Following up a local press article about a homeless St Bernard cross called Benny I took a student to our local Dog’s Trust kennels. The exercise involved the student scanning the local paper for a few interesting articles, teacher and student talking about those articles, and then some form of follow-up. All successful teaching surely involves some form of reward. For me at school it was the lessons where we had a slide or film show (that shows my age!).

I can’t remember being house-trained myself, but I bet there were sweets or treats (or probably simply the parental approval that all children so earnestly crave) involved. Thinking about this, maybe praise and approval from a respected teacher is the best reward at the end of the day? If you like dogs, then a visit to the kennels is a reward of sorts! Maybe just getting out of the classroom into the fresh air is sufficient? So we went to the ‘pound’, as I said.

What a classroom! Plenty of words all around the place – the design of the facility (new and shiny); the characters and looks of both hounds and humans; even the form that they invite you to complete – all these things stimulate conversation, thoughts, the need for the English to describe the visit, the hounds, the humans. We saw all shapes and sizes of dogs, different colours, and behaviours – personalities even. There are body parts to compare and contrast. There are sounds and smells. If you’re reading this as a native English speaker, or someone advanced in the language, then your imagination is running away with words to create the picture. Lots of clean bright tiles, the smell of dog and Jeyes Fluid, lots of hair and barking. Imagine approaching this scene with a limited second/ new/ foreign language. Can you see the value in such an experience for the teacher and student alike – the NEED for words, the stimulation of the senses, the excitement of the new, and crucially complete involvement in the process of learning? Teacher – try this – it works! (But I couldn’t bring Benny home – too big!)

Andrew is a qualified TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) teacher, with 15 years experience of the global Automotive Industry as a Sales manager with an International component and systems supplier. For more information about learning English with Andrew at his home in the UK, visit the Lets Talk 2 website. http://lets-talk2.com/_wsn/page2.html