The Mute Native Speaker
I was asked to work with a group of young girls whose parents wanted them to get more English than
I was asked to work with a group of young girls whose parents wanted them to get more English than
I didn’t invent this game but found it in a text book I used many years ago. I believe it
Out of necessity, he tried to communicate and quickly found the language “spilling out of his mouth”.
“Don’t think of it as a friendship. Think of it as a partnership. You need a brain and I need legs.”
“Then the boys meet the gang again and there’s an exciting chase scene during which Kevin becomes Max’s brain and Max becomes Kevin’s legs. It’s one of the best scenes in the film.”
Grammar is only relevant when it gives us information about the characters and their situation.
There are scenes that could have been left out, the knights on horseback fail to capture the wonder of a boy’s imagination. They are just a bunch of men dressed up as knights. But the story comes across, we know that Max and Kevin are seeing real knights, and the magic works every time. It has become an indispensable tool in my teacher’s kit.
You may have found a great video but when you put it on, your students complain that the speakers don’t articulate, they speak too fast and their accents are frightful! It’s gibberish to them.
An experienced teacher knows her students, their culture and their needs and her own personality and possibilities better than anyone else. No one can make her decisions for her. If what she is doing is working, if her students are acquiring language, no one can criticize it. If it’s not working, she knows it before anyone else.
He was using the passive voice spontaneously and correctly and appropriately. Something the excellent students from my “S” class had never quite managed, in spite of the tests on the passive voice that they had aced.