On Wednesday morning at 8:15 (fifteen minutes before school started), I felt a vibration in my left pants' pocket. I reached into said pocket to retrieve my cellular phone, the source of said vibration. I had electronic mail. My co-teacher (who I teach three classes with on Wednesdays) was letting me know that she was sick. Would I be able to teach my classes alone? Surely, you jest. This is dramatic irony of Shakesperean proportions. Where is the laugh track? Where is Ashton Kutcher? Who would play me in a sitcom? John Cho, please.
Even better, I was ready to unleash by pronunciation lesson Wednesday, one that would supremely benefit from translations for tongue and teeth placement. It's OK. I had pictograms. I had my English-Japanese dictionary. Time to consult.
With a combination of repeated hand gestures, miming, laughing, poorly pronounced Japanese (also ironic considering the topic of the lesson), I survived. Did the kids learn anything? No way to know 'til test time.
The most interesting part of the lesson was that "L" and "R" were not simply hard to distinguish, but the students consistently chose the wrong letter. Any time I said "grass," they swore it was "glass." Vice versa forever.
I also enjoyed "V" and "B" because I got to cross out "Kebin" on the board and see the look of astonishment on thirty faces. "Girls wear vests! We all want to be the best!"
On Friday, I got another go of the lesson with the co-teacher in place. Also in place were both vice principals, as Friday was evaluation day. Honestly, I think it was much more for the co-teacher than myself, and I got a kick out of the vice principals trying to say "right" and "light." Oddly, no students slept for long in this class.
-----
I apologize for today's sudden blog-iarrhea. Speaking of which, is there a letter arrangement more suggestive of its meaning than diarrhea? The word simply looks uncomfortable!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
My undergraduate research projec was all about teaching people to distinguish foreign speech sounds like the l-r distinction. I was going to wright a big ol' comment explaining it all. Then I realised how much of an arse it would sound.
More haikus please. :-)
Oh, and I proof read really well. Wright? WTF? I was educated in ENGLAND goddamnit...
my med school buddies and i have an ongoing joke. no word containing the letter sequence r-r-h is good. examples: diarrhea, hemorrhage, amenorrhea, sialorrhea...the list goes on.
Post a Comment