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2005-01-26 06:00:47 ET Well, yesterday I was supposed to have an 11:30 intermediate class, but it was canceled and I had a 1:30 pre-intermediate emergency "help-us-please-we're-gonna-fail-the-conversation-section" class. So, in this class there were just 3 people (normally 5) - one guy: Erdal, and 2 girls: Pınar and Belma. So they come in, sit - I have 3 activities for them pre-written on the tahta (board) like this: PRE-INTERMEDIATE CONVERSATION REVIEW 1.) Conversation in pairs 2.) Personal composition (spoken) 3.) Game: "20 Questions" So, we have the conversation in pairs -- rather one big group because there were 3 of them, and it went well. We then moved onto the composition part. I posed the question "How was your Kurban Bayram? (what did you do, who did you do it with, and in which manner did you go about doing it?)" FYI: Kurban Bayram is the first feast of the Islamic year. The streets run with blood - they sacrafice sheep and cows and goats and eat them. Pretty cool stuff. Anyways... The rules were as follows: -The composition must be 5 sentences long minimum. -They must use perfect past tense and continuous past tense in positive and negative forms. -Please watch out for the usage of the articles a/an/the. So, they write; Pınar and Belma read their essays. I then take the essays from them, write them on the board, and together we correct them. Next it was Erdal's turn. Erdal's essay read thus so: "My Kurban Bayram was very good. I went back to (the name of his hometown like 6 syllabuls long) and helped father do the farm. We delivered the ships to poor. We murdered them there for people and put the ship on a plastic shit. Later we went back to the house and murdered our cow and also laid it on a shit. Later my mother took the murdered cow and cooked it. It was the best. I... I... lmao Yeah, and you know, I couldnt... I almost couldnt NOT laugh -- he... ok ok -- in the ENglish language "ee" makes the sound that the Turkish "i" makes eeeeeeee. So, when he spelled "ship" he meant "SHEEP" -- not a vessel; and when he spelled "shit" he meant "sheet" like "plastic tarp/plastic sheet". Also "to murder" was what he mistook for "to sacrifice". So together, I explained to him "Erdal, İngilizce'de In English "shit" means "bok" (shit in Turkish). He said "oh... valla?? (really)" and I said "valla.". He then started laughing hysterically, and we finished the essay but oh my GOD. I love my job -- everyday I leave laughing -- not out of disrespect for the students, but out of linguistical bliss. :) So here's what he meant: "My Kurban Bayram was very good. I went back to Bdakjsfdlkjs and helped father with his farm. We delivered sheep to the poor. We sacrificed them there for the people and put the sheep on a plastic SHEET. Later we went back to the house and sacrificed our cow and also laid it on a SHEET. Later my mother took our sacrificed cow and cooked it. It was the best. *Cheers tonight to Erdal and all my other students at Batifen -- you rock for making my days brighter! :)* And now, its off to the house to clean and work. Yay. Haydı görüşürüz! (See you later) <3 |
