Ramblings

Recent lessons

I've started to teach the alphabet to a few of my classes in the past few days. This is a very boring topic; what can you do but repeat the letters over and over and eventually make the kids practice spelling things? I did manage to add a little more interest to the lesson, however, with colors and Bingo. After introducing the English pronounciation of all the letters, I organized them into the following color-coded groups:

Q U W (blue)
A H J K (gray)
B C D E G P T V Z (green)
F L M N S X (red)
I Y (white)
O (yellow)
R (purple)

Get it? The vowel sound of the color corresponds to the vowel sound in each letter group. (The 'R' is imperfect, but it's as close as it gets.) French kids have special difficulty distinguishing 'A' from 'I,' remembering how to say 'Y,' and mixing up 'G' and 'J' because they are pronounced the opposite way in French. After sorting the letters into groups, I distributed a 5 x 5 Bingo card of letters, but before playing the game, the students colored in the squares. They know the color names fairly well, so I'm hopeful the coding system will help them remember the letters, and playing Bingo is always a good activity.

In one class yesterday, I was asked to translate part of the new Madonna song ("Time goes by so slowly...") and then a different boy wanted me to tell what the phrase "pump it up" meant. I took this very seriously, and explained that "pump" could mean three different things. First of all, that phrase probably refers to raising the energy level of, say a sports team. Second, it can refer to weight lifting. Third and finally, it can simply mean inflate, such as in the case of tires. I think they enjoyed this more than the real lesson I had presented.

Foreign food

I've been buying dehydrated soup mixes at the grocery store because they are easy and quick to prepare. Yesterday Meredith and I had Moroccan chorba which had bits of lamb and was slightly spicy. Today we made a mix that I had picked up in Budapest with some of my extra forint, gulyasleves, which was also really good.

I had made a trip down the foreign foods aisle at the supermarket last week to pick up supplies for our fajita night and I'd come across a box of pancake mix. After sleeping in on Wednesday, we started the day with 'American' pancakes. For lack of maple syrup (not even imitation!) we used honey and raspberry jam. The box the mix came in explains that there are the same number of states as stars on the flag, and features a drawing of the Statue of Liberty.

My birthday

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! My students were very excited to wish me a happy birthday, and one class sung to me. I received a few drawings and cards from them. One little girl decorated hers with real lipstick kisses.

My assistant friends gave me a card and we went out for drinks and dancing. Other than Meredith, their contracts finish at the end of April, so we've been trying to plan fun weekends before then, and reunions after they leave.

And now

This morning I ate leftover chocolate cake for breakfast before rushing off to teach a class I had rescheduled. Meredith and I are taking off for Grenoble for the weekend (his birthday was Monday!) so I should be getting going to pack and clean up now. Have a great weekend!