Hallowed Halls

well... back to the black board again... or in my case, ( no not those 6 Ukrainian cases), back to the computer!  Today I had a different class again - 2nd year students.  I taped an interview on JK Rowlings and played it for them, then they filled in the blanks.  Listening to the tape and writing what they heard.  They did real well with this.  We then discussed the material in the interview and some interesting comments... like " why were you so dense?" and " hair-raising stories" ... " a chapter in her life".. and so on.  Some they could figure out, some they couldn't.  The teacher introduced himself to me - Volodimir, told me his class was pretty good in English and said they were studying "travel" so I could do something on that.  I thought... Hmm I suppose I could work some travel thoughts into this... but he won't be there so it really doesn't matter!!!   The students did enjoy talking about Harry Potter.  There were only five there and I think they all read some or most of the books, and saw a movie on it too.One fellow, Sasha was real interested and answered a lot of questions... He was even reciting some of the things of Harry Potter.  He even looked a bit like Harry Potter.  Anyway, they listened to the interview answered the questions then I assigned them a task of making up an interview and presenting it... they were in groups of 2 and three.  I gave them a slip of paper saying what their occupation was they would interview - teacher, fireman, writer, or their own occupation choice.  So, they were into this when in comes Mr. Volodimir, and sits in the back of the class... and I thought " great"  how will I fit "travel" into this???  Anyway, I just pretended he wasn't there and went on with what I was teaching... which really wasn't much of anything except giving them practice with speaking and writing English.  I did want to cover some more on English article usage because they have a real problem with it, but have to go back to the basics again... and I didn't have a lesson prepared for that. They finished thier interviews and presented them and I listened and corrected any errors they made while speaking.  Then I had about ten minutes left and I couldn't let the students out early with the teacher there so I pulled out a pamphlet I had helped a girl in Canada do for her school project.  It was in French and was information about Ukraine.  I briefly told the students what it said and then I talked a little about one section... clothing, appearance.  One thing really outstanding here is the importance of shiny, clean boots. First I asked the students... if you were doing this brochure... what would you put in under the heading of clothing, appearance?  They said," girls like to dress up and buy cheap clothes".  So then I talked about the footwear thing and told them in America, shiny footwear is not that important... then the teacher speaks up... " yeah, I was there once, and they even wear sneakers... with a suit.  I was amused... So I agreed, and said  in America, Canada included, people are generally more concerned with comfort than looks.  Told them a story about me one day wearing dirty shoes and a Ukrainian lady offering me a rag to clean them and telling me "If your shoes are dirty it's like going out with a dirty face".. The students found that amusing... class was done then.  The teacher thanked me later for talking about the footwear difference.  So that was the extent of "travel" discussion in that class...
incidentally, I asked them to give me their interviews.. I said I wanted to keep them for reference... it is interesting that they write and say " why did you choose the profession of teacher?"  and " Do you like a children?"  "Do you have a children?"  There was another girl who did real well with the article, maybe, needed a little more work with prepositions and verb tenses... but not bad.  I was impressed with the class.