Antidisestablishmentarianism

revel · Post by **revel** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 7:49 am

Hey all!

I have one....her name is Belen, seems that she's certified looney, when she came to do the level test before being accepted into the class she thought she was coming to a job interview, on her teacher survey she wrote things like "I want to work, now! now! someone offer me a job now! now!".

She also asks the silliest questions. I think I do as Andrew, I give her an explanation that demonstrates that the question is beyond her level and then move on with the class. She's certainly earnest, but her questions are really something else: we are doing a simple "change these sentences into the past tense" exercise and she stops everything with a "would this sentence make sense if I used the future tense?" "Well, yes, Belen, it would, but we are practicing the past tense." "But, it would make sense in the future, wouldn't it?" "Naturally, but this is the past tense we are practicing." If she has asked once when it is her turn to transform a sentence I can be sure she will transform the next sentence into the future even though eight other students before her have faithfully transformed their sentences into the past. In the end I have had to politely nod to her and move on to the next student, as it is indeed eight against one and eyes do roll and some even make comments out-loud.

Another was Pilar, last year, who was closer to what lol is talking about. She's still in contact with me through a friend, and she's still asking the strangest questions "Which is better to say, I've never or I haven't ever, and what is the exact difference in meaning?" plus she's always pulling strange, or not so strage, combinations of words out of context from films or songs and asking what they mean and when to use them. Problem is, she usually already pretty well knows the answer to her question, and when I answer she often replies with "yes, but isn't it also....", well, I think, if you've already looked it up, what are you asking me for? If you are going to argue about my explanation, why do you trust me in the first place? When in class with me, and in that class there were another fifteen students to serve, I usually offered about five minutes once a week at the beginning of the class for personal doubts, which I then took advantage of to explain whatever was the objective of the day. If the personal doubt had nothing to do with the objective of the day I usually limited myself to a general translation of the doubt, or quick grammar explanation and then pulled out the day's material and down to work. There's nothing like a heavily planned class with excess material to cover to keep tangents at bay. We always have things to do and we always have too much material to cover for students to be adding to that material.

Though I like serendipity's idea as well, will be looking at how to include it in one of my classes next year!

peace,
revel.

Andrew Patterson · Post by **Andrew Patterson** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 9:55 am

Lolwhites wrote:

Incidentally, Andrew, I couldn't resist asking you; when you say "A good warmer/filler exercise" do you mean a good time-killer exercise?

To an extent, but it should also teach something. The example I gave teaches vocabulary and spelling.

I wonder why an experienced teacher such as yourself asks. Are you checking that I know how to teach as well as what to teach?

As I understand, warmers are used to motivate the students at the beginning of a lesson, but should be fairly short and contain nothing that will be cruicial to understanding the rest of the lesson although they may be loosely based on the same theme. They are also there to give students sth to do before any late-comers arrive. Fillers are used to give the students a change mid-way through the lesson as a motivational device, or to do something at the end where you feel that you want to do a particular exercise together with others in the next lesson because it would be more understandable that way.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:07 am

Sure, Andrew, hence the

in the original post. Maybe I've spent too much time on Englishdroid...

Sally Olsen · Post by **Sally Olsen** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 9:07 pm

I am with you serendipity in channeling the activities into something more. Could you get her to write out the questions and put them on the wall and get others to answer them? I usually take along that marvellous Alphabet book with 201 pictures of A, B, etc. and have students write the words around and draw a line to the object in the picture after I laminate the picture. This spawns all sorts of extracurricular activities with English. Isn't "antidisestablishmentarianism" the longest word in the dictonary too. Along with "supercalifragilisticexpialadoshus", it is just fun to say.
I always encourage this type of student who just enjoys the language and finding out about things. It would be good to teach her how to talk about these things at a more appropriate time and in a more appropriate way though and perhaps a private talk about the welfare of the class and when to bring up these ideas might benefit you both.