1. What should be taught to beginners PRONUNCIATION or PHONETICS?

This week I had a Student that could not pronounce I AM... I tried with examples (the other students in class introduced themselves), pronunciation, but it didn't work (she was convinced that it was I'mst)

Since I speak both English and Spanish, I tried another method, PHONETICS and it worked....however, each individual uses phonetics differently, so back to my first question, what works best pronunciation or phonetics?

2. How do you handle problems in the classroom? Especially in a Language School. One of the teachers suggested if your class is constantly disrupted by the same student then get them to 'teach the class for you'. What do you think about this? How can we effectively handle discipline? problems?

3. Comments regarding the S1 (Beginner) course. We've continued brainstorming about the best approach to teaching beginners. One of us suggested linking the contents to everyday life. How can we teach colours and numbers? For instance using fruits to teach the colours. e.g. Lemons are yellow, cherries are red, etc. If you want to practice numbers, get students to to tell us the number of their house.

We also came to the conclusion that the verb 'to want' is too difficult to teach. One teacher suggested that we should relate things to age groups for example, a kid wants a toy, teens want video games, an adult wants a car etc. They also suggested looking at important celebrations such as birthdays and Christmas and to get the kids to make a list of things they want.

To sum up we've decided to do a workshop this week with three other teachers in order to make the Beginners course more teacher friendly. I will let you know how things are going this week...

Any comments are welcome!!

Oh, one more thing, just came across this really funny video.....check it out!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUGsO00l16Q