We thought we’d give our visiting agents a taste of our teaching style… and it was such good fun!
We love welcoming agents to our school. It’s a chance to share who we are and what we do, to meet wonderful people from around the world, and also to learn more about how best to meet our clients’ needs.
On Wednesday we were delighted to welcome a group of agents as part of the English UK South Fam Trip. If you haven’t heard the term ‘fam trip’ before, it’s when agents visit schools to learn about the courses and facilities on offer (‘fam’ is short for ‘familiarisation’).
Experiencing the Lewis Way
Our visitors were from Brazil, China, Ecuador, Italy, Moldova, Russia, Taiwan and Ukraine. They had spent the last three days at ten language schools in the south of England.
Their visit to the Lewis School began with a tour and a presentation of our adult, junior and teacher training courses. We then had a little surprise for them. For the last half an hour, they became our students!
Our style of teaching at Lewis is energetic, personal and interactive, but rather than just explain this to our guests, we wanted them to experience it for themselves!
Songs, Expressions and the ‘Time Ballet’
Tom, who is both a teacher and marketer for Lewis, led a selection of lesson activities designed for adult and junior students.
First of all was a yes/no question game designed to get to know the teacher. This ended with an interactive song that brought numerous laughs from our guests.
Next was a conversation lesson on how to encourage your friends when they are feeling nervous. Our aim was to learn four useful expressions and to pronounce them just like a native speaker.
We set the scene using photos and gave identities to the characters in the conversation. We then picked out the useful expressions and repeated them in a fun way. While doing this, we looked at pronunciation patterns, and how learning the rules of sentence stress can help you speak more clearly. Our visitors did brilliantly!
We ended the lesson with a Total Physical Response (TPR) activity, where we practised telling the time in English using our bodies… to the soundtrack of classical music! Motivating activities like this ‘Time Ballet’ create memorable moments that aid learning.
At the Lewis School, we do not follow a course book, but instead have our own syllabus with weekly language aims, and we use a wide variety of resources to techniques to help students achieve those aims. You can read more about our teaching style on the page ‘Learning with Lewis‘.
Photos, Food and Farewells
Our visit ended with a quick look at the impressive campus at Solent University, which is where our Southampton Summer Junior Centre takes place and is right next door to Lewis School. We couldn’t resist a few photos inside this stunning modern building.
A short walk to our restaurant took us past the main square (where the city’s Christmas tree was being put up) and the Sea City Museum (which tells Southampton’s story of RMS Titanic), and after a tasty meal, we waved our goodbyes.
We’d like to say a big thank you to English UK South for organising the fam trip, and to all the agents who took part and made it such a special event. We greatly look forward to working with you in the future to deliver an excellent student experience.
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