Aug 18, 2013

Lettuce, olives and other things

By @eannegrenoble | eltpics on Flickr
In the middle of the market where I go for my weekly vegetable shopping there is a stall where I buy olives. The owners of the stall are a husband and wife team who know I am an English teacher. The other day the wife – let's call her Lily – pointed at lettuce and asked me:

"What do you call it in English?" (the exchange took place in Hebrew)
"Lettuce," I replied.
"Letters?" asked Lily.
We then worked on the pronunciation a little until she got it right. I thought it was time to move on to new items. I pointed at olives.

Aug 17, 2013

A thank you letter from students

One of the pleasures of teaching lexically is when you see your students starting to incorporate into their speech and writing lexical chunks studied in class - albeit not always appropriately. Here is a thank you letter I recently received from my students at the end of a course.