MY HOBBIES AND TALENTS

I. Objectives:
- My Hobbies and Talents focuses on building students’ intrapersonal skills: Discovering themselves,
developing self-esteem (students will have to find their own values at some point) and expressing
those using the language they have learned from external sources.

II. Teaching Aids:

- Teachers: Ppt (not required), students’ list for grading
- Students: My Diary, My self-study plan

III. Organisation procedures:

1. Procedures:
● Before the session:
- Teachers give out Hobbies/Talents - related topics per session: songs/ movies / books/ sports/ games/
social media, etc. (topics have to be general, applicable to all students). For example:
+ Week 6 (5 - 9/9/2022): Music and Songs
+ Week 7 (12 - 16/9/2022): Sports
+ Week 8 (19 - 23/9/2022): Social Media and E - games
+ Week 9 (26 - 30/9/2022): Books and news
- Teachers instruct students to find things connected between themselves and the topics and write those
in My Diary (not necessarily related to the theme)
- Students note the task in their Self-study plan
- Students go home and do their “homework” in their My Diary
- (Optional) Teachers make back-up plans if the session is finished before time (i.e: let students finish
exercises in their books, handouts, extra activities)
● On “Shining Date”
- Step 1: Teachers organise students into groups (this is why theme-based group is necessary)
- Step 2: Each student starts to present themselves (the way students present may not be limited to
hobbies & talents) to their groups.
- Step 3: Other students note down what they have learnt from that presented friend into their My Diary.
Afterwards, each also have to ask that friend at least 1 question related to the presentation (Students
can use as many pages of My Dairy as they like)
- Step 3: At the same time, teachers can join some groups to grade the presenting student’ presentation
(teacher gives points in a student list and notes in student’s self-study plan). Teachers can ask
additional questions to the presenting student and their group mates (i.e: Have you ever tried what they
did? What was it like?)
- Step 4: After checking, teachers can invite those who have made mesmerising presentations to
present in front of the class.
 - Step 5: If time still remains, teacher use their back-up plans
2. Basic structure students can use for presenting: (students can always go beyond these structures)
- The words/ things I want to share …
- I learn/take/ see these words/ things from …
- (For more advanced students) The message I learn from this …
- My own sentence …/ This is how I apply …
3. Most basic structure for students to note in My Diary (when their friends are presenting):
- The words/ things I learned today …
- I learn/take/ see these words/ things from … (who?)
- My own sentence …/ This is how I apply …

IV. Other notes:

1. Differences between My Hobbies and Talents and Periods without walls:
a) Objectives:
- My Hobbies and Talents focuses on building students’ intrapersonal skills: Discovering themselves,
developing students’ self-esteem (students will have to find their own values at some point) and
expressing those using the language they have learned
- Periods without walls focuses on building students’ interpersonal skills: Students use what they
have mastered throughout the theme to apply in practical, realistic contexts in collaboration with their
group mates. Hence Periods without walls sessions are not accomplished without collaborative group
work activities.
b) Methodology:
- In My Hobbies and Talents sessions, students themselves build the bridge between (external)
knowledge and their own rationality, perspectives (internal), hence personalisation. Simply put,
students use what they have learnt to apply to themselves.
- In Periods without walls sessions, students use the language they have personalised, their own
strengths that they have discovered to resolve common issues together. Students in a group will
complement each other to accomplish the task
2. Why stand-up presentation is not effective for My Hobbies and Talents:
- Objective-wise (intrapersonal skills): Not all students are good at/ desire public speaking/ stand-up
presentation. Psychologically speaking, requiring students to do what they don’t like can eventually
lead to their resentment/ resistant towards the session, which diverges from its very objectives
- Efficacy-wise:
+ At-home: Students may feel the essence of investing much more time for preparation (ppt, materials,
presentation speech, etc.) for stand-up presentations even though teachers may not require it.
Eventually students may feel the session strenuous.
+ In-class: Only a handful of students will actually work at a time (when one student/group is presenting);
+ Efficacy for teachers and students: Students who have presented Hobbies and Talents may loathe
preparing for it the next time (since it’s arduous). Consequently, teachers are obliged to prepare much
more handouts and extra activities for every session for students to do.