On sports, food, and LoVe..

An Ideal Athlete:
"Furthermore, the key of being an ideal athlete is to have enormous sportsmanship, which means being respectful, courtesy, and a cheerful loser (!)"
:))) no comments

"But what makes it a great restaurant is when, even weeks afterwords, you can still taste the food in your mouth."
hmm... not sure that's a "good" thing :)) get a new toothpaste!

According to one of my students, "in order to survive in a relationship (!), you need to trust your partner, try to forgive and forget your partner's mistakes, and care for each other."
otherwise... YOU DIE!

I thought it was cute; the first sentence of the essay: "Starting a new relationship is one of the most amazing events (!) in the world (!)"
How grandiose! Who would argue?! :)

And then "Her husband cheated [on] her and had an abnormal relationship (!) with one of his co-workers"
Abnormal relationship? And here imagination goes wild!...

about gourmet food...

I traveled to "Young-Dock" where is famous with king crap (!), so I have tasted it (!!!) and it was really awesome.

What can I say, this student is a real connoisseur of exotic food... Bravo!

Question: "At the age of 14,Frank comes to realize that she is a "person" (para 31). What does she mean by this?
Student answers: "When Anne talks about becoming aware that she is a person at the age 14, she mean that her female body parts started to enhance."

Gemstones of the finals week

"You may not play the piano on the beach."

[Damn! but I really wanted to!]

"When Chinese New Year is coming, a lot of people have problem in their big dinner."

[Ok, guys, we have some serious problem in this plate.]

This one is among my favorite quotes. It's an opening line (intro) of an essay comparing eating out and eating at home. That's one powerful hook:

"Eating is one of most important thing in people’s life. Every day people are faced with eating at home or eating out."

[It's a global issue, my friends!]

"Also smoking person has liver questions."

[Is your liver also so curious?]

"The high school is boring its principal. She's moving to Texas."

[That's it! I'm fed up with all of it! Need some adventures and crazy fun - moving to Texas ;))]

A recipe from an ESL chef:

"Put some white sugar on the banana. There is a nice fire banana come out."

[fire banana? seriously? sounds... delicious?...]

And others explore name-calling insults:

"Pete is complaining chicken."

[What has Pete done to deserve such an insult?]

the power of veggies

So my student is writing an argumentative essay about a vegetarian diet. I think these lines should be posted on billboards to promote a vegetarian diet:

"Vegetarians are smarter than others generally."

"In addition, vegetarians have warm personality."

"It [vegetarian diet] changes many people's lives, they are not fat, sick and violent any longer."

The student has a very pessimistic perception of the majority of people..

voodoo sh*t

My student is writing a personal narrative about her bad experience doing a little girl's nails.She accidently cut the girl's finger,and it started bleeding.Luckinly, another customer hurried to help her.The student writes:

"The lady quacked to stop the blood."

Exactly!This method HAS to be described in medical encyclopedias:)That would help for sure! :)))))))

A few notes about food

So my students are writing an argumentative essay in their Advanced Reading and Writing class. Among the topics I listed for them to choose from, there is one, against which I would be naturally very biased :) Vegetarianism - Voila! Interestingly enough, a lot of them ended up choosing this particular topic, BUT not all of them accepted the "pro" side - BAD MOVE :))) hahahah but I will keep it professional ;)
Anyways, I was reading their outlines today, and came across a number of hilarious word choices and collocations. As it turns out, "vegetarians, vegetables, vegetarian diet, vegetarian food" are all one and the same for my students, AND "it" is edible too! So here we go:

"The vegetarian can make the brain more intelligent."

[The Power of Vegetarians! We are magicians and mind manipulators :)]

"As a result, they choose to be vegetarians and eat vegetarians for reasons."

[But that makes sense! If a person is a vegetarian, then there's nothing but plants in his system; so, if you eat a vegetarian, you eat processed veggies, right? ;)]

"Vegetarians is good for environment."

[Exactly! We do not emit fumes! or do we?... ;)]

ESL Advanced Grammar

"I was very frightening when I had to walk home alone at night."

Was he wearing a costume or just generally 'a bad day'? :)

ESL Advanced Grammar: Passive Voice

Instructions: Make an Active sentence Passive:
Active: Someone has moved the table to the corner.

The student is writing a passive sentence:
"The table is moving to the corner."

OMG! It's alive! ALIVEEE!

or it may also be an episode from Paranormal Activity :)

ESL Intermediate Listening and Speaking: Dictation

"But when his roommate with his up [wakes him up], he doesnt want to get up. The roommate is very cold and dark, and he wants to go back to sleep."


That is scary - was he living with a decaying corpse? o_O

ESL Advanced Reading and Writing: sentences with new words:

disastrous:

"Last Sunday I went shopping. It was disastrous. Nothing liked me."

... and she must have been trying soooo hard for somthing to like her :)

ESL Advanced Reading and Writing - the REAL deal :)

And yet, again, from a student's essay on negative effects of computers on children:
"The Internet is a complicated place (!) flood with lots of violence and pornography."

OMG, I'm CRYING:
"The base contents in the internet will cause mental problems (!) among children."

"If a student needs to research information for school, they merely access a relevant site and download the computer (!!!)"
Apparently, there is some new technology concealed from ordinary people :)) call it 'magic'?

from a student's essay (harmful effects computers may have on children):
to fully appreciate the line - context the sentence is taken from: "Children can easily access dangerous websites."
"...they may get curious about sex. More so, they may copy what they see, and if they are trying to have sex, probably the panther (omg!) will be the close to their age."

more about computers:
"Computers have harmful radiations that can clown (o_O) human brain and this clowning (!) results to brain disability to think (omg..), specially, the harmful radiation may cause nausea, lose hair, skin illness, in addition, over using computer will affect children's eyesight."
Are you still staring at the screen?!... Ruuuuun before you become a funny bald mentally disabled clown!

from a student's essay. Topic: "Why do some friendships end?"
"The third reason for spoiling friendship (!) is temptation (!). [...] They {temptations] can be money, porn (!), and power."
I just love the word choice! :)

same paper: "Getting new friends, hiding (!), and temptations (!) all can be the reasons of abortion (!) of friendship."

BEWARE!

"You can get blind by seeing too much computer."

Intermediate Listening and Speaking students writing a dictation:
"On Friday night they go dancing, and on Sunday they go ice skiing."
and another one: "On Friday night they go dancing, and on Sunday they go ice hiking." hmmm... don't know which one is more exciting?!

Advanced reading and writing student writing an essay about the negative effects computers may have on youngsters:
"According to the data of investigation (!), the computer radiation can damage to the child intake of brain." o_O
I wonder what's the amount of brain a child should "intake" daily? :))

High-beginning ESL Conversation

Instructions: Write your own sentences with the following words:
-dangerous: "It's dangerous to see you."
[I didn't realize I was THAT scary!]
-save: "I want to save some money for you."
[thank you?]

Instructions: Fill in the gaps with the words from the box below:
- "You'll like Jessica. She's very tough."
- "I'm unhappy when you come here."
[thanks AGAIN :-P]
- "I work in the kitchen. That's expensive work."
[he actually PAYS to work there!]
- "I also view Sonia every Sunday night."
- "It's dangerous to run on the high way."
[seriously?]

"a lot of"

Ok, the new semester has begun. I asked my students to make sentences with "a lot of", and here we go - voila - an amazingly cheerful start:
"Here have a lot of corpse." ... I hope "here" is not a reference to our classroom! o_O