Alien invasion!

Are there aliens out there? Would they ever discover earth? What would they look like?

This week we are asking our students the following questions: "What would aliens do if they came to earth? How would we communicate with them?"

The children have the opportunity to think creatively on a topic where there is no 'right' or 'wrong' answer. They are only limited by their imagination and creativity of thought.

After some preparation time, our students then have the task of standing at the front of the class and sharing their ideas, thoughts and opinions about a possible alien invasion.

We have had a variety of different ideas mentioned; some said aliens will destroy us and the earth, others think that aliens would help us repair things that have been destroyed and be a tourist attraction to certain places!

Perhaps there are no aliens at all out there. I suggested to my classes that maybe there are other 'earths' with other humans like us, somewhere out there.

I hope I've got you thinking!

Remember: Think in English, Speak in English

Night at the Museum

A warm welcome to our blog today, and let me express my gratitude for your visit here. I hope your English is improving in "leaps and bounds" and that you are steadily increasing in confidence.

I'm sure most of us have been to a museum before. I remember going with my parents to a selection of museums in Leicester city centre when I was a young boy. I was fascinated with the dinosaur remains, as well as learning about a man with huge feet!

Here in Kuantan we attended a 'torture' exhibition at the local museum. It was a little too scary for the young children, and left me feeling nervous too!

A scene from the torture exhibition at the Kuantan Arts Museum

What do you think a museum would be like at night after everybody has gone home and the doors are locked, lights switched off?

Would it be dark, quiet, and rather scary to walk around? Or do you imagine things coming to life in the museum when nobody is there? What if you were trapped inside a museum through the night? What would you do?

All these questions come to life in the movie "Night at the Museum" which we are watching with our students this week for their listening test.

A man stumbles across the job of Night Watchman at a local history museum when he quickly discovers that history literally comes to life!

I hope our students enjoy their entertaining listening test this month!

Learning English with The 5 Key Points

Here's our new video explaining "The 5 Key Points". Hope you enjoy it!

English Quizzes

Sometimes I will conduct English Quizzes in our classes. Quizzes are fun and provide opportunities for teamwork. They usually end up as boys versus girls, which adds a little extra spice!

As with everything in our syllabus, I've made the quizzes by myself without any help from any other source ie. the internet.

The quizzes consist of 20 questions of varying degrees of difficulty, and are based on a single letter of the alphabet. I hope to formulate 26 quizzes ready for 2013.

Our English quizzes involve spelling, sentence-making, grammar skills, rhyming words, synonyms, antonyms, general knowledge, and whatever else I think of.

The students do enjoy it!

Reading your way to good English

In my previous post, I explained about the art of listening, in particular by watching English movies.

A good companion to listening is reading. Reading, reading and more reading!

One of my current primary school students is passionate about reading. His mother has to pull him away from his books so he can do his homework, eat dinner etc. Coupled with him speaking English at home, he has such a strong grasp of English that he speaks equally as good as me and gives amazingly coherent and sophisticated speeches in class with an unbelievably wide vocabulary for his age!

Reading good English on a regular basis will work wonders for you! Of course, all good English books are great for reading and building one's confidence and vocabulary. Fiction, non-fiction, biographies, magazines and newspapers are all wonderful additions.

In my adult classes, I have recently introduced another reading tool, which is my personal blog.

My personal blog can be found at:

http://www.duncaninkuantan.blogspot.com

At my blog, my students, and indeed anyone, can browse a plethora of articles I have posted about life in Kuantan, since mid-2009. My students find it particularly useful for quick, easy, and free reading practice, seeing how sentences are strung together grammatically, and bolstering their vocabulary.

So feel free to browse my blog, and whatever you do, please get reading!