A Week 1 · Live classClass guide
Week 1 · With your teacher

Live class guide

For the teacher, and for the student to read before class.

60 minutes

Baseline recording — do this first

10 minutes · teacher-led

Record the student reading a fixed paragraph, then speaking freely for ninety seconds. Label it Baseline · Week 1 and keep it. The same paragraph is re-recorded in Week 6 and played back to back — that comparison is the single most motivating thing in the course.

Do not correct anything during the baseline. Record, save, move on.

Couldn't-Catch clinic

20 minutes · the core of the hour

Take the student's list one entry at a time. For each blurry moment:

  1. Ask what they did hear.
  2. Say the full sentence at natural speed.
  3. Say it again, slowly, showing the glue and the crushed words.
  4. Say it at natural speed once more. Ask if it sounds different now.
This is the highest-value twenty minutes in the week. If time runs short, cut something else, not this.

Listen to the voice notes together

10 minutes

Play Voice Note 1 and the Workshop recording. Comment on rhythm only — which syllable is loud, whether the small words are being over-pronounced. Do not correct individual sounds yet.

For Nepali speakers listen for even syllable weight and v/w. For Chinese speakers listen for added vowels after final consonants and dropped endings.

Live decoding drill

15 minutes

Say six sentences at natural speed, one at a time, and have the student write what they heard. Build them from this week's patterns:

  • “Whaddaya wanna do after this?”
  • “I shoulda called ya yesterday.”
  • “Zit gonna rain t'day?”
  • “He toldjer to wait outside.”
  • “I hafta pi-ki-tup by six.”
  • “Jeet yet?”

Then write each one out in full and read it slowly. Keep the list — it becomes the Week 2 warm-up.

Set the week ahead

5 minutes

Confirm the student can open the site, knows which session is next, and has set their language on the Workshop page. Ask them to aim for four sessions before the next class.

If you only meet once a week: skip the live decoding drill and give it as a recorded audio task instead. Protect the Couldn't-Catch clinic at all costs.
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