Harry Who?

So the lesson my boss observed was pure shyte. It was steaming along just fine till she came in, then as soon as she sits down, pen in hand, ready to note all my mistakes for feedback later, i became Nervous McShakey infront of the classroom and really screwed up my instructions. You're supposed to give all the instructions before the exercise ni a clear voice, and not add bits on during the exercise just so they're clear on what they're s'posed to be doing, but i was like, half way through the exercise "oh yeah, the whole point of this speaking exercise is to find a winner by the way... little detail i forgot to mention... sorry guys... as you were" (sea of confused faces look at me, i'm like 'stop looking at me like that and pretend you understand for the love of god, she's watching me and writing stuff down!)

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So i've had my feedback and it went ok, lots of stuff to 'work on' but that's to be expected...

Well, my class is basically full of of omar shariff looky likeys, and honestly, i've never seen the like or length of their eyelashes, Maybelline should sack buffy racoon-face and get some of these lads from Yemen and Saudi in the adverts, sales would go through the roof over night... i get a gust of wind at the front of the classroom every time they blink. But it's so bad in the grammar lessons, like, i think i need to sort out my board presentation, cos sometimes, after having written on the board and explained the difference between passive and active sentences, i look round from the board, and all i see in their eyes is confusion and mild resentment... but the skills class, where you practice the grammar learnt, are excellent. I just had the COOLEST lesson EVER, bit of the old poetry a la WH Auden from 4 weddings and a funeral (didn't mention that the bloke that wrote it was gay, don't imagine that would have gone down too well with the students from countries where women have only just been granted permsission to drive) and then tried to get them to write a poem, which didn't go so well, i asked them to read it out at the end and they refused (fair enough), but some of them had written some really moving stuff and they then demanded to see my poem... i was like,'oh, right!! yes, that would be fair, having asked you to write one, i should have produced one myself ...um, monday, i PROMISE, i'll bring one in' ... so now i have to write a frickin poem and present it infront of the class...

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Well, another fine lesson yesterday, one of the students asked me what acid was:
'um, you know, a liquid chemical that burns'
(blank face)
'um, you know a car battery?'
(yes)
'in there, there's acid... and it burns'
(blank - it burns batteries?)
'no, um, you know that film alien? with the big space alien? her saliva is acid and it burns through everything it touches
(blank)
...honestly! i can't believe some of the stuff these students haven't heard of. I'm well aware that this it because i'm a self-obsessed westerner who thinks my popular culture should be everyone's popular culture, but how can you never have heard of the film with the acid-dribbling alien?
i also mentioned the film Speed when trying to explain the word 'hi-jack' and no-one had heard of it apart from an indonesian student who got the concept straight away, it's amazing! only 3 of the class had heard of harry potter!! imagine that!! it's a WHOLE harry potterless different world out there i can tell ya! And yesterday i was doing a sinead o'connor song, who happens to be a single mum, and one of the bangladeshi students was like "pardon? what this mean?" just couldn't comprehend that a woman could have a child and no husband and still be accepted by society. Han had trouble explaining the word 'soul' yesterday, she was getting all existential and 'hmmm, how can one define a soul, if, indeed, we do have a soul. Well, in Paradise Lost, Milton expounds that...' then one of the other students just said 'it's like a spirit' and all the others were like 'ahhhhh'!' with comprehension.

So now i'm planning a lesson for this avvie, just got to think of a way to explain 'bone marrow transplant'... oh good lord, i can see it now:
'so, we have them green vegetables inside our skeletons, you know, the ones that grandads grow in the garden and enter in 'largest marrow' cometitions? well anyway, sometimes when someone's ill these things need moving to another human being, comprendez?'...