Last week in our Level 4 Communication, Pronunciation, and Vocabulary class I decided to mix things up a bit and have the students teach the class! We were a mixed group from Saudi Arabia, Brazil, France, Japan, Korea, Panama, and, of course, Canada. I thought it would be nice to have an opportunity to learn about other cultures. The goal was this: to teach us how to do something new through a step-by-step process. Our class divided into five different groups and began to prepare for their presentations.

There were a few rules that each group needed to follow:
1) The presentation was to be between 5-7 minutes long
2) The students needed to engage their audience
3) They had to use at least one idiom from Chapter 6 of our text
4) They had to focus on their pronunciation of the th sound

First, Debora, Christiane, and Tawfiq taught us how to play a French card game called La Belote de Marseilles. It was similar to a card game we play in Canada called Euchre.

Next, Akiko and Akane gave us detailed instructions on how to make an origami heart ring. We never thought we’d be able to make something so small and delicate but with their help, it was pretty easy!

After all this hard work, we had our lovely Brazilian “chefs” Yara and Ana share a cooking video they made on “How To: Make a Carrot Cake” and ice it with a traditional Brazilian dessert called brigadeiro. To complete their presentation, they surprised us with the cake from the video and divided it up for us all to share!

Then, we were given the chance to answer this age-old question: How Do I Tie A Tie? Shohei and Jack very patiently explained the process to us and helped us to practice again and again until we got it right.

Finally, we got to experience a bit of festive Latin culture. All week, Akane and Josue had been meeting after school to prepare a special surprise for us – a piñata! In their presentation, they showed us how to build a piñata, and when they finished, we got to break it apart and eat all the candy. What a great way to end our “How To…” class!

This was a great class and I can’t wait to do it again. Your creativity amazes me! Thanks everyone for all your hard work  – I think we learned a lot!

Katherine