Post twenty-six, ideas for teaching

Here is a list, compiled with my colleagues Nick and Caitlin, of activities we do with our students (of varying ages). If you have any to contribute, they will certainly be aggressively put into action. Also, if you have any memories of activities that endeared teachers to you in your youth, they'd be appreciated.

The list:

1. Telephone.
2. Completing, or continuing, various ridiculous stories invented by the teacher.
3. Creating their own news reports (or conceivably also creating their own obituaries. Maybe that's too morbid?).
4. Drinking games, done without alcohol, are entertaining ways to break the ice. For example: never have I ever, kings, etc.
5. "Yes, but," a debate-practicing game in which students are given a topic to debate, and you go around in a circle, each student having to disagree with their neighbor (hence, "Yes, but...."). This works best with frivolous topics.
6. Charades.
7. Various role-playing games (criminal, defense lawyer, judge, for example).
8. Mafia.
9. Short presentations prepared by the students, (either in groups or alone) about topics of their choice.
I also ask them to prepare, alone, one very short presentation teaching the class some odd personal skill they have--for example tying a tie, making a hat out of a newspaper.

Post twenty-five, taken from the essay of a student

"Moreover, the blaring of this dog makes my cat so nervous that it makes strident voices and runs around the house."

Post twenty-four, something I admire

Have I mentioned how important I think unnecessarily wonderful things like this are? I think I will make them my religion.

Post twenty-three, LTI

From the Wikipedia article on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis:

"Karl Kerenyi began his 1976 English language translation of Dionysus with this passage:
'The interdependence of thought and speech makes it clear that languages are not so much a means of expressing truth that has already been established, but are a means of discovering truth that was previously unknown. Their diversity is a diversity not of sounds and signs but of ways of looking at the world. "'

Meta-amusing to post this in the one world that is entirely delineated by language--the internet.

Post twenty-two, a review of the vacation, in pictures

A perfect combination, really;

Makes me think of the hair saloon Katie and I have been planning.

Another example of animals being tortured for the SNCF

What kinds of animals are these supposed to be?

Post Twenty-one, in which I return to find...

...Doves, or very elegant pigeons, nesting directly below my window;
...Poland in bloom;
...students who, en masse, decide that they would prefer not to come to class;
...two new kinds of cabbage at the grocery store;
...I no longer know how to make a good soup stock, and embarassingly have to use bouillion cubes;
...my apartment still standing, electricity, water and telephone still functioning.

...that I am oddly and unspeakably glad to be back...home.

Post 20, all about my lunch

I've mentioned the canteen previously, I think.
Usually, one can expect moderately good food--mashed potatoes, grated beet, cabbage or carrot salad, a piece of breaded and fried meat. Once, they served blini with fruit. Only one time have I regretted spending my $1.30. It was soup--clear vegetable broth with little things swimming in it, and topped with odd, yielding white cheese. It was hideous.
Today's lunch trumps the bad soup. I got a heaping plateful (I think the cook always gives me extra--I'm not sure why) of lightly salted, very starchy noodles, flooded with a puree of frozen strawberries. I was so horrified, I ate most of it before it dawned on me that maybe I didn't have to clean my plate. Shockingly shockingly awful. The canteen has betrayed my trust.

Post 19, in which I show a little Krakow

Pronounced Crack-oof, with the emphasis on the first syllable. (or the second-to-last, if you want to apply the rule generally)

What overindulgent, sickeningly western joy, to take a weekend off from grading papers for a visit to the big city! T-shirt; and Indian food; and even English novels! All can be had, for a price, in the debauched western city of Krakow!

Here's a brief summary of what we did:

Ate bagels with lox and cream cheese.

Ate a burrito.

Ate chips with salsa.

Ate a kebab (horrible).

Ate palak paneer.

Ate Chinese food (also, unfortunately, horrible).

Drank drip coffee (miraculously wonderful!!!! And I arrived back at the office to find that equally miraculous colleague Bartek has given me my very own espresso maker. Bliss!)

These are all things that cannot be bought in Chelm.

We spoke to other Native English Speakers!!!! I'd almost forgotten how annoying drunk American tourists can be. Luckily, there were enough of them in the hostel to remind me.

We walked around Poland's most prestigious mall (hence the t-shirts).

We sat in the sun and drank beer in the market square, overlooking other tourists and the historical "cloth house".

We went to the Wieliczka salt mines--300 km of rock salt tunnels that have been hollowed out since the middle ages, including such wonders as an entire cathedral, dozens of smaller churches (this being Poland, after all), a restaurant, many many sculptures, underground lakes, and so on. Extremely cool, though our guide sounded unimpressed.

We toured the castle, though maybe Palm Sunday wasn't the best day to pick to look at the cathedral. I got about a foot from the door, and was stopped by a mass of people holding hideous bunches of dried flowers, and the obligatory palms.

Do all old Poles look like this?

Palm Sunday

We played some pool.

We went to a museum dedicated to a mysterious cult of hunters who worship a silver chicken. We saw the chicken. The museum mostly consisted of the chicken, and a lot of paintings and photographs of famous people holding the chicken. Apparently, our president is an honorary member of the cult.

The Chicken

We went to a bookstore in which all of the books were in English.

Sunset, behind the bizarre manmade hillock