Summer Course

The ever-spirited club organizers are ubiquitously known to take initiatives. This summer the luscious fruit of their hard work appeared in the form of an extraordinary extracurricular event.

We put our heads together and decided to throw a party, or to be more precise, arrange a two-day English course for the first weekend of August. We set the goal of giving our students a boost with a substantial amount of English, and letting them explore new dimensions of language learning besides the usual one-to-one lessons.

The attendees were divided into two groups: A2 (elementary) and B2 (intermediate). We began both days with refreshing icebreaker games. Then came a somewhat condensed grammar section to revise tenses or the correct use of articles, among other things. Finally, we made a smooth transition into more pleasant and playful tasks, such as listening to well-known songs to find some missing words in the lyrics.

Although this was our first attempt ever at organizing a course (at least the three of us together), we received almost only positive responses. Our students seemed to enjoy most of the tasks; some of them were outstandingly popular. By the end of day one we already knew this wasn’t going to be a one-off opportunity. We are planning to return with a second course in the winter, around the beginning of December, so that anyone who missed it or becomes interested can participate.

Chances are that this is just the beginning of a never-ending journey, as we have toyed with the idea of a one-day long C1 (advanced) level course, too.

We have assembled an exhaustive photo collection in which you can find pictures of each and every task with a short description. Enjoy the rest of the summer, and get ready for the fall season of the TAKE FIVE club with a few changes and new games!

Alphabet (icebreaker) – We scattered the letters of the alphabet all over the floor. In each round, one question was asked and everyone had to find the first letter of his/her answer.

Placement test before making the two groups

Recipe Card Mix-up (Icebreaker) – Each person answered five questions on a card, then the cards were shuffled and redealt to the players. Everyone had to read out the card in his hand and find the person it belonged to.

We collected as many new words as possible on both days and reused them in different tasks.

A bit of grammar

Fanni is explaining the Past Perfect to the enthusiastic students.

Sentence Pyramid – The groups had to translate the sentences from Hungarian into English in a way that the given sentence contained a certain number of words.

Zsombor is working on the sentences with the A2 group.

Fanni is orderin… doing the pyramid with the B2 group.

Luca is telling a story she has prepared for during a break.

Chopped-up text – the groups got texts that were cut into pieces. They had to solve the puzzle.

The B2 group is struggling with a tricky story.

Story Cubes – The players roll 9 dice that have pictures on them, and then improvise a coherent story starting with “Once upon a time…”.

The B2 group had to incorporate the previously collected words into their stories.

They are presenting their first story.

The dice of the A2 group

Day two; warming up with some music – We listened to 5 short pieces of instrumental music of totally different genres. Everyone had to respond to the music by answering questions like “Where are you?”, “Who are you with?”, “What are you doing?”

Fanni is preparing a vocabulary exercise for the students.

Time and place prepositions – fill in the gaps.

Phrasal verbs – Find a definition for every phrasal verb, and then fill in the gaps with them.

The long-awaited moment: LUNCH BREAK.

Another round of Sentence Pyramid – The same task, but the other way around. We started with a one-word sentence and added one word in each round.

Whodunnit – Each group got an envelope with the testimonies of five suspects. They had to find the murderer among the suspects. The task was written entirely by Zsombor.

Enikő is reading one of the testimonies.

Like in a movie – the detectives are working on the case.

Zsombor is waiting for the A2 group to come up with their suspects.

The case has been closed, the detectives can have a rest.

Listening task – On both days we listened to well-known songs. Each group got sheets for each song with gaps to fill in.

Balázs and Zsombor are reading out a short scene. The students had to listen carefully and summarize the scenes. The sheets were passed around so that everyone could ask their questions. The scenes were written by Zsombor.

We used the white board to put down unknown words or phrases.

The very last task was to take part in spontaneous everyday situations. Balázs read out each situation and the students had to come up with a response.