C. Smith - TP No. 7

Today I had a morning class to teach on Skype with Ling-en. I got up early to give myself enough time to wake up before teaching the class. Today I taught Miho, who is one of my clients. She is just starting out, and hasn't used English much since her junior high school days. Her level is low, so for this lesson we reviewed some basic grammar structures (There is a ..., There is a ... in the ...: "There is a kitchen." "There is a sink in the kitchen.") I used the floor plan of an apartment. I also taught basic vocabulary (refrigerator, sink, dining area, dishwasher, etc.) After we finished the grammar part of the lesson, we then did a bit of free talk about some upcoming movies we wanted to see.

She is new to English so I often have to explain things in Japanese. ("What is refrigerator?" "It's a 冷蔵庫 [reizouko]".) There are times when I use pictures from google to explain other things. The word stove in Japanese means a space heater, so I used a picture of a stove to explain what a stove was in English, and let her know that although it was the same word, the meaning was different. I also had to explain what a dishwasher is because those are extremely uncommon in Japan (see here for some sample Japanese dishwashers, which are luxury items. A typical Japanese kitchen can be seen here which will show there is no room for an American-sized dishwasher.)