Facebook

To all in my Elementary class, it was great meeting you all today.  If you want, you can add me on Facebook.  My name is Haydn Sennitt 

Introducing Myself

Hello, as you would know, my name is Haydn and I am your new English teacher for Elementary.  Here is some information about me:

- Age: 30 years old

- Birthplace: Sydney, Australia

- Marital status: Married to a Korean with two daughters, Olivia and Zoë. 

- Religious belief:  Commited Christian.

- Languages that I can speak: Korean and ZO.

- Work experience: Teaching adults at Ability Education in Sydney (September 2007 – May 2008) at the Beginners, Elementary, and Pre-Intermediate levels; teaching primary and high school students in Seoul, South Korea from May 2008-July 2009.  I moved back to Australia to work for a horrible television station, Channel 7, but I lost my job.  So I decided to leave market research (my old profession) to teach English.  Teaching English is my passion and I plan to study a Masters in TESOL later this year. 

- Strengths as a teacher:  I am disciplined in the classes that I teach and I expect great things from the people I teach.  I’m highy organised and expect my students to take their study seriously and participate fully when they attend, and not just turn up to class in order to keep their visas.  I want my students to do their homework, pass their tests, apply themselves to what they attempt, and make the most of the golden opportunities available to them.  You will learn a lot from me if you listen to what I show you, so make the most of it 

Fee free to ask me any question at any time, as long as it’s reasonable, but be adventurous and have fun while you learn.  NEVER BE AFRAID TO MAKE MISTAKES because when you make them you will grow.

- My hobbies and passions:  I LOVE reading and you’ll always find me with a book of some sort, usually thick ones of 700 pages or more.  Among other things, I read children’s books and anything to do with my favourite topics of politics, fiction, news, theology, and anything else that keeps my brain working.  I’m also a passionate writer: I mostly write non-fiction, but I want to get into the fiction ‘genre’ and write a novel.  My favourite books include the Bible, The Shining by Steven King, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Lord of the Flies, and The Great Divorce.  I also like sport, particuarly badminton and swimming.  Too bad I never do them!

- Favourite colour: Dark green, like avocado.

- Favourite movies: So I Married an Axe Murderer, Unleashed.

- Favourite author:  Stephen King.

That’s enough about me, but I hope to learn more about you when I meet you.  We will be using this website here for learning.  See you in class!

My article published in a newspaper!

Today I was published for the first time in a Korean newspaper!!  Today is Korea’s national day of independence and MY article was published in a leading newspaper, the Korea Times.  Enjoy 

Creative Writing Exercise

This week at Avalon I asked my students to look at a page with four images on it and write a story using them.  It was a lot of fun doing it Here are the images!  Here too is an example of a story that I wrote using one set of images and here’s a Growing Student Dictionary specifically for Korean students.  I had fun making this and I’d like to use it later for a short story to publish.

Seinfeld scripts and episodes on the Net

Here too are some Seinfeld scripts and all the Seinfeld episodes on the Internet. 

Movie script website

I saw this great website today that has movie scripts.  It’s good to read the script and then watch the movie 

Guidelines on Brainstorming for Speaking

Yesterday I finished writing for my school an outline on how students can brainstorm for TOEFL iBT speaking questions. 

Enjoy 

Write Your Own Country Model Answer (NB Class)

To my NB classes,

Here’s a model answer to Making Your Own Country It’s 200 words 

Haydn.

Resume/ CV

Last week in my afternoon class I showed the class how to write a CV.  Here is the Resume Template that I email to my afternoon Pre-Int. students.

A question about studying vocabulary

Tonight a student emailed me about vocabulary:

Hi HaydnYesterday I bought book “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”.
I’ve been reading it, but there are many vocabulary that I don’t know.
How do I read  for this case?

1) If there is vocabulary that I don’t know mean, I have to check the
vocabulary every time.
2) If there is vocabulary that I don’t know mean, I have to keep
reading that don’t care the vocabulary.

What do you think?
What should I do?

And, I don’t know too mach vocabulary.
Sometime, there are vocabulary that I don’t know mean in the class.
I can’t to say that I want to say things.

Do you know good way to study vocabulary?
What should I do?

These are very good questions and I will answer them in class tomorrow.  It’s great to see students asking questions like this!

VERY NICE 

Haydn.