Mon Feb 23

Objectives:

Intercultural awareness - making suggestions and responding to polite forms of handling awkward social situations

Speaking - asking "yes/no" questions to guess someone's identity, introduction to the topic

The journal writing topic today was to write about an awkward social situation that they had once had. I think I didn't give a good enough example for them, but still when a number of them shared their situation, it was clear they had understood what I had expected of them. I think in the future a good example would be a mobile phone going off at the wrong possible moment, or asking for the wrong dish in an expensive restaurant.

I then reiterated the need to find a book for the English class (gave them the opportunity to borrow some of mine) and we talked a little more about the website.

Finally we went to p. 81 and did the exercise on awkward social situations, discussing each one and hearing suggestions (both voluntarily and asked for) for what Bella should say. We had a good discussion about the difference between Mexican ways of answering and British ways. Quite a few sts said they were much more upfront and honest with their answers, rather than beating around the bush or saying a "white lie", while others said they preferred to look for a peaceful way out which may not necessarily be truthful. The sts then acted out their own situations, including a few I suggested for them - a bad haircut, forgetting someone's birthday, or discovering that your friend really supported George W. Bush! Some of these situations were acted out in front of the class.

We then played a game where each person had to think of a famous person, alive or dead, and their partner had to guess who it was, asking only questions which could be answered with "yes" or "no". Before beginning, I elicited the correct forms of questions of this type, such as "Does he" or "Is she" or "Was he" or "has she been". This worked quite well and only a very few couldn't guess the person.

Then I changed the rules and gave each person a famous person, whose name they had to hold to their forehead so that everyone could see the name except for them. They had to ask questions about themselves, going around the room. Here they had to use "Am I" or "Do I" or "Was I". Again, this worked well and provoked people's curiosity. Some were easier than others but there were a lot of laughs, and the language was used well.