The Mute Native Speaker
I was asked to work with a group of young girls and I began by explaining to the parents that
I was asked to work with a group of young girls and I began by explaining to the parents that
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.
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.
This year we are being honored by the presence of Blaine Ray, the man who invented TPRS, Diane Neubauer and Mike Coxon from the United States, Charlotte Dinscher from Germany, Kristin Plane and Iris Maas from the Netherlands, Sabrina Sebban-Janczak from France, Alina Filipescu from Roumania, Cathy Bu from Australia, Marguerita Perez-Garcia from Venezuela by way of New Zealand, Jayne Cooke from Great Britain and of course, the wonderful Beniko Mason Nanki from Japan. Agen is the truly international conference where people from around the world come together in harmony and share their ideas, talk over their difficulties and leave with renewed faith in human nature.