Wednesday, August 23, 2006
The things I teach
I got to work to find that I'd been allocated a special lesson, and had done nothing to prepare. At the eleventh hour, I opted for STICK MAN VOCABULARY.
We started off with NATURAL DISASTERS, then moved on to CRIME.
For me, the greatest joy of stick man art lies in keeping the characters' faces identical, regardless of whether they're walking the dog or being robbed at gunpoint. The students were delighted with these. One of them pointed to the vein in her arm and haltingly asked me how to say that. I refused at first, mindful of my employment prospects, but then relented:
I'm particularly pleased with the penguin.
One student then asked me about "when the father beats the child too much." I had a brief vision of a stony-faced stick man with a can of beer in his hand kicking a stoical (if slightly smaller) stick man up in the air. This, I decided was a bit too much.
Having made it through my special lesson, I headed off for football, where team centre forward Issei provided me with further evidence of my English-teaching genius:
Dan, I went to class this morning. We had arguing lesson, so I told other student Shut your fucking clam. My teacher was very laughing.
I imagine he probably was.
We started off with NATURAL DISASTERS, then moved on to CRIME.
For me, the greatest joy of stick man art lies in keeping the characters' faces identical, regardless of whether they're walking the dog or being robbed at gunpoint. The students were delighted with these. One of them pointed to the vein in her arm and haltingly asked me how to say that. I refused at first, mindful of my employment prospects, but then relented:
I'm particularly pleased with the penguin.
One student then asked me about "when the father beats the child too much." I had a brief vision of a stony-faced stick man with a can of beer in his hand kicking a stoical (if slightly smaller) stick man up in the air. This, I decided was a bit too much.
Having made it through my special lesson, I headed off for football, where team centre forward Issei provided me with further evidence of my English-teaching genius:
Dan, I went to class this morning. We had arguing lesson, so I told other student Shut your fucking clam. My teacher was very laughing.
I imagine he probably was.
