English as a subject does not belong to the core interests of most of my students. Naturally, knowing that being proficient at English can get you places, some of them reluctantly slouch into the classroom and do their coursework. But I try to remedy the boredom as much as possible by trying to make classes as fun and engaging as possible. Inevitably, however, some grammar has to be taught at some point. Below an account of how I’ve experienced this project.
The Tel Sell Project
Right before the start of the previous period, I decided to spice up my classes a bit and went ahead with a special out-of-the-ordinary project. First, I asked them to team up, and I had them make sketches and come up with a ridiculous novel product. Something which, at first glance, seems useful, but, after having giving it some thought, turns out to be simply bizarre, or evidently redundant object . Next, they had to create a billboard-sized ad plus a one-minute infomercial to market their newly-invented product Tel-Sell style. By the end of the period, they were to present their video and billboard in front
Pressed for Time
Initially, everything went quite well, but halfway the course, I realized they were needing quite a bit more time to get things neatly organized and come up with useful ideas. This was something which I hadn’t properly factored in as I’d originally hoped to be able to simply carry on my normal weekly sessions. I figured that they’d get the lion’s share of the work done during their self-study sessions at school. Not so, unfortunately.
Virtual Reality Experience
As most of my male students, and many girls, too, are practically by definition fanatical about video games, I decided to have them showcase their projects in a VR exhibition environment, using one of my game student’s projects. This game art student had single-handly created a digital Unity replica of the new school building’s first floor and part of the second. Importing students’ work into the Unity project didn’t prove problematic. What did, however, were my laptops. Two laptops, to be specific. First, I installed the Oculus software but soon found that I was a rather out of my league, laptop-wise, that is. I was previously able to run the Oculus on my own laptop at home, so I gave it another try. Unfortunately, my own laptop overheated upon running the project, which triggered an automatic shutdown. As the clock struck eleven pm, I gave up and tried again the next day. Sunday evening, I unwillingly admitted defeat and gave it a rest.
Presentations
That morning I arrived at school early and I quickly made some final preparations. As I hadn’t told my students where to go, I had to go upstairs and get them first. When I told them they would be presenting downstairs, some grew a slightly nervous look on their face, while others were downright startled at the fact they had to give a presentation in the first place. Of course, I had informed them about my expectations many weeks before and had stated many, many times what was expected from them. Many gave a decent presentation with lots of funny-looking and humorous airbrushed pictures and visuals showing what they’d thought up. One particularly memorable presentation featured a soap-dispensing shower head including scrubbing gloves. All in all, I’ve seen some very good, funny and compelling presentations and it was great helping students come up with some very cool ideas.