ESL Series: Christmas Wishes

ESL Series: I will quit the E-World

A few years ago, I taught a class of 5 middle school students:  Rich, Henry, Patrick, Sarah and Eva.  We got along well, but teenagers are teenagers and they liked to tease me and I usually teased them back.  I especially liked to get my revenge on them on test day.  On test day, I would type up a written test for them to take.  For this class, I always wrote the student's names into the test and would write things like "Change the sentence to past tense:  Rich loves Eva."  They would get so annoyed by it and it made me laugh.

One day, I made up the test and on the first page I made a reference to Rich loving Eva.  His response is above.  Didn't even write the answer, instead he wrote: "I kill you. Watch out your back."

On the next page, I wrote a story that they had to change into past tense.  It went something like.  "Henry is looking at Sarah.  Sarah is dancing with Patrick.  Rich loves Eva.  Rich asks Eva to dance with him.  Etc..."

So Rich didn't catch what I had done at first and begins doing as instructed.  Finally he realizes and halfway through writing out the past tense version of my story he stops writing and writes "teacher, you do this one more time I will quit the E-World."

I wish I could better describe the funny.  I miss this class to this day.

ESL Series: The Shower

Today I decided I need to start documenting the funny things that happen in an ESL classroom.

In my school, we have a vast amount of flash cards and teaching tools to help us in our classrooms.  My first year, I had a lower level class that was studying house objects.  I pulled out the house objects flash cards and began going through them.  All was fine until it came to the shower flash card.  This flash card shows a picture of the backside of a naked boy with shower bubbles covering his tush.  He is holding a shower head and is clearly showering.  I didn't think twice about the card when I showed it to students the first time.  But when I showed it, the class went wild.  Screaming, shreaking, laughing, crying, students covering their eyes turning red, students rolling of the floor in hysterics....the class became uncontrollable.  All because of this scandalous flash card.

As the years have gone by, I have learned to take this flash card out of the mix when teaching about house objects.  However, nowadays I am teaching what has become my favorite class of all time.  Two young boys and two young girls.  They are absolutely adorable.  They are young, about eight years old.  This class makes me laugh out loud every day.  I decided I had to bring out my favorite flash card for this class, because I was dying to see their reaction.

The moment comes and I break out the flash card.  As, expected, they lose it.  The two boys are laughing so hard they are on the floor.  The girls are shreaking and covering their eyes.  It was hilarious.  The next class, it was time to review the flash cards.  I wasn't planning on showing the shower flash card again, that would be overkill.  However, as soon as I pulled out the stack of flash cards, all four of my students started to flip out.  The boys began giggling, the girls were bracing themselves.  I couldn't explain to them that I had removed the shower flash card from the stack because if I even mentioned the word "shower," they would lose it.  This flash card has become my most powerful resource and also my kryptonite.

I will post a picture.