Debate Club

April 15, 2011 Leave a comment

For a while, I have been holding meetings for a debate club with between 10 and 25 students. Last week we had our first competition, a 15 person Congress style debate on the resolution “China should help Japan as much as possible with their earthquake disaster.” Each student gave a 2-5 minute speech followed by a minute of cross-examination from the other debaters. Eileen, Annie, and a Xiuzhong English teacher were judges (thank you so much) and I was the presiding officer. It was great, the kids were great, and the winner got a Yale Speech and Debate Hoodie I brought from the States.

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Short Story Lesson

April 15, 2011 Leave a comment

I recently finished up a small unit that was way more fun than I anticipated. As a class we popcorn read “Lamb To The Slaughter,” a short story by Roald Dahl about a loving wife who kills her husband with a frozen leg of lamb. After we finished it, as a review for the incidental vocab that we learned in the story, groups of 6 had to put on small skits using 7 vocab words with the prompt: SOMEONE IS MURDERED! How? Why? By whom? For what motive?

It was pretty macabre but the kids had a lot of fun. Stories ranged from typical lovers’ spats to time traveling Buddhist nun impersonators – the students killed off their classmates in really creative and fun ways.

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English Experts

January 15, 2011 Leave a comment

   by Aaron Reiss
I’ve been doing a weekly activity I call English Experts which has been working out really well. Each Friday 2 new students are assigned two new words, they have the weekend to find the definition, pronunciation, part of speech, and two example sentences. Then they present first thing Monday and play teacher (“repeat after me” “are there any questions?” deng, deng). Then, the other two days, they have to bring their book and any other materials from their other English class and come early to tell me and show me what they’re learning there. It gives me one on one time and clues me into what else they are learning so I can use and reference it. They’re like little spies.

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