The Fundamental Wrongitude
It occurred to me this week, while I was explaining why you cannot say "another example" before "for example...", that most of them just do not understand. It was a revelation - I'd been fooling myself for the last five months that I was actually teaching them something. My main clue was when I asked the teacher to explain in Japanese what I had just said, to make sure they got it. She said no, it was ok, they understood. Which was a Big Fat Lie. Even the teachers don't care.
In the homework I set them every week they make the same mistakes over and over again, regardless of how many times I teach them the correct way. For one assignment I had them write an argument. While introducing the homework I explained to them all for ten minutes why you should not, at least at their level, begin sentences with And, But or Because. I even wrote the guidelines on the homework, in very simple easy English. In fact, it was the basis of the homework. I even offered them them extra marks if they did it correctly (and most of them really need those extra marks). Of the 210 students I teach maybe four got the extra marks.
They'll spell a word wrong, even though that word is in the essay question, 0.5 centimetres above where they are writing. Then they'll spell it wrong again, but in a different way - IN THE SAME LINE!
At my special school this week the dude in charge of the elementary kids devised a shop game involving cards with different items written on each that the kids had to buy and sell (3oo dollars for an apple, I ask you!). Most of the products were, of course, wrong - the 'Meet Shop' sold hamberg, and the 'Drugstor' sold eye lotion. The dialogue he had prepared for them, however, was even worse
A: Are there [bandage]?
B: Yes there are
A: How much money?
B: X dollar
This was the format, regardless of the singular or plural nature of the product being bought. "Are there hamberg?" No, there are most surely not. After ten minutes of me correcting his spelling he was so disheartened that I spent the next 20 minutes teaching his total wrongness to poor retarded children.
In the homework I set them every week they make the same mistakes over and over again, regardless of how many times I teach them the correct way. For one assignment I had them write an argument. While introducing the homework I explained to them all for ten minutes why you should not, at least at their level, begin sentences with And, But or Because. I even wrote the guidelines on the homework, in very simple easy English. In fact, it was the basis of the homework. I even offered them them extra marks if they did it correctly (and most of them really need those extra marks). Of the 210 students I teach maybe four got the extra marks.
They'll spell a word wrong, even though that word is in the essay question, 0.5 centimetres above where they are writing. Then they'll spell it wrong again, but in a different way - IN THE SAME LINE!
At my special school this week the dude in charge of the elementary kids devised a shop game involving cards with different items written on each that the kids had to buy and sell (3oo dollars for an apple, I ask you!). Most of the products were, of course, wrong - the 'Meet Shop' sold hamberg, and the 'Drugstor' sold eye lotion. The dialogue he had prepared for them, however, was even worse
A: Are there [bandage]?
B: Yes there are
A: How much money?
B: X dollar
This was the format, regardless of the singular or plural nature of the product being bought. "Are there hamberg?" No, there are most surely not. After ten minutes of me correcting his spelling he was so disheartened that I spent the next 20 minutes teaching his total wrongness to poor retarded children.
posted by Geoff at 7:22 AM
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