My friend Tony came home from work, unlocked his door and saw his cat sitting by the refrigerator, not paying any attention to him as it usually did meeowing its greeting when he came in, but like an Egyptian statue, the silent cat looked straight … Read More →
Category Archives: Students
Sonnet 108: How do you teach someone something they don’t
How do you teach someone something they don’t Know? The first thing that comes to mind is by Example. Look a student in the eye Even if she’s blind; otherwise she won’t Understand you. The stone deaf will hear love When they are touched by … Read More →
Students & Sonnet 66: My Spanish-speaking students ask me where
December 21, 2011 On discussing the qualities of confidence the other day, a group of my students decided that the ability to be persuaded, to change your mind was a quality of confidence, because only those with confidence in their own abilities to make choices … Read More →
Homesickness by Min
… It is a flying bird without feet but never gets tired It is a strong tree without roots but never turns weak It keeps disturbing wonderful dreams Hence souls wander forever … Min was a student of mine during my Wuhan University stay in … Read More →
On writing a sonnet this week
Last Monday morning I told myself that I was going to write a sonnet over the week completing three lines a day ending with two lines on Friday. Each morning I’d write and post them on Facebook with short videos of students of mine in … Read More →
Body Parts (from NY Chronicles 2001)
… Sunday was semi-sunny in spots, Memorial Weekend, Loisaida Day on Avenue C, the day you’re proud to be a Puerto Rican. There were squeals of happy children on the endless ferris wheel and a really good salsa band was playing, gift from Councilwoman Margarita … Read More →
China Journal
Saturday, July 8, 2006 I am in the stuffy dining car of the train heading toward Wuhan, China as the dawn presents the passing countryside: farmland, stone houses, electric poles and wires, and a distant mountain range. There’s a tall granary, a beautiful stone wall. … Read More →
ESL Lesson: The Rabbit and the Turtle: Activity Three: Either, neither, but, so, and too
Introduction: The first four activities in this lesson are pre-reading ones, and hopefully get students used to working together writing, talking and thinking about language and syntax. The teacher talk in this activity repeats itself about main verbs and helping verbs in compound sentences. The … Read More →
ESL Lesson: The Rabbit and the Turtle: Activity Two: Writing Simple Sentences
Objective: Students will understand the simple structure of a sentence by writing four kinds of sentences using the completed Venn diagrams from Activity One as prompts: affirmative and negative sentences, and Yes/No and Explanation questions. Students will write Explanation questions of their own, ask them … Read More →
ESL Lesson: The Rabbit and the Turtle: Activity One: Similarities and Differences
Introduction: Because a fable like the Rabbit and the Turtle deals with essential human truths everyone understands, it’s a good place for ESL students to start to work together. This lesson is geared toward High Beginners through Intermediates, but it can be ratcheted up or … Read More →
Crossing the Yangtze
It rained constantly the first two weeks I was in Wuhan. Luckily for me, the university goes up the side of a mountain and the flooding happened below. Many people were very unlucky however: property was destroyed and lives were lost. For a while the … Read More →
Making Noodles: Dao Xiao Mian
This trip to Wuhan I managed to eat some very good meals when in the company of the indefatigable Luke Amoroso. Luke knows where all the good food is. We had some excellent street food in Beijing including a tasty little egg pancake one early … Read More →