An Apple a Day Keeps the Teacher Sane

The students pictured here are from the school that we used to teach at. The school is an all-boys boarding and the students are between 10 and 19 years of age. Most of the boys have wealthy parents. The photos show our Prathom 6 students who are aged between 11 and 12 years old. For them, writing is the most difficult skill to learn and the one that they dislike the most.

So, to create a bit of excitement and interest in a writing exercise, we bought each student a piece of fruit or a vegetable and placed it on their desks. That got their attention! And, once they had understood that they would get to eat what they had been given, after they had written about it, they were keen to begin!

For some of the students it was the first time that they had seen some of the fruit (peaches and nectarines for example) so there was some vocabulary to be learnt. Also the students needed to learn other vocabulary such as 'seeds, shiny, dull, hairy' and 'on the inside/outside.' We tried to encourage the use of 'and' to improve their writing ability.

This class was a big success; most of the students produced good work and all tried to show their best writing. That's unusual believe us. It was a fun class for teachers and students but very, very noisy!