Idioms Practice and Skit

May 18, today we started the class with reviewing the definitions or the meanings of the animal idioms we had learned last time. And then I let my seniors’ students work in pair on the practice paper below:Animal Idioms Practice:1. Mary is a very efficient person; she can kill two birds with one stone.2. Why everybody knows the secret? Now the cat is out of the bag.3. Janet’s mother told her, “Find a man to get married, you are no spring chicken.”4. The weather is weird, it was sunny this morning but now it’s raining cats and dogs.5. Before Claire and John got married, she told him “Love me, love my dog.”6. After you are retired, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. It is risky.7. Sam is a very stingy man, whoever wants to borrow money from him, he would say, “When pig flies.”8. Look at the strange man over there! His act is as a sneaky fox at the hen house.9. The little kids are so cute; they copy their parents’ acts. It is like monkey see, monkey do.10. Ken was so hungry, he said, “I can eat a horse.” After eating, he was happy as a pig in mud.Skit:Since we’re going to perform at the closing ceremony on June 19, I came out a short story with a few animal idioms and combined with a song, too. (The performance will be recorded.)The story goes:The “no spring chickens” are struggling for laying eggs. It’s getting harder and harder to lay eggs, because they are not young any more. Finally, some hens lay some eggs, and those eggs become very precious. One of them says.” Let’s put all the eggs in one basket. In that way we can take them to the market for sell and buy other food.” The chicken housekeeper says,” No! No! Don’t put all our eggs in one basket that would be risky.” So they separate the eggs; some in the basket and some in the cabinet.Later on, a sneaky fox comes and steals the basket with eggs, he then runs away. The next morning, the chickens find out that their eggs in the basket have been stolen. One of them opens the cabinet and says to the housekeeper,” You are a very loyal and wise servant. We didn’t lose all our eggs because of your good advice.” Another says, “We can always count on you.” The housekeeper says,” Yes, you can put your head on my shoulder.” And they all sing the song “Put your head on my shoulder” together as the ending.I’ve announced to my students that one of my American friends, Sharon, is coming to visit and stay with me from May 22 ~25. She has agreed my idea that she would come to my seniors’ class on May 25 as a guest. She would answer all the questions that my students would have for her. I think it would be a great opportunity for my students to do their English listening and speaking practice.Cindy R Shih

Animal Idioms

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