Saturday, October 14, 2006
Is it a bird? Is is a plane?
OK, I said to the three ladies in class, acutely aware that I'd been drinking too much coffee, teaching too many kids and was generally not to be trusted around normal adults; do you have this game in Japan, where you look up at clouds and try to imagine what you see, like a boat or a horse or whatever?
After the customary pause necessary for the question to be unravelled in the various cerebra of room 5's finest, all three nodded an affirmative response.
Off you go then, I said, turning over my sheet of notepaper to reveal the picture I had scribbled in the 30 seconds prior to class: a man-shaped cloud kicking a dog-shaped cloud up in the air.
"Er, a man and a dog?" volunteered Charlie's most promising Angel.
You're close, I told her; the correct answer is an arm wrestler kicking a dog. You can see he's an arm wrestler because one arm is much bigger than the other...
I can't blame the students if, at any point, they wondered how their English was going to be improved by this.
After the customary pause necessary for the question to be unravelled in the various cerebra of room 5's finest, all three nodded an affirmative response.
Off you go then, I said, turning over my sheet of notepaper to reveal the picture I had scribbled in the 30 seconds prior to class: a man-shaped cloud kicking a dog-shaped cloud up in the air.
"Er, a man and a dog?" volunteered Charlie's most promising Angel.
You're close, I told her; the correct answer is an arm wrestler kicking a dog. You can see he's an arm wrestler because one arm is much bigger than the other...
I can't blame the students if, at any point, they wondered how their English was going to be improved by this.
