Grand Slam Communication
Today my English students talked about phobias.
Spiders.
Snakes.
Lightening.
The dark.
In every class, the students seemed to have similar fears.
Except for one man.
He stated that he is afraid of his wife.
She is a very angry woman.
To alleviate his fear, he drinks a lot of beer.
Well.
That escalated quickly.
My ESL student told me that she got a traffic ticket.
For driving on the sidewalk.
Wait, what?
On the sidewalk?
Was she on a bicycle?
No, she was in her car.
There was a lot of traffic.
And she was in a hurry.
Oh.
OK then.
As long as there was a good reason.
Today my adult ESL students were discussing going to the movies.
I broke them into pairs to have a conversation.
Student 1: Would you like to meet me at 5:00 in the evening to see a movie?
Student 2: 5:00 o’clock is not evening. 5:00 o’clock is afternoon.
1:
Me: 5:00 can be called afternoon or evening. Both are OK.
2: 5:00 is afternoon.
Me: You can say that 5:00 is too early, and you would prefer to meet later.
2: 5:00 O’CLOCK IS AFTERNOON!
Yeah, I’m guessing this guy doesn’t get too many invitations.
My ESL students were discussing the importance of sleep.
One of them suggested avoiding cocaine.
Wait, what?
Yeah, I won’t argue with that.
I also won’t discuss it.
I quickly moved the lesson forward to our next agenda item.
I had three students and a slacker interpreter in my English class.
One of the students was really struggling to understand.
Usually the interpreter will jump right in to help.
This interpreter did nothing.
I asked her to please help the student.
She said, in perfect English, that she couldn’t help him.
Because she didn’t understand.
What?!?!
The students said something to each other, and they all laughed.
I don’t need an interpreter to know that they said, “slacker.”
I’m the teacher in the English conversation class.
I’m the one who is fluent.
But sometimes my students leave me utterly speechless…
Today’s conversation topic was “At the Gym.”
The class started talking about yoga.
Fair enough.
But then one man said that he refuses to practice yoga.
“If I practice yoga, I will turn into a woman.”
The rest of the class agreed.
They discussed men they knew who began doing yoga.
And then turned into a woman.
Oh goodness.
And this is NOT a discussion topic that I intend to moderate.
I redirected the conversation to swimming.
Note to self – NEVER discuss yoga in the conversation class again.
Today I had another awkward English class.
One student was an IT engineer.
He was the only male in attendance with several female students.
He convinced the ladies that their husbands were running around, and he could help them spy on their guys with their iPhones.
For a small fee.
One woman was very interested.
I tried to steer the conversation away from this very awkward topic.
But my students were determined.
They spoke to each other in Vietnamese.
I’m sure they were exchanging stalking information.
I do not want to know how this story ends.
I’m just here to teach English.
So many ESL teachers complain that their students continue to make the same pronunciation mistake over and over.
They mock their students in the teacher chat rooms.
Is it the student’s fault?
NO!
If errors are being made, it’s the teacher’s responsibility to teach the concept.
One very common pronunciation mistake is to mix up the hard /g/ and the soft /g/ in words like colleague and college.
Teachers, don’t get annoyed.
Impatience doesn’t teach your students anything.
Explain the rule about how to pronounce /g/.
Expect mistakes.
It’s hard to learn a new language.
With practice, they’ll get it right.
If you want your students to succeed, give them the tools to succeed.
Impatience is not an effective teaching tool.
I love stupid humor.
My student used the term “expression face” when she meant to use “facial expression.”
I immediately thought of the Boaty McBoatface PR fiasco.
I considered discussing this with her.
But I decided against it.
How do you explain that sometimes stupid is stupid.
And sometimes stupid is funny.
It’s purely subjective.
I think that the Boaty McBoatface story was hilarious.
But I’ll bet there were folks at the Natural Environment Research Council who were not so amused.
Or maybe they were.
Who knows?
There are no rules when it comes to stupid humor.
And if there are no rules, there is no logical way to explain it.
I skipped the whole Boaty McBoatface thing and just continued the lesson.
It was a bad idea for a lesson plan.
Today’s idioms were “Don’t quit your day job,” and “When pigs fly.”
Really?
Not only did I have to teach what these expressions mean, I had to warn my students not to say these things because they are insults.
In other words, it was a wasted class session.
These expressions are very nuanced.
Nuance is an advanced concept.
Today’s students were beginners.
I sure hope they don’t come back to class tomorrow with a black eye.
Sarcasm is a bad idea for a lesson plan.