ESL Spelling Bee!!

On May 20, 2011 I was honored to take 9 of my students to the First Annual District-Wide ESL Spelling Bee at Fulmore Middle School. My director suggested we walk up to Homeslice Pizza on South Congress after the Bee so the kids could experience a new neighborhood & they could practice ordering food in English, etc. It was a day to remember!

What mode of transportation did we take to S. Congress, you may be asking? The Austin Metro. What I didn't realize is that my "mom" side would come out at the bus stops. :) Long story short, a man started giving my boys some "advice" that happened to include the F word a few times. I quickly walked right up to him & said, "Excuse me, sir, but you need to know that these kids are 12-14 years old & I do NOT appreciate you using that language around them. We work pretty hard to provide an uplifting & healthy environment for them in & out of school, so please watch how you speak in front of them." He was respectful & apologized to me & the boys. :)

I was SO PROUD of my students the ENTIRE day. I was blown away by their maturity, encouragement for one another, & their excitement/anxiety about spelling words infront of people they didn't know. Yea! It just so happens that our very own CESAR was the district CHAMPION!!! He spelled better than about 35 other ESL students in the district. Yea yea yea!

Homeslice Pizza was amazing!! They asked each of our students to spell a certain word & if they spelled it correctly, they got 10% off their order. Thank you, Homeslice!!

Another Joke, Courtesy of the Brazilian

"What is green and has 4 wheels?"

...

(I guessed "John Deere," but that wasn't it.)

...

"Do you give up? Come on, take a guess..."

...

"Ok, Ok. GRASS. I was lying about the wheels!"
** Please note, he laughed harder than anyone else right after he said the punchline. ;)

That's Karma.

There are 4 newcomers from Mexico in my last period class. It's actually really hard for me to believe they are still considered "newcomers" because they are fast learners & they've acquired so much English already.

Sidenote, 2 of the 4 of these students are extremely nosy & are ALWAYS wondering what the other students' grades are & if they did better or worse on something.

Last week, the students were making posters about how to conjugate a verb & they each had their own verb to turn in. One student (CD - the only male in the class, poor thing) was showing me his poster & asking me a questions about the correct conjugation, when another student (YS) made a sassy comment about his work. She was joking, but nonetheless...

Not 1 minute later did we hear YS say "Oh no!! I made the...I need the H...I did it wrooong!"

CD, without even looking up, quietly said, "That's karma."

How do they hear these phrases & how do they know what they mean & when to apply them?! I laughed a lot. This was one of my favorites.

Sword (Or Is It S-word?)

Don't you remember how popular MadLibs were when we were younger? The more random your words were, the better story it made. Even if you didn't realize it, MadLibs might be the sole reason you know exactly what nouns, adjectives, adverbs, or verbs are. :) Well played, inventor of MadLibs.

In one of my classes we were playing a MadLib online. It's a little different because it had pre-chosen words (ie, verbs or nouns or adjectives) flying all over the screen & you chose from that group of words which one you wanted in the story. The motion of the words just makes choosing the word a little more challenging & fun for the kids.

It was time for MC to choose a noun from the computer screen that was being projected onto my wall. She was looking up on the wall, scrambling to choose one of the words flying & jumping across the screen.

All of the sudden I hear, "S-WORD."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"S-WORD! Or whatever!"
"OHHH! Sword. Good one."

I couldn't stop laughing when I realized how awesome this was. It reminded of the Jeopardy skit on Saturday Night Live with the Sean Connery character changed all the categories to sound like something else. "Appetite" to "Ape tit" and "S-words" to "Swords," etc.

Here's the final product from the story we made. So silly...

Gone On Vacation?

Today, my class was not moving as quickly as I wanted them to. I turned to one student & asked, "Come on, where is your pen or pencil? Let's go..."

As he reached down to pick something up, he said "My pen or pencil went on vacation, but it's back now... I'm ready."

This is what I'm working with. :)