A Real Preply Trial Class 55 Minutes Unedited Lesson on Preply

hello and welcome to new video it's me martin and today we're going to be looking at trial classes with prepley and what do when i'm delivering trial classes in this video i'm going to be sharing with you the stages that follow what include in my trial class and what you could consider maybe for future trial classes huge thanks to sylvia for agreeing to participate in this demo trial class without any further delay let's get into it all right so welcome to your first class your trial class now what i've done is i've prepared powerpoint here can you see that okay yeah yeah can't see okay all right so in this trial class what we'll do is we'll have look at learning bit more about each other the introduction to the tools for preplea and the tools that use we'll consider maybe course focus and test feedback we'll have demo lesson as well and then options for courses and then chance for questions at the end is that all right yeah yeah thank you it's clear okay great before we start then do you have any questions not so so have but see there are there is space for more questions at the end and of course see the structure so will keep the questions for for the end or during this nice structure so i'm going to wait still okay all right that's fine okay well let's get to know each other little bit more so don't know you sylvia and you know you can have chance to ask me any questions as well during this so the first question have here is what what do you like to get up to what do you like to get up to when you have free time yeah it's good question consider myself to doing all the things like and to having okay 24 hours consider day consider them to be like free time day and inside this 24 hours do everything love one of the things is teaching being with my family with my daughters learning new languages improving the ones think know cooking going if can have the opportunity to be in contact with the nature so consider all my time being free time it's little bit crazy but yeah it should be like the shortened version of the answer to this question okay that no that's really interesting let me just share whiteboard so can you see this okay yeah yeah yeah yeah okay so you said you're interested in languages yes cooking yeah what else are you nature like contact the nature and what do you mean by interested in nature yes if just to to enjoy the richness of nature in every season of the year so for example go for walk or if can work also in my garden or if can pick up mushrooms things like this so just enjoy the the richness of nature and simplicity of it actually that's cool that's good okay you may be aware you know you could say i'm i'm passionate about blah blah blah i'm passionate about languages i'm passionate about cooking or you know picking vegetables for my cooking or walking and nature and that sort of thing but yeah okay right we'll return back to our powerpoint there we go so what what what is your job what do you do so as said teach languages most of them as foreign language for the students some of them also as second language for people who are living in the country and need to just to improve and to communicate better and also i'm also mother so this is big job actually studied economics in guatemala where come from and when have the time also work as an economist as research assistant for universities okay and also have done some such course or okay it's kind of course education on coaching and apply that to my lessons but also have my my clients like coach them and also do this is now little bit trendy kind of energy therapy or also therapies or sessions where help people to don't know connect with themselves and try to find solution of problem really so it can be health problems or just emotional things stuff they have to to overcome so this kind of of these are all my three jobs can say so the teacher and this therapy thing and the coaching part of the my life and being mother as well yes this is also this is the main job of course yeah okay and how long have you been studying english and what what do you find most challenging about english the most challenging okay how long started as everyone at school with this you hey it is kind of lessons here where you have all these tables with the conjugations and all the verbs and intenses then in middle school we had quite good teachers so we had lot of conversation literature and lot of interaction so there started to like the english as foreign language lessons at school and then it just went as everyone so you have to improve because you start traveling or when started also my phd program in the czech republic so had to have lot of research to do lot of research and to travel lot and to communicate also with students from whole europe so there think started to really use and apply the knowledge had from from school and at the same time started to teach english so didn't know could but everyone started to ask me could you please help me could you please explain me so they took for granted that can't teach english so just gave myself chance and started also to to to help people with with the english language even if it's not my native language and challenges yes because i'm from guatemala my teachers had this american accent and american idiomatic expressions when came to europe it was shock to listen for the first time in british english so didn't understand any word the first time it was very difficult yeah but challenging and but it took don't know some matter of minutes or or hours then you realize that it's actually the same language and that's not so and then idiomatical expressions of course so when you are in the middle of conversation with where you find just native speakers and they start to talk about things among them and then you don't know what they are talking about when it goes really very fast and or don't know and if the topic is not part of your culture so if you go there and everyone is talking about sports or football or politics and then you feel really very very strange yeah like like you don't know any word yeah this is challenging kind of excluded how can yes and they take for granted that you are understanding and this is more challenging if they if if they said okay sylvia the poor one you don't understand you can be there and go and play with your toys that would be good for me to be excluded but they include you yeah you are so nice people yeah british and american people are so friendly and they include you in this circle of nothing yeah it's bubble of what are they talking about yeah so this is challenging for me okay all right well obviously we can review some common idiomatic expressions and it'll be quite interesting bit later in this class what for you to share what sort of things that you know what idiomatic expressions you might know and i'll try and introduce few expressions to you as well would be quite interesting but okay yeah now one thing was listening to when you were talking about your background to learning english or being involved with english so you're studying in the czech republic at the moment is that right yes studied in guatemala economics and in the czech republic did my phd program okay are you studied studied in the czech republic you finished your phd yes finished it all right many years ago okay so so we've got this expression english as lingua franca so it's like it's the main you know could say it's the main method or main means to communicate between people who don't have common language together so for students from europe and yourself and you know they can't communicate in all the different european languages but the common language amongst all these europeans is english so you could say we used english as lingua franca to communicate amongst other non-native english speakers so it is quite common around the world not just in europe but you know if you're dealing with for company and client is from thailand then they would usually use english as means to communicate so this is quite common have you heard of this phrase before english is linked yeah yes in czech language they have the same expression this lingua franca so it's kind of passport that opens you the yeah okay all right thanks for sharing now you have chance to ask me some questions i've got to know little bit more about you and i've got variety of different topics here so feel free to ask me any questions that you like based on these topics yes yes will be quite interested in what have you studied or what did you study to to in order to teach english or for your job don't know anything about your your main job if it's language teacher or something else yeah something like combination between employment and studies well for me studied was undergraduate student many years ago nearly 20 years ago when first studied at university and studied international business for three years in university it wasn't southampton so at southampton university it was one of the smaller universities and was always fascinated by international business or international travel and culture and in my final year learned so studied cross-cultural communication how to communicate with different people from different cultures different nations countries and that sort of thing and that's what really got me involved and curious about culture and after that decided to spend bit more time and this is going on to my work employment moved to south korea and worked in south korea for three years and was fascinated by the culture the language the people and that's what did and then after three years returned back and started studying masters finished an m.a in english language teaching which got involved with in korea and you know nearly 16 years later i'm still teaching english and how come you chose south korea it was more of personal choice was more fascinated about the culture and the people and to feed that curiosity decided yeah i'm quite happy to go over there and learn as much as possible about that culture yeah and you are from southampton or where are you from small town in the uk near brighton somewhere called eastbourne okay so and do you go there frequently do you have still there somebody some relatives or how is the relationship with your hometown still live in my small hometown returned back here but didn't go back to southampton it was only was only there for number of years to study but that was it but still stay in my hometown and i've got friends because was brought up from this place and did you miss your your hometown that you were in south korea or no was well there were certain elements missed and the culture was so different that found it difficult to adjust and the first 12 months were really really difficult really tough because the culture's different the way you're in society how society treats you is different compared to england and the pressure and the stress in work in the workplace can be lot more heightened or increased compared to the uk so found the culture very you know adjusting to the culture more difficult but then after 12 months started to become more relaxed and you know accepting that the culture's different rather than trying to change it myself yes so you even didn't have the time to miss your hometown with all these pressures and and new thoughts yeah was too busy to to miss my hometown okay and what about your yes perhaps the question would be like this if you combine holidays with hobbies yeah well my hobby part of my hobby is music but don't necessarily combine my hobby and my holidays together in way because it's difficult but you know play music so behind me have piano playing but i've got saxophone so played the saxophone instead but to play the saxophone when i'm on holiday it's bit difficult so don't normally combine that other hobbies are photography but that's lot easier if could go on holiday because can take photos and videos and that sort of thing that that's much easier but in terms of holidays since the whole pandemic has happened and you know the global pandemic movement between the uk and other nations is bit more difficult now so i've been having more of staycation we call it have you heard of that word no no no it's the first time hear nay okay so if put it on the whiteboard bear with me so staycation so it's like holiday where you stay in the same country yeah staycation so it's like from the word vacation yes see vacation being the american word and holiday being the british word but vacation and you stay in the same country you don't travel abroad so this is lot more popular now in the uk where people travel from their hometown to another area in the uk to have holiday or staycation with their family so over the past year i've managed to travel more locally and visit places i've never been to which is quite nice yeah that's happened with lot of people now with pandemic yeah discovering sweet small corners around don't know in the same hometown yeah yeah we we live near the capital city near prague and we to be there all the time and with pandemic with really tough quarantine that we even couldn't leave our hometown so we were discovering lot of places we had here yes around 20 kilometers or something yeah you don't need to travel lot to to find interesting things yeah actually more recently was able to visit france for few weeks few weeks ago for few days and initially found the rules and the regulations quite difficult because you have to prepare everything in advance there's so much you have to prepare but then once i've done it feel like well actually could do that again yeah it's possible yeah it's possible yeah and you were asking me about the challenges found while learning english and would ask you something similar challenges well you wear or have been teaching english okay so what is that don't know don't know what to say the most challenging part of it but challenges that you have faced while teaching suppose the challenges that face if were teaching face to face the biggest challenge is understanding the students not not understanding what they're saying but understanding how they're thinking because they're from different countries and different cultures and knowing how to deal with people that come from different culture or knowing how to deal with unexpected situations that may occur you know so for example had student that was teaching face to face once and she arrived in the class and she burst into tears at the end because she didn't know anybody she you know had to spend quite bit of time with her at the end just to calm her down and then it's okay don't worry you know it's it's you know could understand how she felt because she came from culture that's incredibly different to the uk and she comes to the uk where things are very you know not as clear not as organized as she might expect and things are bit more flexible so had to say don't don't worry you're doing fine and it took long time to deal with that aspect to teach him and how old was she well she was in her early twenties mm-hmm yeah yeah in terms of online now because i've not been teaching face to face for nearly well over two over 18 months nearly two years now on line it's very difficult if you're teaching group of students online and you have the the challenges of trying to develop that connection remotely it's easier with one student like you and but with group of students you may have students who are quieter and you have to try and get them in yeah and switching off cameras yeah so that that's the the challenges probably that face guess if i'm teaching face to face or online so am curious about one thing you thought family there how how like polite correct socially correct is to ask about the family to british person so you can feel from you that you are an open an open person who really wants to share difference in cultures you have traveled lot and you also have might have had students from all over the world and don't don't think it is strange to to have the family here but how how correct is is how polite is it for british person to be asked about his or her family suppose it depends on how you ask the question it's okay to ask someone about their family if you're getting to know them like we are now you know you know could ask you kindly tell me bit more about your family you know if rather than saying are you married or yeah that's what mean yeah do you have children yeah that could be really don't know so you could say could you kindly tell me bit more about your your you could say direct or extended family and then you know direct family husband wife child etc or extended family parents or uncles and aunts and that sort of thing so it's not think it's okay but it depends on how that person receives that information yeah yeah and prefer not to ask what do with my even with the students if start talking about my own family so if when see they have connection with dad so say my girl say or my daughter has birthday today or something like this and they when they start asking and seem to be interested in children or children's birthday or school then they they share that information all alone they say have also daughter she had also birthday yesterday and so on but if see that they don't react so just keep this is like taboo topic yeah and don't am afraid really of asking about family and yeah well you don't yeah as long as you're you're comfortable and you don't want to or you don't feel it's right to ask then go with your instinct yeah also don't know if somebody's going to be offended because am not asking about your family but it it still hasn't happened to me what's interesting is we've got this you know phrase go with your instinct but more naturally we say go with your gut go with your gut so it's like go with your okay your gut is your stomach yes yeah the stomach is clever and smart okay right let's move on now in terms of feedback no no problems you know your your spoken english is fine and we got to know each other quite well there's just those phrases which i've just put up on on the on the whiteboard which you know can share with you later now let's move on to the tools so for me you know we can i've used the prepley classroom which find it's all right but prefers zoom find it lot more flexible in terms of the whiteboard and that sort of thing but probably they have as you know there's library of resources flash cards and screen sharing but personally for me and i'll share with you bit later what use in terms of resources because prefer to use my own material rather than the material that's recommended and more aligned for students in that way so what what tend to use as mentioned is prepley or zoom or skype and also use google documents and i'll share an activity that we're looking at today bit later i've also used padlet as well before for students to share documents or links or resources and in terms of communication preppy email etc that's fine okay so course focus and the placement test in terms of your speaking would suggest it's maybe c1 obviously with areas that you highlighted maybe idiomatic expressions more natural more generic topics so developing vocabulary more broadly rather than just on particular areas think that would be more suitable you've already answered question three to me so what specific area of english do you envisage that you want to focus on you you mentioned idiomatic expressions is there any other skills or areas that you would like to improve upon think everything is based on that topic yeah because can't communicate about anything and can make myself like everyone can understand what i'm saying so don't have problem to to to be understood but would like as said to improve my my vocabulary and that means so don't need the best and most technical words from encyclopedia but awards that you native speakers use more than than you know what find in books or this from lingua franca english as something that sounds can sound more natural so like putin pushing my my level to to to to the next step yeah so that means well being more natural and not try and not trying to think too much about something so that really this idiomatic expressions go naturally because had had their own experience some of my students they want this and some of the idiomatic expressions know but they want to know them too but it's not just knowing but you have to practice them again and again so so they get really attached to your brain and then you can use them when the opportunity comes think this is like something that could be interesting for me and of course can talk about almost everything if the teacher the student allows me yeah understand and am also very open to critic to correction also like to improve so if make mistake also when teach tell my students that the love mistakes so because from mistakes can set up the plan yeah which can do with them what can't do and so on and love mistakes so that doesn't mean that want to speak with lot of mistakes but mistakes can be also used by you as teacher as know reference point yeah where were to work on more or less and so on so by i'm not afraid of being corrected and won't be upset all right well let's go through demo lesson so i've just prepared something about work and can have look at some more idiomatic expressions to do with work and we can develop that topic as well but the topic today in this lesson is about four-day work week so one thing that people have recognized or companies have recognized is that when their employees work from home what they can do which would normally take five days can be done in four so it's bit more flexible in that sense so let's have think about what you would say what what would you say normal days and hours that people work in your home country and where you are now in in prague yeah and latin america specifically in guatemala people like office hours are from eight to four so if you work in bank if you work for an institution for the government so you start at eight and you get out from work at four o'clock having 45 minutes lunch break and this is between 12 and one or half past 11 until half past one p.m so this is like normal from monday to friday monday to friday okay so yeah i've got google document here which i'll share with you and i'll get the link and put it in the chat so you've got access to it as well based on the topic so in guatemala you said working from eight till four is that right yeah yeah okay with 45-minute lunch break yeah yeah what about in in prague now where where you're baseball here people because of school yeah school starts at eight o'clock many people start working at nine yeah because they most of the most part of the population takes children to school and after that they are able to do whatever they want and that means work so normally they start at nine and they finish at five so it's like this eight hour period of time like in guatemala but one hour ahead or later okay from eight to from nine to five and lunch break am not sure if it's regulated like you have just 45 minutes but what have experienced with people here working in an office they go out for lunch to some canteen or place where they can have something like faster like not fast food but something okay the restaurants are already they have their menus for working days so this is already ready and when you go there then you can eat you don't have to wait lot so it takes check people so half an hour maximum this 45 minutes to to to eat it up and then they come back so they they have the impression that they eat very fast yeah so many people take really just half an hour lunch break which was for me shocking the first semester was here all the students eaten in 15 minutes and they go back in and continue working yeah so we we really in guatemala are more we are taking that more more relaxed yeah this 45 minutes and think it's by law yeah that you have the 45 minutes so you really enjoy your time even if you are not hungry so you go for walk and come back at 12 45. yeah think european law is for every eight hours you work you're entitled to 45 minutes yeah break or something like that think really don't know how it is like by law but yeah but of course and the czech republics are in in guatemala and the offices really they start at eight and at four it's four zero zero is everything closed yeah so these offices here yes for example for shops that's true that if you go like 20 minutes before they close they start like with the room and the bread is not there and making faces like why are you coming so late but in the like the office people still they work more so they nobody closes his or her office at five o'clock yeah so people being there for half an hour more or 15 minutes more or perhaps and next day there's very flexible so you can communicate this it's good communicati if you have good communication and relationship with the boss so you can agree that you come little bit later the next day and then you are going to be the office more longer time and even before the pandemic it was also the possibility to work at home now there are many families sharing this child care and that one day the father is with the children one day the mother and so there are many many possibilities and to to share the time with the family or this obligations and their family and we would say in english juggling between child care and work juggling between both yeah okay all right now because of our time i'm gonna leave the conversation questions two to four and we'll move on what i've got here though on the google document so feel free to have look but what i'd like you to do is to just we've got an idiom do the maths to follow suit try match on the google document on the google drive the the phrase is on the right to the meanings on the left okay okay all right so for example we'll do the first one together on here so let me just put it on to one page okay so we've got here in small amounts or very little of something within large area and what would you think would that be on the right parsley perhaps lastly yeah okay so yeah sparsely done yeah so i'll give you bit of time take your time and go through two to eight and when you're done i'll come back i'll just switch off my camera and mute myself and when you are done typing in your answers on the google document i'll we'll review your answers okay okay so i'm here okay so you've done few can see that we've got one and two not just done yet do you want to have guess of one sorry two and three actually really don't know what brown and follow suit is and the others was as the first time see the expression do the maths but by the context understood that this isn't doing something it's already done yeah that you don't need to invent new thing hope it's number five do the same thing that yeah regardless and septic exhaust exhaustion think know but the first this is the first time see word like pro and means don't know so put the question marks because don't know if it's the ability to pay for something i'm not i'm not sure yeah about this means of no and couldn't find the the suitable definition for that okay all right well we'll go through them and hopefully it will develop your vocabulary just little bit more okay so we've already decided sparsely you know is in small amounts within us in within large area yeah to carefully think about something and to check the facts before taking action this would actually be do the maths yeah so it's it's like to calculate okay understand do something yeah okay yeah so it's like you're you're you're considering everything okay you decide to do it yeah so yeah it kind of makes sense yeah yes of course so if you ask me for example if want to buy your car you're selling your card and could say still have to do the maths or how could of course yeah that's perfect yeah you could just say yeah still have to do the math some think consistency yeah okay likely to be affected so number five is not okay in this case so number three likely to be affected by something negative or do something wrong perhaps pronoun which perhaps just kissing yeah so to be prone to be pronounced this is an adjective okay to be prone to okay okay so it's an adjective so yeah to be prone to is when something or you're affected by something or you do the same mistake again and again so you can say am prone to making just small grammatical mistakes when speak english or i'm prone to breaking things so you know have glass and it falls off yeah so it's something usually negative that affects you for example my son my son was prone to breaking breaking glasses you know like glass or something okay and can criticize somebody by because of doing something wrong from my point of view from my perspective for example don't want to hire him because he's prone to don't know being aggressive or don't know impressive or he's prone to being late at work okay okay okay something that is repeated okay okay okay yeah okay yeah exactly something that's repeated yeah you got it now okay number four exhaustion agree to do the same thing that's just been done then don't know then this should be the follow suit perhaps yeah to follow suit yeah so usually children they do one thing and their best friend wants to do the next thing and they they follow suit in that way this thing okay okay yeah know that from my daughters and for example children at school when they follow suit we have particular name for them so if you do something first and someone wants to try and copy you we have nice phrase in english so bear with me that's my curse gone there it is we call them copycat yeah yeah okay so they they always copy what you do or how you dress or how how you speak that they're copycat okay and how do you separate these idiomatic expressions for example expression for example don't follow me suit or if don't want to be copied or can use that in this form it's normally well to follow suit is always just describing the situation when people copy you but you can't necessarily say don't don't follow suit okay follow you could just say stopped copying me okay okay all right and then without paying attention to something even if it this causes difficulties regardless yep the ability to pay for something or not the means so again okay then me yeah now understand now that was not sure what now okay yeah don't have the means to love them yeah don't have the means does it have to be connected just with pain or can have the means to don't know understand something or like ability or it's just connected to payment it's normally associated with payment or okay yeah not not really ability so okay you know want to go on holiday but don't have the means to at the moment okay okay don't can't afford it okay now it is clear okay and then person who's not convinced or you know supported by others skeptic yeah okay right so that's what we've done so far that there are couple of other exercises that you could do you know using some of the words and phrases in your own time and you can review the words and phrases and complete them for next time so we won't go through that activity together but feel free to complete that what did have though sylvia was had some discussion questions based on some of the the phrases but again we don't have much time for that yes but moving on very quickly because of our limit time what yeah what what did you think of that particular demo lesson enjoyed that and admire your capacity your ability to have prepared suitable set of exercises for my level okay that's for my level for for the students level you didn't know me before and yeah so was surprised like it was magic and you have everything prepared like you knew me before so that's admire that and feel glad and yes it was pleasant yeah to have such lesson like personalized even if it was with any folder or original knowledge from about myself yeah so really enjoyed that okay all right well thank you for that we'll move on very quickly so i've got couple of things that you could look at perhaps as sort of what would be good is if you could write summary of what what you expect courses to include you know how often you hope to have lessons if you can produce something him writing that would be great and then we could have look at that in our next lesson and then it will help us choose or define way of for your english study going forward okay so if you wish as well there is the google drive document on the four day workweek that you could complete and we can review the answers together there's also listening included so if you go to the main google drive there's listening which can share with you related to the worksheets that we looked at so you can complete all the the listening tasks and everything else like that yeah right so any questions we're towards the end now they were answered during the trial so all the questions are going to come well i'll don't know want to to write that to develop more the ideas what want to to achieve for the further lessons with you and now everything is clear don't have any any concrete questions so far okay great well look forward to hearing from you soon and if you do have any questions that come up you know you may finish and go didn't ask that question feel free to send me message on practically i'll be happy to to help and look forward to seeing you soon okay thank you thanks lot it was pleasure and thank you very much for for the trial enjoyed that again huge thanks to sylvia for supporting this video without her this video would not have been possible if you have any suggestions on any improvements could make with my trial class please let me know in the comments because i'll be happy to consider any suggestions any other viewers have in the meantime hit the subscribe button hit the notification bell so you're notified when upload new video and if it's not too much trouble please hit the like button that would be great hope to see you in future video and take care stay safe and happy teaching bye