Many students at SMAN 1 Sangatta Utara find speaking to be the biggest challenge when learning English. That is why ETA Lucy Srour made it her mission to help students find the bravery needed to tackle spoken English.

The objective of this week’s lesson was to enable the students to use the phrases “I will” and “I am going to” when talking about their future plans. Besides the content, co-teacher Bu Dian and Lucy had one clear goal for this lesson: encourage the students to speak out loud in English!

With this in mind, the class was centered around a board game that prompted students with questions such as “what will you eat for dinner?” and “what will you do after school?” Students would roll the dice and move their board piece, and whichever square they landed on they were prompted to read the question out loud and share their answer to the group. The board also included bigger questions for the students like “what will you do for the world?” At first, students were confused by this question, but once they understood it’s meaning, they began brainstorming how they would make their impact. “I will make the world better than it is now,” “I will plant 1000 trees,” “I will start a charity” and “I am going to change the world for my family” are just a few examples of some of their inspiring answers. Every couple of minutes the room would erupt with laughter when a student landed on “kembali ke mulai” (return to start) just before reaching the finished space. Lucy was proud of her students and beyond happy to see smiling faces while speaking English.

Lucy Srour is currently teaching at SMAN 1 Sangatta Utara, East Kalimantan