Hi all! Back again for an update on our project at Sjælsmark.
Last Thursday afternoon on the 4th April myself Tilly, Esther, James and Emily made the bus and train journey to Sjælsmark for our fortnightly English workshop. We were blessed with some spring weather finally and started the workshop catching up in the sunshine and playing a bit of football! It was great to have six of our students back and keen for some more English practice.
We were especially pleased to see Abira again and congratulate her on her extremely brave participation in the panel discussion at the CPP:DOX screening of ‘Cast Away Souls’ a documentary concerning the living conditions Sjælsmark.
James had prepared this week’s ice breaker activity in which we tried to explain the use of ‘slang’ and a game of guessing the ‘real’ meaning of words like ‘wee’ and ‘fit’ which fortunately we managed to keep fairly polite! In order to revise our previous lesson of the ‘present simple’ and ‘present progressive’ tenses Tilly led a game of Pictionary, encouraging everyone to get up and draw an action whilst the rest of us guessed using the correct tenses. We were very excited to be using our new English Grammar textbooks for the lesson which our wonderful Esther has fundraised to be used and given to our students. After a quick recap by Esther, we began working through the first exercises in the books which was much easier than the print outs we have been using previously. This was also a great opportunity for everyone to split off in small groups and pairs, allowing everyone to work at their own pace and for us to explain things one-on-one. As a group we felt the workshop was very relaxed and can feel that as get to know each other better week by week our students are becoming more comfortable and confident!
We are really looking forward to our next workshop on the 17th April especially since it will be a quiet week for most of our students during the school holidays. We plan to move on to some more complicated tenses and to help our students prepare for their upcoming English exams at school.
