Job Discussion Forums

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Had a throwaway filler class this morning and needing some material, I picked Haloween as a topic.

I found a nice piece of video on You Tube...a segment from the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas with the song "This is Halloween". Good to show some typical Halloween vocabulary and expressions related to fear and fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpvdAJYvofI

I also wanted to cover the idea of Jack o' Lanterns and pumpkin carving, though we had more trouble with that. I found a good flash animation online...a flash course on pumpkin carving. Very short, very simple, with lots of good vocabulary.

http://www.liquidgeneration.com/Media/Sabotage/How_To_Carve_A_Pumpkin/

The animation runs to the song 'Monster Mash' and also helped to show an expression I had difficulty explaining to the student from the first part of the class.

delacosta · Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 325 Location: zipolte beach

What kind of classroom do you have that you can use stuff form the internet? Videos in particular, I mean.

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

I have a whiteboard with four - count 'em - FOUR colour markers. If I want to go really high-tech, I have a CD player I can take into the classroom.

MELEE · Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 9:17 pm Post subject:

LS, you forgot to mention your chairs. Part of the great Oaxacan chair scandal of 2006. Laughing

I have the same sort of room, but 50% of the time my green board marker comes already dried up? Does that happen anywhere else? Or is the green ink just more vulnerable to our semi-arid climate?

I can use an OHP, if I ask for it 24 hours in advance, or just commender it 5 minutes before class starts. Embarassed

I can also use a computer projector (reserved 24 hrs in advance) and carry my laptop the kilometer downhill to my classroom, and a kilometer back up to my office, but the sun is so bright and the curtains so thin, the 32 students in my 1pm class have a hard time seeing the images. Evil or Very Mad

Oh and of course, I'd have to download all that stuff to my harddrive, internet connections in the classrooms would be considered subversive, wouldn't they? Rolling Eyes

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Are we learning English?

Riot control...ever seen the video for Pink Floyd's The Wall

M@tt · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 473 Location: here and there

laptops, people!

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

Ben Round de Bloc · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 1946

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

To be fair, yes, if I REALLY wanted a laptop I could afford one - it'd be equal to about a month's salary for me. I'm a cheap b&st&rd, so I own a desktop at home for half the price.

Some of the other teachers do have laptops and occasionally take them into the classrooms for different purposes, but generally it's a poor experience. The classrooms are large concrete boxes, and we usually have 15 to 20 students per class. When you factor in the small screen and the tinny sound quality of small speakers, it just isn't very practical.

delacosta · Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 325 Location: zipolte beach

Laptops no can do.
Also potential weapons.

delacosta · Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 325 Location: zipolte beach

No, seriously...
Y'all see what's happening in Oaxaca now? This is the reaon for the excessive rigidity of the state university system that a few of us work in. It appears that the rector has been more or less given a blank checkbook to create this system, with the understanding that classes must continue without any disturbances whatsoever and to achieve this then whatever measures necessary are permitted.

THis can create some absurd situations in a university. Like desks bolted to the floors for example. Like students having nowhere to hang out between classes. There's a precept type who herds hem around, shoos them to the library or computer center.

Like a campus that has a communications major but a student newspaper is prohibited.
Like internet connections being prohibited in the language labs, even if it were to be limited to ESL sites.

Any more? I could go an on and on. But that's not what I'm paid to do: I'm paid to teach English and that's it, and quite well, as are all the profs in this system. I think that's the deal, take the money and shut up. The students also are expeted to assume that role, they're here to study, period.
I don't believe that any of the schools in this 'system ' have any right to call themselves universities. But that's just my opinion.

MELEE · Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 2:56 pm Post subject:

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City