Between translation work and school preparation, I don’t have the focus for a deep and meaningful post, so here is some random five-things type rambling instead. Except that I only have three things, not five.
First of all, my stats are slowly edging upwards. I still don’t get a lot of visitors, but the number of visitors and pageviews is definitely going up.
The superhero worksheet I made for my Wednesday class was a big success. The worksheet was mainly intended to practice the Wh-questions (who, why, where, when, what, which, whose, how). So I wrote down a few basic facts about five superheroes on the first sheet. The second sheet had questions about the superheroes the students were supposed to complete and answer? I deliberately picked characters who had been in fairly recent films (Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk) and would thus be familiar to the kids and we got a pretty good discussion going on a la “But in the film it’s like this…” Interestingly, Spider-Man, Iron Man and Hulk were far more familiar to the kids than Batman, even though The Dark Knight was on TV a few weeks ago. I guess the Nolan Batman film just aren’t the sort of thing that appeals to 14-year-olds. Can’t say I blame them.
My favourite of the worksheets I developed are still “Teach Yoda English” (practices word order, which Yoda always gets wrong) and “Celebrity Mirror Mirror”, in which various real life celebrities (David Beckham, Kate Moss, Formula One driver Sebastian Vettel, Jack the Ripper and George W. Bush) visit the magic mirror of Snow White fame to ask questions. The purpose is to practice comparatives and superlatives, but the dialogues between the celebrities and the magic mirror are hilarious. At the end of the exercise, George W. Bush threatens to send the magic mirror to Guantanamo.
And now for some linkage: Laura Vivanco discusses the distinction between romance and women’s fiction at Teach Me Tonight.
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