbs and other commonly tested grammar items. We usually use Powerpoint slides or videos to teach the rules before pupils complete a worksheet to reinforce their learning.
– We may also teach the rules behind different synthesis topics like ‘unless’, ‘neither nor’ and interchangeable word classes etc.
– We may cover comprehension skills like how to answer factual, inferential, language use and referencing questions etc. More in-depth teaching of skills is covered in our June workshops.
– We may also work on writing skills like how to write an effective introduction, Show not Tell, use of imagery and figurative language, character descriptions, creating suspense and tension in stories etc.
– We also use theme-based model compositions to teach writing skills as we believe pupils benefit immensely from them.
– Sometimes, we play games to reinforce learning. These are good opportunities to review what they have learnt and expand their vocabulary.
Children thrive on repetition. We have to keep repeating and reinforcing what we have taught. Pupils have to complete homework like cloze passages, editing or synthesis exercises. They have a termly test to ascertain how much they know. Practice papers are also given to help pupils hone the skills they have learnt. Every pupil gets a Behaviour Log which charts how they perform in each lesson. Once a month, I will show their parents the behaviour logs.
An example of a Pri 6 lesson
- Vocabulary list 6 (10min)
- Go through worksheets +homework (20 min)
- Comprehension skill: Referencing Selecting a phrase (30 min)
- Synthesis: Indirect speech (30 min)
- Homework: 2 cloze passages (turtles+kindness)