ESL students say the darndest things!

Trip Start Feb 15, 2004
1
25
34
Trip End Dec 18, 2004


Loading Map
Map your own trip!
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
shadow

Flag of Australia  ,
Tuesday, September 14, 2004

This feels like it's been a really long week, and it's not even half over! I'm teaching 5 days this week because the school asked me to fill in for a teacher who's on holiday. For some crazy reason, I said yes.... even though I didn't really want to teach on Monday and Tuesday. What can I say? I'm weak. So I got to spend yesterday and today teaching intermediate, which I'd never done before. Intermediate students have a fairly good handle on the English language, so it's quite different teaching them in comparison with my pre-intermediate class. They tear through the material and they can discuss much more complex concepts. For example, today I had them read 3 different articles about people who collect things and then discuss in small groups which collection they thought was the most interesting. One group got into a philosophical discussion about what "interesting" really means - even though they liked the cute and normal collection more, is it actually interesting? Or is the strange one more interesting, even though it's kinda disgusting? I was impressed. I enjoyed the class, and it helped that I already knew about half the students since I'd taught them before in pre-int. We all joked around a fair bit, but it got a little out of hand when one of the Thai guys started making jokes to me about the World Trade Center. He was talking about the Empire State Building, making hand gestures of a plane hitting into it and causing it to collapse. I knew he was joking, but I let him know that I didn't find it funny. I also warned him that he could get himself into a lot of trouble making jokes like that to Americans. All the people from other countries I've talked about 9/11 with always sympathize with us Americans, but I don't think people from other countries quite understand what an impact that day has made on us. People in Australia are able to make jokes about it, but I don't think we'd ever make those kind of jokes in the US. Maybe Americans take ourselves too seriously sometimes, but I don't see the humor in what happened on September 11th.

Sometimes my students can be absolutely hilarious, even without trying to. For example, the other day I overheard 2 of my male students, Tomas from Argentina and Hirotaka from Japan, talking while they were working on an activity. Hirotaka said, "I'm hungry." Tomas asked, "What do you want to eat?" Hirotaka replied, "Woman." I have no idea whether Hirotaka knew exactly what he was saying, but it definitely took me by surprise! I covered my ears and said to them, "I didn't hear that!!!", and we all laughed. I'm not sure if they completely understood the double entendre, and I didn't really feel like finding out. I'm happy to teach them all sorts of things, but that's where I draw the line in the classroom. :)

Last night I had a dream about my Korean stalker Kong. I don't remember exactly what happened, but the gist of it was that he wouldn't leave me alone and I was getting really annoyed. Hmmm, I wonder what could have prompted that? Maybe the fact that he's still text messaging me EVERY DAY! The other night I even played the boyfriend card, hoping he'd take the hint and leave me alone. I don't think it worked though.

Well, I'm off to the supermarket to buy a cake for the teachers meeting tomorrow. Teachers meetings are basically a bitchfest - the most annoying teachers use it as an excuse to complain about any little petty thing that's bothering them. A favorite topic is the photocopier. Yes, it's often broken, but deal with it! But at least every few weeks we have "birthday club", meaning people bring food to celebrate the month's birthdays. And tomorrow's my turn. By the way, in Australia people say "Hip Hip Hooray!" three times at the end of singing "Happy Birthday." Just thought I'd share.
Print this entry Sydney hotels