Jul

27

A Monitor Lizard in your home brings bad luck according to Thai superstition, however the 5' specimen that crossed my path this morning rang in a grand day. It raised an eyelid and dashed into the underbrush. A mile down the road a cloud of a hundred Flying Foxes with 5-foot wingspans, the world's largest bats, lumbered like eagles before alighting in trees and staring at me upside down. A mile later, I snapped a picture of a mural of Muslim schoolchildren in robes when a real swarm ran out to practice English. The teacher set up chairs on the lawn beside the mural so the motorbike morning traffic could watch the new sub. The one-room schoolhouse of all grade levels owned an accumulative vocabulary of about 50 words that the kids quickly doubled with the nouns of our dress and surroundings. Each had arisen at 5am for the first of five daily prayers and to my raised eyebrow, 'Why?', a ten-year-old smiled, 'Life is a struggle!' After thirty minutes of English, I continued down the path less traveled.


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  1. douglas roberts dimick on July 29, 2011 3:12 am

    Yo Bo, You The Man

    When you teach ESL (or English as a Second Language), do you put emphasis on the vowels?

    I teach v = s (or vowel equals syllable). Instead of the IPA (or International Phonetic Alphabet) with its 48 sounds, I stick to the ten (5 long / 5 short) sounds, encouraging vocabulary organization based on syllable arrangement for pronunciation, spelling, and meaning — via word association.

    Which education system do you put on top of your list?

    Happy trails…

    dr

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