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[Brooks]

today I tried something new.
This can work for returnees but for other students too.
It is called dialogue journals.
I went to a hundred yen store and I bought notebooks for each of my students. I was lucky in that on the cover it was written English Note Book and just NoteBook.
I want my students for this class to get some writing practice for each class.
They can write what they want to or can choose from my list of topics.
The students are in their last year of high school.
These are some topics:

free time, what they do on the weekends
what they do after school
what they will do during Golden Week and in August
what they want to do next year
what classes do they like and don`t like and why
who is in their family tree

I find that students don`t always make an effort with speaking, so this is a way I will be able to communicate with them, and respond to what they have written.
I also want to have a record of what they have written for the whole year, and it will be something I can grade them on.
Unfortunately some kids won`t make an effort but it will affect their grade.

Also it is something they can work on while we have the periodic speaking tests.

I got the idea from　a book published in Korea for teaching university students