May 11, today we got started with a small talk. The topics were like “How was the trip going?”(They didn’t have class last Monday), or “Did you have a special Mother’s day?” (We celebrate Mother’s day on the second Sunday of May.) Joseph impressed me a lot this time, he said “I bought a carnation for my wife and took the whole family to a restaurant.” He also joined the outing last Monday, he added “I went to Wong-lewing village where is famous for stewed pig leg.”
I’ve searched some animal idioms such as “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”; “it’s raining cats and dogs.””Let the cat out of the bag.”… and printed out for my class. They found those idioms funny and interesting. We studied them together and hoped that we could make a small skit from these idioms for the semester closing ceremony.
We learned a new song, actually old song—Last Waltz. I think my seniors students were pretty familiar with the melody that they learned and understood the lyrics quickly.
Cindy R Shih
Your idea for teaching idioms related to animals are very interesting. In fact, I have just been thinking about how best to teach idioms this week. That's because one of my student teachers gave her presentation at her university's "MA TESOL" Conference on teaching idioms She hypothesized that idioms may be best taught when we show a picture to accompany that idiom. There is a book which teaches idioms using a lot of pictures. (I can't remember the name of the book right now. For example, for the idiom, "knock someone's socks off" there is a picture of feet above a pair of socks and shoes below. The idea is that the pictures serve as mnemonic aid. I think in the same way teaching idioms according to themes like you are doing (all animal idioms together) also serves as a kind of mnemonic aid. Don't you think so? Also, my student teacher, who is from Korea, hypothesized that idioms which have a close equivalent in the student's first language are easier to learn. Since you are bilingual, you can compare idioms in English and Chinese. Do you find that idioms in English which have a near equivlent in Chinese are easier for your student to learn? I'm sure they would be. In my classes I have students from several language backgrounds, so it's hard to predict.
回覆刪除My rationale for using movies in teaching is that it provides a context for learning idioms. I guess there are many ways for teaching our students idioms. It's nice that we teachers can share all these teaching techniques.
I think we can also learn idioms from songs. I like your idea of teaching songs to your students.
When is the closing ceremony for your class?
I'm looking forward to your description of it.
Will you take pictures? I'm looking forward to seeing those pictures!!!