Hold your memories close, for they are the stars that guide you through the darkest nights.
Thank you for re-joining us! We’re thrilled to have you back. While we’ve been a bit delayed in sharing the events of the past year or so, Shooting Star English has been bustling behind the scenes with exciting developments.
Due to another addition to the family, Shooting Star English completed its Fall Presentations in the winter of 2023. This was great for the students to have a little extra time to prepare for the biggest event of the year.
The Hot Topics
As we have done in the past, the students created all their work from scratch with only little inputs from their instructors. Our four topics are as follows.
Foundation: Show and Tell
The traditional beginner presentation topic at Shooting Star. Students choose something from home and tell us all about it.
Intermediate: My Favourite
We’re always curious what our students enjoy. This year we chose to let them choose anything that was their favourite.
Advanced: Inform us
Being a teacher can be fun. Sharing what you have learned and teaching others gives us great confidence. Students chose something they wanted to learn about and share with us.
Beyond: What if…
The idea is kind of like the Marvel Comics series, What If. But here, the students pick something real and then twist it into an alternative reality.
Our Dastardly Plan
We were thrilled with the excellent progress achieved during the 2022 Fall Presentations. Motivating the students to finalize their presentations was a straightforward task. As usual, we organized our presentations using a clear, easy-to-follow, step-by-step approach.
1. Brainstorming
Starting off can be a challenge. The students didn’t hesitate to put pen to paper. From all abilities and ages, the students searched, sketched, thought, and wrote about their ideas. The beginner and intermediate students were given modelled worksheets to help structure their ideas.
2. Writing
After almost wearing our brains out thinking about what we were going to write about, we then picked up our quills and began to ink the pages. These guys have had tonnes of practice at both handwriting as well as typing. Many of them (I’m sorry to say) can even beat me at typing. Their hard work paid off and they created some amazing scripts, very quickly!
3. Practice Makes Perfect
This year we focussed fully on the presentations and helping the students to prepare for their recitals. We were able to spend a healthy amount of time, about 2 hours a week, thinking solely about presentations skills. We considered everything from posture to eye-contact, pronunciation and fluency. We challenged ourselves every time we stood in front of the classroom to read to our peers. We started off shakily, but in the end we were like seasoned public speakers with one goal in mind – present what we learned to our family and friends at home.
Presentation Day.
Finally, the day was upon us and we were eager to present. I don’t think any of us were as nervous as their teacher. Not because of the students, but his own presenting performance. I am not ashamed to say that the students totally outperformed their teacher and shone like shining stars in the sky. As their mentor, I couldn’t be more proud of not only their achievements, but their overall enthusiasm. I am so grateful for a large group of students who are so willing to try new things.
Foundation
Intermediate
Advanced and Beyond
I would chalk this year’s presentations up as a massive success. I would like to say thank you to all those students who presented, you’re an inspiration. I’d also like to thank our helper ‘Thor’ who was able to give us a tonne of advice with audio and lighting – it would have been so much harder without your help, sir!